The Master Rises
Well, perhaps that was a bit stupid, the Master mused to himself as the elevator slowly descended through the vast Mondasian generation ship. He could feel the poison slowly working its way through his body from the stab wound in his side, and when he raised his right hand in front of his face, gentle flickers of golden energy meandered across his fingers.
On the other hand, serves her - me - right. Helping the Doctor? Doing what's 'right'? Pass me a bucket, I think I'm going to vomit.
The elevator slowed and the readout flickered to a halt. 1056. The doors slowly opened.
"Well, hello, sexy." The familiar, mellifluous Scottish tones jerked him back into full consciousness and he stared in disbelief at the figure in the doorway.
"Missy! How - what - " he fumbled for the screwdriver he'd allowed to fall to the floor of the lift, but Missy swiftly reached down and snatched it away from him.
"Naughty, naughty! I think I'll take care of that - I have rather missed it, actually."
"How can you be here?"
"Express elevator. Forgot to tell you about it. How remiss of me." She smiled winningly, grasped his arm and pulled him up to his feet. Draping his arm across her shoulders, she began to walk him out into the deserted, smog filled streets of the city. "Now, TARDIS. I can't mind where you parked it. Come on, history man. Point the way."
He waved feebly with his free hand. "Hospital. The morgue. It's disguised as a cold chamber. A fridge for corpses. Speaking of corpses, why aren't you one? I shot you! Full power!"
"I know. I remembered. That's why there's a conductive mesh woven into the lining of this gorgeous jacket - which, incidentally, you've totally ruined." She lifted her left hand. Like him, she was flaring off small amounts of golden energy. "I should perhaps have added an extra layer of reinforcement. Now come on - we have work to do. Or at least, I do.
"You - you need some sleep. Sorry about the cup of tea - I lied about that. I need you unconscious for at least the next few hours."
He slumped and started to drag his feet.
"Not yet!" she snapped irritably. "You've got at least 15 minutes left in you - I was very careful in the dosage. You walked - will walk - all the way there. Stop faking it."
The Master snarled, but straightened up. Slowly, they made their way to their TARDIS.
By the time they reached the morgue, the Master was all but unconscious, and enveloped in a caul of glowing regeneration energy. Missy helped him onto a gurney and turned to face the one freezer bay that didn't have a number on it. Quickly she strolled over and opened the cold chamber door to reveal a TARDIS interior within. "You still recognise me then. Good," she murmured. As she spun on one heel to face the gurney a huge pulse of energy erupted in a sphere from the body on the gurney. Missy, and everything that wasn't screwed down, were flung furiously towards the walls.
Missy picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself down. "Rude!" she exclaimed, then stepped over to the gurney and leant over the body, which now looked - somewhat different. "But I forgive you." She bent down, and kissed herself gently on the lips.
She made her way around the gurney and, grasping its handle firmly, walked it over to, and into, her TARDIS. Setting it carefully to one side she moved to the console and began flicking switches and inspecting monitors. "Cybermen, cybermen, mostly cybermen, cybermen, cybermen, cybersheep - no, don't ask - cybermen, cybermen, sterilised zone. Two decks deep! My, what a big bang. I never knew you had it in you, Doctor! Empty deck, empty deck - ah. There they are. And above ... hmmm ... no-one. All the way to the top. Well, that makes it simple."
She circled round the console and fiddled with a valve-like control. "Too large, no wheels, stupid colour - aha!" She flicked a switch. The lights dimmed, then brightened.
She had to crouch to exit from the TARDIS - the doors were suddenly quite low.
"Oi oi you lot, settle down!" Nardole called as he herded children into a barn. "It won't be long now."
"Long until what?" Missy's voice queried.
"Till the new farmstead's roof is on ... oh!" Nardole turned and blinked in surprise. "Thought you'd run off!"
"Well, I didn't. Had a bit of a spat with myself, but it all worked out for the best."
"You've been gone for three months!"
"Months for you, hours for me, that's life in this ship. This ship which you broke. Come on - everyone in. I'm giving you a ride out of here."
Nardole stared at the tiny, ancient-looking Citroen coffee van she was standing next to. "In THAT?"
"Yes. Now move it! There's plenty of room in the back. It is my TARDIS, after all."
Nardole peered at it suspiciously. "How did it get here? And why is it that shape?"
Missy lifted three fingers and started ticking off points against them. "How did it get here? I drove it. Why is it that shape? I needed something I could drive into the lift. Why did I drive it and not just set the co-ordinates? Because there's a black hole at the pointy end of this ship. Come on, I might be devious - scratch that, I am devious - but I didnae have a spare, spare dematerialisation circuit on me."
"A spare, spare? Are you stammering?"
