Notes: The Master's first body is based on Richard Armitage, and his second is based on Ben Barnes.
Divergence Interlude I
Birth of a Renegade
PART I
The noise of battle on the beach was so loud that it drowned out even the persistent four-beat rhythm in his head. He couldn't hear himself think over the roar of the surf and the explosions, the growl of engines, the thumping of boots as boats disgorged, the hissing and splashing of bodies and bullets in the water and the sand and the never-ending howl of gunfire. Once or twice he heard the scream of a diving Stuka, but the bombs never landed near him.
Machine-gun rounds peppered the sand beside him and he huddled a little closer to his cover. He needed to get up the beach; that much was self-evident. But he didn't have any intention of getting shot in the process. At least he knew his TARDIS wasn't in any risk of being blown up or stolen. It was his own hide he was concerned about.
One of the young American soldiers dropped down onto the sand beside him, reflexively holding down his helmet—not that he needed to.
"What's up, Doc?" he chuckled before realizing that the other man didn't get the reference. Undeterred, he continued. "Those Sea Devil things down for the count?"
"Our aquatic friends are indeed sleeping once more," Koschei replied. He shook the haphazard scanner he'd made, draining it of water and sand. The screen showed hibernation cycle confirmations across the entire channel. Not bad for a day's work. He turned it so that Harry could see. "You see? Nothing to worry about." A high calibre round slammed into the concrete barricade they huddled behind with a concussive whump, showering them with dust.
"Aside from the Germans, you mean?"
Koschei shrugged, smirking. "Yes, well. Nothing new there."
A dozen soldiers—some American, some British, some Canadian—dashed past their cover and Harry ducked up and fired a few rounds up the beach. The machine gun emplacement fell silent.
"There's another barricade ten meters up," Harry reported. "Race you."
Koschei laughed. A grenade went off somewhere nearby and doused them with wet sand. "After you, lieutenant."
"It's corporal. I'm not an officer," Harry corrected, before rolling out and darting forward. Koschei followed a second later.
He supposed he made an odd sight on the battlefield; unarmed and unarmoured. Dressed not in the green uniforms of the soldiers, but in a black, knee-length coat, black slacks and dress shoes, and a cerulean blue waistcoat. Sand caked his waterlogged garments and caught in his black hair and goatee. He stood out like a sore thumb.
Which was probably why he got shot.
He was halfway to the next barricade when the machine gun roared to life once more. The sand around him exploded and something slammed into the left side of his chest, spinning him off his feet and knocking the air from his lungs. For a moment, lying winded in the sand, he wondered what had happened. Through muffled ears he thought he head Harry yelling his name, but he sounded a million miles away. The world swam in and out of focus.
The pain came late, like an out-of-synch audio track. His entire body seized in agony and any sound he would have made was choked in his throat. Warmth spread across his chest and he was dimly aware of his white silk shirt turning a deep crimson. He tried to breath but his lungs simply filled with blood.
It was surreal lying on the beach, staring at the sky, feeling his senses fall away. Sound dimmed; muted. Colour drained from the edges of his vision and his limbs tingled and went numb. The dark stain had spread to his waistcoat. His eyelids were heavy. His mouth was filled with the cloying, coppery taste of blood. The pain faded to a bone-deep ache that throbbed in time with his single remaining heartbeat.
Damn. So much for not getting shot.
1 0 – 0 – 1 1 – 0 – 0 – 0 2
Harry still wasn't sure exactly what he witnessed. He'd made it to the second barricade. Koschei had been right behind him. They should both have made it. But one of the Germans had got back on the machine gun and opened fire. Harry ducked; Koschei didn't get a chance. One of the slugs tore through his chest, right through his heart. In a spray of blood, he dropped. Harry yelled for him, but he was still. Blood soaked into the beach.
A well-timed feint had the German aiming the wrong way and Harry popped out of cover and shot him clean between the eyes. There weren't any more Germans around to retaliate or take up the gun and so Harry was left standing there as the rest of the Allies bounded up the beach. He could still hear the distant sound of Messerschmitts and Spitfires chasing each other up and down the shoreline, but other than that it had grown rather quiet. It was just him and the taste of salt spray off the ocean.
Needless to say, the glow came as a surprise. For a moment he thought that something was on fire, but it was too bright; too powerful. He whirled around, shielding his eyes, and froze. He wouldn't have known how to describe what he saw.
A ball of golden light had blossomed like a second sun; tendrils of liquid fire lapping at the sand and leaving a crust of glass. It wasn't an explosion, or at least not any kind Harry had ever seen. It was more like a tiny star—hard to look at, and Harry wondered if he should back away. He did plan on being a father one day and a huge dose of radiation wasn't really appealing. It took him a moment to realise that the light was coming from the exact spot where Koschei's body had fallen.
Had he been carrying some weird sciency thing that had done this?
Quickly as it had come, the light faded. Some of it fizzled out and faded away, but most of it compressed down and disappeared into the body lying in the glassy crater. A body which didn't look like Koschei at all.
Harry crept closer, his hand moving, subconsciously, to his gun. The clothes hadn't changed; they were definitely Koschei's. The white shirt and blue waistcoat were stained with rapidly drying blood. The ragged hole in the material was still charred at the edges, but the wound beneath was gone.
The body was thinner and ever-so-slightly shorter than it had been before. His hair was still dark, his skin still pale, though his beard was gone. He had a longer face; more angular features. The thing was, though, there was some instinct in the back of his mind that told him that this was still Koschei. It was impossible, but...
The young man stirred; rolling over with a groan. The glassed sand crackled beneath him as he clambered free. "That was unpleasant," he muttered to himself, running his fingers through his hair.
"Can all English people do that?" Harry asked, trying for humour.
Koschei turned, looking genuinely baffled for a moment. He looked down at himself—his newly lanky body, his hands, his damaged clothing. Then it seemed to twig.
"Yes; about that." He frowned, clearing his throat in apparent surprise, and then continued. "I'm not English."
"No kidding." Harry looked around. The beach was pretty much deserted but he could hear the fighting continuing further up shore, past the abandoned machine gun emplacements. "So, what? Are you some kind of alien?"
He smiled, looking considerably younger than he had twenty minutes ago. "An alien... Yes, I suppose I am. Sorry I didn't mention it sooner, but, you know, Sea Devils and all that."
Harry didn't know what to say. There'd been nothing in his training about dealing with space aliens, and certainly nothing about folks who could come back from the dead. And how, exactly, was one supposed to deal with someone who'd been a calm, intense, yet amiable middle-aged fellow when you met him, but was now a bewildered-looking guy barely into his twenties?
"You can change your face? Just like that?"
"It's what happens when my people are mortally wounded." He felt his face, kicked a leg and rolled his shoulders; seeming to consider every movement. "I've never done it before. It's stranger than I thought it'd be. Mmm... New center of gravity." He met Harry's eyes. Before, his eyes had been a pale, greyish blue, but now they were a deep, dark brown. How did he do that...?
At his continued silent confusion, Koschei smiled—an oddly charming, lopsided affair. "It's called regeneration. Hang around enough of my kind and you'll get used to it." He reached out and patted Harry on the shoulder. "Now. Do you happen to know where I parked my TARDIS?"