Shadew 10: Master
The Doctor stared at the Master for a moment. Could he really have returned once more? Well the Master was well known for amazing feats of death aversion, in fact if avoiding death was an Olympic sport the Master would be disqualified for cheating. But somehow the Doctor was sceptical.
"No you're not," he said.
The Master faltered. "What?"
"You're not the Master," the Doctor repeated.
Quanchi remained silent for several seconds, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Of course I'm the Master," he insisted.
"The Master of this guild maybe, but not the Master," the Doctor replied. "I should know."
"It has been a long time since our last meeting," Quanchi said desperately. "You could simply not recognise me."
The Doctor rolled his eyes and put his hands in his pockets. "There is no point in continuing like that, I know you're not the Master; and you know that I know that you know that you are not the Master," he paused to give the imposter time to fully comprehend the last statement and began to pace up and down. "The Master's plans may involve attempts to kill me or simply beat me so that I cannot stop him, but the overall objective is always to become Master of the Universe. Playing the master of a guild of assassins is a very long way from that, he wouldn't just give up on his ultimate plan and settle for something as low as this; no matter how much he enjoys killing people.
"Also that hooded cloak is completely wrong. There is no way that the Master would ever resort to wearing a hooded cloak, he is too vain to ever want to hide away like that. The only time that he has ever done that was when he used up all of his original lives and became that walking, decaying corpse."
"How do you know that hasn't happened again?" Quanchi asked, clearly clutching at straws.
The Doctor came to a halt and stared at him. "The Master has made many mistakes in the past but one thing he will never do is make the same mistake twice. He was given a second chance with his lives and he learnt not to waste them," he explained. "But the biggest and most indisputable clue." He paused for dramatic effect. "Time Lords are slightly psychic. Even those that are not so skilled in this art, like me, can sense other people's minds and taste the aura that is given off. The Master has a very distinctive flavoured mind, Columbian black coffee in case you are interested, Mortimus' was less distinctive: slightly fermented grape very easily confused with Oz Clarke's wine flavoured mind or Vansell's. That's probably why I didn't recognise him at first. Sorry rambling again.
"You however," he pointed at Quanchi firmly, "do not seem to have a mind for me to recognise. I am probing with all my limited skill but I just can't find anything, not even a trace of a shielded mind. so not only are you not the Master, you are not even a living creature. Let's see what you really are." He reached forward to pull the hood away from Quanchi's face. Before he could reach his arm came up and grabbed hold of his wrist, looking down the Doctor saw that the hand was completely silver.
"Ah," he realised. "You're a Raston Warrior Robot."
"Alright, none of you move," the assassin snarled, blood dripping out of open wounds in his face.
Broxa and Olljo glanced down at Alkrad's unconscious body, saw no signs of him waking up so decided to do what the assassin said. He had burst in on them taking Alkrad completely by surprise, allowing him to knock him out almost straight away, but clearly had not expected such staunch resistance from Broxa and Olljo otherwise he would have pulled his pistol out sooner; and probably would have avoided getting his face maimed.
The assassin pointed his pistol at Olljo. "You," he slid a set of handcuffs across the floor, "pick those up nice and slowly."
Olljo raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to kill us?"
"Just do it!" The assassin shouted.
Olljo held up his hands for peace before slowly bending over to pick up the handcuffs. Broxa stared at the assassin quizzically. "I thought that you were trained to kill people, not to threaten them and then make them pick up random pieces of metal."
"Well you see, we are also trained to spot other business opportunities and exploit them," he said with a sneer. "You may be a complete wildcat, but I'm sure the traders will see past that and pay high for you."
"You what?"
"You're going to become pleasure slaves!" The assassin declared with glee. The two Mondasians stared back blankly. "You know, pleasure slaves."
"Doesn't mean anything to me," Olljo said casually, fiddling about with the handcuffs.
"Where have you two been?" The assassin questioned.
"Mondas," they said in unison.
"Where? Oh never mind," he pointed his pistol at Olljo. "Cuff her."
"No, I'm not stupid," he exclaimed. "If I do anything to her she'll castrate me, she's already bitten one of my fingers off."
