NOTE: And seven makes the end. Hope you enjoyed these despite the rough, unfinished nature. Thank you so much for reading!
The Master is standing over them, gloating, laughing over his final victory and Martha's perceived failure. He sees none of it, senses only the faintest of outside stimuli as the voices within him grow louder and louder. Every human, billions around the globe are all thinking and saying and believing the same thing: doctor, doctor, doctor. The word echoes in his skull and with it comes their power. Meagre little wisps of psychic energy that combined begin to form a torrent.
He looks up momentarily, panting, pleased on some level to note that the Master is still talking. Making some sort of speech. Good, he needs the time. There isn't enough power yet. Still too weak to do more than deactivate the tracking bracelet on his wrist.
He waits a minute more, but it's too late. The Master has tired of his expositions and is threatening to kill Martha. Can't let her die, no, no. Not here, not in here. Too close. Desperate, the Doctor stands up from his half-slumped position. This is it. Now or never. Never, never.
Martha is laughing. She knows what is happening.
"Koschei!" he yells. The word reverberates around the room and all eyes are on him now. There's power. He can feel himself radiating psychic energy, giving his body and eyes an eerie glow. There's not enough to do what he needs to do. The archangel threads are too sparse. But he has backup.
Whatever reply the Master might have uttered is lost in the sudden noise of TARDIS song. She diverts all power to their link, strengthening it, widening it, and depleting herself until there's nothing left. The glow in his vision changes from a pale blue to golden, as the human energies mix with vortex power. The bracelet explodes, causing cuts to his arm which heal immediately.
There is no sight left to him but psychic, and he can sense the power of the Master like a floodlight in a crowd of candleflames. He moves forward, destroying as he goes the interior of his own ship, her energy turned against her to deactivate the paradox. Toclafane all over the globe disappear, unseen, winking out of existence. Those in the room, too close and too embroiled in vortex energy to revert, he atomizes. By the time he reaches the steps where his captor stands there are no more abominations to be found anywhere on earth.
The Master is speaking again. What have you done, how are you doing this, no no no no. He cannot really hear him over the rush of energy, but he knows psychically what his counterpart is feeling. Through sightless, golden eyes he looks up at his old friend and raises a still-small hand out for the weapon he carries. A surrender, that's all he wants. Surrdender, I will help you.
A flash of rage takes him by surprise. Koschei yells, screams, an inarticulate exclamation of hate. Foiled again, always, always defeated in the end, no, no, this can't be how it ends, and suddenly a bolt of red plasma has hit the Doctor in the chest. He stumbles backwards, blinking even as the wounds heal themselves, and looks back up at Koschei. Why did you do that? I'm trying to help you.
"DIE!" the other Time Lord yells. Suddenly it's not just the plasma beam but a hail of bullets, as all of the hypnotized guards in the room turn their guns on their Master's enemy. It's too much, too much. The Doctor can't understand why this is happening. He can't think, doesn't know what to do except to stop the assault. The Master is controlling it. Stop the Master.
A bullet fails to be deflected off his energy shield and rips into his shoulder. He screams as the wound is repaired and suddenly nothing matters except that his is being hurt, and the one doing the hurting is right there. Swirls of vortex lift him and he charges the Master, pouring everything, everything he has into just stopping him, stop the bullets, stop the laser, stop the pain. He doesn't notice when his throat becomes raw. When the bruises he gave himself while tackling his enemy to the wall fail to heal. He's still screaming at the limp form in front of him, still pushing power with all his might in the direction of his tormentor, but nothing is moving. It's gone, all gone.
The screaming stops, his hands, shaking badly from muscle damage, fall to his sides as he drops to his knees. All he can hear are his own heaving breaths as he slowly, slowly reaches up to touch the face of the man in front of him. Temples, his temples! He shakily touches the psychic connector spots on the other Time Lord's face and holds his breath. Pleaseā¦
Nothing. The Master is dead, mind ripped apart by childish, unthinking rage.
The Doctor begins to shake. He falls heavily to sit on the cold floor, staring at his fallen enemy in horrified shock. Oh god, oh Rassillon he's killed him. The only other Time Lord in the whole universe and he's killed him.
In his head the TARDIS is receding, withdrawing into herself as she assesses the damage to her structures. Her song fades to barely a whisper, and for the first time since the Time War the Doctor finds himself facing the crushing, inexorable silence of his own mind. His shaking intensifies, enough that he thinks he might fall apart at any minute. No no no it's too quiet- there's nobody, nothing, he's alone...
The feel of a hand on his shoulder barely registers, every spark of energy and concentration he has left is straining at the edges of his telepathic field, instinctively searching for some kind of contact. Time Lords weren't meant for this- from birth to death they had been connected, intertwined in a vast mesh of psychic threads linking every member of the species to their fellows. Almost but not quite a hive mind, it was what he had been born into, felt as a constant soothing hum in the back of his mind for centuries. The psychic outcry of ten million minds dying in the last moments of the Time War had killed him also, just as it destroyed every other native of Gallifrey across the universe, but then he'd regenerated. Woken up to a silence more terrifying than any sound he'd ever heard. Only his TARDIS kept him going, one last telepathic thread tethering him to sanity.
Now he can barely hear her, and it's easy to imagine himself alone. He thinks he would probably be screaming if his body weren't in shock.
The hand on his shoulder has moved and something is leaning him back, away from the Master's corpse and into something soft and warm. For just a moment skin touches skin and he feels a spark of vortex energy. It's Jack. The immortal is holding him, quietly speaking words he has no hope of understanding without the TARDIS. It doesn't matter, though. That flow of vortex energy through Jack's being which had always so unnerved him is suddenly all he can focus on. A spark of connection in the dark. It's not telepathy but it's something. He presses himself as tightly to the human as he can and latches on to the energy like a lifeline. Still shaking, still in shock, but the silence is gone and he finally allows himself to break down.
