A/N: Oh fudge, I forgot the pistol in the space of a single chapter. Please reread just the last section of the previous chapter (or not; all that happened was the Master simply tossed it aside). Mea culpa!
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Weather
Elements n. 9. Weather: the atmospheric agencies or forces that constitute the weather, especially severe or inclement weather: outside paint that had been damaged by the elements.
^..^
The Master and his clones had worked feverishly for several hours, pulling out one of the electronic housing units from the equipment monitoring the Gate to a new position before the room's front doors, opposite the Gate itself, and preparing it to hold the White Point Star and boost the drumbeat signal. Finally, all was ready.
The Doctor had been shoved into a chair on the opposite side of the room from the isolation booths containing both Mike and Rose, although, contemptuously, the Master hadn't seen fit to have him tied or bound in any way. Only one clone guard remained posted over him, keeping his eyes on the Doctor's and his rifle pointed at his right heart, from just outside the prisoner's reach. The other armed guard remained on station in front of Rose's door, blocking their view of each other – not that Rose was complaining about that. She still hadn't mustered the courage to look at her husband's face, knowing she had betrayed his trust and made things much worse.
Mike had managed at one point, while her guard was distracted by the noisy process of converting the housing, to whisper to her through the grille connecting their booths. "Rose! Let me out! The big red button by the door – it locks your door and unlocks mine! Wait till they're distracted – it's noisy!" She nodded without looking up, and waited, biding her time till the right moment. Just do a better job than I did, Mike. Don't fuck it up like me.
"Everyone stand back!" ordered the Master. "It's time. Oh, at long last, it's time, time to find all the answers!" He held the diamond lovingly, putting it up to his forehead and closing his eyes, shivering in manic delight. Then he looked back to his head communications clone. "Tell the world to stand by to send the signal out again." He gently placed the Star in the socket, and stepped back a single pace, waiting.
Suddenly, even the three non-Masters in the room could hear the drumbeats, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, more in their heads than through their ears, getting louder and louder, as if a planet-sized drum corps were marching steadily nearer. As the drumbeats slid from mental to actual physical noise, a pinpoint of achingly bright white light suddenly appeared in midair in the center of the Gate, then steadily grew larger and larger, seeming to suck the drumbeats into itself until it was obviously the source. The light continued to grow, blinding the onlookers so they had to shield their eyes, until it filled the entire end of the room, encapsulating the Gate.
Louder and louder, brighter and brighter. Everyone was on their feet, shading their eyes but still trying to peer into the heart of the brilliant light, to make out the shadows that were beginning to form within.
"Rose!" came Mike's whisper through the grille, and she glanced around carefully, seeing her opportunity. She edged slowly over and twisted, pressing the button with her elbow as her hands were still bound behind her. They both held their breath as the door locks clicked, but the telltales were drowned out by the pounding drums. She slowly straightened back up, so as not to attract attention with quick movement, and Mike stood by his door, waiting for the right instant to make his move. Not yet, not yet. No one had noticed them, not even the Doctor, mesmerized along with the rest.
Darker and darker, larger and larger, the shadows within the blinding light resolved themselves into human shapes – and then the sourceless light began to fade, dimming until it was manageable (though it never faded out completely), and they could see the shapes clearly. A handful of humanoids in stately robes, standing in a line in the back, flanked on either end by an armed ceremonial guard. Before them, two others kneeling, hands held over their faces as if hiding them in eternal shame. And front and center, towering over the others and the room itself, a tall slender staff of office in one hand, a heavy metallic glove wrapping the other, arrogance and triumphant fury writ upon his face, stood...
"Rassilon!" The Doctor named his ancient foe.
"Doctor!" he sneered in return. "How fitting that you should be here, to witness your failure in person. And you, Master – how likewise fitting that our salvation should come at the hands of our most infamous child."
"Me? Saving you?" Sneering seemed to be the order of the day – though the Master didn't quite hit the same note of supreme arrogance as Rassilon. "I'm not saving you. You did this to me, didn't you? You put the drums into my head. My entire life, every minute, every second, the drums, the never-ending drums!" He caught himself before he slipped again into the same worn rant. "You did this!"