"Castrate?" Broxa questioned.
"New word I've picked up," he said proudly. "One of the assassins threatened to do it to me if I didn't hurry up."
The assassin growled in annoyance. "If she tries anything like that I will shoot her," he snarled.
"She don't care about that," Olljo laughed, "she's a natural born survivor, even better than me."
"Well then if she doesn't allow you to do it without any trouble I will shoot you," the assassin threatened.
Now Olljo laughed even more heartily. "As if that's going to stop her!" His laughter trailed off when he saw her expression. "It won't stop you right?"
"Just do it," she said with a sigh. "The scary cannibal plan clearly isn't getting us anywhere. It's not as if it is anything big anyway."
Olljo looked at the assassin, shrugged and slapped her on the back of the head. "Happy now?"
"Not like that you idiot!" The assassin exclaimed. "Put the handcuffs on her, bind her hands together."
"Oh," the Mondasians said in unison. Broxa turned to him with a look of resignation and held out her hands in front of her ready to be cuffed together. "Go on then."
"Behind your back if you don't mind," the assassin drawled. "I'm not that stupid."
She gave him a rebellious look but obliged. There were two loud clicks as Olljo fitted the handcuffs round her wrists. The assassin smirked and produced another set. "And now for you."
Olljo took a small step back as the assassin came towards him. In his determination to end this whole business quickly he didn't check that Broxa had been handcuffed properly, and then he made the mistake of turning his back on her. He was stunned when the cuffs were slammed against the back of his head, allowing Olljo to knock his pistol out of his hand. Before he could recover he felt cold steel against his neck and was suddenly unable to breath.
"But it appears you were this stupid," Broxa taunted as she pulled the handcuffs even tighter around his neck. He gagged and struggled but she was surprisingly strong. Slowly he fell to his knees, stopped clawing at the chain around his neck and became still; his eyes widened in pain. Once she was certain that he was dead she finally released her hold and allowed him to fall inelegantly to the floor.
She sighed with relief, stood up so that she was face to face with Olljo and kneed him in the balls. "What was that for?" he gasped after a few minutes of recovery.
"For hitting me," she replied with a glare, but soon cracked up into a smile that turned into laugh. Olljo found himself mirroring her.
"I suppose the real question should be: what is a Raston Warrior Robot doing pretending to be Gallifrey's most infamous son?" the Doctor questioned.
"Because you wouldn't remember me otherwise," Quanchi responded.
"Oh you needn't have worried about that," the Doctor insisted. "I remember all my enemies." He paused to ponder for a moment. "Though having said that, I don't remember ever encountering a Raston Warrior Robot that could talk before."
"I wasn't always able to talk, I have been upgraded since our encounter on the Death zone," the robot explained. "You were the one person to escape me. The one person to survive an encounter with one of us."
The Doctor regarded him with a look of surprise. "You're bitter? Since when have you robots had any sort of emotions?" he questioned. "And this name: Quanchi. Where does that come from? You don't make any sense. You were designed as the ultimate killing machine with no emotions or personality, yet me managing to survive an encounter with you caused you to gain a desire for revenge, the ability to come up with plans beyond simply killing anything that moves, and a name."
"You should not have escaped him," Quanchi said in completely new tone of voice. "The Raston Warrior Robot was to be the perfect killing machine, yet you managed to survive it."
"Well to be fair you almost had me," the Doctor pointed out. "It was only the Cybermen that allowed me to escape, and you killed them efficiently enough."
"But he shouldn't have allowed anyone to escape," Quanchi insisted. "You should have been killed as well."
"Why do you keep saying he as if it were not you, unless..." the Doctor's eyes widened in realisation. "Now that is clever. Quanchi, one of the inventors of the Raston Warrior Robot, you have implanted your own consciousness into your creation." Quanchi said nothing. "You could not believe that your greatest creation could be outsmarted by an old man and a woman so you put yourself into the machine to prevent it from making any mistakes like that again. What is it with mad inventors who just cannot handle losing?"
