Soulforged

Chapter 6

-/-

The medbay had been decimated.

The Doctor had been expecting some damage, but considering The Mistress had been barely able to stand when he had left her, The Doctor was amazed by the sheer scale of the destruction before him. Well one thing was certain, before The Doctor let Missy leave the Tardis, he would insist that she use that brilliant mind of hers, to fix the equipment she had damaged...well if she left him capable of insisting anything, and then again she might just deliberately sabotage the repairs, so no, perhaps that wasn't the best idea.

Shivering at the thought of once more dying at his oldest friends hand, The Doctor stepped inside the room carefully, broken glass crunching under the sole of his sturdy leather boots.

"Missy?" The Doctor called out for her carefully, clearing his throat nervously, when there was no immediate answer.

The idea of The Mistress lying in wait somewhere amongst all this rubble, hiding for whatever purpose, made him uneasy. There was plenty in here that she could have fashioned into a weapon, or even drugs that in the right hands, and combination, would easily incapacitate a Time Lord. Now he was really nervous, and The Doctor forced himself, not to consciously think of it.

"Stop hiding Mistress." The Doctor conceded to use her formal name, and forced a measure of command into his voice.

It normally worked on his human companions, although he was under no illusions that it would do more than goad Missy into retaliating, the need for control was one of her base characteristics. It was one of the things they did have in common, but whilst The Doctor tried to control situations, to try, and ensure the best possible outcome for all involved, The Mistress sought control for its own sake. She had ever had since she was...

The Doctor wasn't sure, what had truly been the deciding factor, that had set her on this course; her exposure to the Untempered Schism, or her experiences of being powerless, in the face of Torvic's bullying.

The silence was mocking, and resisting the urge to mutter unfavourable names under his breath, The Doctor reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. Fine if she was going to act like a child, playing hide and seek, then The Doctor would have to be the adult here. Flicking the screwdriver on to the right setting, The Doctor slowly scanned the room, any moment now he either expected his screwdriver to start bleeping, or for Missy to suddenly launch herself at him.

Nothing...the room was free of any life sign, save his own, which either meant Missy was...

No she wasn't dead, regeneration sickness wasn't fatal, The Doctor was sure of that, well 90%, fine he was at least 75% sure of that. So that only left one other sensible possibility, The Mistress had escaped the medbay, and was currently loose somewhere on his Tardis. And if she somehow made it to the central console...well the repercussions didn't bear thinking about, for either himself, or the universe.

-/-

Cold and hot.

It shouldn't be possible to be both at once, but then The Mistress had always been one to spit in the face of convention. Her head felt like it was filled with burning lead, and was far too heavy to hold up, so Missy was grateful for the solid wall behind her. Closing her eyes, she tilted her face back into the cold spray, relishing the soothing chill of the water, as it rolled down her overheated flesh.

Regeneration sickness, by Rassilion, it was embarrassing, only children, and idiots like The Doctor, suffered from regeneration sickness. Anyone, who had any control over their regenerations, soon learned to manage the energy output, to avoid having to deal with the side effects of regeneration. At first she had wanted to deny it even to herself. After all The Doctor had just abandoned her in his medbay, like some unwanted stray, her child was dead, due to her own failure, and she was not going to compound that, by being all pathetic and sick as well.