The rain slicked gutters of Empire City were choking and gurgling, a viscous discharge from the overflowing, underground pipes, like a lifelong smoker hacking up their liquidized trachea. The black, cloud drenched sky formed a perfect cover for dirt cheap dirty deeds, and the ocean of foul rain stood ready to wash any implicating traces into the depths, down below the surface with all the other forgotten secrets and despicable truths. But while the rain would eventually be replaced with the sterile glare of the shinning sun, the truth of the human condition would always...
"Douglas, cut it out. I can tell by the look on your face you're still doing that film noir overwrought monologue thing again, just inside your head."
"What, I can't have my own thoughts now? I'm still walking aren't I Dale?"
"Well you could be walking faster, and you should be! I get the impression this Mr. Seta isn't the type who likes to kept waiting."
The two arguing figures, their brotherhood with one another clearly communicated by the commonalities of their physical appearances, were slipping through an Empire City back street as quickly as possible without slipping on the torrential rainfall. The matching heavy jackets and hoods they were wearing protected them from both precipitation and identification, and after not much longer the two had descended down a street side stairwell, punched in a combination on the electronically locked door sitting disused on the lower level apartment door. When the light flashed green in confirmation, both hesitated for a moment.
"This'll be the last job, right Dale? Then we'll have enough saved away to get mom her operation?" The younger of the two brothers asked, looking expectantly at his older sibling, whose face had briefly softened in response to the question.
With a sigh, Dale answered "Hopefully. Provided everything goes right and we get payed what was promised, it should. All the more reason to do this one right, okay Douglas?" When his brother nodded in the affirmative, Dale finally pushed the unlocked door open, stepping into the front and main room of a smokey downstairs apartment.
Waiting on the other side of the rusted but heavy door were two other men, a twitchy redhead sitting on a couch and a dark skinned bald man leaning against a corner wall. The red head was eyeballing the two blond, clean cut brothers as soon as they walked in, his wild overgrown beard magnifying his already naturally sunken eyes. "You're late, both of you."
"As a matter of fact Tremblay, they have arrived at the ideal moment." Spoke a commanding voice as the Master stepped in from the back room of the small apartment. Looking directly at the two newcomers, the renegade asked "You received the advanced payment, I presume?" In any time period that possessed public use cashpoint machines, disposable currency was easy for him to acquire.
Feeling nervous and on the back foot simply by the powerful tone of the man who was undoubtedly their employer now, Dale responded with a nod of the head and a quickly vocalized "Yes, Mr. Seta."
"Then I can brief you on the details of the job as we drive. Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Cartwright are already aware of what their role is, and your mutual part in this job is fairly simple." The Master spoke, and before any could respond his simply snapped his fingers and strode towards the door, the collection of criminals feeling a natural, magnetic compulsion to simply let him pass and follow behind. Soon the team of five was weaving down the dark, slick streets of the city in the work van of some electrical work company the Time Lord had possessed no interest in learning about. Cartwright was driving, clad in an engineer's uniform whose source was, to the human's blissful ignorance, compressed down and stuffed beneath the driver's seat of the very van in question. The rain over Empire City would soon cease to fall, but there was only a cold moonlit night behind the clouds at this point.
The rest of the crew, along with a charming little moped, were crammed in the back. "Are you prepared Mr. Tremblay? Our ability to enjoy the fruits of this heist are contingent upon your success." The Master spoke, while leaning against the back doors of the van as the redhead was seated on the moped, clad in a safety helmet, leather jacket and wearing a backpack.
"I'm ready boss!" Tremblay replied, face red and nose twitching as he prepared for action. After giving a hand gesture, the Master threw open the back doors of the van just in time for the moped to fire to life and fly out the back of the vehicle just as the van ran the red light of a T-shaped intersection, Tremblay taking the right road as the van turned left.
Seemingly unaffected by the still falling buffeting rain, the rogue Time Lord closed the back of the van and turned to addressed the two brothers currently leaning against the driver cabin of the vehicle. "When I give the signal, Tremblay will create the diversion that will allow us to rob the museum without interference and acquire the client's object of interest. Cartwright will subvert the security systems while you two will accompany me inside to acquire the item." The blond criminals simply nodded in acknowledgement.
