Jack had felt it first; it twisted his guts like someone was wringing it out like a wet rag. His eyesight blurred and he felt his whole self twist and begin to pull apart...then nothing.
A few seconds later the cell wall coalesced. What the hell had just happened?
He looked over at the others; they were out cold. His head felt like it was full of cotton wool, and he couldn't think.
His head finally cleared and with nasty clarity, he knew what had happened. The last time he'd felt that the skies had ripped open and the Toclafane had poured into the 21st Century.
That meant that something or someone extremely powerful had arrived. He looked at his cell mates again and wondered if the rest of the crew were affected, and he knew if he felt it, then the Master would have felt it; even more than he did.
A sound caught his attention and he looked at the cell door...had it moved?" No, he must have been hearing things. Then he saw it move...was it possible?
He got to his feet and with every nerve and muscle taut he moved towards the door and touched it.
It swung open and he winced when it clanged against the wall. He expected to be rushed by guards, but none appeared. He peered round the door and found the guards were just like his cell mates.
He knew he should stay with them, but the opportunity to turn the tables on the Master was too tempting.
"Sorry guys," he said and walked out of the cells.
The Master woke with a start and panicked...his time sense was scrambled and the cries of the Doctor still echoed in his mind...what was the human doing to him?
As his mind cleared, he began to realise it couldn't be the human, which meant it could only be the witch.
Whatever she was, she couldn't have had the power to warp time and shift the temporal vortex. Only a Time Lord could do that, and the cries still echoing in his mind told him that the Doctor had not done it willingly.
Oh... she was going to pay.
He shook his head to clear his scrambled senses and the last of the faint echoes of the Doctor's cries. There was only one good thing came out of the Doctor's suffering: he now knew exactly where the witch was taking him.
He blinked away the last of his blurred vision and then saw that his bridge crew were all unconscious...of course, their tiny minds would not have been able to cope with it.; he would have to pilot the ship himself then.
A movement to his left alerted him that maybe not everybody was out. He drew in a breath through his nose and wrinkled it in disgust.
"You might as well come out, freak, your smell gives you away."
He glanced at Harkness as he appeared, he'd seem someone else behind him.
"I take it the temporal shift has caused a power outage."
"Guess so," Harkness said.
The Master gestured with his head at the stolen weapon that was being pointed at him.
"So pull the trigger."
Harkness shook his head. "What and give the Doctor another reason to hate me and make you a martyr."
"As if that's going to happen," then Master said and smiled when Seska stepped up to Harkness and placed his own weapon against Harkness's neck.
"You should consider yourself lucky that I need your limited talents."
"Wake up my key, we are here," a soft voice broke through the dark and the pain. He opened one eye but shut it instantly, the light was too much.
"No my key, you must wake up. The gates are calling...can't you hear them?"
He opened both eyes and took a few moments to let his senses return and his nerves that were jangling to calm. At first he heard nothing, his mind was still buzzing from the temporal shift.
Then there was a sound, faint at first; it was slightly discordant music and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.
He looked up at the woman. "I hear it, it's beautiful."
She smiled. "Then let us go," she said and held out a hand, which he took and hauled himself up.
She led him to what must have been at one time an observation window. Hanging like some damaged jewel was a planet; the cracks were obvious, even from orbit.
Something catastrophic had happened to it and everything that was Time Lord in him wanted to run.
"I don't know this planet," he said.
"It's been nameless since its creation. The gates are there and that is where we have to go."
"I'll find a shuttle."
She shook her head. "We do not, you do not need such things."
He flinched when she put a hand to his head, but she steadied him with a hand on his chest.
"Do not be afraid...picture the planet, my key."
He closed his eyes and he saw it, a barren place, nothing but rocks and scorched earth.
"I see it...there's something...in the distance."
"That's it, now take us there," the woman said.
He let out a gasp as pain shot through him and the metal of the ship disappeared and was replaced by the image that had formed in his head.
He looked round in surprise; had he done that?
The woman smiled. "You have such power within you, yet you never use it. You could be a god, you will be a god. Come, we must go, we must be at the gates at the right time."
She moved but he did not.
"Why do you hesitate?"
She stepped closer and despite being shorter than him managed to look into his eyes. It was like looking into dark pools with liquid fire in their depths.
"Whatever life or loves you have mean nothing. A fire is coming and it will burn all of this away. You will forget...forget love...forget friendship...forget the hurt and the pain they have caused you...there will only be me."
As she spoke the words he found he no longer cared about anything but pleasing her and opening the Gates would please her.
He looked to the west and in his mind's eye he could see the Gates, crackling and fizzing with power.
He was so focused on leading her to the Gates and pleasing her, that he didn't notice her eyes become oily black...not that he would have cared.
He only had eyes for the gate.