Hope That Someone Gets My (The Deca)

[Deleted]

He leaned against the doors of his TARDIS, waiting rather impatiently. There was a glowing white cube tucked under his arm. The Doctor had received a message and coordinates to meet the others who received messages.

He stood by quietly, holding the cube up again and playing it. There was audio and there were visuals as well, his contained the image of a body in mid-regeneration.

"Let's here you again, hypercube." The Doctor spoke to it before holding it up so that it would play for him.

The Toymaker holds us.

That still sent a chill down his spine. The Doctor imagined that 'us' could only be two people. He stood back as the coordinates played, telling him to wait here, in the remains of Satellite Five, war torn and barely usable after the incident with the Daleks and the Bad Wolf.

"So then. Where are the rest of you? Whoever you are?"

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

The Meddler sat at his draftsman's table in his Museum of Impossible Things, working at the cube once more.

It hadn't found him directly, of course. No message cube could. He had no psychic signature for it to lock on to, and it was an impossibility to predict his future locations. And his TARDIS was effectively and efficiently stealthed. When there had been a Gallifrey, it had taken nearly a third of the resources of the CIA to track it through the Vortex at the best of times.

And so, the mysterious sender had simply launched it to Glaurijan. Ramachulainn had received it's secondary message - For the Meddler - and had held it for his next visit.

Three weeks later, he was still grappling with it. The thing was a fiendishly complex puzzle box. Layer upon layer of symbolic and mathematical and physical puzzles and traps unfolded as he studied it, testing every skill he'd ever mastered. And, with his children returned to the fledgling Academy, he'd devoted all of the last three weeks - saving only the times when his wife tore him away, insisting that he eat something, or spend time with her - to solving it.

And now he was on the last layer. The final puzzle. A single question.

What is your name?

That stopped him. He had no name. It had perished when he had, when he'd murdered himself in his own Loom. It was a thing that could not be spoken within the Spiral Politic. The very combination of syllables, linked to his identity, could not exist.

Oh, of a certainty he knew it still. And his TARDIS knew it. And, recently (as he reckoned things), the Dreamweaver had learned it. But it was like a black hole, a thing that could be extrapolated from the effect on the universe around it, but not directly observed.

What is your name?

"Meddler," he said.

No response.

"Robert Kenneth Goodall."

Nothing.

"Christopher Mesler. Robin Goodfellow."

Still nothing.

He went through them all. Every last alias he'd ever worn. Every epithet that had been hung on him. His title, again and again.

Nothing.

Finally, foolishly, he lifted the cube to his lips. Syllables were not formed. A name was not spoken.

The lock... opened.

Hearts beating fast, cold sweat beading on the back of his neck, he opened the cube.

The Hordes will rise again.

"Rod and Eye," he swore.

[Deleted]

The Rani in her second form was cradling the hypercube like a loomed Time Tot. She found herself singing to it gently; pausing for a moment to set it next to a series of jars within the depths of her lab containing various organs of species she had collected over the years. She cooed at the cube, snickering somewhat; dancing backward and clapping until her face made contact with it once more. "Boo".

Ten equals, working collectively.

It was a message, perhaps far more saner than her mind - but it was a message.

The Rani raised to full height. Her lips turned into a frown and she tapped at her chin. "Awkward moments like this deserve some sort of priority. After all..." Turning back to the cube; the Rani weighed out her options. "Ten. Ten!"

She began to chuckle.

"The irony is literally dripping from your very being. If I could only bottle it... of course. It has to be. It simply... ha. Has it really been that long, hmm?" She stroked the cube gently and thought for a moment. "This will do!"

Scurrying to her console, the Rani placed her finger on a panel when suddenly the Time Rotor's silver circles hissed to life. Her eyes burned with a hint of madness as the Rani giggled furiously.

"Take me to this curious sender my dear... take me to them..."

[Deleted]

In is toyroom.

What kind of message was that? Who would bother. Or at least till he saw the image of the Celestial Toymaker there. What in the world did this man want. It was still an amazing feat that this man was able to track the Master. Honestly, and JUST when he was about to try to brain wash a few renegade Daleks to help him conquer Earth in the past and alter history of the Earth. Again.