As the electrical company van sped to one end of the city, Tremblay was rushing passed the blurred city lights burning away in the dark of night, weaving in and out of traffic. His blood felt like it was on fire but the box on his back felt like cold, heavy weight dragging him down, only the machine under his body and the rush inside his brain keeping him going. Within his mind, the words of the man he knew as Mr. Seta echoes endlessly, driving him forward. "Obey me, Clarence Tremblay, and you will have enough stimulants to last you the rest of your life." Smiling to himself, he gunned the engine and pushed the machine to his limits, getting a private laugh at how much trouble this fake bomb threat was going to cause the city.
"Hey Jasper."
Inside the Empire City Museum of Natural History, a night shift security guard had affably moseyed over to a wrinkled, balding old man looking deep into a silver lined hand mirror kept under a glass case. When the senior didn't response, he repeated "Hey, Jasper!" in a louder but not harsher tone of voice. With a start, the elderly man fumbled with his glasses for a moment and turned towards the night watchman.
"Oh, good evening Andrew. Come to shoo me out as the place closes down again I presume?" He spoke in a friendly tone, while thinking to himself "You've done it again you old coot. I really need to stop lingering here so late when closing hours are approaching..."
"Well, technically the place closed down ten minutes ago, but if you're not counting neither am I. Come on, I'll show you out." Andrew the security guard answered with a welcoming smile, helping the old man shuffle towards the exit. "Poor guy, spends all his time here ever since his wife passed away, looking at the exhibits she cared so dearly for. It's a good thing Doctor Kellogg was always such a friendly soul here, otherwise some of the more hot headed guards might have lost their patience with him by now. They take things too seriously, who'd want to steal this junk anyways?"
After leading Old Jasper Kellogg to the front door of the museum, making sure he had a ride and locking it behind him after he'd shown him out, Andrew snapped his torch to life and began his nightly patrol through the now dark building. The light beam was concentrated dead ahead as Andrew tread through his familiar route as the sideways radiance cast a dim glow over battered, otherworldly suits of armor kept inside glass and a roped off the recreated interior of an ancient human cave dwelling, most of the article based on speculation but with cave paintings of humans amidst towering figures and pyramids of light recreated to the smallest detail based on photographs of a cave in continental Europe.
Passing by the old mirror that Jasper Kellogg seemed enraptured with night after night, the security guard came to a stop out of idle curiosity and shined his torch light down on it. Taking in all the details. "Just an old, cracked mirror." He muttered to himself, not able to make sense of the old man's curiosity about it. "It's not even in great shape, even by the standards of the old junk in this place." Andrew thought further. "The silver is tarnished, the glass is cracked and whatever decorative stone it held near the top was pried out before the museum even put it on display."
Letting out a grunt and a shrug of resignation to lack of understanding, Andrew turned about to continue his patrol, only for the beam of light he was holding to pass over a dark figure leaning over a different glass box on a pedestal exhibit. The night guard blinked as his mind processed what was happening, finally snapping into action when a small pinprick of red light burst to life in the intruder's hands, seemingly without a sound. "HEY YOU!" He yelled, put on the spot and having no prior experience in how to actually deal with intruders, the job's orientation classes seeming so far way and hard to access in his memory.
The Master slowly turned about as the night guard fumbled to pull an electronic button from his utility belt, content to let the young man bring it up and press it even though he could have easily disemboweled the human with his laser cutter if the Time Lord had wished to stop him. "St...Stay where you are! The silent alarm is already active, the cops will be here..."
Any further demands were cut off when the black clad Douglas clubbed the security guard in the back of the head, sending him to the floor as the Master watched dispassionately. Holding up a gloved hand to receive the outdated flip phone Dale was handing him, the Master selected one of the two contacts that were listed in the phone's registry. "Mr. Cartwright, it seems I must congratulate you! The lack of reaction to our discovery by a night watchman has proven your skills were not exaggerated. You'll make a professional electric engineer yet."
In the underground parking lot leading to the museum, the electrical company van was parked in a discreet corner and a STAFF ONLY door had been broken open, giving Cartwright clear access to the inner electrical workings of the museum, and his natural skills, learned education and a few deceptively alien tools had allowed him to deactivate all the security systems. "Forgive me for this dad, but after this job I'll be able to wipe out my student debts and go straight." The young engineer thought to himself, closing his eyes and thinking vaguely of penance before opening them again and speaking back into the disposable phone he'd been given. "Thank you Mr. Seta. Is everything proceeding as planned?"
