//------------------------------// // Are These the Weapons You Would Use? // Story: A Storm of Chaos: A Doctor Whooves Adventure // by Shotoman //------------------------------// Part 9 Are These the Weapons You Would Use?         “Ah, Doctor.” The Master's image on the screen lit up with a smile. “I do so love it when you call me by name.” The Doctor remained silent, and the Master shrugged. “So. How do I look? Do I look good? Tell me I look good. I look good, don't I?”         The Doctor's eyes narrowed and his glare intensified. At his silence, the Master continued rambling. “No? Nothing? No quip about not having the old beard? Nothing at all? Or are you going to just glare at me with that wrath-of-a-Time-Charger look?” Silence, again. The Master sighed. “Oh I do hope you're not trying to intimidate me with that. I mean, sexy though the look is, don't forget that I can be just as wrathful as you.” The Master screwed his face up in a steely-eyed glare that caused Derpy to shiver.         The moment ended when the Master belched, a stream of golden energy erupting from his mouth. “Sorry about that. Still cooking.” The newly regenerated Time Charger seemed to dance in place. “Oooh, I haven't felt this good after a regeneration in, oh, my whole life, really! This is just fantastic!”         “Why?” the Doctor asked.         The Master put a hoof to his ear. “I'm sorry, what was that?”         “Why? Why do all this? It has nothing to do with galactic power, immortality, or any of your usual goals! What do you get out of all this?”         The Master just shrugged. “What sort of rival would I be if I let you get a genocide under your belt and I didn't?” He grinned as the Doctor flinched. “Oooh, too soon?”         “You shut your face!” Derpy shouted, causing both Time Chargers to start.         “Oh, you're his new lackey aren't you?” the Master asked smugly. “Stay out of conversations you can't understand, little girl.”         Derpy narrowed her eyes. “Oh, you think I'm stupid, too, huh? Well, I know exactly what you're talking about. I know what the Doctor did to... end... the Time War. And I know he saved the universe doing it.”         The Master laughed. “I like this one. She's got spunk. Yes, I'm sure he made it out to be some big noble sacrifice for the sake of all who live or some such rubbish. But think on this for a moment: The Time Chargers are all gone, except for the two of us. He was just saving his own flank at the expense of his race. Not that I care—the Time Chargers were a stagnant group of bureaucratic pricks and the universe is probably better off without them. But make no mistake, sweetheart. The Doctor's no hero. He's just like me.”         To the Time Chargers' surprise, Derpy laughed. “Anypony who thinks that has worse vision than I do. Anypony,” she reiterated with a significant look at the Doctor. “Wherever the Doctor goes, he tries to do good. Usually he does. Sometimes he messes up. I know the feeling. Tell me something, 'Master,' what do you do when you're not running and hiding like a coward?”         The Master whooped his approval. “Oh, this one is a keeper, Doctor. Can I have her when you're done?”         “What do you want, Master?” the Doctor asked, his expression taking on a cool, dispassionate expression, though his eyes blazed with a fire that could likely cause Celestia herself to back away.         “He speaks!” the Master dramatically intoned.         The Doctor's speech and mannerisms remained coolly disinterested. “Is there a reason behind his little call of yours? I mean, if it's just going to be your typical megalomaniacal banter, then I think I speak for all three of us when I say we have more important things to be doing.” As if underscoring the point, a metallic clang erupted from the laboratory entrance, and the Doctor could hear the emotionless voices of the Cyberponies giving orders on the other side. “Perhaps you can just tell us your plans now and save us all a lot of trouble later.”         “Mmm-hmm, yes. We can all have a little tea party while I tell you all about my plans so you can ruin them later I don't think. I just called to let you know you had five, no, three minutes to get in your TARDIS and get off the planet.” The floor began rumbling and several of the monitors switched from the Master's grinning face to show the maginukes launching. “I couldn't help myself—two for the price of one!”         The Doctor seemed oddly unconcerned about both the launching missiles and the Cyberponies attempting to break into the lab. “Yes, good. Three minutes to leave. Thanks for that. I suppose we'll be seeing each other again, then. Oh, but I do have one thing to say before we part ways.”         “I'm all ears, but make it quick.”         “Derpy is not, nor has she ever been, my lackey.” His piece said, the Doctor withdrew his sonic screwdriver from his coat and shorted out the computer system, causing sparks to pop and flames to burst from the various bits of hardware. “Come along, Derpy. There's nothing left here.”         “Right behind you!”         A trio of Cyberponies burst through the door just in time to see a blue blur crash through the ceiling, leaving a perfectly square hole where it passed. ~DrW~         The Master practically danced down his secret tunnel. No one knew of this particular passage, not even his Old Hoof persona. It was well concealed—even the Cyberponies would have been hard pressed to find it, had they time. After all, there was a precious cargo hidden here. The Master could not explain why this regeneration came with such seemingly endless nervous energy. Usually Regeneration Trauma would kick in and leave him weak and pathetic for a day or two, but this... he'd never felt better in his life. The only thing casting a shadow on his mood was the drums beating in his head. But that had been going on for so much of his life he was able to, for a moment anyway, enjoy himself and his victory.         