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Burning Intervention.
It was not every day his routine of burning people out of history was interrupted, but when he had learnt thanks to that damned communication link to the demented bloodthirsty harpy, Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar, who had informed him of how there was a temporal anomaly on Gallifrey, a timeline conflict with another reality, describing in detail the problem with her usual respectful manner which was a far cry from how she regularly spoke to people.
The girl might be more competent than most of her predecessors, but the Lady Romanadvoratrelundar was brutally efficient and she knew only too well if he wished he could remove her from history as well.
She didn't need to worry.
The Lord Burner liked her, even if she was a tyrannical ruler, but there was a method to it. She was far better than most of her predecessors, and by Rassilon he had known some Presidents who regularly ordered the Temporal Intervention Agency to do some…. Bizarre things; he would never understand why one president had foolishly despatched a TIA agent to Mondas and erase Doctorman Allan especially when she was instrumental in the construction of the prototype and original Cybermen, only for him to discover the Time Lords planned to reshape Cyberman history. Make it better.
This newest assignment had admittedly garnered a great deal of his interest; the Lord Burner was bored of the regular assassinations. While he was allowed to leave Gallifrey on assignment, which reminded him of the times where he'd acted out against Gallifrey when he had been younger and in a different incarnation, most of his assignments were just bothersome little nobodies like the interventionists.
Unlike most of his interventionist peers, the Lord Burner knew what drove the non-interventionists. They saw the universe as incredibly fragile despite the properties of Time Lord technology, and how they could mitigate the damage. They claimed there was only so much they could rewrite before everything fell apart.
But they refused to see the bigger picture. They knew thousands of years ago when Gallifrey was developing the technology for space-time travel in TARDISes powered by the Eye of Harmony, creating terrible temporal weapons like the Time Destructor and the D-Mat gun, while wrapping the planet in Transduction barriers for protection, the people of Gallifrey became the Lords of Time. They had circumnavigated the limits of eternity and infinity. They had conquered death, and their people's naturally long lifespans were augmented by the gift of regeneration granting 13 lives.
Only the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey had no idea how to use their powers. They were torn between a very important choice; did they use their TARDISes and their ability to see history unfolding, sworn never to interfere, just watch and only get involved when their power was threatened or when history was altered ever so slightly or extensively?
Alternatively, did the Time Lords use their powers to continually change history, using their technology and power from the Eye of Harmony to mitigate the changes?
Nobody knew how the answer came. Some Time Lord histories and philosophers had come across enough facts over the years to guess Rassilon had used his own advanced powers within his own TARDIS or through the Matrix to answer those very questions himself and came across an alternate timeline where Gallifrey itself was threatened. All because the Time Lords did nothing to observe and allowed themselves to be attacked in a terrible Time War.
After that, the Founding Fathers had made their decision. In the wake of the decision, the Temporal Intervention Agency came into being, and ever since that time, the Time Lords had been changing history.
Lord Burner himself had always speculated that was the primary answer; Rassilon's history was taught at the Academy, and it was a required course to learn of the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey, but everyone knew how seriously Rassilon had dedicated his life to the Time Lords and their creation. It made so much sense that was the reason.
Records from that time were redacted from history so nobody could honestly be certain of the true answer, and since then the Time Lords had found their answer. But there were so many people who protested the TIA's actions. Couldn't they see it was hopeless? Couldn't they realise they were doing this to ensure Gallifrey survived? It was all so simple; if they discovered an alien race was developing time travel and they planned to use it on Gallifrey should they learn of the Time Lord's existence, a TIA agent only had to travel to their world and erase them from history. The Time Lords would be safe.
But the non-interventionists didn't realise that. They just protested time and time again, and they either sabotaged the TIA operations or they were just a boring nuisance.
Alright, so a few of them were challenges - Borusa had been one of the better ones, but good ones were few and far between.
In truth… Lord Burner doubted the beliefs of finite people like Vansell and certain members of the TIA. The non-interventionists had been around for centuries, and the more the TIA and the Presidents backed by the Chancellory Guard and the High Council tightened their grip, either erasing the numbers of interventionists from history either by burning them from the timelines or simply shoving them into a Loom where they would reconditioned to see the interventionist ways were the best. This time, learning there was an alternate version of Romanadvoratrelundar running around on Gallifrey had fascinated Lord Burner brilliantly. She had given him a burn edict to wipe the alternate Romanadvoratrelundar and every one with her from history.
