Nyssa could hardly bear to look.
She tried to remain calm.
Adric's head was jammed between the neon pink crystals of the Time Rotor. The clear casing had been removed and the crystals lunged toward the ceiling with each pulse, clawing at the air. His silver eyes had been ripped out, bleeding oil and mucus into the heart of the time vessel. The skin of his face, what was left of it, was pale, the shade of the flesh of a fish that had been left to rot, limp in the sterile light of the console room. Veins of silver shot his cheek and neck as if someone had pumped his arteries with mercury. Loose flaps of his eyelids fluttered over the empty sockets as the rotor sighed up and down.
Nyssa had stepped into the familiar blue police box ahead of the Doctor, anxious to escape the hideous laboratory, but something caused her to pause, to look behind her, to see the Doctor's hand brush the back of her neck. There was a spark, like static, and then the Doctor was gone, replaced by her reflection that stood in the laboratory she had just left. Inches away; a world away. Nyssa was still in that strange moment of limbo that existed between the wooden exterior of the TARDIS, replete with flaking paint and stained with the grime of a thousand different worlds, and the crisp, chirpy interior of the console room. Something in the back of her head yelled at her then, screamed at her; the doors were closing, closing around her, threatening to trap her forever in this space between worlds. She thought she heard a voice in that instant, a flash on the edge of sound. It sounded a bit like Tegan, but it must have been her imagination. Instinct threw her backwards, cart wheeling into the Console Room.
And there it was. The sight that still filled her with horror and loathing.
It wore her father's face, but a younger one than any point that she had ever seen him wear in her life. Everything about him was the same, barring the demeanor. And the eyes.
"That wasn't the Doctor; who was it?" She asked the creature that had slaughtered her father and wore his body like a cheap suit.
The voice was slick and calming. Gentle. Deliberate. "A former companion of mine," the Master replied, flicking away at the switches." The doppelganger creature had returned shortly, bearing Adric's severed stump in its silver paws. The rest of the body still mimicked her, but the hands had gelled to metal, as if not wanting to soil her pink hands with the bloodied cyber head. It bowed its head as it handed the skull to its master before it leapt back into the station again, accompanied by the sound of blaster fire and cyber-screams. "Kamelion was wasted with the Doctor. Might as well give a hamster an assault rifle." She made herself look into those hateful eyes. "I know you won't believe me, but the Doctor sent me to rescue you."
Nyssa didn't believe him, but asked anyway. "Where is he?"
The Master glanced away from her then, a gesture very uncharacteristic for the heartless thing she knew him as. It was just a slight lowering of the head, that seemed to convey sadness, regret. It was a gesture Nyssa's father had used.
It shook her to the core.
"The Doctor won't be coming back. Ever."