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English
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Published:
2021-12-25
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2,167
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1/1
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i can't talk right now, i'm doing hot girl shit

Summary:

The old queen is dead. Long live the queen.

Notes:

Another fic with a stupid name that's been sitting in my gdrive that I just need to post already. ngl, this was really fun to write, particularly trying to get 13's huh huh hehehe huh into more of a razor edge.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The new body is odd for several reasons.

One, she's blonde . She looks like the Doctor's first regeneration, and while she doesn't hate the hair colour, it really isn't her usual style. Dark eyebrows, though, so maybe it will grow out black—like she likes it.

Two, she's still a woman, obviously, but this body is... different. Missy was elegance and femininity. This body feels much more butch. Not exceedingly so: she likes how pretty she is and wants to stay that way. This face has a wonderful shape. The squarer jaw makes her look cute and innocent rather than sexy, and she loves the idea of being poison in a pretty, pretty flower. Already, plots and schemes fill her mind, using her ingenue innocence against anyone foolish enough to miss the viper underneath.

And—quick clarification for the corner kids—she certainly isn't Missy or, god forbid, Mistress anymore. She is the Master. All will obey her.

Three, if she has to wear this goddamned corset for another second, she will murder someone. Perhaps herself again. Why the hell did she ever think this damn thing was comfortable.

Four—or, one could argue, another digression—her boobs are smaller. Perhaps that's why the corset isn't as lovely anymore.

Right. Well. Off this stupid fucking ship and straight to a boutique. She absolutely needs a new outfit for a new her, and this glorified coffin isn't going to get her anywhere. Perhaps she'll be able to get to the Doctor's TARDIS before he's done failing to save those humans? Though it might be challenging to convince the TARDIS to let her pilot her again, she's still salty about the whole paradox-in-a-box thing. And, considering that body is dying at the bottom of the ship, the Doctor's TARDIS will be reminded enough by his psychic signature that she won't go easy on the Master, new face or not.

She could steal her TARDIS from herself, but stable time loops, blah blah, boring.

She sighs, folding her arms and chewing on her bottom lip. For some god-forsaken reason, the ship's doors are hidden by perception filters in an aspirational recreation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. She starts walking in one direction. She'll hit a wall eventually, probably, or find a proper escape route. No one would be stupid enough to build a ship this large with no way to evacuate in case of, well, she doesn't know, all the residents being turned into metal monsters hell-bent on killing and converting all of humanity.

Which is, to be fair, her fault, but she shouldn't have to face the consequences for it!

The Master's ankle cracks as she walks. It bloody hurts . She's getting too old or has died too many times. It's not as easy as when she was young. Not that it's all bad: she's pretty good at regenerating. She's much better at keeping her shit together and avoiding the death-drunk antics of her past lives, but her post-regeneration clarity comes at a cost. Her new legs, new height, and a new centre of mass have her stumbling just slightly.

Though, she supposes she's regenerated more than most, certainly more than the Doctor. This is her nineteenth or twentieth body if you only count the ones she got from actually regenerating and not body-hopping or resurrection rituals or combination body-hopping-resurrection rituals. She stopped counting after her first set of twelve, much like the Doctor stopped counting his age after one thousand. He's cute like that. Not keeping track doesn't stop them from being old as dirt.

How the fuck did the Doctor find that elevator again? Sonic-ing it or something? Pathetic. The Master isn't a snot brained monkey. A perception filter isn't going to stop her. In fact—

The Master reaches out with her mind to find projectors of psychic energy. The elevators throw up a signal, the Doctor is lying dead on the floor of his TARDIS, rest in fucking pieces and thanks for nothing, idiot. Couldn't even take the time to go and check to see if she was injured or needed help. Crackhead Lightning Boy was right; she doesn't need the Doctor.

Oh, and there's an evacuation ship not even a mile away. Sure would have been helpful to put the humans on one of these, ey Doc? Serves him right for abandoning her, again .

The Master struts to the evacuation ship. The heels Missy chose to wear are starting to aggravate her. She respects a commitment to an aesthetic but, well. New body, new her. She wants to wash away Missy's misguided mess and find something she really loves. She's leaning heavily towards sensible shoes, perhaps a lovely pair of steel-toed boots. Certainly, nothing that slides around and digs into her feet like these. The Master debates removing them. Is it worse for her feet to be covered in dirt or blistered less than an hour into her body? Probably the dirt, at least the regeneration energy will heal the blister. She unhappily trudges on.

The Master knows that she's in the right place when a quartet of Cybermen magically appear before her.

"I've had a really shit day," the Master says. She poses, one hand on her hip jutting out. "So," she makes a shoo-ing gesture.

"We. Will. Not. Move. You. Will. Be. Converted," one of the Cybermen announces. Ugh , typical. The Master forgot the Doctor modified the Cyberman's definition of humanity to include two-hearted beings. Incredibly annoying. She runs her hand through her hair, pushing it back.

"Well, that's a shame. I'd certainly hate to disembowel you. Do you even have bowels, or is it more of a mush— shit !" the Master tries to threaten, but it seems whatever the hell the Doctor was planning paid off. A shockwave blast knocks her over and vaporises the Cybermen. Even with her recent regeneration, her body is struggling to heal. She releases a primal yell.

