The Doctor, the Wormhole, and the Vortex Manipulator 2.
By TimeTraveller-1900.
Britain, Devil's End - 1970s.
While the chaos unleashed by the Daemon had been localised to just really the crypt, the Doctor was thankful the damage wasn't as terrible as it could very well have been.
True, the church had been destroyed, blown to kingdom come by the Master's meddling with the Daemon's powers, but the majority of the village had made it out unscathed, something he should have known better than to meddle with.
But then again nobody ever said the Master had common sense. Instead of using some other plan, the Master had played the long game on Desolation and tried to cause a terrible nuclear war between the peoples of that world, to repair his TARDIS.
Alright, granted, the Doctor was not entirely certain what the Master could have done differently, especially since his own knowledge of TARDIS mechanics was largely blocked off by the Time Lords, and he had been forced to rediscover them by working on his immobile ship since the 1920s.
The village of Devil's End was extremely quiet at night, especially since so many of the people who lived here had been persuaded to join the Master; the chaos unleashed by the Master, who had disguised himself as the local vicar, Magister, who had come to the village to unearth and take control of the Daemon Azal, had been defeated.
Everyone who had survived the whole mess had been left so shaken that the Doctor was positive that more than a few of them were thinking of moving away.
That was not his problem.
Right now while UNIT was busy cleaning up the mess and dealing with the Master - while he knew Lethbridge Stewart, Mike and Benton and Jo were capable of dealing with the Master, he hoped they could keep the Master locked up, especially after how the Doctor had promised to deal with him after the other Time Lord had tried - unsuccessfully - to escape on Bessie. The Master had smiled mockingly before replying: "You always were an optimist, Doctor," - The Doctor made his way down to the crypt the Master had used as the summoning place for the Daemon, seeing the damage caused by the ancient alien.
It was quite sad in a way. While Devil's End had long since been associated with witchcraft and legends of black magic since the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins exposed a coven of witches, and they had been burnt at the stakes, the area was beautiful, and the church had been so full of history, it was now irreparably gone.
The Doctor had no idea how long the Master had been in Devil's End, but he had taken the area's ties with witchcraft and created his own loyal coven to awaken the Daemon. The Master had taken the role of Chief Warlock of the coven and used his knowledge to bring the Daemon back to life. But he had underestimated Azal's individual mind, who kept switching his plans to destroy humans or give his knowledge to either the Master or to the Doctor himself.
As he made his way through the shattered church, the Doctor ignored the warning signs and proceeded down to the cavern. A large portion of the roof had been destroyed, and the place with lit with the night sky. The wax figures in the tableaux were broken and scattered, but the altar-like Stone of Sacrifice still stood in the centre of the cavern.
The Doctor couldn't help but shiver. He knew that before the Master had arrived, this cavern had once been a museum, and while the Doctor had never seen the museum in its entirety, all he had seen was the cult the Master had attracted, but now it was very sinister in the open like this.
Pushing those thoughts to the side, the Doctor focused his attention on the Stone of Sacrifice.
When he had realised the TARDIS was truly trapped here on Earth and his attempt to escape by using the Hiroshima bomb was doomed to fail because the TARDIS would simply return to Earth again, the Doctor realised if he couldn't get the TARDIS to work then he would have to wait until he had access to another time machine.
The Master's TARDIS often arrived and because of the frequent petty games of his old friend, the Doctor had created a small sensor that would pick up artron energy and he put it into his ear, and whenever he heard the sound of humming in his ears he would know how close he was to time travel technology.
When he had stood near the altar, the Doctor's instrument had hummed loudly until he tapped it silently. Fortunately, the Master hadn't been paying attention, if he had then he would think the Doctor was just rubbing his head near his ear.
The Doctor smiled as he ran a hand gently over the surface of the altar. The stonework was rough and coarse to the touch, but the Doctor felt a subtle vibration. He had no trouble recognising chameleonic shielding when he saw it. The Doctor nodded, his suspicions confirmed. This was the Master's TARDIS.
It took the Doctor a minute to find the doorway, and when he had he slipped the spare key from his pocket. The Doctor had stolen three keys from the Master's TARDIS. The Master had gotten one of them back after that trip to the planet Uxarieus, but the Doctor still had the other two and he had kept them ever since.
The Doctor opened the door and got inside. He had been inside the Master's TARDIS before, and after scanning for any obvious traps, he went to the console and began examining the controls. Once he was satisfied, the Doctor opened his pocket and took out a small piece of hair he had taken from the Master, and overrode whatever security the Master had set up before he ran his hands along the consoles, smiling at the immaculate layout.
Setting the controls for the 51st century, the Doctor engaged the drive units.
X
The Master's TARDIS materialised.