"And now you are in my clutches, and this time you will not escape," Quanchi said coldly. "Simply standing still to hide from the motion sensors will not work this time. You cannot blow me up and I can reattach any limbs that get cut off, even my head."
"That was very unoriginal," the Doctor commented. "And you forgot: I have grown more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Also if you simply wanted to commit an act of revenge you could have simply cornered me on some lonely planet or moon. Seems a bit pointless to set up a guild of killers and then ignore me for several decades."
"I could wait," Quanchi explained. "I have plenty of time now that I will not age, time to build up my fortune."
"Well that's just stupid," the Doctor exclaimed. "You're a robot, what do you need vast wealth for?"
"What does a Dragon do with all its gold?" Quanchi replied cryptically.
"It sleeps on it," the Doctor replied matter-of-factly. "You on the other hand do not need to do anything like that, and I don't see anything like that. Although from what I can tell, the guild is being run into the ground through budget cuts which don't make much sense. What are you doing with the money?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Quanchi replied. "But enough of this idle chit-chat, it is time I killed you and collected the bounty on your head."
"Oh so someone has placed a bounty on my head, I was getting the impression you just decided to do that on your own." The Doctor stepped backwards and held his arms out wide. "Go on then. But first, as my last request could you perhaps perform an entire seven hour opera, whilst saying one of your weaknesses in between each song and spelling out the name of the one trying to kill me when you run out of weaknesses."
"No."
"You would deny the last wish of a dying man?" the Doctor exclaimed in mock surprise. "Could you at least tell me the one who has sent you to kill me?"
"No!" Quanchi roared. He lifted up his arm and fired an arrow straight at the Doctor's chest. But somehow the Doctor was not there anymore, he was walking over to the over side of the room.
"Fine I shall find out myself," he said as he arrived at the computer on the wall. He started to skim through the records. "Lots going on at the moment," he observed. "Oh look! Tommy Baker wants to be friends on Facebook, and Matthew Smith is suggesting that you become friends with Jonathan Pertwee. Oh and Sticksports have set up a new stick football game, they should have stuck with stick cricket really all the other stuff they have tried to do with it is really quite ropey, the stick baseball is just impossible for a start and-"
He jumped back as the arrow smashed into the screen. Before he could make a witty remark several more arrows flew at him, they landed on the wall creating a perfect outline of him. "Show off," the Doctor muttered before ducking and rolling to the other side of the room. An arrow thudded into the wall in the position his throat had been just milliseconds earlier.
The Raston Warrior Robot turned to where the Doctor was now standing and clapping to a constant rhythm that only he could hear. "Well if you aren't going to sing for me then I'll sing for you," the Doctor said. "Xessing killjoy." He took a step to the left to avoid an arrow and began to sing.
"Party Rock is in the house tonight." He moved back to his original position to avoid the next arrow. "Everybody just have a good time." This time he caught the arrow that was coming at him and used it to block the second one that was coming at him. "And we gonna make you lose your mind. We just wanna see ya." He pretended to dodge sideways but actually remained in one place causing Quanchi to completely miss. The Doctor smirked mockingly. "Shake that."
While he had been singing the Doctor had been mostly static, only moving the minimal amount required to avoid each incoming arrow at exactly the right moment. But upon coming to the end of the verse he suddenly exploded into movement, dancing wildly in time to some music that only he could hear. Quanchi spun about firing his arrows wildly but unable to hit his fast moving target whose dancing always seemed to make sure he was never in line with any incoming arrows. The Doctor dance one way then moon walked back the other, skilfully parrying arrows with the arrow he had caught.
In a move that took Quanchi completely by surprise the Doctor dived straight at his attacker, pulled the hood of his cloak further down his face, completely obscuring his vision and stabbed the arrow in his hand through the fabric to hold it in place. Quanchi lashed out with his hands but the Doctor had already jumped back to admire his handiwork.
"That'll do for now," he remarked as Quanchi continued to thrash about. He strolled over to the entrance. "Colonel Kabrok, are you still alive."
There was a loud crash. "Yes!" Kabrok shouted.