"Like clockwork." The Master answered, standing over the unconscious security guard while speaking into the phone, having decided to let Dale and Douglass disassemble the glass casing around his true prize. Sliding the flip phone from his left ear to the right, the renegade cast a sunken gaze at the mirror exhibit a short distance away, eyeing it mindfully before asking "Do you have the special instrument I left with you?"
"Got it right here in my hand." Cartwright asked, before pulling a very small, featureless black cube from inside the pocket of his electrical work jumpsuit. The small hairs on the back of his hand tingled and stood on end with an electrical charge when he held it, but beyond that the mysterious tool was a complete mystery to the human. "You finally gonna explain what this one does?"
"No." The Master answered curtly, swiftly hanging up the call, switching over to the other contact, and pressing the button. Without waiting for a pickup that wasn't going to come, he folded the phone into his suit pocket and replaced it with the laser cutter before going to work on the glass box holding the mirror.
As Dale pulled the glass guard away from the other exhibit, Douglass looked at his employer with confusion, a small circle of light provided by the electrical lamp the brothers had set down before going to work. "Uh, boss, isn't this what we came here to steal?" He asked in a mystified tone, before stepping aside to gesture sideways at Dale stepping forward with the prize: A humbly decorated but perfectly crafted ancient dagger, though instead of ending in a sharp point the end of the blade was more of a blunt chisel. The information plate next to the now disassembled glass case described it as a remarkably durable well crafted sacrificial dagger, seemingly the product of construction techniques ages in advance of its carbon dating and incredibly resistant to the ravages of time. Modern historians speculate that this was likely some form of exorbitantly well constructed gift or object of tribute for a politically powerful ruler or religious leader (further signs of custom construction being the oddly small size of the grip, likely a custom grip for a pair of unusually small hands) possibly crafted with the intention of being buried with them.
Without looking back at the object from his precision cutting, the Master responded "Consider this a bonus, you'll be payed extra for it. Won't take a moment, and Tremblay's distraction should be going into affect at this very moment."
A short while ago and across town, the crook on the moped had come to a stop, parked the vehicle on a side road and was heading towards a public blue mail box to drop off the package. Though the reckless driving and the itchy buzz behind his eyes had filled Tremblay with exhilaration, every step after climbing off the vehicle seemed to carry an exponential weight to it. He was beginning to sweat now, but after the foggy downpour that had just left the city this attracted no attention from the few people still walking the dark streets.
"Come on, just a few more steps." Tremblay thought to himself, guilty tremors traveling down his body that he tried to rationalize away as just the usual shakes. "'It's just a little bomb scare, just pinball machine parts in brown paper box. No one will get hurt, and think of all the china cat you'll be able to buy with this payday!"
He was at the box now, and all he had to do was pull down the handle and slide the box in, then call the police on the burner phone Mr. Seta had given him. Tremblay was breathing deeply and heavily now, trying to muster his courage against a mental block he couldn't even identify. Practically out of habit, his twitchy eyes scanned back and forth over the surrounding streets in a paranoid panic, the dark words of the Master echoing in his head, but distorted by the haze he had built up over decades of substance abuse.
Then, Tremblay's blood went cold.
Down the road a young, bright eyes couple was leaving a movie theater together, playfully pushing their only umbrella back and forth and both insisting they be the one to soak in long passed rain as the ending point to a fun filled date night. Feeling like he wanted to cry, Tremblay dropped the box to the curb and slumped down against the mail box, overcome with remorse.
"Oh Julie... what have I done!? Why did I sell you to buy more china cat!?" He sobbed, mind as mess as the man finally realized how thoroughly his addiction had ruined his life and the lives of those around him. After a long, remorseful sobbing session in the rain, Tremblay would have been on course to realize how wrong his actions work, actively go clean, repent, and apologize to all those he had wronged with his life of crime. Unfortunately for him, the bomb that the Master had given him was very real, and rigged to a relatively short timer. The blast it generated was by no means massive, but it was enough to vaporize the career criminal on the spot.
