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The Master watched as The Doctor and Adric
disappeared through the exit and completed they’re escape. With Adric
gone, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the city would
cease to exist. The block transfer computation had failed. Any moment
now, the false city, made up from the imagination of a juvenile to
destroy the newly-regenerated Doctor once and for all, will succumb to
nothingness. The Castrovalvans, however, were very real indeed, and
began to beat and claw at the Master with they’re might. His robes
ripping as the inhabitants tore at his being. The walls of the narrow
corridor they were in began to fold in on itself. There was precious
little time left.
"Let go of me. I, I can save you!" he pleaded desperately.
"If we are not real we have nothing to lose, man of evil" replied
Mergreave who had been holding The Master back to allow The Doctor and
his friends to escape. "Nothing can save you; nothing can save any of
us!", he added.
The Master tried desperately for the pocket of his torn robes. "If you
do not listen to me you will die for certain, we don’t have much time, I
can help. I can save us all, let me go and I shall use my TARDIS. Your
lives will be spared." said the Master, pleading once more, but with a
tinge of menace.
It was no use. The sound of the protesting Castrovalvans drowned out his
final pleas. He looked around him, taking the blows to his body and
paying more attention to the device he was reaching for in his tattered
pocket. He prayed that it was still there. An evil smile curled up the
side of his face as he found what he was looking for...
"Very well, if you won’t accept my offer to spare your lives, you will
beg for mercy as I watch you die!"
With all his might, The Master forced his arm away from Mergreave and
held the Tissue Compression Eliminator in his hand, turning the
mechanism’s top section anti-clockwise, widening its deadly range. With
one flick of a button, The Master aimed the weapon at the people who
blocked his path back to his TARDIS. The poor beings that were in the
line of fire burned up in front of the now stunned Castrovalvan’s eyes.
The unlucky dozen shrunk in size, they’re screams echoing in the crowded
corridor.
While the other Castrovalvan’s stood horrified, The Master made good his
escape, breaking the sturdy grip of Mergreave and fleeing the alleyway
just as it folded in on itself. He didn’t look back as he ran, but he
knew that time was nearly up.
As he barged the inhabitants of Castrovalva out of his way, he witnessed
they’re bodies dissolve into nothing, dividing like flour through a
sieve and then falling into the bleak darkness of non-existence, they’re
faces broken in silent screams. The Master’s face contorted in anguish.
Despite the bruises that began to swell on his body, he made it to the
Hall and sprinted to the relative safety of his TARDIS, which stood in
the form of a fireplace. He and his TARDIS were the last solid objects
within the fated walls of Castrovalva. Before The Master disappeared
inside his machine, he allowed himself a quick glimpse of the doomed
city. Panting, he managed to set the controls for de-materialization,
correcting the fault that had hampered his escape before. Within a few
seconds, The Master’s TARDIS was gone, and so was the impossible of
Castrovalva.
"Fools, thinking they could stop me!" The Master caught his breath and
leaned for a moment against the TARDIS doors. He regained his composure
and his breathing slowed down, slowly at first but not as heavy as when
the Castrovalvans had given chase. He shook his head to himself and
chuckled. After so many years of living like a shadow, paralysed and
broken, he had been reborn, but he felt just as inadequate as before.
The Master could feel a tide of rage flood through his body. With a cry,
he slammed his body forward and crashed his fists onto his console,
punching the metal instruments until his hands began to glow a bright
red. With every blow the frustration of failure grew ever stronger. He
had been defeated again. How many more times? He thought to himself. How
long would it be until he could truly defeat The Doctor? The time for
fun and games were now well and truly over.
"Next time Doctor, Next time I will end your life for good!"
The Master’s TARDIS jerked forward, throwing the renegade Time Lord to
the floor. He grappled for the controls. Something was not right. The
TARDIS continued to judder through the time vortex, the turbulence
shaking it so violently that The Master found it difficult to keep his
balance. Eventually he managed to grapple the co-ordinate controls and
search for a safe place to make an emergency landing. His eyes darted
over the display monitor on the console's scanner. His
machine was finding it difficult to manouevere in all the turbulence. It
was the aftershock from the destruction of Castrovalva that has caused a
disruption in the time space vortex, leaving a location of non-reality
and making his escape all the more difficult. The Master’s hands worked
quickly over the instruments after finding a safe location to
materialize at.
"Xeriphas!" He rolled his eyes and sighed. "It will have to do..."
With a flick of a switch The Master fell to the ground once again. The
turbulence died down steadily and soon, only the faint hum of the TARDIS
was audible inside the machine. For The Master, however, it was as
though there were another sound pre-occupying his mind. One he had kept
a secret from his greatest enemy and one that had haunted him ever since
he was a boy back on Gallifrey. The evil Time Lord from Gallifrey, lying
on his front with his arms outstretched, stared blankly into the
distance and drummed out a beat with his fingertips on the cold
metallic floor.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG...
© Copyright Hayden Gribble, Niki Hunter & Doctor Who Online, 2012.
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Written by:
Hayden Gribble
Artwork by:
Niki Hunter
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