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Chapter 2

It was almost a week before Rassilon pushed them both out into the War.

They spent the week talking, the Master trying to catch up on what he had missed, both of the War and the Doctor's life.

The Doctor occasionally tried to ask about how the Master had ended up in the TARDIS but the Master just shrugged and told him it was a long story.

It was.

A long story he never intended to tell.

He'd taken care of it and the Doctor would never need to know how bad things could have been.

Everything was going pretty well, overall. There were adjustments to be made, certainly. But they started to settle into a routine. And Daleks started to die faster on all fronts.

The Doctor and the Master made a very effective team, as they always had, whenever circumstances dictated the need for an alliance.

Then, one day, the Doctor was called away and the Master stayed behind in the TARDIS, watching television.

There was a knock at the door.

He ignored it. People were always coming to bug the Doctor about War-related stuff. But he worked on his own schedule, as the Doctor always had.

The knocking came again.

Knock knock knock knock.

The Master rolled his eyes and got up to answer the door.

He glared up at the random guard standing outside. "The Doctor's not here," he said.

"I've actually been sent for you, Lord Master," the man responded somewhat timidly.

"Oh, really?" The Master crossed his arms with a self-satisfied smirk and leaned against the doorframe of the TARDIS. For once, someone had come for him. He'd make sure the Doctor heard about that later. "Sent by whom?"

"President Rassilon, sir," the guard said.

The President himself. That was flattering.

"Don't call me sir..." the Master laughed. "I'm not the Doctor." People calling the Doctor sir was endlessly funny.

They should all be calling him idiot.

Maybe that could be his new name, since he apparently refused to be the Doctor anymore.

Like he had a choice.

The Master had been calling him Doctor for most of their lives. The Doctor didn't get to unceremoniously change that now.

He made a mental note to bring that up again with the Doctor later. But for now, he apparently had an important meeting to get to.

"Be right back," he said to the TARDIS.

'Wait for the Doctor, Little One,' she responded. She sounded sad.

The Master thought about his last audience with Rassilon, his instructions to come when summoned.

Did she think he couldn't manage on his own?

He didn't need the Doctor just to have a conversation.

"I can take care of myself," he thought dismissively to the TARDIS.

The lights blinked and there was an unhappy whir.

The Master ignored it.

"Lead the way," he said to the guard.

As they made their way through the halls of the Capitol, the Master noticed the guard staring at him.

"What?" the Master asked finally.

He was getting used to people reacting strangely to his current body.

"Are you really him? The Master?" the guard asked uncertainly.

The Master smirked. "I am, yes. You've heard of me, then?" he preened.

"People talk," the guard replied.

"And what do they say?" the Master asked, happy to hear any stories about himself.

"That you can't be killed. That the High Council themselves tried, many times. That you deposed them as punishment. That you were the finest agent the CIA ever had, before you became a renegade." He glanced at the Master sideways. "That you can control anyone just by looking at them."

The Master stopped and turned his blue eyes on the guard. "Looking for a demonstration?" he asked mischievously.

The guard glanced away hurriedly. "No! No, thanks."

The Master snickered and kept walking.

"So, how much of that is true?" the guard asked after a few moments.

The Master thought back over the list he'd heard. "Most of it, actually," he confirmed. They'd left out a lot of the good parts. And it was a bit reductive... The guard had said deposing the High Council as if that had been some quick, easy task. Like the Master had done it on a whim to pass a slow evening.

That had taken months of work. Planning and alliances and the imagination to accomplish what everyone else would have thought impossible.

And apparently everyone had assumed that his sole motivation had been revenge.

Well... That was for the best.

Let them underestimate his real motives. That had always worked in his favor in the past.

"You know, some people say you don't even exist," the guard added. "That you're just a legend, an antagonist invented to counter the Doctor's role as protagonist."

The Master made a face. "Well, that's slightly insulting..."

"I didn't say I thought that," the guard shrugged. "It's just what some people say."

"So I'm what... Some mythical anti-Doctor?" the Master asked critically. "Or like... A Negaverse Doctor?" He giggled. Nega-Doctor.

The guard paused thoughtfully. "I'm not familiar with the Negaverse," he said.

The Master laughed. "No, I don't suppose you would be. That's a little outside your area of expertise."

"I knew someone once who thought that you and the Doctor were the Guardians," the guard added.

"That's silly," the Master said, gazing up at his escort judgmentally. "So the Doctor sent himself to collect the Key To Time?" he asked. "Actually," he realized, "that does sound a bit like his usual nonsense."

The guard was staring down at him now, mouth agape. "The Key To Time is real?"

The Master giggled at his shock. People on Gallifrey knew nothing. It was delightfully easy to throw them off. "Oh, yes. Though I never got to see it myself."

"Incredible," the guard murmured, clearly stunned.

The Master frowned again, still annoyed. "But I am my own person, you know. These friends of yours, do they think I just disappear at the end of the Doctor's stories?" Another thought struck him, rather belatedly. "And why does the Doctor get to be the protagonist? From my perspective, maybe he's the antagonist." He glared at the guard, who seemed cowed by the Master's ranting tone. "I think your friends are telling the wrong stories," the Master informed him with a death glare.

They had arrived at the grand entrance to Rassilon's chambers. The Master gazed up at the towering black doors and hesitated, though he wasn't sure why.

"Some people also say that you can win the War," the guard said quietly.

The Master turned back to his escort, surprised. Did they really say that?

He appreciated their confidence but... He knew he wouldn't be the one to win.

But that was fine.

He could help.

And it was sure to be quite a show when it finally happened...

He planned to have a front-row seat when that day came.

"Is it true?" the guard asked, a desperate hope in his eyes. "Can we still win?"

The Master took a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. "I think so," he said seriously. "You can go back to your friends and tell them I said so," he winked. "Well. The ones who believe I exist."

The guard looked slightly abashed and opened the doors.

"Good luck staying alive," the Master said in a friendly tone.

"You too," the guard replied, seemingly unsure how to respond.

The Master waved him off with supreme arrogance. "I don't need luck," he said, mostly to himself.

Luck was for the people who had never learned to stack the odds in their favor.

For those who were foolish enough to play by other people's rules.

The Master preferred games where he already knew he would win before his opponents even knew they were playing.

He stepped into the darkness of Rassilon's audience chamber and the cold reached forward to embrace him eagerly.

So yes, that's a Darkwing Duck reference in the same conversation with Trial of a Timelord.