32 // [Dream]

[neverendingbeat]

[The Master rarely sleeps. As an old acquaintance of his said once, "Sleep is for tortoises." And that's at least one thing he's said that the Master can agree with. Why sleep when there are so many more, interesting options for what he could be doing?

Of course, given long enough, he does need sleep, but that's not what's happening tonight. Tonight

Comments

....I think this is what comes of writing whilst tired. Sorry, man.

[neverendingbeat]

"Right!" says the Master. "Where was I?! Oh yes." Pulling his arm out of Lucy's, he runs over to the window, yelling, "Down you go kids!" as millions of Toclafane stream from a red crevasse in the sky. He watches for a while, and then turns around, speaking to Xemnas.

"That's Earth, down there." He gestures violently at the window. "Mine. All mine." He bounds over to Lucy and kisses her with equal violence, bending her back as one hand grips tightly in her hair. "Lucy," he says, after he breaks the kiss. Lucy smiles absently and lowers her eyes. "My wife. She'd do anything for me. Lovely, loyal--NO." He grabs her arm before she can raise the gun that is suddenly in her hand. "Wrong!" He wrenches it away from her and sideswipes her to the ground. She maintains the absent smile throughout and eventually, he smiles back fondly and then strides over to the Doctor.

"The Doctor," he announces, ruffling the Doctor's hair. "Also mine. In fact, I see no reason to even age you, Doctor, really. I know what happens. And you'll be so good anyway

[neverendingbeat]

"So theoretically, it's evil?" says the Master and then, "Ooooh," as the Doctor appears to struggle momentarily with something and then gives up, slumping briefly before dissolving into darkness which coalesces into a shadowy version of himself with glowing yellow eyes. The Master squints at it a moment, considering what has just happened and then asks, "Is that meant to happen?"

[letxequalnull]

"It is not inherently evil, although it does yield itself to such an end more easily. Like the light, it merely is. What one does with it is what defines its nature."

That damnable impostor had shown them that much, although Xemnas was hardly going to mention that much. There was no need, now that the darkness had done its intended job.

"Fully humanoid Heartless are uncommon, but possible," he answers, after a moment. "And I can assure, he is now quite Heartless."

[neverendingbeat]

"Very nice," says the Master, standing up to walk closer to the Heartless Doctor. "What happens now?"

fffff html fail last post

[letxequalnull]

"Now we can use him to create further Heartless," Xemnas answers with another of those none-too-pleasant smiles.

[neverendingbeat]

"Excellent!" says the Master, clasping his hands together. "Should we bring him down to Earth? There's a sort of poetry to that. Very fitting." He snaps his fingers in front of the Heartless Doctor's face. "He's not aware, is he? Exactly what's left of him?"

[letxequalnull]

There's a moment of consideration at that. He only has one test subject for a humanoid Heartless and that one was created with only one heart's worth of darkness. Thus, it's not precisely the most accurate of parallels.

"A Heartless is a heart with a body of darkness," Xemnas answers with a shrug. "As for how aware, it is yet too early to tell. Most of his kind are made with the darkness of a single heart."

[neverendingbeat]

"Then let's have a test run," says the Master, walking over to where Jack lies dead on the floor, currently not upsetting the Master's timey wimey senses because all is right with the world again. No more fixed point. He takes the man's Time Agent wristband off of him--he won't be needing it and neither, especially, will Martha--and brings it back over to Xemnas and the Heartless Doctor

[letxequalnull]

It's the teleport that gets the majority of Xemnas' attention. A purely academical interest, really, but he can't help but be interested in things that are passingly similar to thing that he himself can do.

"Are they still willing to fight?" It's largely a moot point, since he's pretty sure none of them have the sort of weapon that will permanently kill a Heartless, and he's turning to former Doctor almost before the Master even has the chance to speak up, letting the darkness carry his orders to the Heartless.

Go.

There's a brief moment of pause, but then the Heartless does just that, vanishing in a swirl of darkness, only to reappear inside on of the houses, seeking out the only thing it can eat.

[neverendingbeat]

"There might be a few left," admits the Master, "but most of them are running scared." He watches the Heartless vanish, intrigued, and then asks, "Where is it now? Inside a house somewhere?" His question is answered by the horrified screams of a house's occupants, heard through an open window as the Heartless appears among them, in their living room.

[letxequalnull]

"It shouldn't be long now." His order was more a sort of 'get back to what you should be doing' than anything, since he'd been keeping the Heartless from doing so earlier.

Not long thereafter, there's a scream as one of the house's occupants falls to the claws of the Heartless. What little remains of the doctor rebels a little at that, but it's already to late. The Heartless the heart of the fallen human yielded is already jumping to the other hearts it can seefeeltaste and though the others fight back it isn't too long before they fall as well.

And Xemnas smiles. It's so lovely seeing a world begin to tear itself apart.

[neverendingbeat]

The Heartless travel from house to house on the block, some of them making their way into the street. The Master, initially surprised at by the strange, monstrous shapes of the new Heartless, smiles broadly at this. There is something incredibly satisfying about destroying Earth this way.

"Would you like to remain here and watch the process?" he asks. "We could always go back to the Valiant. Or take one of them somewhere else, to speed up the process."

[letxequalnull]

"Would you happen to know the geography of this world?"

It only seems like an unimportant question. The Heartless are remarkably efficient at finding hearts in their vicinity, but left to wander through worlds they tend to get a little lost. If they leave it to them, it could take any amount of time.

[neverendingbeat]

"Quite well," says the Master. "What do you need to know? There are several continents...we could drop at least one Heartless off at each one." He smiled cruelly. "Of course, I'd like to be able to make that first one the Doctor each time, but I'll defer to other suggestions if they seem interesting enough."

[letxequalnull]

"The Heartless navigate best by scent," Xemnas explains. "How far they can reach is something that has never been tested across multiple continents."

He's mostly worried about the oceans, since most of them can't swim.

[neverendingbeat]

"So...one to each?" the Master repeats, prompting somewhat, already taking the teleport wristband out of his pocket. "Perhaps one in Asia as well, really. Eurasia's a massive continent." He frowns. "It would take a lot of time to hit every island, though. Water doesn't stop them, does it?"