Chapter three: A realisation

Martha, Jack, Rose and The doctor were walking along a pathway discussing the past events.

"Still, at least we made it," Jack stated "earth, 21st century by the looks of it. Talk about lucky!"

"That wasn't luck, that was me" The doctor replied matter-of-factly. Rose gave him a look. She knew he was right, but still he was so…full of it!

They sat down on a bench together and jack spoke "The morale is, if you get stuck at the end of time, get stuck with an ex-time agent and his vortex manipula-"

"But this master bloke, he's got the Tardis, he could be anywhere in time and space" Martha cut across Jack, completely ignoring him.

"No, he's here." The doctor replied. "Trust me"

"Who is he anyway; I swear I've heard that voice before!" Rose said

"Me too," Jack added

"And that voice at the end, that wasn't the professor," Martha put in, "so who was it?"

"If the master's a time lord, then he must have regenerated," Jack said.

"Which means?"

"Which means he's changed his face, voice, body, everything. New man," Jack explained.

The doctor wasn't listening to them as they continued talking; he had his eyes on a beggar on the corner. The beggar was tapping out a rhythm on an old tin cup, again and again, three short taps and one long, again, and again, and again, tap-tap-tap-tap

"Doctor?" Rose's voice broke him out of his thoughts. She was looking at him worriedly. "Are you okay?

"Fine," was his only reply.

She decided to leave it- for now, and changed the subject. "How are we going to find the master?"

The doctor straightened up. "I'll know him when I see him," he replied simply.

"How?"

"Time lords always do."

Martha was looking around in awe, a look of realisation dawning on her face. "Hold on, if he could be anyone…" she trailed off and stood up. "We missed the election,"

Rose caught on to her train of thought and murmured "it can't be!"

They stood up and walked over to a giant bulletin board, where the news was being shown. They stared at it in horror.

The master was Prime minister.

Meanwhile

Ashton, Naomi, Hayley, Lucas, Alex and Cyra were all walking back from the pool, laughing and generally mucking about. They took a shortcut through the park as they couldn't be bothered to walk around the long way. Naomi and Cyra were in the middle of a heated argument about wether or not Cyra had won a race between them or not. Lucas put his arm around cyra and hugged her close to him.

"I still say she won," Lucas said gesturing towards Cyra.

"Yeah, well you would say that, wouldn't you? YOU'RE HER BOYFRIEND!" Naomi said exasperatedly. "Idiot," she added quietly under her breath.

Ashton came up to her and hugged her. "Well, if it means anything to you, I still think you won!" he said cheerily.

Naomi looked up at him and was about to reply when she was cut off by a high pitched wail coming from the trees about a hundred meters away from them. They looked at each other in wonder before running as fast as they could towards the source of the noise. When they got there, however, the place was deserted.

"What was that?" Hayley asked, panting and out of breath.

The wailing noise came again, not from in front of them this time but all around them.

They looked at each other worriedly again, not understanding what was happening.

Then the sky began to rain silver. The silver specks fell and amassed together, making a huge silver ball. Then, it started heading straight for them.

"It's after us," Cyra whispered.

Suddenly the ball of silver illuminated, making the sun reflect off it and shine in their eyes, dazzling them and making them close their eyes against the sudden bright light.

Lucas turned away from the ball and yelled, "RUN!"

And they ran, faster and faster away from the silver ball, which was growing bigger and bigger by the minute. Ashton and Naomi were at the front of the running crowd, and as they ran, they could hear the others' pounding feet behind them. But the footsteps were lessening. Ashton looked behind him, and saw that the silver ball had swelled to twice the size it was when he last saw it. He also noticed another thing; all of his friends were gone. He grabbed Naomi's hand and yelled, "We have to keep going!"

Her face turned to him, and she gave him one of her smiles that said, "We'll get through this." He returned the smile and kept running, his legs pumping as hard as they could. And then Naomi's hand was wrenched from his, and he was alone, trying to outrun the silver ball. But his legs were getting tired, and as he ran, he felt himself slowing. Then silver began to obscure his vision, and he tried to run, but it was like running through treacle. Then the world went black.