Back the basement parking lot of the museum, Dale and Douglas sprinted back to the electrical company van as soon as the door to the stairwell flung open, while the Master followed at a more leisurely pace, looted artifacts contained safely in a padded black suitcase. The two brothers jumped into the back of the van practically giddy with excitement at a job well done, but their congratulatory joy faded when they abruptly realized the vehicle wasn't starting up. "Hey Cartwright, lets get going!" Dale said while banging his fist on the back of the driver's cabin, only to do a double take when he saw through the glass panel that the front seat was empty. "Where's Cartwright?"
"Dead, I'm afraid. I arranged for an electrical accident to befall him once his work was done, where do you think the bonus I offered you was going to come from?" Came the sinister and self-satisfied voice of Mr. Seta, who was standing just outside the back of van, suitcase on the ground and a firearm in hand. "Well, the real answer to that is nowhere, considering I'd planned to dispose of all of you from the beginning, but really, use your mind for once, you sniveling humans."
"Wh... what!? You're just going to off us? Just like that!?" Douglas asked with indignant disbelief, while Dale was simply simmering in silent anger. "What about honor among thieves then?"
"It remains an untrue parlance said sincerely by the very foolish and faithlessly by the very clever. However it would be inaccurate to say that I myself am going to... off the both of you." The Master explained in a dry, mocking tone of voice while reaching into his suit pocket with his left hand and producing a cobbled together remote. "Rather you'll both be killed by a head on collision with speeding emergency response vehicles rushing to the bomb explosion, aided physically by the still wet roads and, perhaps in an inspiration sense by the Doctor, for giving me the idea for this. Farewell."
With a click of the button the doors swung shut under their own power, and while both brothers rushed forward to burst out as quickly as possible all their strength was useless against the electromagnets the Master had modified the vehicle, and speaking of his modifications, Dale and Douglas both briefly stopped their efforts to turn around and look towards the driver's cabinet in startled fear when the vehicle's engine fired to life, seemingly on its own.
The primitive remote drive system sent the company van on a clumsy, wide turning rush for the street exit, smashing through the lowered guard as the Master looked on with a mildly amused expression. "Perhaps if you had let me escape Devil's End in that ridiculous yellow car of yours, fewer of your precious humans would have perished today." He thought to himself in a mocking tone, but quickly began to scowl when no sound but the dripping of water was left in the parking lot to answer. Wearily, he realized "Brilliant scheming is far less satisfying without a respectable mind to appreciate it. Outwitting humans... what sort of victory is that?"
Without another word or sparing another thought for the two brothers who were now hugging each other in panic as they sped to their mutual death, the Master pocketed his gun and picked up his briefcase before stepping into his TARDIS, still reliably disguised as a concrete pillar helping to hold up the ceiling of the parking structure. The Time Lord had managed to restore a small amount of dimensional transcendence and scanning ability to his damaged machine by digging into the time ship's spare parts reserve and cannibalizing more thoroughly damaged systems, but any further repairs and the restoration of time and space flight capability would require an influx of fresh equipment eons ahead of the technological capability of planet earth.
Feeling more at ease as the TARDIS door sealed shut behind him, the Master strode through his black shaded control room and made a quick check on one of the few functioning consoles. After seeing wireless confirmation that the Sontaran execution cube he'd given Cartwright had intend responded to the flip phone circuitry the renegade had wired to its activation systems, and delivered a lethal electrical shock to the human's unprotected face when the second number had been dialed, the Master shut the console off and retired to a salvaged room full of scientific equipment, intending to examine his prize posthaste.
"No telltale signs of metal working, laser cutting, welding or psionic assemblage." The Time Lord thought to himself after a few hours of putting his cosmic science degree to use examining the ancient dagger. "Which leaves... direct molecular assembly the most likely option, though it seems to bear a sort of atomic identifying mark... possibly one end of an isomorphic security system or just a mark of craftsmanship, would need a larger sample size to tell for certain. Not a common sort of thing for replicator employing cultures but not an impossibility..."