Taking his TARDIS to the coordinates he arrived. The Doctor of all people should begin to hear the sound and notice the rematerializing of another TARDIS right next to his. Only this time it was in the shape of an entertainment console. The frontof the entertainment console opened, and the Master stepped out wearing a leather jacket, black pants, black gloves, and a black collared buttoned shirt. He examined his surroundings but stopped and stared at the sight of the blue Police Box.

"Oh nooo," he whined. "It's just not fair!" He stomped his foot angrily. "The one time I fail to notice his TARDIS when rematerializing in an area!"

[Deleted]

"Oh, poor Master. Does the big bad Doctor scare you?"

Magnus, or as he started going by a long time ago, The War Chief, stepped out of the shadow. His uncloaked TARDIS blended into the dark walls easy enough. To be honest, he would've preferred not to be here at all. However, his message in the box had been very clear.

Millenia imprisoned.

Milli, as the War Chief had called her when they were young, was one of the only Time Ladies he'd ever gotten along with. Ushas, he supposed, could be agreeable now and then, but it was much easier to snark at her and expect a positive result than to be kind.

So, as far as he was concerned, he owed Millennia a debt of gratitude. He'd tear apart a cosmos or two to help her. And hell, he'd enjoy doing it. Now, where was he? Right, The Doctor and The Master. Grinning a bit, he spoke up.

"As soon as it said Millennia in my message, I figured you two chuckleheads would be here. How longs it been since we've seen each other? Four hundred? Five hundred years? More?"
-------------

"Actually, if you could even correctly count it based on all our respective timelines, the number might be too big to count," a suited, balding Time Lord answered. Drax had stepped out of his own TARDIS. He inspected the three Time Lords before saying, "You're all so young. If I'd gotten the memo about picking more a more attractive age, this wouldn't feel so awkward."

He paused, "Naturally, I lay the blame on you Magnus."
--------------

The War Chief rolled his eyes, "You know where you can shove all that blame?"

[Deleted]

Not one to make a grand entrance, Vansell simply walked in, apparently unnoticed while The War Chief made a spectacle of himself. More interesting to the former Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, Drax was apparently winding Magnus up for the sake of winding him up.

"Naturally, I lay the blame on you Magnus."

"You know where you can shove all that blame?"

"Gentlemen," Vansell finally cut in, "I think now may not be the proper time to start in fighting. Obviously we've all been called here today by hypercubes regarding our lost classmates. Perhaps, in their honor, we should try and respect one another?"

He looked to each of them. No one seemed to argue, "Now then. Let's do a roll call. It's been nearly six hundred years since I've seen any of you. And, as each of us can tell, we've all regenerated."

[Deleted]

The Doctor had been watching carefully. First, The Master arrived. Or, at least, who he assumed was The Master, at one point in his timeline. He'd still yet to figure out quite what to make of the other Master he'd met, the one who had no memory of falling back into the Time War with Rassilon. That was the major flaw in his story. However, the other Master had given him no trouble. It wasn't hard to choose which one was the more agreeable.

Then, The War Chief arrived, full of sarcasm as he always was. The Doctor had met him again recently, when he'd done The Doctor a favor and saved Sarah Jane Smith from a bunch of high tech Nazis led by a joke of a Time Lord criminal. He wondered if he still owed him a debt or not.

Drax entered, spinning The War Chief's patience up like an angry wind-up toy. The Doctor got a kick out of it, "You must be Drax. Good to see you again my friend." After Drax nodded, he reengaged The War Chief. The room's sarcasm levels were reaching an all time high when a voice interrupted them. This one, all business, mentioning perhaps calling role.

The Doctor squinted, trying to look past the man's face, "I don't believe it. Oh my giddy aunt, it's you Vansell. Well how about that. Let's see, who's missing? Well, there's The Meddler, and The Rani, oh and-"
--------

"And me," a voice called out. This one probably the meekest. Still being meek and a member of The Deca didn't mix, he simply hadn't been as boisterous or coolly confident as the others. Jelpax looked to all his old friends and said, "So then. Besides Vansell and myself. You all ran away and became infamous. I can't believe that every one of us survived the war."