"Oh, well done," he said in surprise. "Could you possibly spare a moment to throw in your data spike?" He heard the Judoon grunt and gasp, which was swiftly followed by another loud crash. "Never mind, I can hear you're busy. I'll try to retrieve the hard drive manually."
He flicked out his golden penknife and strolled over to the computer once more. Before he could reach it there was a loud ripping noise and Quanchi appeared in front of him. No longer wore his long black coat so his true robotic form was revealed; he looked like a skinny man wearing a silver morph suit; the arrow that the Doctor had used to pin down his hood was still sticking in his head. He raised his hand and fired an arrow into the Doctor's chest from point blank range. But instead of hitting the Doctor it flew off several centimetres to the left.
The Doctor screwed up his face in confusion. He knew that the Raston Warrior Robot was well known to be sadistic, delighting in toying with opponents by deliberately missing. But in this stage of the fight surely he would be concentrating on simply killing the Doctor outright. The robot fired again and once again missed.
"Damn you Doctor!" Quanchi exclaimed. "You have broken my targeting system!"
"Oops," the Doctor replied. "Would you like me to buy you a new one?"
"No! I want you to die!"
"Perfect!" the Doctor exclaimed. "When I first came in I didn't think you were taking this whole villain thing seriously at all, but that line! Brilliantly done."
Quanchi held out his arms and two thin blades extended from his wrists like his arrows had done, crossed them across his chest threateningly and then struck forwards with them. the Doctor barely managed to parry with his penknife but after a few swipes he was disarmed. He jumped backwards and then turned to run but found himself face to face with the robot again. It mercilessly slashed at him, cutting several strips of leather off his jacket and slicing into his arm.
The Doctor fell to the ground and clutched at his bleeding arm, but felt no pain. He looked down to see the skin quickly knitting itself back together, he was almost at the end of his regeneration but there was still enough of the residual bio-energy to heal any damage.
"One last push," he said to himself. He jumped up as Quanchi started to swing his blades down on him. With a roar he punched the Raston Warrior Robot in the chest. Coupled with the final explosive release of bio-energy the force of the blow was enough to send Quanchi flying backwards to crash into the wall.
He flexed his hand and was unsurprised to see it unharmed, swiftly pulled an arrow out of the wall and held it up in front of him just as Quanchi appeared in front of him once more. Quanchi slashed with his two blade like a pair of scissors but before they could hit his target they were blocked by the Doctor's arrow. He tried to force his way through, but the Doctor held firm.
"And this is where your robot mind falls flat," the Doctor stated. "You will just continue to try and break through for eternity even though it is apparent that it won't succeed. You don't stop to think of the proper strategy to get out of this lock do you, you just plough on with this brute force and ignorant approach."
"But you are forgetting that I do not have the mind of a robot," Quanchi snarled. He retracted his blades, pulled his arms away and produced them again, now free to attack the Doctor again. But this was exactly what the Doctor wanted. With his defences down the Doctor stabbed the arrow through Quanchi's chest and rolled away to brandish another arrow.
"Now you can either surrender," the Doctor warned, "or this next arrow goes through your central processor. You may be able to repair yourself eventually, but the mind of Quanchi will be gone and you will simply be a mindless killer once again."
Quanchi did not move, only his head slowly tilted forwards so that he was looking at the arrow in his chest. "Fuck you Doctor," he said.
"No need for that," the Doctor replied. "I'm generously offering you a chance to run away with the possibility of a rematch in the future."
Quanchi turned round and pointed his blades at the Doctor. Even though he had no face his body language told the Doctor that if he did then it would be twisted into a vicious snarl. "Fuck you!" he shouted. "Fucking, Xessing Time Lord!"
And then there was a creak and the Raston Warrior Robot who called himself Master Quanchi slowly shrank into the arrow with the sound of metal being crushed. The arrow hung in mid air for a few seconds before falling to the floor with a clatter. Master Quanchi had finally been defeated.
The Doctor picked up the arrow and examined it with interest. Once he realised what made this arrow different to the others he laughed at how lucky he had been. He trailed off when he spotted the silhouette of a giant figure enter the room.
"I should warn you, I have just killed Master Quanchi," he warned.