Removing the discarded weapon from the molecular scanner he'd been using to examine it, the Master examined the weapon closely in his hand, turning it about to view it from different angles and stroking his beard in contemplation. "The chemical composition does indicate the raw materials to assemble it come from earth, or at least an Earth like planet, and it is not in and of itself older than human civilization, merely older than the human technology needed to make such a thing." He muttered aloud, lost in thought before appreciatively cracking an eyebrow. "It is still a very well made weapon, even if the chisel blade is a bit of an odd choice. Could be useful against Kastrians perhaps..."
Further ruminations were interrupted by an alarm coming to life from the central control room. Setting the dagger down next to the empty mirror, the Master returned to the console room to see what was causing the alert. "Seems to be the gravity scanners indicating... a large, dense object is approaching the planet. An interesting development." The Time Lord thought to himself, also cursing the fact that he lack the more sophisticated working equipment that would be needed to scan it further in depth. Fingers working quickly over the controls of the central computer, a few quick astromath calculations deduced that barring a sudden change of flight paths, the object would impact the planet at a nearby stretch of coast, and while its speed did suggest it was some manner of spacecraft, there was no way for him to be certain.
After checking the time ship's diagnostic display, the Master moved over to input commands to the chameleon circuit. "Even in this dreadful state a TARDIS of this technological advancement is still more than sufficient to protect me from a localized meteor impact, should this be a worst case scenario." He decided. "And, in the best case scenario, Beach City may soon have the materials I need to begin repairs."
As the sun finally began to rise over a shocked and horrified Empire City, a dark colored, tinted windows modern sports car, sleek but radiating power, burst out of the underground museum garage, initially weaving carefully and lawfully through the panicked streets but flying full speed after reaching the open highway. As loathe as the Master usually was to operate his own vehicles the automatic operation systems of his TARDIS were nonessential enough to be pillaged freely during his initial round of repairs. As the city marked by an unsolvable tragedy vanished behind him, the Master let his mind wander with curiosity, wondering who would be paying this version of planet earth an intergalactic visit?
As a rain flaming wreckage crashed down against Beach City, the jet black vehicle driven by the renegade Time Lord pulled up to park right next to the significantly more commonplace vehicle owned by one Mr. Fryman, right before a piece of falling debris flattened it. "Blast, I'm too late." The Master muttered to himself after stepping out of his disguised TARDIS and staring into the now clear skies. The spherical object he'd observed on the way in had already been blown to bits in flash of pink light.
"You're telling me!" Came the deep voice of the burly french fry vendor, rushing to the street to observe his crushed vehicle. After the immediate flash of despair hit, his eyes focused intently on the Master and his dark, immaculate suit. "Hey, are you a lawyer or something? Cause, cause I think I might need one."
Turning to face this human with a subdued expression and a dry tone of voice, the Time Lord asked "I am many things. Is their someone in particular you hold responsible for this falling wreckage destroying your vehicle?"
"Well, I mean I can't be certain, but it's gotta be those weird hippie ladies living down at the beach! They're always causing weird stuff to happen, but, uh, perhaps, I've... said... too... much..." The vendor's voice had started with a tone of indignation but steadily trailed off as the Master focused his deep, piercing gaze upon Mr. Fryman, who felt a feeling of dread build inside him even as his feet were rooted to the ground. One eyebrow cracking with curiosity, the Master made a simple demand that the human was powerless to resist.
"Take me to them."
A few minutes later, the Time Lord's eyes widened with mild surprise at the familiar sight of the "It's A Wash!" truck rolling about in the ocean waves as Greg and Steven Universe struggled to pull it back to shore. Though the Master was normally very quick to discard the identities of human victims in particular from their memory, the recent occurrence of the carjacking had kept these two fresh in his mind for the time being. He and the enthralled Mr. Fryman were watching the family from atop a cliff a short distance away, though after a cursory recognition of the two humans, the Time Lord turned his attention to the three further up the beach.
"That's them, right over there, uh... sir. I mean, it's true that they have... sort of a reputation around town, but they also seem to be Steven's main guardians, and, well, he's a good kid and I don't really want to mess up his life by pressing charges against his guardians or anything..." The blond human rambled on as the Master tuned him out entirely, vision focused on the three aliens that were covertly conversing with each other as father and son jumbled through the surf.
