The Enmity of Ages

I.

They ran through golden fields and pastures of red grass down the slopes of Mount Perdition--two little boys laughing and playing beneath a burnt orange sky. They will remember that Gallifreyan summer for the rest of their lives, one with regret, and the other with scorn. These are their last days of innocence. They lie beneath a canopy of silver leaves and whisper excitedly about the universe of stars and time that will soon open before them. They make solemn childlike promises to see the stars together, to run through alien fields of strange green hues, and have glorious wonderful adventures. But as the afternoon wore on, their thoughts turned to darker matters: to their upcoming birthdays, to the Academy, and the mysterious Untempered Schism. So young. They hide their dread behind a false bravado, too caught up in themselves to notice the other's fear. As the orange sky darkens, the boys return to the manner and their waiting parents. Ahead of them lies the terrors of the Schism, a riverside confrontation with a bully, and a life of duty that will one day drive them both to rebellion. But all of that is yet to come. On this summer evening they still just children, but as they race home up the mountainside, their eyes glint dangerously. Even in those happy carefree days, neither of them liked to lose.

II.

They're called the Deca—the ten best and brightest of the next generation of Time Lords. Most of them will one day flee their home for the freedom of the stars, but not yet. Childlike dreams and hopes have been all but crushed by over a century of study and regimented duty. Their heads are full to bursting with temporal mechanics and transdimensional geometry. Sometimes late at night, the boy and his friend gather in some clandestine corner and take out their old tarnished dreams, but as the years go by they meet less and less. They've drifted apart these last few decades. One of the boys has matured into a studious and charming man. His teachers all expect great things from him. Some even speculate that with his ambition and drive, the boy could make president within his first millennium. The other boy is a different matter all together. Bursting with ideas and creativity, he lacks only the patience to apply himself. Yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, he is always the center of attention. Beneath his disapproving frown, even Borusa cannot help but smile. The first boy, for all his plaudits, feels the first stirrings of envy.

III.

Events occur much as their teachers predicted. The boy graduated with honors, the highest score in two thousand years, while his friend barely scrapped through on his second attempt. The boy took a prestigious post at the Science Council and may find himself on the High Council within a century or two. His friend finds work as a technician, a respectable if unambitious post. Yet he is happy. The boy attends his friend's wedding, calms him during the birth of his children and grandchildren. He is always welcome at his friend's house, but when the boy returns home from the happy bustle of his friend's family, he finds only empty lonely chambers and the treacherous envy grows in his hearts.

IV.

They escape at last into exile, for different reasons and in different ways. They hide their true names deep inside and take the monikers of their childhood imaginings: the Master and the Doctor, the Doctor and the Master. They travel the stars, explore the eternity of time and space, but nothing is quite as they imagined. The universe is a harsh but wondrous place and it shapes them. The Doctor travels, seldom alone, doing good wherever and whenever he can. The Master travels, always alone, seeking to rule and subjugate, least he himself be ruled or subjugated. They meet from time to time and they duel as the gentlemen they are. Although the fate of entire worlds might hang in the balance, they can never bring themselves to truly kill the other. No matter how many opportunities they have. When the dust of their battles has settled, they are both strangely pleased that the other has survived. There are deaths of course, collateral damage, but the Master has never cared about inferior life, and the Doctor can't bring himself to care as much as he should. This is a game they play, like their races as children or their debates as students. And the Doctor wins, the Doctor always wins.

V.

Hate. Burning fiery hate. No longer suave and charming, no longer the gentleman, the Master is reduced to a burnt skeleton, to a fiend kept alive by undying hate. Dreams of exploration and conquest give way to an all-consuming need to survive. He returns home in secret to have his revenge. He plots and schemes grappling with the only opponent who really matters. No more duels, no more finesse. It is no longer a game, but something far more serious, far more deadly. They meet less frequently, as the Master skulks in the shadows of time, searching desperately for a means of survival. As the Doctor parades through time, saving planets with a jelly baby and a smile, the Master waits patiently on Traken sowing discord and planting the seeds of evil. When at last they meet again, the Doctor does not recognize his foe until it is too late. Again the Doctor foils his enemy's schemes, but in the end he cannot stop the Master from getting what he really wants—a new body at last.

VI.

In many ways they have the same mind. The Master and the Doctor, the Doctor and the Master. Two sides of the same coin. Renewed and reinvigorated the Master pursues his foe, anticipates his every move. In a cold high place overlooking the universe the Master darkens the sky, condemning countless worlds to destruction while the Doctor watches helplessly. After all these centuries, the Master tastes victory. Not the victory he had planned, but victory nevertheless. He casts the Doctor down to his death. It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for.

Both renewed and restored, the Master and the Doctor resume their contest of old. From Castrovalva to primordial Earth, from Medieval Europe to the Death Zone they battled. The Master's plans grow ever more elaborate, ever more ridiculous, as if somewhere inside he cannot bring himself to truly kill the Doctor. Then on a planet of choking ash and fire, the Master burns to his death. The Doctor, the kind and heroic Doctor just watches. He could save his old friend. The controls are right behind, but he does nothing, even when the Master begs. You wouldn't do this to your own…but the Doctor does. He could never bring himself to kill his enemy, but this time he didn't have to. All he had to do was nothing, and suddenly he was free of his most persistent foe. But he should have remembered—the Master survives, somehow the Master always survives.

VII.

On a planet as old as the Universe, the Master stalks his prey. His mind and body are being eaten away, consumed by the Cheetah Virus. He and the Doctor fight once more—a psychological chess match that devolves at last into a vicious brawl. From the quite streets of Perivale to the dying Cheetah Planet they grappled, beating each other with they're bare hands and the bones of the dead. Almost a thousand years of enmity reduced its most primal level. An explosive combination, their battle rips a planet apart, but once again they live to fight another day.

After millennia of crime and villainy, the Master was finally caught and executed. His remains are to be taken home by the Doctor himself. Even in death the Doctor takes precautions. Even when the Master was disintegrated before his very eyes, the Doctor cannot wholly relax, and with good reason. For the Master had survived well beyond his final regeneration, and now he would survive death itself. In San Francisco, as one millennium ends and another begins, the Master emerges to claim a new body as his own. More a thug than anything else, he desperately tries to once again steal the Doctor's remaining lives. As they grapple, the Master falls into the Eye of Harmony itself. Seemingly a final death.

VIII.

The Time War came, terrible and great. The whole universe trembled and convulsed. Time itself was twisted and corrupted. Entire planets were torn apart and reconstituted to die again and again. At the heart of the maelstrom, the Time Lords felt the first inklings of fear. Through their ancient and mighty powers they resurrected the most evil and corrupt being their race had ever produced—the Master reborn. Who better than a devil to contend with hell? But even the Master, with all his vile genius, was appalled by the war. He ran so far, hide himself in the farthest reaches of time and space, and became human, became nice. And there at the end of the universe he lived for decades, helping people, trying desperately to give hope to the last of humankind. Until at last the Doctor came, and almost by accident the Master was reminded of his true self. No matter how the Doctor begged, the Master would not be deterred from unleashing the sound of the drums upon the universe.

The noise, the all-consuming noise, the drumbeat, the never-ending call to war. He couldn't help himself. For all his will, for all his mastery, he cold never resist the call. In the end he was still that little boy from long ago, lost and betrayed, and angry. The enmity of ages was never the Master and the Doctor. It was always the Master and the Lord President, the Master and Rassilon, the Master and the man who drove him mad. And so a thousand years of conflict ends with the Master saving his old enemy's life, with redemption of a sort, with death.

IX.

But the Master survives, the Master always survives.