He stopped at the end of the tunnel, the wall rough cut and appearing no different from the rest of the cavern. He beat out three repetitions of the ever present drumbeat, and a glowing white crack appeared on one of the more prominent rocks. It slid open to reveal a door, and entering in, the Master returned to the familiar sterile white environment of his own TARDIS. His smile stretching even wider, the Master went to work on the controls. “It's good to be home.” ~DrW~         The little blue barn hovered over the planet Anthrax, its door open and the Doctor staring down upon planet below with that same cold fury he'd demonstrated with the Master. Even from up here, the explosions could be seen. A planet once full of life was now ending. Oh, the sphere itself would continue its sojourn around its sun, but it would be millennia at least before it would be able to sustain even the most rudimentary of life. “I'm sorry,” the Doctor muttered into the vacuum before turning around and closing the door behind him.         No sooner had he done so than a number of alarms blared, startling both him and Derpy. “What's going on?” the cross-eyed mare asked. “That's not an alarm I've ever heard.”         The Doctor's eyes widened. “It means there's another TARDIS in the vicinity taking off!” He rushed over to the console and checked the various readouts on the screen. “Can we track it?” he asked aloud even as his hooves began working the controls. “Excellent, excellent. Keep that tracker, we're following. Yes, yes, I know. Like shooting a bullet with another bullet while galloping blindfolded. I don't care! We are following.”         Derpy grunted as the TARDIS shook even harder than usual, depositing her on her flank. She looked upon her Doctor with concern as his dance around the console was fueled not by his usual unbounded glee, but anger. “I'm so thick!” he shouted to nopony in particular. “This wasn't even a wild goose chase. It was a trap. A blatantly obvious trap and I walked right into it like amateur. You'd think that almost a millennium of experience would make me wise to such things!”         “Doctor, what are you talking about?” Derpy asked.         “What I'm saying, Derpy, is our thief in Equestria never was the Master. It's someone else. Someone who knew I'd be after him, and used the Master as both bait and distraction. Well it worked, because I am distracted now.” The Doctor let loose an almost feral sounding growl. “Even with all the inconsistencies, even with all my doubts, I still walked right into it.”         Derpy continued to watch in concern as the Doctor abused the console. There were a lot of questions to ask, such as who would be able to play both the Doctor and the Master that way and how would they be able to find him now, but those questions would have to wait. One disaster at a time, as the Doctor would say if he was in a better mood. Right now, Derpy just watched in concern. She had never seen the Doctor get this well and truly furious—at least not since he regenerated into this form from the one with the big ears and leather jacket. In the back of her mind, Derpy felt a foreign mix of fear, anger, and sadness, which tapered off and left a feeling of uncertainty. “Yes,” she answered the TARDIS. “He is.” An extra dose of concern prickled in the back of her mind. “Yeah. I am too.” Worry creased her brow as she continued to watch as her best friend continued to abuse the console. “Stupid-face.” ~DrW~         Discord was concentrating on a switch on the other side of the room, willing it to move. He sighed in frustration. This was elementary. Even the most unskilled unicorn could do such a thing, yet he, the mighty personification of chaos itself, could not manage it. All because of this dampening field he was put in. He'd learned early on that he had access to some of his power within the field, but not enough to do anything to free himself, and his magical grip did not extend beyond the light. This, coupled with the various experiments he'd had to endure, were only making his mood fouler. More and more, Discord found himself imagining the terrible retribution he was going to pay on his 'host' as soon as he was free.         Speaking of... Discord stopped his experimenting as an out of sight door slid open, and the now familiar sound of halting, limping hoofsteps rang through the room. Discord watched with a certain interest as the pieces on the board began rearranging themselves—the most notable change being the inclusion of another earth pony to the mix. “So I take it another player has been added to your little game?” Discord asked.         “Another pawn, yes,” was his answer.         “Oooh, don't you just sound pleased as punch? Then I take it you've got your enemies right where you want them hmmm? Leaving you alone to do whatever it is you're doing with me for that much longer. Seriously, what is it you need? It's not my magical power, I know that. But it's something, with this whole over-thought and overwrought scheme of yours.”         “Why should I tell you anything?”         “I don't know. Maybe it'll make things go easier. I might be somewhat more cooperative, though we both know how unlikely that is. Perhaps because your ego has been pushing you to explain to someone the depths of your genius and I'm the only one around? I don't know, humor me.”         There was a pause, then, “Oh, very well. I guess there's no harm in it.” For the first time since Discord was brought here, his captor stepped into the light. Though Discord had already guessed from the sound of his captor's steps that he was being held by a pony, he was incensed to see that it was no alicorn that had him so utterly trapped. It was just a unicorn, and a decrepit one at that. His white coat had faded, and his head seemed bald, with a ridiculous red skull cap that matched an equally ridiculous red and gold robe which flared almost humorously large at the neck. What most struck Discord was that the left side of his captor's face was frozen in stone, the expression one of abject terror contrasting sharply with the shrewd expression of the normal flesh.         “What I want from you,” the strange unicorn said, “is nothing more than the secret of immortality itself.”