[Deleted]

The Rani's TARDIS began to materialise between a tangled mess of wires and machinery. Her TARDIS seemed to mimic the form of an innocent filing cabinet; rather rusted yet locked. Eventually the Rani herself stepped out.

She dusted off her white coat and adjusted it so it was slightly more comfortable.
www.wallpaperextreme.com/Celebrities/Christina-Ricci/Christina-Ricci-31.JPG

"Well now, where or when am I; it defiantly appears to be a complicated mess involving such primitive technology..." She shuffled her way through the rubble when suddenly her hearts raced to the point where she grabbed at her chest. She ventured forward a few steps and perked her head around the corner of where the others had appeared to be becoming 'well acquainted'. As quickly as her head had appeared; she shot it backward and lowered her hand. That Doctor. It's all his doing, she thought with a sneer. She recognized his eyes. Swallowing her bile-like pride, The Rani wandered into the area where the others had gathered. Her eyes gazed into the ones that had arrived; recognizing each and every one of them. Slowly, she began to chuckle.

"The Homecoming Queen is here. Where's my crown?" She extended her arms.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

The Hordes will rise again.

The ancient engines of his Type 67 roared and groaned and - occassionally - hiccuped as he drove his TARDIS through the Vortex. He orbited the central console, tweaking and altering settings, wringing every last second of acceleration he could from the powerful but slow-moving capsule.

The Hordes will rise again.

After the fiasco in the Library - a fiasco that had left him permanently marked by the Vashta Nerada - he'd promised the Dreamweaver that they'd talk over any plans he had that were potentially deadly. And he'd kept that promise. But now..?

The Hordes will rise again.

Now there was deadly danger, regardless of what decision was made.

---

"The Homecoming Queen is here. Where's my crown?" She extended her arms.

"On the brow of a woman who escaped the Time War and flee to the Court of the Goblin King, my Lady the Rani."

It was the Meddler, of course, entering the room after her. He'd regenerated since the Time War - now a tall, handsome, clean-shaven man in a grey suit with an ivory and orichalcum cane, rather than the squat, scruffy figure he'd been - but he was still immediately recognizable. He was a ghost, a mere three-dimensional presence with no shadow visible in time, unseeable in the near past or the near future.

Eyes hidden behind dark glasses, he looked about the room. "This is... all of us? All of us, except poor lost Rallon and Millenia?" He gave a short, humorless laugh. "The last time we all gathered like this, Gallifrey burned."

He walked around the table, seeming to leap from instant to instant without leaving a temporal trace of his passage, and took a seat. With a dramatic gesture of his hand, a luminous crystal cube clattered like a die across the table.

The Hordes will rise again, the cube said, in the never-existant language of dead Gallifrey.

"And, it seems, our past still haunts us."

[Koschei]

"And, it seems, our past still haunts us."

"The rest of us, at least," added the Master. "I seem to recall that you cut your past away like a cancer."

Like the Meddler, he wore a grey suit. But the similarities stopped there. He was tall and lean, ebon-skinned and dark-haired, with mocking and predatory smile touching his lips. His fingers, the long supple fingers of a pianist, absently manipulated a crystal cube with the ease and finesse of a magician.

The Meddler shrugged, wordlessly acknowledging the justice of the Master's words.

"I doubt that a 'role-call' is actually needed, Vansell," he continued. "We know who we are. All Gallifrey knew who we are."

With the grace and ease of a politician, he began to circle the room. "Our beautiful and lethal Rani," he said with a shallow bow. "And I would ask for your hand that I might kiss it, except that I know the sort of things you might coat your knuckles with."

"Our dangerous and cunning War Chief." A clap on the shoulder. "Silver medalist in the annual 'coming back from the dead' competition."

"Our resourceful Drax, and Jelpax with his mask of respectablility and his unflagging aid in helping the rest of us cover our tracks." A friendly wave to each.