"You'd have little success in levying a law suit against extraterrestrials Mr. Fryman, this era is so far lacking in legal precedent for that." The goatee wearing renegade remarked dryly while bringing a small pair of binoculars up to his eyes in an attempt to read the lips of the three womanly aliens, muttering in observation that "They seem to be genuinely speaking English..."
Rubbing the back of his head, Mr. Fryman let out a breath and said apologetically "I mean, I'm pretty sure they're undocumented yes, but I don't think they're illegal immigrants or something like that, they've apparently lived here for some time I've been told. I think they're just weird, off the grid hippies or something." In response to this, the Master lowered the binoculars from his eyes and cast a contemptuous glance of disbelief sideways at the human.
"Mr. Fryman, are you totally incapable of recognizing an alien being standing directly in front of you, after a brazen display of bizarre, otherworldly power?" He asked dryly, locking his sunken eyes against the fry merchant's partially glazed over ones. "I suppose that answers my own question." The Time Lord thought to himself as the human blinked at him blankly, but a sudden spot of movement caught his eyes: Of the three aliens, the thin, medium sized one had broken off from the group and was heading towards town while the short one headed for the stone temple constructed on the beach and the tallest moved to assist getting the van out of the sea. "It seems you're out of time then." The Master said curtly, suppressing a shiver of disgust as he locked eyes with the human again, holding back none of his psychic power as he commanded "You will forget having ever seen or spoken with me, and will walk directly into the ocean without stopping."
Then, without having a care in the world for whether the elder Fryman would successfully drown himself or be rescued by the three altruistic figures already down in the surf, the Master walked off to follow Pearl into Beach City.
"Just stay calm Pearl, it's nothing but an automated survey drone. These things prowl the space lanes for millennia at a time and get destroyed by random space accidents all the time. There's no threat of you-know-who coming from you-know-where to do you-don't-want-to-know."
The slender, beak nosed Crystal Gem was muttering these words to herself as she swept through the briefly empty streets of Beach City surveying the wreckage left by the exploded Red Eye, a faint blue light arcing out of her forehead mounted gemstone and scanning over each piece, seemingly in anxious search of something even as she muttered "It's just a probe." over and over again. The words did gradually become less anxious as she searched longer and longer without finding any hint of a pilot to the crash, safe or shattered, and by the time she came across a human pawing through the wreckage, Pearl had relaxed herself enough to mainly react with annoyance.
"Uh, excuse me, that's very dangerous to handle you know. Can I ask you to step way from the flaming wreckage?" Pearl asked, walking up to a man in a suit, back turned to her, seemingly digging around in an ice cream cart flattered by a debris chunk the size of a basketball. Seemingly unsurprised by the intrusion, the man stood up and smoothly turned around to face the Gem, holding a smaller, broken off fragment of the material about the size of an apple.
"Am I to presume you are claiming ownership of this salvage, Miss...?" The Master asked in a disarming, mildly amused tone of voice at the rapidly turning grumpy alien in front of him.
"Pearl will do, you can call me Pearl." The Crystal Gem answered, eyes narrowing as she wondered what to do. "Humans aren't normally this interested in collecting Gem stuff, odd."
Before she could say anything further, the Master abruptly cut in, saying "Very well... Pearl. It is wise for you to pointedly not claim ownership of this wreckage from the sky, that might leave you liable for quite a lot of property damage you know. Not from me at least, I'm simply a tourist on holiday, but, well..." He trailed off, before sweeping his arms around to gesture towards the damaged Beach City. "...I imagine the locals aren't particularly happy with this."
"Look, it really would be for the best if you just leave all this be so we can clean it all up." Pearl spoke in an attempt at diplomacy, finding this all to be very strange behavior coming from a human. "You could get... sick. You know, human... sick? With all your bodily fluids getting contaminated and all that unpleasantness."
"Perhaps I do not wish to give it to you, seeing as you have no evidence to prove you are the legitimate owner of this pile of scrap. Perhaps I wish to keep for myself, a memento of my holiday to your wretched little town. Perhaps I'll send it to an accredited scientific institution for analysis. Maybe I simply don't want you to have it." The Master responded, taking a firm but sardonic tone when speaking while holding the metal fragment close to his chest. Arching an eyebrow at Pearl, he asked "What, precisely, are you willing to do to acquire this object for yourself?"
