-8-
Gallifrey's First Time Lord.
Tecteun took a deep breath, and she held up the syringe. She walked over to the computer bank, slotted the syringe data ports to the readout, and let the computer analyse the results. She had programmed the computer herself, making certain that the computer took its time as it analysed the results.
To her relief, the solution inside worked.
She had done it, at last, after years of work, she had finally solved the riddle of splicing the genes that Thasia contained in her body, the genes of immortality. Ever since she had witnessed Thasia regenerating for the very first time, Tecteun had originally planned on simply studying the process.
Tecteun had been fascinated by her adoptive daughter in the past. She had spent a lot of her time and energy examining every single thread of DNA in her body from the moment she had found the girl on that barren planet, and she had failed to enter the wormhole the girl had stood underneath. It was just too small for her ship to pass through, and she had tried and done her best to pass through.
Tecteun had studied the girl regardless; she was telepathic, and she had two hearts and a binary vascular system, but beyond that, and an advanced brain, it was not until she had seen the girl regenerate the first time after falling over that cliff, Tecteun had not realised just how important she was.
At first, Tecteun had merely been interested in the girls's regenerative qualities. With each accidental death, it started, and she became more fascinated, but with fascination, she felt other emotions. Even Tecteun did not know for sure when it had begun, but she had grown obsessive, desiring her adoptive child's ability to regenerate, to be immortal. As she had seen the girl regenerate, passing through different regenerations and bodies - the early times were purely accidental occurrences, and she had been horrified, causing the girl pain, but as the years passed, Tecteun had lost a large portion of her love for the girl, and it was replaced by jealousy.
Jealousy for the girl who was able to retain her youth, passing through different bodies, able to change her appearance - like all women, Tecteun did often wish her appearance was different and she never liked ageing, and yet Thasia was able to avoid the ravages of time.
She knew how, too; thanks to her studies and knowledge of temporal physics, after encountering various temporal anomalies in the universe during her travels, and thanks to the improvements Thasia had made to her ships' sensor arrays (that was another reason for her jealousy; her adoptive daughter had an instinctive knowledge and awareness of time), Tecteun knew that every time Thasia regenerated, her body 'jumped' into a body which was from a potential timeline where she would have been born male or female, young, old, fat, thin, tall, short, dark-skinned, light-skinned, it didn't matter. Her power over regeneration was envious.
After her jealousy poisoned her, Tecteun began taking delight in hearing her adoptive child scream in agony, and she had even found she had a sadistic streak whenever the little brat looked beggingly at her, pleading with her to stop torturing and hurting her. The times when the little brat tried to escape, she enjoyed putting her into her place.
But now it was all coming into place; Tecteun had spent years examining the regenerative DNA strain, but she had studied the genetics and the physics behind the process. And now she was about to splice it into herself.
Tecteun flinched as she walked to the couch. Her body was falling apart; over the years, her body had developed acute arthritis and many other age-related problems with her health.
She sat down on the couch, sighing with delight as she rested on the couch.
But this was not the time to rest; Tecteun raised the syringe. This was a momentous day in the history of Gallifrey.
But as she was about to press the syringe into her neck, Tecteun hesitated, but only for a moment. She knew, if this failed, she would die. But a twinge of her arthritis made her inject the solution into her body.
Tecteun flinched, the pain began burning through her body, and she saw her body starting to glow…
When the surge of pain and the regeneration was over, Tecteun took a deep breath and took stock of her new body. Quickly she realised she had changed her gender, and as she/he, took a deep breath, Tecteun took a moment to rest before standing up. He was taller, he realised, stronger, more limber than his original body.
As he walked through the laboratory, Tecteun took a deep breath, feeling that his new chest felt odd. Putting his hands to his chest, he realised his heartfelt odd; he picked up a scanner, ran a check, and saw the results and his eyes popped out. He now had two hearts in his chest.
Just like Thasia.
Tecteun walked into the scanning booth, and subjected himself to a bio-scan, and compared the readings to everything recorded about Thasia. The bio-scanning booth was a new addition to the lab, it was designed to study everything; every atom, molecule, every thread of DNA.
As he checked the results, Tecteun saw that his body now had a 97% match to Thasia.
He had two hearts. Yes, he'd realised that.
His brain had also changed slightly, becoming larger, with an extra lobe.
He now possessed an extra DNA strand to his genetic helix.
He now had two extra lungs, but the technology of the Gallifreyans was so primitive, he realised since there was still so much he wasn't seeing.
While Tecteun wondered just what other changes had been done to his body, realising that now his brain was processing more information than ever, and barely remembered facts which she had largely forgotten, came back as if they had never left, Tecteun wondered about the future when he realised something.
He could feel it, the turn of the planet, he could feel the rotation.
He could feel so many other things, and he stared at a fan idly before he realised its blades were slowing down, but instinctively he knew that they weren't slow. Something was happening with time. As the thought settled in Tecteun's mind, he realised to himself that there was a way of making Gallifrey great, greater than ever.
Regeneration was merely the beginning, now the Gallifreyan people could conquer more than space, and death.
Now, they could conquer time.