Rassilon merely stared at him, bemused, not bothering to reply.
"Oh, but never mind. Look what I have done. I've transplanted myself into an entire planet of people, every one of these stinking humans. But who needs a mongrel race like them, when I can do the same now to the entire race of Time Lords! I'm not saving you, Lord Rassilon, I'm taking over!" The Master raised his hands again, preparing to send the Gate signal through the open link.
Rassilon never blinked. He merely smiled contemptuously, raising his gloved hand and clenching it into a fist. Blue Vortex energy coalesced around the glove, glowing brighter and brighter, sparks of it shooting out to fall, fading, to the floor.
"No! No! Wait! You can't!" The Master cried – too late. Rassilon punched the air with his glove, and the blue field was flung from it, streaking across the room and through each of the Master's clones – and then further, through the walls, a glowing, spreading ring of fire streaking around the globe. The clones began their St Vitus' Dance again, their cells vibrating at impossible speeds, shaking off the overlay of the Master. Within seconds, every one in the room had been returned to their former appearance and identity, and they staggered groggily, gasping for breath and trying to gather their wits. A glance at the monitors revealed the same was happening the world over.
As the former clones regained themselves, they looked around in confusion, turning swiftly into terror, staring at the invading Time Lords under the Gate. Naismith was the first to break, whirling, grabbing his daughter's wrist and pulling her staggering out the door. The restored technicians and guards followed quickly, leaving naught but Time Lords (and Rose) in the Gate room – and Mike saw his chance. He ripped open his booth door and lunged out, flinging himself sideways to roll against the wall and out of view.
But before he could spring to his feet, hell broke loose, as a huge tremor hit the room, knocking loose items over, causing the Master and the Doctor to stumble trying to keep their feet. "The approach begins!" intoned Rassilon. He and the other standing Time Lords raised their arms in welcome.
"The approach of what?" cried the Master, suddenly, finally, feeling just a bit out of control of the situation.
"Of Gallifrey!" came the answer. Rassilon raised his staff, pointing it up through the massive skylight. And there, fading into view, covering the sun and half the sky, was an enormous globe. Fires were visibly raging across its burnt orange surface, a planetary holocaust rolling slowly towards Earth.
"No. No!" the Doctor whispered brokenly.
"Oh, yes! YES!" the Master replied. "Home. At long last, home!"
The two of them turned to each other, the Master mystified by the Doctor's horrified reaction. The Doctor shook his head. "You weren't there. You don't know. You ran away and hid at the end of the Time War. You didn't see the horrors they unleashed upon the universe. And if the Time Lock is broken, then everything's coming through, not just the Time Lords, not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Nightmare Child, the Horde of Travesties, everything. The War turned into Hell. And that's what you've opened, right above the Earth. Hell is descending."
The Master started to gloat, reveling in it, but the Doctor broke across him again. "That's not the end of it! Even the Time Lords couldn't survive that. Look at it! Can't you see? Gallifrey is burning! Do you think they're just sitting there waiting to die?" He flung his hand out, pointing to Rassilon, standing there triumphantly.
As the Master turned to him, confusion on his face, the Time Lord President began pronouncing. "The time has come for the Final Sanction. The End of Time itself. At my hand! This rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart."
"But that's suicide!" gasped the Master.
"Not for us! We will ascend, becoming creatures of pure consciousness. Free from material bodies, from time and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be."
The Doctor stepped closer to the Master. "Do you see it now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. And I had to stop them. I had to use The Moment, and place the entire War, the entire Sector, under a Time Lock, to prevent the end of everything."
The Master shook him off, pleading to Rassilon. "Take me with you! Let me ascend as well, Lord President!"
Rassilon sneered. "You are diseased. Albeit a disease of our own making. But no, you will not be joining us." He raised his gloved fist again. "It begins!"
