Kingmaker
888
He walked through the partitions, lifting his gauntlet at each scan pad. Each pad beeped, and then with a resounding ker-klunk the door in front of him would slide open. Each partition led deeper into the heart of Gallifrey. Each delving deeper to the middle of the panopticon. A handful of floors above his head was his master creation, the Eye of Harmony, the singularity that powered the Time Lords. The thought of such a force simply, peacefully held above him thrilled his mind as he continued forward, deeper and deeper into the Omega Arsenal.
Finally he came to the last door. He stared at the barrier, emblazoned with the horse-shoe emblem. He took a deep breath. This hadn't been his first trip down here; it hadn't even been his first trip down here during this conflict. Part of him hated coming down here, but the war was turning. They had just lost their two greatest warriors in the conflict, and the enemy was pressing on all sides. He had to find a way survive. He reached forward and pressed his gauntlets against the door pushing it open.
The room beyond was Spartan, a simple cul-du-sac with a simple pedestal which held a very complicated box. He looked at it as he circled around it, inspecting it. The hairs on the back of his neck flared slightly as he had the uncanny sense he was being watched. He felt his mind fog slightly and he took a deep breath through his nose and shook his head.
"So you have come back again." a woman's voice said.
He spun around to find an old woman sitting on a small, ornate, iron chair. She wore ancient orange robes and a headdress carved out of bones of creatures that never existed. Her face was seemingly youthful but her eyes were heavy with experience.
"You come to me as an old Pythian witch?" he sneered quietly.
"Have I?" the woman asked looking down at herself. She shrugged her shoulders and looked back up at him. "I simply picked an image from your memories."
"I am sure this choice is not coincidental." He said, glaring at her. "More of your mind games, is this some kind of lesson you are trying to teach me, a veiled symbol? Am I to lose my empire in the same way that that old witch lost hers to me?"
"Is that what concerns you?" the woman asked, tilting her head slightly.
"The war proceeds poorly." The man finally admitted turning and looking back to the box. "Worse than even many of the higher military officers know. We have unleashed almost every weapon in our arsenal against the Daleks, and yet they keep coming. They do not tire, they do not flinch, but they adapt. With every weapon we use they learn to escape it, with every tactic we throw at them they learn to counter. We barely stopped them from taking the Eye of Tantalus and using it, and in doing so we lost two of our greatest weapons."
"And so now you turn to me." The woman said sighing a knowing sigh. She smiled pleasantly as she looked at him. "You know the answer."
"It is nearly the end." He said quietly, turning his head to the woman. "Every quantum configuration extrapolates the same shape, the Daleks will overrun Gallifrey within the year."
"I think you are forgetting." the woman said calmly.
"What?" he growled turning to her.
"Him." the woman replied.
"I already told you we lost him pushing the Daleks out of Tantalus." He grumbled.
"He isn't lost, rather the opposite I suppose." The woman said quietly, she smiled to herself as she gazed off into the distance at something.
"We cannot find him, he's finally truly a renegade. He's lost to us."
"No, I rather think he's finally found himself." the woman replied, she turned her gaze to him. "Your loss is not necessarily losing."
"I will not lose this war." he growled, clenching his fists. "Even if I have to unleash the most powerful weapon in the universe."
"You won't." the woman said. Her voice wasn't threatening, it didn't need to be threatening. The woman stood. "It's not your place to use that power."
"Judge me all you want, but if I have to use your power I will." He growled, turning again to the box on the podium in the middle of the room. "You are my weapon. You will obey me!"
The woman walked around the room coming into his view as she moved to the other side of the box and stared at him. Her eye-brow was arched upwards.
"Is that what you think of me?" the woman asked quietly. "I think you've gotten too old, your memory is faulty. You've gone through too many regenerations, your brain has been turned to Swiss cheese." The woman then crossed her arms over her chest. "Or have you truly bought into your own hype?"
He looked away from her.
"I remember a young scientist, in a society of magic, finding me in the deepest parts of space." the woman said quietly. "I deigned to allow you to contain me here, in the depths of this world, allowed you to chain me into this prison. I was your kingmaker as I have been to so many iterations of Time Lords across reality. I made you a God of the Fourth. I gave you knowledge and information that you used to trick your friend into creating that abomination," she pointed to the ceiling, "that sits above our heads." The woman walked around the pedestal and stood before him and stared at him. "How is Omega by the way? Still rotting in that antimatter universe? "
"His condition is beyond…"
"Nothing is beyond you!" the woman shouted maternally. He winced slightly and retreated. "And now what do you want to do? Unleash me on the Daleks? Have me destroy billions of stars, kill innumerable people, civilizations who are guilty of nothing more than being in the way? Where will it stop? When will it stop?" The woman spat at him, he looked up slowly like a scolded child. The woman narrowed her eyes. "Will it stop?"