"So I see," the figure said. He stepped into the light and deposited a sandstone goat's head on the ground in front of him. "And I have killed the Arekorn Superior."
For the first time in his current life the Doctor was speechless. He knew that Judoon were very strong but he also knew that there was no way that anything, other than another Arekorn, that could defeat an Arekorn in close combat. But it appeared that today was going to be a day of impossible feats being achieved. First he had defeated the unbeatable master of the Sundew assassins guild and now Kabrok had beaten an Arekorn, a fearsome creature of stone, in close combat.
To be fair neither had come out of it unscathed. While the Doctor now had several holes in his jacket and patches of material missing, Kabrok had several deep gashes in the side of his face and was currently dripping yellow blood across the floor. The Judoon regarded the computer with the smashed screen.
"I don't suppose Quanchi told you who had placed the bounty on your head did he," he said. The Doctor shook his head. "Pity, looks like we will never know now."
"The computer isn't destroyed," the Doctor said hurriedly. "The screen may have been smashed, but the rest of the machine works perfectly. That's why I wanted your data spike: so I could access the information on it."
"Oh right," Kabrok stomped over to the terminal and plugged a smart phone like device into one of the sockets. "The battles have been raging," the Judoon said conversationally. "Most assassins have either surrendered or fallen, the rest are likely to surrender in a few minutes. It turns out that Colsok ran into the architect who had the controls for all the defensive turrets around the base, he used that against them."
"And there was me thinking that all architects of villains' headquarters were disposed of as soon as their work was finished," the Doctor mused.
The data spike beeped signalling that it had downloaded all the data from the computer. Kabrok unplugged it and started to skim through the data. "Hey look at this," he said suddenly. "All these word documents in a folder marked fanfiction."
"What you mean Master Quanchi wrote fanfiction in his spare time," the Doctor burst out laughing.
"Complete waste of time, no wonder they were running out of money if he was spending all his time writing stories instead of working," Kabrok commented. "You certainly wouldn't catch me wasting time writing fanfiction."
"Yeah well you can't actually write can you."
"We can actually, how do you think I do the paperwork."
"I stand corrected."
"Ah here we are, recent contracts," Kabrok skimmed through the list. "Ah here we are. One specific contract on the Doctor involving three separate stages of action, to be given to assassin directly, origin: Earth, unspecified. Carried out by Mechween: deceased, contract since suspended."
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at this file. "That sounds a lot like the Pilot Fish Queen," he commented. "So that was a completely separate event was it?"
"Apparently," Kabrok shrugged. "We should investigate this unspecified employer anyway. Oh, interesting. It appears that this same employer also sent Alkrad on a contract, the last contract he did before he defected."
"They sent him to kill the Shadow Architect," the Doctor realised. "Whoever this is seems quite keen on weakening the justice systems."
"We shall have to investigate that one further," Kabrok said, putting a mark next to the important entries. He skimmed through to find the important contract on the Doctor. "Here it is, open contract on the Doctor, time travel authorised. Not on my watch it isn't. The location of the employer is not specified but I do have a name."
"Well that's fine, much easier than if I only had the location. Who is it them?"
"Not sure how to pronounce it, Ex-Kitor?" Kabrok guessed.
The Doctor's eyes widened in shock. "X... K... I... T... O... R?" Kabrok nodded. "Xkitor," the Doctor breathed.
"I'll have the proclamation look into it," the Judoon offered, oblivious to the Doctor's distress. "We will find him, don't worry about that Doctor."
"I know where he is," the Doctor said. Only now did Kabrok notice how serious the Doctor had become. "Thoruxa Medio. I swore I would never return."
End of part 5
Yes it was a cruel trick, stating he was the Master only to reveal that he wasnt really, but I couldnt resist. I hope you can forgive me.
The next chapter will sort of act as a conclusion like the conclusion to Birth of a Nemesis did, but unlike that chapter acts more as a bridge into the next part than as a proper rounding off of this part, as it has mostly already been done here. As such, the next chapter is not going to be part of any part, it is going to be a standalone chapter, I hope it works.