The Doctor stepped out of the time machine, absently ignoring the disguise of the shell as he looked around the storage room. He had needed to materialise the TARDIS in a clever little feat of simply jumping into space before the temporal scrambling systems used by the Time Agency were activated before he arrived at the right time.
He had arrived in the 51st century in the time travel storage facility in the Time Agency's Headquarters. The Doctor looked around, seeing shelves stacked with boxes containing all manner of time travel technology. Some of them were likely weapons of mass destruction which the Agency removed for the security of the timelines. If people were truly gullible to believe that, they deserved a medical examination.
The Time Agency were not a pleasant organisation, and indeed they were the epitome of the reason why the Time Lords insisted that others should have no time travel, no matter how careful they were. They were the perfect example of a conspiracy theorist's desire; the Agency were full of corrupt people who relished the power their government gave them. The fact they had access to weapons and time travel technology made them even better. The Time Agency did not care about sentient life or decency, and their lack of care towards the Laws of Time was worrying. The Time Lords had spent a lot of time dealing with the damage they had caused. Paradoxes, alternate timelines, meddling in history. It never ended.
The Doctor wished he had the time to really deal with them, but he didn't. He was on a fixed schedule as it was. He had just wanted to get in and leave as quickly as possible. They would likely pick him up in a moment if they were paranoid enough, and he wouldn't have time to get back to the TARDIS -
In that instant, the Doctor remembered the Master's TARDIS could disguise itself, and he turned and saw that the Master's TARDIS had disguised itself as a very big atomic bomb. The Doctor rolled his eyes, wondering if the Master's personality had given the TARDIS a rudimentary sense of humour.
The Doctor looked around and he quickly found a box full of vortex manipulators. Opening the box, he examined the manipulators. They were crude, primitive time machines, but they were still effective and would do for his plans. He picked up the box and took it to the doorway of the Master's TARDIS and pushed it in before he decided to quickly look around the facility to see what else the Agency had taken custody of.
They had collected/confiscated/stolen - there was likely no difference - a Dalek time machine, a small Chronodyne generator, a Vaspan Space-Time Stamp, Time-Space visualisers in differing sizes like the massive thing the Doctor had in the TARDIS to one the size of a pocket watch, an Apalapucian time glass which he recognised after visiting their world.
In other parts of the facility, isolated by forcefields and heaven alone knew what else, the Time Agency had in their possession a futuristic-looking tank, a very large collection of cannons and bazooka-like weapons, but the Doctor could feel and see they were wrong. After a few minutes of looking around, the Doctor decided he had outstayed his welcome.
On his way back to the TARDIS, he stopped when he saw something that caught his eye.
A Time Ring.
An advanced one, by the look of it. The Doctor had first encountered the technology while he had been on Gallifrey before he had been exiled. The Time Ring was a fairly straightforward piece of technology - you put it on, focused on the place you wished to go, and a time corridor would send you there. Other models were more restrictive; one-way trips, two or three-way trips at most, under the control of the one who'd programmed it in the first place. They were essentially TARDISes in miniature, bracelet form.
One look confirmed it was a more advanced model than the ones he had seen.
The Doctor wondered how the Time Agency had gotten hold of it for a moment before he remembered this was Time Lord technology, and it should not be here. Scanning the case, the Doctor found it had connections to the mainframe. He would have to open it in the safety of the TARDIS. Grabbing the box, the Doctor flinched in surprise when an alarm began blaring. A door opened just as he began running towards the Master's TARDIS.
"STOP!" The Time Agent bellowed.
The Doctor didn't stop.
He zigzagged through the facility, aware the Time Agent was right behind him. The Doctor, knowing that Time Agents were genetically enhanced to be stronger and faster, put a bit more speed on. He was relieved when he got back to the Master's TARDIS.
Kicking the vortex manipulator boxes out of the way deep into the console room, the Doctor quickly shut the door and dematerialised, setting the coordinates to return to Devil's End in the 20th century. He performed another hop to get past the scrambling systems after setting up a shockwave in the vortex to prevent the Time Agency from chasing him.
Once he was safe in the vortex, the Doctor got to work opening the boxes he had stolen. After emptying the vortex manipulators out, he changed to the Time Ring. The security system activated but it didn't do anything and so it was safe for him to throw the boxes into the vortex after opening the doors up.
X
The Master's TARDIS landed back in Devil's End, the chameleon circuit disguising itself as the Stone Altar yet again. The Doctor opened the door and stepped back out. Leaving the cavern, he went back out into the village. The vortex manipulators and the Time Ring were all in his pockets, their dimensionally transcendental nature meaning he could carry them without any problem.
The Doctor had been tempted to leave Earth after leaving the 51st century. But he had decided to return since he knew UNIT still needed him. And besides, he could slip away from time to time and make his way back.
