~A warm bed, clean, sterile-smelling air, a steady beep-beep-beeping coming from the right...a heart monitor. Oh, alright, a hospital bed then... Oh well...woken up in far worse places. Now, how did I get here? I'm injured. There's a bandage on my right shoulder, pain in my back, and on my left side, in my ribs and collarbone... There must have been a fight...but what happened? Who with?~
Martha Jones walked into medical to check on her latest patient just as he opened his eyes. It was impossible to miss really. His pale white complexion stood out in stark contrast to the grey of his bedding and patterned hospital gown, but his eyes were like two bright points of flame in a colorless tundra. Martha watched silently as the alien struggled a bit to adjust to the lighting in the room, steadying herself for the task ahead of her. He glanced over at the medical equipment, seeming unusually calm, curiosity showing on his pale features. He then proceeded to do what appeared to be a systematic damage assessment on himself. He was almost unnaturally composed, before he finally noticed the handcuffs. Abruptly, he began tugging at them, and making his discomfort with this new discovery glaringly obvious to all present. The two guards at the doorway turned to look, and one began to step forward to intervene, but she stopped him, figuring that it would probably be best to keep the men with the semi-automatic rifles out of this if at all possible.
"That won't do you any good." She informed the Timelord "Those are made out of re-enforced steel. A Talarkian couldn't even break through them."
He ignored her.
"You're only going hurt yourself!"
When he finally stopped and looked up at her, she couldn't help but gasp. It was only then that she fully registered the change in his eyes. They were no longer the fevered brown eyes of Saxon's hypnotic gaze. Now they were now a bright, piercing, amber color like two pools of molten gold. She was also surprised to see no sign recognition in them, and none of the cold anger and hatred that had always haunted his eyes. He studied her for a long moment, sizing her up before he finally spoke.
"You're a doctor I assume." He stated plainly.
"Yes-" Martha replied, taken aback by his strange behavior "You don't recognize me?"
He simply raised his eyebrows in response.
"I'm Martha Jones." She prompted incredulously. He still showed no signs of recognition. "You really don't recognize me!? If this is supposed to be some sort of trick, it's not a very good one. How can you not remember me?"
"Because we've never met..?"
"We've- Listen Master, if you-" Martha stopped short, seeing the Master's expression darken at the sound of his own name. His eyes instantly flicked away from her to glare at the drab-green wall. She got the distinct impression that if he hadn't been cuffed to the bed he would have crossed his arms and turned his back on her.
"I am not the Master." He said stiffly.
"You look exactly like him." She replied accusingly.
"I'm not him. He's not here, and I would prefer to keep it that way!"
Martha studied him closely, still suspicious. After all, the Master was extremely tricky, but he seemed to be sincere, and she'd been thinking that something seemed off about him for a while now. To put it bluntly, this man just didn't feel anything like the Master.
"What do you mean by that?" She asked, cautiously moving to stand at the foot of his bed.
"I thought that I put it quite plainly. I'm not the Master. It's a good thing I'm not. He's a monster, a destroyer! He does evil things and puts us through hell every time he manifests."
"What do you mean 'manifests?'" Martha paused for a moment before adding, "and who do you mean by 'us'?"
He was studying her closely again.
"Where are we?" He inquired suspiciously.
"We're at a U.N.I.T. facility in London."
He eyed her distrustfully. Martha persisted anyway.
"Answer me: 'manifests?' 'Us?'"
There was a long silence.
"What are you going to do to us?"
"You and who else?"
"Koschei," He replied, staring into her eyes, then added belatedly "and the Master."
Martha faltered under his intense golden gaze, wondering if she had correctly taken in this new piece of information. This was something she hadn't been ready for.
"I've called the Doctor. He's coming here to help." She said tonelessly after a tense silence. His reaction was almost immediate. He lay back against the pillows and relaxed, not completely, but he was no longer reminiscent of a trapped wild animal at war with its own limb. A definite improvement.
"Good...that's good."
Black shapes clustered together in their new domain. Shrouded in the darkness of their dank, dripping surroundings, steam drifted off the concrete floor and walls around them. The air was humid and hot. They communicated quietly in strange alien hisses and clicks. They were not pleased with this new development. Three of their hive were now gone. They had been after a most promising prey. They had succeeded in the hunt and trapped their quarry. The others had smelled their victory, but then, suddenly there had been pain, and an impossible burning alien rage had been felt by all of them. Now, somehow their brothers were simply gone. They had left no imprint of their death, no indication of what had destroyed them. The nine had simply become the six, and to add insult to injury, their delectable prey had somehow survived. He had been saved by the people of this planet and taken to a hidden place, where he was kept just out of reach. Unattainable now that they'd had a taste and craved that unique addictive flavor. They needed to discover what had taken the lives of their brothers. They needed to find their prey, but they could not reveal themselves. Not yet. They needed to be stealthy. They could not be stopped. Survival was imperative. They must follow the directive.
