Chapter 6
A/N: there will not be an Azula POV this chapter. In case anyone wants to know what she does while this happening, she's still in her room, sulking and lighting things on fire.
Also, thank you to all those who've favorite and commented on this story. I'm sorry it's so long between updates, and thank you for being so awesomely patient!
It took another day, but finally the announcement went out, planet-wide. You are no longer free. You belong to the Master. Citizens were ordered to report to city centers to receive a microchip that would track their movements. Resistance led to death. The Master stood on top of his building, watching the people below him slowly file through and inhaling their suffering. This, this was so much sweeter than any pleasure the flesh could offer. He wished that Azula was beside him, but reports from the ship showed her to be in the middle of an emotional outburst that had drained most of the power from the fire suppression systems on the ship. The Master realized with a scowl that it hurt him that she wasn't here to enjoy the triumph with him. He'd have to make it up to her; it shouldn't be too hard to find something that would bring her out of her current black mood.
He looked down, suddenly, sensing—almost smelling—another time lord. There: the flash of a brown coat through the crowd. Untidy hair taking its place in the queue. The Master laughed and jumped up and down. Then he took a deep breath. He couldn't lose his calm, not now, not with him so close. He couldn't resist another giggle, and hurried back out of a sight. Long legs carried him down the stairs to right above the processing center.
"That one, him," he ordered the quiet technician. "Bookmark him. I want to personally know where he is." Having given his orders, the Master ran to his office and set the security cameras so he could watch the other make his way into the center.
The tracking chips were something the Master was particularly proud of. Little marvels of engineering that were resistant to all tweaking by a sonic screwdriver, covered with a somewhat less marvelous piece of engineering that was tweakable by sonic. When the Other turned his sonic on the device, the outer shell would deactivate, and he would think that he had completely shut it down. The Master laughed at his own brilliance.
He watched the messy hair leave the processing center on one of the monitors, biting his thumb to stop himself from leaping in triumph. This was too good, too perfect; it was Christmas.
Returning to his plush apartments on top of the last standing skyscraper, he activated the monitoring on the other time lord. There was the blip that was the sonic trying to deactivate his chip. It looked like he was in hiding in the other side of the city. What was he planning? Was he going to try and stop the Master? Perhaps he'd found a rebel encampment! The Master pulled a bag of candies from where it was hidden in his couch and popped two in his mouth. He touched the intercom to order the arrest, but stopped.
"I must be patient," he told himself. "You need this to work." There was no point in arresting the other time lord before he could finish his plan. If what he was doing was working with an underground rebel force, it would benefit the Master to wait until as many ducks were in a row as possible. That meant being patient. He hated being patient.
He only managed to wait a day before ordering his men to make the arrest. It took all his patience, and the pounding in his head had become a physical pain that drove him to thinking about leaping from the roof of his building, it was so loud.
Once he ordered the strike, however, the pounding didn't fade and he paced his rooms, feeling caged and trapped, just as the time lord would be soon. The first call he received was the recovery of the TARDIS, the next was the discovery of a rebel campus. There was heavy fire.
Closing his eyes, the Master could hear the Other shouting for the firing to stop, that there was a solution. He could see desperation in the brown eyes as bodies of people he'd been working with, plotting with, fell around him. He wasn't surprised when the call came that the Doctor had surrendered.
If his patience hadn't lasted to give the order, he was beside himself while waiting for the captive to be brought to him. He thought of Azula, and he considered asking her to come to him. But she was still angry, and he knew she wouldn't come. He'd come to miss her fire, her laughter. He'd almost apologized more than once, almost begged her to forgive him for whatever angered her. He'd also considered having her dragged down to the planet, and forcing her to take him back, to take him at all. But that was not the way to a woman's heart, he was sure of that. That was something he'd learned from his previous wife. No, he needed a gift for her, something special, something from the heart.
His thinking was interrupted by the return of the arrest team. He closed his eyes, willing the pounding to cease, and straightened his jacket. It was time to reveal himself to his enemy— the enemy who was practically a friend, considering how long they had rivaled each other.