"The Meddler, self-made Grandfather Paradox and retrocausal mass-murderer." A mocking salute, earning a look of bored contempt from the Meddler.

"We all know you, of course, Vansell. Spy among spies, operator among operators." A wintery smile. "Never quite sure where your loyalties lay."

"The Doctor. Our devious mastermind." A pause. "And, these days, quite the ladies man."

Then he turned to the blonde in the leather jacket. "And finally, the Master! A fine figure of a Time Lord! The perfect blend of intelligence, savage cunning, forethought, and willingness to act." A pause, and a smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes. "And I'm sure that this copy of me has performed adequately as well."

(OOC: The Doctor never gets along with other versions of himself. Why should he be the only Time Lord with that issue?)

[Deleted]

The Master turned as the Warchief began addressing him. Before he could reply, let alone ask how this man knew him or even their past relation, more people seemed to appear. One person in particular, at the very least, was clearing things up for him on at least who everyone else in the room was.

He let out an audible scoff at the comment relating to the Rani. "It wouldn't be the first time she's done it."

He almost complimented the dark skinned man for how well he spoke the truth of him, or at least until he heard the man's last comment.

"Copy? Me?" he asked as he held his hands towards himself. "Now what would give you that idea. After all, I'm the one with the Laser Screwdriver," he said as he held up the little tool and waved it in his hand. He will admit however, this man's comments about the other members of the Deca were all true, and he was getting some memories back of the other members.

"And now that I think about it, going back over some old files in my own personal TARDIS...I do recall having made at least one copy of myself. Obviously I did too well of a job," he said studying the man. "Even my own genious seems to get the better of me, I suppose."

He turned to the Doctor and clapped his hands. "So Doctor! Would you care to elaborate as to why we are all here? Because personally, I was just about to alter Earth's history again using a few brainwashed renegade Daleks, so if we could hurry this up, I would like to get back to playtime with the lesser species of the universe."

[Deleted]

Chief was unamused by Drax's taunting, but before he had a chance to act on his threats, Vansell cut in, asking for a role call. He was about to announce himself when The Doctor cut in over him, getting a growl out of the War Chief. He hated to be interrupted.

Jelpax arrived not to long after, and Magnus resisted the urge to break his glasses for the hell of it. He was followed by who had to be The Meddler and then another man. One that didn't fit. He couldn't be Rallon, Rallon was part of the Toy Room now, or at least that's what The Doctor had them all believing.

Still, the man saved everyone's time by pointing out who was who. Claiming to be The Master. This hadn't sat well with the blonde, who also had a claim at being The Master. The War Chief looked around at everyone, The Doctor seemed to be the most disturbed.

"You," he started, pointing at the bow tied Time Lord, "You seem to know something about this. So, speak up, which Master is the real Master? I hate phonies. It makes me uneasy."
-----------

Jelpax held up a small black device, it looked like a blackberry, "Actually Magnus. I think they're both The Master." He checked his screen again, "Their not linked by time, but it appears that there's an odd flux in the blonde one's regeneration energy, like it's near a magnet of the same polarity." He shrugged, "We're looking at the same Time Lord, but, not the same Time Lord."

And yet still, The Doctor looked uneasy, like he knew something they didn't know.

[Deleted]

The Master settled Vansell's questions easily for him. He knew who each of them were now, from The Rani to The Doctor. They were all here, and as The Meddler had stated, the last time they actually had been in one place, the decision about the Time Lords and the Time War was made.

Vansell had disagreed with the decision, he'd thought that they could turn Gallifrey around. If not under Rassilon's leadership, than when his term had ended, one of them could ascend and end the bitter, destructive war once and for all.

The majority had voted to go with The Meddler and The Doctor's plan. Many of them escaping by using a Chameleon Arch, or their own private ways. Vansell had disappeared to a far corner of the Galaxy. If Rassilon's assassins arrived to punish him for treason, so be it.

After five years, he went about his way. Traveling, discovering the Universe as The Doctor had so fondly done for all his lives. He was beginning to understand why.

Now, they were together again. What destruction would they bring this time? He worried, that the Universe would not be able to survive it.