"Oh, stars give me strength, P...Rose was always so much better at talking humans into things." Pearl thought with a pang of still fresh grief echoing across her soul. Letting out a sigh and rolling her eyes, the Crystal Gem nonchalantly shoved her own right hand into her forehead, digging around like a person grasping blind into a particularly deep bag. "Alright, how much currency can I give you to hand it over?" She asked dryly, but in response the man simply raised both hands dismissively, then took a step forward to hand her the piece of rubble. "No need for such a crude exchange, I presume we are both higher beings than that... alien."
Pearl's first reaction to this was a dismissive "We've been here for thousands of years and they only now figure it out?" but her contempt filled amusement evaporated as soon as she withdrew her empty hand from inside her gemstone to receive the Red Eye wreckage from the mysterious figure, who following his dismissive remark underwent a radical frightening shift of demeanor. His vaguely bemused, obnoxiously smug tourist facade melted into a face of pure, cold malice, and in a lightening quick movement dropped the alien material to the floor and clamped his right hand around Pearl's wrist before locking eyes with her. While the veteran Crystal Gem was screaming at her hard light body to strike back and break free, a cold, familiar feeling was settling over her form as the Master's eyes drilled deeply into her own, a painful static feeling like it was building up in her gemstone itself.
"Do not resist. I am the Master, and you will obey me." His smooth, honeyed voice said as Pearl's body seemed to lock up and the unbroken eye contact seemed to build a splitting ache behind her eyes. "Your will is strong, but your mind is weak, no, not weak... receptive..." The Master muttered, feeling his presence crawl into Pearl's mind with against spirited but easily broken resistance. "You are... not meant to resist, are you? A naturally servile mind..." He asked, as Pearl felt cold squirms trapped inside her body, yearning to get out and break free against this looming domination, but her hologram body refused to obey her, exactly as it had been designed to do. "Tell me... who is your controller? Your previous master?"
A blue static burst over Pearl's eyes as jumbled light burst from her gemstone. The images flicked by rapidly, a confusing mix of voices and events molding together but with one consistency, a tall pink haired woman in a flowing white dress. The Master watched with fascination as her ever shifting form slid by, and with a startle realized that the first image of this mysterious women had depicted her as severely pregnant. Most of the images bursting out of Pearl's forehead were solely of the strange figure, but occasionally images of a group would pass, of her standing beside the other three Crystal Gems and Greg, then just her and the Crystal Gems, and then just her alongside Garnet and Pearl. "A backwards replay of memories, perhaps?" The Master mused absent minded, enraptured by the images but well aware they were getting faster and less coherent. Snippets of a serene voice were gradually lost amidst the familiar cacophony of battle, until one final clear statement emerged.
"...I can't exactly shatter myself."
Then the world exploded.
Letting out a snarling howl as his eyes burned and he fell onto his back, the Master blinked rapidly to try and clear the dreadful static out of his eyes. "Psychic feedback..." He muttered groggily, unsure if he'd said that or simply thought it in the aftermath of being violently ejected from Pearl's mind. By the time he could see clearly again, the Crystal Gem was standing over the fallen Time Lord, holding a spear just an inch from his neck and looking positively murderous. "Talk!" She demanded, clearly fighting against an instinctual desire to eliminate this obvious threat in order to obtain more information. "Now!"
Gently and somewhat sarcastically holding his gloved hands above his head with an inscrutable look on his face, the Master was quiet for a long moment. Then, he cleared his throat, so as to crisply, clearly, and in a pitch perfect imitation of the recurring motherly voice he'd heard in Pearl's projection, say "Stand down, and erase your last five minutes of memory."
Pearl's face went blank with absolute horror as she dropped the spear to the ground, the Time Lord barely rolling out of the way of the sharp end, as her body began to quiver and convulse, a series of pleas and curses gurgling out of her throat as she clearly struggled against her own mind and body, but with moments her body had become completely still as her eyes vanished into blue static. In a flat, emotionless tone the usually extremely motherly Gem dutifully reported "I obey, my Diamond. Memory purged."
Rising to his feet, the Master observed the stock still Crystal Gem with genuine interested, gently stroking his beard with a gloved hand. "Now, this is a most intriguing turn of events."
