The Master.
What was there to be said about the man? The other side of The Doctors coin. The other thorn in the parliament of the Timelords side. The understudy. The engine of chaos that consumed Gallifrey more than once. But still never the Timelord of note.
Like The Doctor, The Master had travelled the stars. He had travelled with people – Timelords included. He had visited Earth, lived among the humans. He had saved lives and watched helplessly as others died – both in sacrifice and at the hands of others. A very similar man to The Doctor. A wildly different man to The Doctor.
And now, it appeared, he led Gallifrey. Not as Lord President, as Rassilon had spent many years – over many lives – doing, but as Lord Protector. A distinction that left an itch at the back of The Doctors head.
“How did you find it?” The Doctor asked, referring to their home world. “I hid it. From you, from the others.”
“You thought to keep these idiots on a leash?” The Master scoffed. The voice that came from this unassuming body made the words he spoke sound comical, almost non-threatening. “Timelords will do as Timelords please,” he continued. “After you transplanted them all here, they set back out to the stars. They grew new TARDIS’ and used them to explore as they did in ages long since past. You failed, Doctor,” he almost spat his words at this point. “As you always do.”
The Doctor stared at his old tormentor and sighed. “Failure is where I learn,” The Doctor said. “Something you never seem to do. Look at you, always the same. The seat of power inside the Citadel is all you ever wanted.”
“And here I am,” The Master said, spreading his arms out wide. “Finally.”
“And yet,” The Doctor mused, turning and looking back into the clear sky from where he came. “Not entirely a success, is it?”
The Master said nothing, but his clenched teeth spoke the story.
“As much as I need to hear about what youre doing here,” The Doctor said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and starting to walk inside the Citadel, “we have bigger things to worry about right now.”
“Oh yes,” The Master mocked. “Whenever the great Doctor shows up, everyone must drop everything and follow him. Tell me Doctor, what great plague descends upon us now? It cant be worse than the raids and attacks of these harpies.”
The Doctor turned and waited for the other to catch up. “Davros has returned,” he said simply. “And with him the end of Gallifrey and all of us included.”
“A time war,” The Master whispered in awe, despite himself. “And one of them survived?” he looked as disgusted at the idea as The Doctor felt. “How?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Thats the least important part of this,” he said. “This Dalek Caan heralds the start of something that I cannot see. A time war started by an armada of Daleks, heading for Gallifrey.”
“Meanwhile we are pestered across our territories by these harpies and you dont lift a finger to help.”
“The harpies are a pest across the universe,” The Doctor said. “They pop in and out of reality wherever they please. They are not exclusive to the Timelords.”
“I suppose that makes me feel a bit better,” The Master conceded. “But you still come with no solutions. Just more problems. More problems that you expect me to solve.”
“I dont expect anything from you, Master,” The Doctor said. “Your own actions have seen to that time and time again. What I need doesnt require your attention at all.”
“And what is it that you need?” The Master said.
“I need access to the vault,” The Doctor said calmly.
Gallifrey occupied a privileged place among the pantheon of what was known as Established Species, peoples who had ensured their own survival for many millions of years. It held influence over the others through its extensive knowledge of history and its ability to traverse time as well as space to fix egregious errors in said history. Gallifrey was always listened to and was able to, mostly, act on its own without input from the others.
The arrogance of the Timelords that this generated created conflict among the Lower Species – that is, the unestablished ones – and Gallifrey became a target for assassins, pirates, mercenaries and other assorted groups looking to make a name for themselves. Most of the time, these people never even made it to the Citadel.
The closest the Timelords ever came to total destruction was when one of their own turned on them. For years the Citadel burned as a civil war ran rampant through the streets. It was the creation of a heinous weapon that ended the war. A Timelord weapon that was used only once. A gun that removed every last ounce of regeneration energy from its target. A gun that killed a Timelord by making them use all of their regenerations at once.
To ensure it could never be used again, the gun was destroyed. Witnessed by representatives of the Existential Species, Gallifrey rejoined their parliament and once again took their rightful place. But they were forever tainted by their war and were never quite looked at the same way again.
“What does that story have to do with anything?” The Master asked as the two of them stalked through the corridors beneath the Citadel.
The Doctor shrugged. “Context?” he said. “I figured you might not know about the vault, so Id give you an idea of whats inside.”