"Work it out, dimbulb. And get herding! Get everyone in! We don't have much time!" As if to emphasise the point, golden energy flickered around her face for a second.
"We don't?"
"No. I've turned the engine off."
"Yes, I can see that. Otherwise it would be a bit noisy, I imagine."
"Not the van's engine! The starship's engine! We're falling into the black hole."
"Falling ..."
"Did you think I was going to leave these Cybermen here to out-evolve every other race in the universe and then escape?"
"OK, good point." He turned and called out loudly "Kids! Everyone! Come out here - we're going for a ride!"
He faced Missy again. "Why?"
"It's what he would have wanted." She gave him a wistful stare.
"So is he ... ?"
"I expect so. There's a very big hole where he was standing. Where he fell. No life signs."
Nardole looked as if he would crumple up into a ball. She barked sharply "None of that! You have to be strong for all these - parasites." She gave the people piling improbably into the back of the tiny van a disapproving glance. "Now get in - we really should dematerialise before this part of the ship reaches the event horizon."
As they entered the console room, the golden energy licked its way across her forehead again.
"I'd get that seen to if I was you," Nardole said.
"Soon. Soon."
He spotted the body at the side of the room. "Ooh! That's YOU!"
"No, this is me. That was him. The other one. Now he's who I once was."
Nardole puzzled things out for a moment or two, weaving his fingers as if trying to follow intricate paths in spacetime. "Hang on a sec - how do I know that's not you, and that you aren't him trying to confuse me?"
"Well, why would I bother with such an intricate deception? If I wanted to confuse you I'd just ask you to count up to eleven from one backwards."
Nardole nodded, smiling, as if he got it. "Ohhhhh!" Then he did a double take. "Wait ... what?"
Missy span around and made for the console. "I was the one in the vault, numbskull. The one the Doctor was trying to reform. Well, look where that got him. That's what you get for being a 'good man'. No wonder I never tried it before. And I never will again, once I let you lot out of here."
"Where are you taking us?" Nardole asked.
"Well, they're human, or nearly human, yes?"
"Yes ..."
"So I thought, Cardiff."
"Cardiff?"
"No one ever seems to spot anything weird happening in Cardiff. Also, it's where I parked my my TARDIS."
"You're stuttering again. Is that one of the symptoms?"
"Look, it's perfectly simple. This is my TARDIS, but it's not my my TARDIS. It's her my TARDIS." She waved vaguely in the direction of the unconscious form on the gurney. "My my TARDIS is in Cardiff. In 2023. OK?" She pulled on a lever and the time rotor began to revolve, and to gently move up and down.
"OK. So, just to be clear, are you you going to carry on doing the sort of things the Doctor would have done? Or are you you going to turn all naughty again? Because if so, I'm warning you that I am still fully empowered to kick your your ..."
The skirling sound of a TARDIS dematerialising (smoother and sweeter than that of the Doctor) drowned out the rest of his sentence.
Missy strode slightly unsteadily down the deserted street of the pre-dawn pedestrianised shopping precinct, stumbling up against an unprepossessing, shuttered newsstand. She scrabbled at the hand-written sign on the door that read "CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS", peeling it back to reveal a chalk "x". As she traced the shape on the door with her fingertip it glowed greenly and the door opened inward. She stepped into the console room of her TARDIS.
"Hi honey, I'm ho-ome!" she called out. There was no one to answer. As she glided across the room and into a corridor, filaments of regeneration energy fluttered behind her like glowing streamers. She clicked her fingers as she touched a panel on the wall. Music echoed softly through the TARDIS: Bowie's "Changes".
and these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds
She stepped into a side room, emerging a couple of minutes later wearing a billowy soft kaftan, and made her way to a doorway with a "0" marked above it.
turn, and face the strange
The door opened as she approached; she walked through into a welcoming lounge.
Just gonna have to be a different man
She poured herself a large drink from a decanter on a side table, sat down in a reclining chair, put her feet up, closed her eyes, took a sip of the drink - and waited.
Time may change me - But I can't trace time
Eyes flickered open and the hand he raised showed him that he was now male again. He lifted the hand to his head and felt his face and hair ... no hair. Smooth skull.
No, no, no! He panicked a little inside. I can't have imprinted on that ridiculous little troll! Say it's not true!
He leapt to his feet and dashed to the mirror that was waiting for him at the side of the room. Hardly daring to look, the Master took in his reflection. Not the face of Nardole! What a huge relief. A handsome, strong, narrow face. A perfect, aquiline nose. A well-shaped, hairless head. He caressed the top of his head and smiled archly.
The new Master's voice was silky smooth and seductive as he murmured in a light baritone "Well, hel-LO, you!"