"Doctor, if I have to bloody regenerate again, I will fucking kill you!" the Master shouts at nothing. The shockwave is over as fast as it started. She flips herself onto her back. God, she'd just fucking lay here if she could, but she's old enough to know that's Death talking. She cries out again in pain and frustration and bloody pain and jumps to her feet. The Cybermen that she had just been threatening her are dead on the ground. She kicks one of their heads, sending it flying. The Master grabs another, holding it under her arm and unhooks the umbrella from her dress. She presses a button to send a wave of sonic energy and laughs. How absolutely stupid could she be? Ten minutes of attention and sex, and she acts like this? God, what had she told poor dead Bill—that the Time Lords were above those primal impulses? Maybe the boring ones were, but certainly not her.

But, these were mistakes she was not going to make again. So the Master sonics the escape hatch and plants the umbrella in the ground, walking away without looking back. The old queen is dead. Long live the queen.

The Master climbs into the escape hatch. The newly destroyed pastoral paradise fades into a rudimentary ship. She slides into the driver's seat and realises how short she is this go around. She's always been small no matter the regeneration, but is it too much to hope that she'll clear six-foot-one eventually? The ship's controls look like a children's toy, but she grits her teeth and bears it, more focused on escaping the gravitational pull of the black hole behind her. In her youth, there were times when she wouldn't bat an eye being this close to one, but she had better equipment back then. And those times were before she found herself in one, so don't say she doesn't learn better.

Her ship pulls against the black hole's gravity field, and she feels herself burning out and pulling backwards, if only slightly. It would really, really suck if she burnt the engines out, but dying in a black hole sucks more. She pulls open one of the panels under her seat. This ship is a fucking chassis around a sorry excuse for a cockpit, but that might be a good thing; if she can reach the governor—

Fuck yes. The Master damn near loses her hand pulling it off, but without the part restricting the engine's rotary speed, the crankshaft spins faster than her eyes care to track. Somehow, this tiny piece of shit ship starts to beat the black hole's pull. Other, she's fucking good!

The further away she gets from the star, the easier it is for her ship to fly away. Eventually, it rattles with the termination shock of leaving the black hole's immediate sphere of influence, and the Master quickly enters a safer orbit around the star, pulling the engines down to a normal level, steadying herself and the ship. A quick check of the navigation systems shows she's in the Abell cluster. There's a pleasure barge she knows should be somewhere close by if she can intercept it during its orbit. 

Using the black hole's gravity as a benefit (for once), the Master turns off the thrusters to let her ship be propelled by pure rotational energy. Then, once she's going fast enough, the perfect amount of thrust to send her shooting off to the interception point. It's a practised manoeuvre from her childhood, but it feels great every time. The escape pod rattles at every stage. There's a chance it'll tear apart, but that only sends the Master's hearts beating more vigorously. She feels alive for the first time in a long time.

 

Other than the first manoeuvre to artificially increase her speed, the next week drags on. There's a small stash of rations that are rancid enough the Master contemplates tossing them into space. She lasts a day until the energy expended from regeneration catches up with her, and she eats all of them at once. The rest of the week is spent ignoring hunger pangs, laying back in the pilot's seat with her feet on the dash, willing time to move a little faster. When the transceiver pings, she almost ignores it as a hallucination before realising a rescue ship found her. She presses the comms button with the heel of her foot.

The radio crackles to life. "This is Uniform-Hotel-Oscar-One-Nine-Six-Three, we are a rescue ship from the Klefri Consortium. Please respond with status," someone on the other side of the line says. The Master smiles, excited to test her theory on this new body's inherent believability.

"Umm, hi, yeah?" She starts, trying to find a voice that works for this situation, "Sorry, I'm—I just," the Master stutters, contorting her face into a scared little girl's. "I thought I was going to die out here," she whispers, terrified.

"You're gonna be ok, dear," another voice says, this one much warmer and inviting, "Do you know how to turn on your emergency beacon?" If the Master turns on the beacon, there's a chance, no matter how slim, that the Doctor will show up. This is an unacceptable risk.

"Umm, maybe? I think it might be broken. Sorry! I don't know too much about spacecraft," the Master lies. The woman on the other end of the line coos.

"No worries, darling, just stay where you are and don't touch anything. What's your name dear?" the woman asks. The Master doesn't panic, but she does have to think quick.

"Oh, uhh,"

Missy? Absolutely not. Master, Tasmer, Ramset—no, those all suck. What had she said? Uhh?

"Olivia," she settles. Not her best work, but it'll do.

"Ok, Olivia. You're doing very good," the woman says. The Master bristles at the condescension but remains the clueless evacuee. Hmm. She should probably put the ship back together if she wants to sell this. The woman continues, "Just stay right where you are. We're gonna have someone come over and pick you up."

"Uhh, alright," the Master says, letting her voice rise higher, trembles of fear in her voice. Meanwhile, she's undoing the modifications she made to the ship, shoving bits and pieces into their original locations. Ish . If anyone asks, she'll say she hit an asteroid. She smashes the ship logs before anyone tries to verify her story.

Quick look in the mirror doesn't put her in great condition in the first place, but she musses up her hair a little bit more. She'd abandoned Missy's clothing in favour of an utterly unflattering jumpsuit she expects once belonged to a janitor, perhaps. Wearing it makes her feel terrible, but it's a better disguise than what she had before—and fits better too. She comforts herself with the thought of visiting her favourite clothiers once she finds her way to a reasonable solar system.

She sits herself underneath a panel of now-broken knobs and buttons and waits for the poor idiots coming to rescue her.

 

Notes:

happy crisis