Six weeks later...
The familiar wheezing of the TARDIS materializing filled the hallway on the second floor of London's UNIT facility which was quickly being swarmed by security personnel. The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS in mid-sentence, presumably explaining the gravity of their situation to Amy.
"...and that is why it's so important. I don't want you taking any...unnecessary...risks." The Doctor finished haltingly, seeing the rifles pointed at them. Amy raised her hands. The Doctor shot the soldiers a look of disapproval. Luckily, Martha came hurrying down the hall behind the soldiers only a moment later.
"It's alright everybody: stand down. I called him here." Martha was a bit out of breath. The men lowered their guns immediately.
"Martha Jones!" The Doctor said, spreading his arms wide for a hug which she easily accepted. "It's good to see you again!"
"You too. You're six weeks late."
"Hmmm. I -what?!" The Doctor exclaimed, letting go of Martha. Amy rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry about him." Martha assured her guests, "The Master hasn't done any harm. None of him have. Believe it or not, we're a bit more troubled by his attackers." The Doctor stared at Martha incredulously.
"What do you mean 'none of him?'" Amy asked.
"Well that's the really weird bit. Perhaps I'd better show you." Martha replied, "Follow me."
Amy elbowed the Doctor again.
"You haven't introduced us." She scolded as they followed Martha through the hall.
"Oh, right! Sorry. Amy Pond this is Dr. Martha Jones. Martha Jones-Amy Pond."
Martha smiled and nodded at Amy as she led them into a smallish conference room with a big plasma screen on the wall, beyond a shiny, black round table in the center. They all took seats at the table and a moment later, a young woman in a military uniform came in with a stack of folders which she handed to Martha.
"Thank you, Kira." Martha smiled politely. The woman saluted and left.
"Six weeks ago, there was an alien incursion reported a few miles east of here. An alien vessel crashed in the middle of a local park. Luckily, it happened just after midnight, so the park was empty at the time. Shortly after that, we got a call about giant insects attacking someone a few streets down from the crash site. When we got there, there wasn't much left." She explained, opening the first file and sliding it toward the Doctor and Amy.
"Oh my God." Amy said sadly, seeing the picture of the poor dead girl. At first glance, it seemed that she was the victim of a slashing. There were deep wounds, like claw marks down her side, and one arm had been thrown up to shield her face. That's where things got more unearthly, because her hand wasn't there any more, but her wrist wasn't bloody. It hadn't been cut. Her hand had simply been blown away in the breeze, as had part of her face. The entire corpse, as real and perfectly preserved as it looked, was now a fine powder held together in the shape of the victim.
"They only seem to hunt at night. It was the next night that we found him. These insects had chased him down and trapped him in an alley, but something stopped them. They had him dead to rights, but somehow, when we got there he was lying face down in the alley with two dead insects right on top of him. He was half dead already when we got to him, and when he woke up..." Martha paused for a moment, unsure how to explain the next bit. "He wasn't the Master."
"Who was he?" The Doctor asked with interest, not wanting to get ahead of himself.
"I said: he wasn't the Master." Martha studied his expectant expression incredulously, shrugged, and continued, "He appears to have three different personalities in his head. We thought that it was a trick at first, but we put him through test after test, and his story even showed true on his brain scan: three distinct patterns. The one I met after the attack is called Jyun. The Master only surfaced very briefly when it seemed apparent to Jyun that we were lying about your coming, and the third one is-"
"Koschei." The Doctor finished for her. Martha nodded.
"Doctor?" Amy questioned.
"That's the original. The boy I grew up with. His name is Koschei."
"You knew about this?" Martha asked, shocked, "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"I didn't think it would matter. It all happened a very long time ago and...I have to know..." The Doctor trailed off deep in thought "You said you had something to show me. You kept recordings of your sessions with Koschei and his alters; am I right?"
Martha nodded, taking the discs out from under the pile of folders.
"All of our experiments and interviews have been filmed for further study. I had Kira bring up a few of the more interesting ones, along with the rest of the research we've done, when she brought up the information on the insect case." She told him.
"Good." He replied "I'd like to view it now if you don't mind."
Martha nodded and put one of the discs into the player, sliding the research documents over towards the Doctor and Amy along with the rest of the recordings. Amy opened the topmost folder and began studying it, looking back up when the recording began to play.
.
A/N: Thank you to all of you taking the time to read my story and a special thank you to BiggerOnTheInside95 for your awesomeness! I have to admit I was ridiculously nervous about this story and your comment helped me out of my funk and got me back to writing.
Please people I need your feedback! I'm new to this and any thoughts you might have will be extremely welcome. I also just had a recent freak out when my mom learned of this fic and read it. a nerve wracking experience. She did end up helping me with grammar though so it wasn't soo bad in the end.