“The gun was destroyed, you said so yourself.”
“Do you really think people like Rassilon and his ilk, who spent so much of their time posturing and peddling nonsense about Timelords across the universe would destroy something that had so much power? Would you if you were in their place?”
The Master thought for a moment and nodded. “Would you?”
The Doctor said nothing and the two of them continued down the corridor.
“What else is inside this vault?” The Master asked eventually. He asked innocently, but his eyes betrayed him.
Not far from Gallifrey a lone planet circled a sun well into its last billion years. On it lived a species that had once spread themselves across several systems. But, one by one, each colony had failed and they were always pushed back to this one planet. It happened so often that they decided to not try again and let whatever destiny had in store for them play its cards as it would.
On this day, heavy clouds hung across the sky and the people beneath them went about their lives without even looking up. They should have looked up.
The bottom of the clouds started roiling and shaking sending waves and ripples across their surface. As the ripples became stronger, more pronounced, a gentle hum played through the air. For most of the people below, this was the first sign something was wrong.
Gradually the hum became a scream and the air was full of noise and movement. People ran through the streets, trying to escape the noise. But it was far too late for them. As they all watched, the clouds disappeared as the air split open and giant cracks appeared letting through swarm after swarm of creatures that looked like giant insects.
As one, they landed on the ground and started using their strong front legs to tear apart buildings and roads and, if they were unlucky, people.
These are the harpies. They appear from nowhere, strip a planet of everything useful and leave to nowhere. They are a pest across the face of the universe and there is nothing that can stop them. Anyone who tries is chased and utterly destroyed. Anyone who tries to escape a planet that is under their control is chased and destroyed. Each time they appear, there are more of them.
The sole planet that orbited an old sun was wiped of its inhabitants in less than a single day. No one was left to hear the scream of the creatures as they disappeared back through their cracks in reality. No one saw the singular creature that was larger than the others which sat high in the sky. While the creatures who landed were green and looked like praying mantises, this one was red and resembled a cicada. It also did not make a single sound as it, too, departed, closing the cracks behind it.
“How did you know this place existed?” The Master asked as they wandered through the vault. It had taken several hours before they had found it and The Doctor had said it was a deliberate security measure. If you wanted to find the vault, you needed to prove it by looking for hours before you would find it.
“Did I not say?” The Doctor asked innocently.
“You may have failed to mention it,” The Master replied darkly.
“Oh, I helped to build it.”
“When? How old are you?”
“Just shy of 1300,” The Doctor said.
“But you said this was made during the civil war and that was,” The Master paused to count.
“18 thousand?” The Doctor hazarded a guess. “Unlike many Timelords,” he continued before The Master could interrupt. “Ive had an off the book TARDIS for a lot longer than people realise.”
“What if I use this gun on you? Right here, right now?” The Master asked.
The Doctor examined his new body in the reflection of something nearby, then turned to face The Master and examined him. “I would rate myself against you, I think.”
“You would fight me?”
“I dont want to, but it wouldnt be the first time and if I recall, I dont think you have ever bested me. But it doesnt matter anyway.”
“And why is that?” The Master said, raising a gun towards The Doctor.
“Well, for one,” The Doctor said using a single finger to move the gun away from his face. “That isnt the gun you think it is. That was taken from a Ghal freighter that came down on Monulous Prime when we were about 5 or 600. Wouldnt harm us, but would introduce a rot to the building we’re in. Bring it down on top of us in about an hour.”
“Hmph,” The Master said, putting the gun back on the shelf.
“Spreads like nothing else. Would have the planet turning to dust within the year. I dont think any of us want that. But secondly, and more importantly, we arent here for the gun, which is across the other side of this complex anyway. You can go off and look for it if you want, but are you sure you can find your way out of here?”
“What are you here for then?” The Master asked, his impatience rising.
“We have two problems we need to face head on,” The Doctor said, grabbing what looked like a Judoon handheld communicator and stuffing it into his pocket before continuing. “The harpies, but we cant do much about them until we learn how they travel and where theyre from. But the Daleks, those we can do something about.”
The Doctor stopped before a large plinth in the middle of the vault. On it stood a glass jar filled with a slight green liquid. Inside it, suspended with its eye closed, was the biological component of a Dalek.