Chapter Text
He had already watched it several times, but the Master supposed one more time couldn't hurt.
The Master set the recording back to the beginning, hit play.
The recording was grainy, but clearly showed the Temerell energy core from up above, on the viewing deck. The shot wobbled and focused in on two people down below: a Temerellian and the Doctor.
Even with the poor colour quality of the recording, the Doctor looked pale. Shaken. There was a blankness in her eyes that heralded danger and the Temerellian had completely failed to see it.
She approached the energy core, movements slow, predatorial. The Master grinned. He loved this part the best, the anticipation of the storm...
She was saying something the audio couldn't make out, and for a moment everything was fine.
Ten the Temerellian reeled back, terrified and the Doctor just tapped his temple, sending him crumpling to the floor. Golden light began to surround her and as she rested her hand on the glass core, wisps of golden energy were pulled towards her, attracted like a magnet.
The glass cracked and she paused. He saw one final hesitation go through her, then anger possessed her like a maelstrom and she plunged her hand deep into the vortex of energy. The golden artron energy seized her, trying to take the Time Lord as its new home but she resisted, incredible pain on her face as she pulled it back, back, energy gathering around her in a massive sphere.
Then the Doctor slammed it all forward and her scream was so agonised and full of fury that it split the limited audio on the recording. It hurt the Master's eyes to look but he watched the exquisite anger on her face and golden fire in her eyes as the glass core was completely destroyed and others around him had been screaming and running.
Then the fires began.
The Master had been forced to retreat, but he made sure his last shot was of the Doctor, rising from the floor with golden light rippling from her, the terrifying Time Lord renegade.
Then the recording puttered out.
The Master shivered, immensely pleased he could relive the Oncoming Storm whenever he wanted.
Poor Doctor. She wasn't the only one who could weaponise incriminating material.
He adjusted the transmitter he had been working on, encoding his recording to go with it, and sent it out into deep space.
With it, a single message:
The Doctor has returned. Beware the Oncoming Storm
No, he didn't need to tell her friends a thing to win the game. The universe just needed a reminder who they were dealing with. No fresh start for her. No leaving it behind.
Because no matter what she did, this was her true nature. The least he could do was help her realise that.
After all, it was her the universe feared. When he went on a rampage, deep down most believed the Doctor would stop him. She always did.
But when the Oncoming Storm went on a rampage? Who existed that could stop her?
Part one: show her what she really was. Remind her.
Part two didn't even require his intervention, not really.
If he thought of what this new incarnation reminded him of when they first met, it would be sunshine. Sunshine and smiles and hope.
A far cry from the deep winter she had been before. No, the Scotsman had been wise. He had hidden the soft hearts all Doctors had under a grouchy exterior, holding even his travel companions at an arm's length. And even he had looked wounded, towards the end.
She had no such boundary. She held conversations easily, stuck around, blended in with humans the best she ever had. She showed her kindness freely, generally without the reserve or arrogance the others had had. The humans were drawn to follow her, accept her, even.
She could have the replacement family he saw she craved for.
And it would ruin her.
They would leave her, tired of her forever war, or get hurt or get killed, just like they always did. And she never learned.
She would be alone and crushed, and crushed worse than the others had been.
Because if the sunniest, most hopeful of them all couldn't keep a family together, who would?
Then he just had to wait for her to realise that she needed him as much as badly as he needed her. The mayflies might come and go; they were the cliffs of the world. Old and weathered but withstanding all trials.
There was a risk, of course, that she would withdraw to grieve as the others had. A risk she would retire for a time.
But he knew one thing for certain: she would never give up the fight. She would keep trying, foolishly, a one woman army well aware of her own strength, her power to reshape the universe.
She would come to see that the universe needed a guiding hand, and who better than herself?
So, part two: wait for things to go wrong. Because they always. Went. Wrong.
And then they would be together again. United, the unstoppable renegade Time Lords. Just as it had been when they were children.
Just as it always should be.