"No." A new voice sliced through the room, flat and final. "No. It ends. Here. Now." Mike uncurled himself from his crouch and stood tall, walking to the center of the room between the two groups. He didn't look at his twin, but stared into Rassilon's face. "No more."
And then he raised his arm, turned swiftly around, and pointed Rose's pistol straight at the Master's head.
"Why me?" his target demanded, then realized. "Oh. Because I'm the link. Kill me, and the Lock is reinstated." Mike nodded once, and the Master gave him a rueful grimace. "'Gallifrey on one side, Earth on the other, and me in the middle'," he quoted Mike's own words back.
"Mike, no. You can't. It's murder!" the Doctor appeared at his elbow. "Don't do it!"
"No? Isn't this what I'm for? To do the things you can't? 'Blood and anger and revenge', remember?" Mike snarled sideways at his twin, not taking his eyes from the Master.
The Doctor stared at him, horrified to hear his own accusation on the sands of Bad Wolf Bay all those years ago hurled back into his face, realizing only now how they'd eaten away at his brother – his other self – all this time. He shook his head slowly. "I was wrong. That isn't you. It wasn't then, and it isn't now." Pleading now. "Don't do this."
Mike turned his head at last, anguish leaking through his eyes as he stared helplessly back into the others, so very like his own.
"Ever the weakling. Ever the coward." Rassilon's voice came slithering through the air. "Even now, even somehow twinned in another body, you cannot take the final step." Both the Doctor and Mike turned their heads to look at him. "This is why you failed then, and why you have always failed, Doctor. And why you will stand and watch as our victory unfolds. We will ascend, and you will slide into eternal darkness."
And then... as the Lord President ranted on, the woman kneeling behind him on his left slowly lowered her hands from her face, catching the twins' eyes. Tears trickling, she stared at them, one and then the other, and pain stabbed between them all.
"Mother.." Mike whispered, almost soundlessly under the President's rolling voice.
And her eyes flicked left, to the Master. No, past him.
"Mike..." the Doctor whispered, tearing his eyes away from her by force of will. "Give me the gun."
Mike glanced at him, confused, but saw something in his twin's eyes. An idea, an answer. Without a word, he swiftly lowered his arm and handed the pistol to his twin –
– who turned back, pointing it again straight at the Master. Their nemesis, who'd almost started to relax, stiffened again in shock at this unexpected turn, the last thing he would have thought to see.
The Doctor almost smiled. "Get out of the way."
Momentary confusion slid across the Master's face, then he realized what was behind him: the Star. He flashed a triumphant grin and dove to one side, and the Doctor calmly shot a single bullet through the diamond, smashing it.
A howling wind from out of nowhere tore through the room, trying to drive everyone back towards the Gate. Mike and the Doctor clutched at each other, holding themselves up, and whirled around to watch the brilliant white light begin to fade, pulling the Time Lord Council back into the Time Lock. All of them had gone sprawling except for Rassilon himself, who stood tall by sheer force of will, glowering at them.
"Back into the Time Lock, Rassilon! Back into Hell!" yelled the Doctor.
"Then you''ll come with me, Doctors. Both of you!" he replied, and raised his glove once more, the blue sparks flashing.
"No." A terrible voice came from behind them, low and piercing. "Get out of the way."
Without even looking, the twins pushed against each other, spilling to either side of the Master's path. He stood up, his hands already glowing with his electric power, the insatiable fire within already building, his skull again flickering through his skin. "You did this to me. All of my life. It was YOU! The drums, the drums, the never-ending drums! Now YOU will hear them through all eternity!" And he began throwing flameballs at Rassilon from each hand, one after the other, echoing his insane lifelong pulse. "One! Two! Three! Four!"
Rassilon fought back, throwing his own electric fireballs even as the Master's fourcounts struck him, pushing him back. Then the Master lunged at the President to grapple with him hand to hand, as the eternal, unearthly wind picked up even more speed, pushing them back. As Gallifrey wavered, and faded from view above the Earth, the light in the Gate room contracted, sucking the Council back.
And from the Doctor's right, as he crouched on the floor, came a sudden flash of movement.