In truth, Lord Burner was unsurprised his talents were being called upon. Vansell, while competent, was still the same one-dimensional moron he had always been, ever since their days at the Academy. There was little doubt in the Lord Burner's mind Vansell had suggested the TIA get involved, only to be shot down. Lord Burner remembered only too well the last time that happened, thanks to the benefits of being Lord Burner; half of the Time Lords on Gallifrey hadn't even known what had happened when the TIA crossed the line and retrospectively corrected their own past.
A third of the Citadel's population was wiped from history. If the non-interventionists learnt of that little tidbit, then they would gather 30 times more support than they had already.
If it happened again, then the Time Lords could be erased from history for good.
Finding the anomalies was easier than Lord Burner expected. They had come looking for him; they had a robot dog, apparently built by his own counterpart from an alternate timeline, and it detected his biodata. Meeting Narvin, even an alternate version of him again, was an unexpected surprise. But meeting this new version of the President was strange. She was…nicer, cheerier, somehow she seemed…innocent, but at the same time, she was incredibly like her counterpart. The one Lord Burner knew best.
He had helped them elude the Guard, simply to take advantage of them and to lull them into a false sense of security. The strangest thing was how good it was to be called 'Doctor' once more.
He had told them about the differences of his Gallifrey, how the Time Lords were split between the interventionists and the non-interventionists, and how the non-interventionists protested against the TIA's operations and how the Time Lords should use their powers not to change and alter history, but to leave it to run its own course, and to observe the timelines as they unfolded.
He had told them a bit of his own history when they had called him 'Doctor' once more, and he had told them how there had been a time where he had been a non-interventionist himself, shunned by Time Lord society for his own views. He told them how he had sickened of life on Gallifrey, allowing his mind to wander back into his own past during the days of his first incarnation. He remembered how he had needed to listen how every single day the Time Lords sent TIA agents armed with butterfly drones and released them into atmospheres of planets like Earth (Sol 3, Mutters Spiral galaxy) during conflicts like the Spanish Armada and creating a whiplash of the laws of cause and effect, or sending agents with D-mat guns to erase divergent points from history to ensure history unfolded the way Gallifrey wanted.
He had told them and he had thought back about how he had stolen a Type 40 TARDIS and escaped Gallifrey and headed out into the universe to explore it, but at the same time to stop the Time Lords and undo the meddling they were causing.
He made it clear to his audience, a literally captive audience who didn't even realise the danger they were in with him and he was positive if they had known that they would have taken their chances with the Chancellory Guard, his time in the universe had achieved nothing. Oh yes, he had won one or two victories, but in the end, it had been hopeless. The Time Lords had brought him back to Gallifrey to stand trial, and it had apparently happened to his counterpart as well, since the alternate Romanadvoratrelundar seemed to know about the trial, or guessed as such.
Lord Burner hadn't bothered asking her questions of the other Doctor.
He didn't want to know.
He had just told them he was a respectable Time Lord with both rank and privilege, although he didn't dare tell them he was feared now on Gallifrey. Narvin and the other Romanadvoratrelundar had both been concerned about that, he could see it in their eyes, so he had been quick if subtle to reassure them, and then he would strike.
In the meantime, he would keep them happy by going by the title of Doctor once more, and a part of him was pleased by it.
But there were many things he didn't dare tell them.
He didn't dare tell them how he had murdered his own brother in self-defence.
He didn't dare tell them how he had failed to prevent the Time Lords from changing the histories of Exxilon, Earth, Peladon, Telos, Mondas, and so many others before they captured him thanks to being unable to evade them thanks to that useless Type 40 he had taken, but he had taken the old ship because she was easier to hack.
He didn't tell them how they had altered his own timeline, changing aspects of his history but keeping the rest which surprised him since their techniques operated on levels of the temporal theory he hadn't even known about, allowing them to brainwash him while he foolishly tried to hold on to their own views. Thanks to that, he was made Lord Burner and he began accepting the reality of Time Lord civilisation.
They were there to interfere, never to watch.
Author's Note - The Burner Doctor was an alternative version of the Sixth Doctor who existed in a timeline where the Time Lords used their powers to continually change history and mitigate the side effects. The Big Finish audio drama Gallifrey: Disassembled where the Burner Doctor comes from is hard to come by, but it is a pity there aren't that many alternative Doctor stories out there.