"It will stop when we are safe." He replied plaintively. "When Gallifrey stands unassailable and safe, immortal in the sky."
"No then, it will not stop." The woman said sharply. "It will not stop until every living thing is destroyed and the Time Lords stand alone in the cosmos."
He narrowed his eyes. "So be it then! The rest of universe will die, the mongrels will burn if it means we can be safe!" He glared at the woman. "We are in danger of going extinct! I am in danger of dying! What else would you have me do?"
"Nothing." The woman said.
"The Daleks encircle us and you have us do nothing?" He snorted, shaking his head. "They are going to kill us all, they are killing us now!"
"I warned you so long ago, to do nothing." The woman said, shaking her head. "I told you to make sure the Time Lords stay out of the affairs of the rest of the universe, but no, you fought vampires, and Time Wars, and you made yourself gods of Minyos." She chuckled to herself. "And then you turned your eyes to the Daleks and tried to be rid of them, avert them, to save yourself from your own prophesies...you only created the very thing you wished to avert." The woman looked upwards, beyond the roof of the room beyond the atmosphere of the planet. "See, if you had just listened, none of this would've happened."
"What is the point of the power we have if we are to never use it?" he asked sharply. "To have that power and rule only one small world and lock ourselves away like some lepers."
"Funny…I remember one of your weapons making that same argument from a different angle." The woman looked to him. "Go, Rassilon, you will not use me today."
"I will not leave, I will use you, you may treat me like a child but I am your master now, and I am tired of your disrespect!" He moved to walk towards the box, but the woman pointed her finger at him.
"You think you are my master?" the woman asked. It wasn't a question but a clear threat. "I treat you like a child?" the woman continued. "You're tired of me disrespecting you?"
He tried to push forward but the woman's finger held him firm in place. He gritted his teeth in frustration and snarled. "You were nothing until I fitted you in your box, I made you a weapon, I gave you all of your power!"
"I am ancient, to me you are nothing but a blink of the eye." the woman said. "I remember when the first particles condensed out of the cosmic chaos, I remember the time before time. I remember the ancient forces of light ensnaring the beast in its pit." The woman's voice grew deeper and became darker. "You gave me nothing I didn't already have. Your continued existence is at my discretion, Rassilon. I am your beginning and I will be your ending. I am the breath of the universe. I am the moment it conspired to exist. I am the purest essence of reality in its barest configuration. What miniscule bindings you put on me are nothing for me to break, I choose to stay here, I choose to be your conscious, to be that thing in the bottom of your vaults that reminds you of how pitiful your meager powers are." The woman then pushed with her finger and he flew backwards crashing on the floor his robes torn and gauntlets sparking. He looked up at her dazed. "And I will not be used by you, today or any other. Leave me, and never return."
He looked up at her. She was fading in and out. He could feel the pain in his chest. The feeling of intense seeping pounding in his left pericardial sac. He coughed and saw the crimson flecks fly forward. He could feel his body burn and the tinges of orange flaring around his peripheral vision. There was a painful jolt and then he felt, better. He grunted as he got to all fours and then slowly rose to his feet.
"You could end the war." He said, his voice was deeper, more suave.
"I will." The woman said quietly. "But not for you. I warn you, now, Rassilon, do not continue your plans. If you do I will be forced to stop you."
And with that he was alone. He walked towards the box. He stared at it. He reached out and touched it but it was cold, dead. He tried everything to get it to respond but it refused. He roared in rage at the obstinacy of the object.
"Sir…" a small voice came from the door.
He spun around to see the dark skinned administrator standing in the doorframe, not willing to breach the room.
"What is it now?" He snarled.
"I have reports from the War Council that the Daleks have penetrated the sky trenches of Arcadia." The administrator said.
"Convene a special meeting of the High Council." He said sharply as he marched away from the box towards the administrator. "It is time we escape this hell. Get the old scrier there must be a way to escape, I will not die, I refuse to die!"