Of course, now they were dealing with The Master, or Masters, it seemed. Two, the same Time Lord, but not different regenerations.

"How is that possible? I've only heard of one thing like it. The case of Maxil and The Doctor."

[Deleted]

The very first voice the Rani had heard was something she recognised instantly. She turned to the figure as he entered mere seconds after her entrance; the Rani merely held her head high and offered a slender smirk. Her hands placed firmly on her slender hips as she addressed the Meddler with a quirk of her right brow. “Flattering.” Her brow lowered and she pursed her smirk into a smile. “Shall I sing a tune to amuse thee?”

Her ears twitched as the Meddler's cube sung its song regarding the Hordes. The Rani folded her arms across her much younger bust as she bent forward and examined it with a mere tut. “At least... some of us are admitting to our past”, she threw a glare to the Doctor in particular. “...and the reason Gallifrey burned”.

Yet another Time Lord addressed the Rani and she eyed him rather curiously. His eyes struck her with a dangerous sort of familiarity; a mere scent of the fact that had reminded of her flirting with danger ever so long ago. His mere offer to kiss her knuckles; but afraid to do so due to her expertise in science made the Rani scoff. “Yes”, she uttered, scornfully. “By your saliva, Master”. Suddenly another voice piped up; clearly belonging to the other Master. “Oh please”, her eyes rolled. “I am most tempted to sedate the pair of you”.

She had several vials on her person underneath that white coat of hers. Naturally; she couldn't trust anyone, especially other Time Lords. If push came to shove she wouldn't be afraid to use them.

The Rani, however; found herself merging to the War Chief's side. He was clearly just as confused as the others regarding the two Masters. She whispered sharply in his ear. “I wouldn't waste that precious breath of yours if I were you – perhaps I could bottle it instead? The Master doesn't deserve further attention. It'll only raise that ego of his. Raise it any further and it'll burst like an overinflated balloon”.

[Deleted]

"This is... all of us? All of us, except poor lost Rallon and Millenia?" He gave a short, humorless laugh. "The last time we all gathered like this, Gallifrey burned."

"Let's try not to have a repeat performance," was The Doctor's quip. Eight Time Lords, none of them really wanted to be here.

“At least... some of us are admitting to our past”, she threw a glare to the Doctor in particular. “...and the reason Gallifrey burned”.

The Doctor didn't respond. Not right away at least, around other Time Lords, he had to accept the responsibility of his actions. The Meddler may have made the weapon, but The Doctor was the one who pulled the trigger. As they said, guns didn't kill people, people kill people. However, being lectured by The Rani? The Doctor wouldn't take that sitting down. He didn't shout, or even stay on subject, he just made a joke, "Rani, old friend, how did you escape the Tetraps again? When I left you, they had you in an awful precarious position. And people mock me for enjoying the company of humans."

The Hordes will rise again, the cube said, in the never-existant language of dead Gallifrey.

He raised an eyebrow, "The Hordes? As in, the Paladin Hordes? I always thought them to be a myth, like the creation story humanity has come up with to explain their existence. Just a story to tell children to keep them in line."

There was an uncomfortableness in the air, especially when a Ninth Time Lord entered, and mass confusion begun. Now, there were two Masters, and The Doctor could see everyone get tense about it, they all knew how having two incarnations of the same Time Lord in the same place could be very bad for the Universe. The Doctor though, knew it was more than that.

The War Chief shouted at him, and The Rani whispered to something to him, which The War Chief only smirked about, but didn't share. Still, The Doctor should address everyone before this escalated too much.

"For now, let's all just operate on the understanding that The Master and The Master are the same, but separate. We all have hypercubes here, each one containing a message and the coordinates to come here. Obviously, someone who knows who we are and that we are connected, they wanted us to gather. I think though, it might have been more than just a warning of Hordes. Listen to mine."

With the use of his name, The Doctor released his message, The Toymaker holds us. When the hypercube stopped, The Doctor continued, "I think we all recognize that voice. That's Rallon, the question is, how did he break free long enough to contact us? And how do we help him and Millennia."