| Date: 19 January 2008
Characters: Connor Angel, The Master Location: hotel lobby Link to IJ: thread #40611 |
 He was too curious for his own good, Connor supposed. There was no other reason for why he kept trying to find a way back. His father, Holtz, had missed the world he'd come from which was why he had started trying; truly trying, from the moment Connor turned sixteen, until now. Holtz had told Connor enough about it and about his family that it should have made Connor want to go back there too.Except, just like the Quor'toth, that world had demons. However much Holtz had assured him it was unique, that the Quor'toth was merely the worst of the worst - a hell dimension - and true demons really walked among humans, and yet humans needed protection from them. Connor found the idea hard to stomach. Demons that played at being human, that were even accepted and looked upon as being human, which was enough to make his stomach churn. At least in the Quor'toth, demons looked and acted as they were, showed their malevolent nature. He preferred his demons as he could see them, had had to fight them every day of his life, and wasn't willing to try and chase one out from behind its human mask. So he could only put his stubborn attempts to return to that world down to one thing: challenging Angel, making him pay for what he'd done to Holtz's family. Proving along the way that he was nothing like the animal Angel was. As the first waves ripped through him, making the hairs on his arms stand on end, he stared down at the portal forming below him. Eyes closing, he had a moment to place his hand on his wrist and check his weapon was still firmly held there before he felt himself falling. He landed as quickly as he'd dropped, static still playing along his arms, blood still pounding in his ears. The Hyperion hotel, or so he believed. But when he looked up, the 'hi, dad' was stifled on his lips, body stiffening as wariness flooded through him. He wasn't where he'd meant to be. Was he? |
 The Master sensed rather than heard the disturbance in the hotel lobby, and instinctively went to investigate.He poked his head round the door and raised his eyebrows high at the sight of a dirty, wild-looking boy in very odd clothes (were those animal skins?), with a rather formidable-looking weapon aimed in the other direction. The Master slipped through the door, leaned back against it and folded his arms. "Not where you expected to be?" he inquired lightly. Yes, he was risking getting shot at by those stakes, but after the night he'd just spent with the Doctor, he was too high to care. |
| No Angel, no...nothing. His senses were tingling but not as he'd expected, nothing said demon--just off. He was so busy scanning around him that the man's question took him by surprise, an oversight he cursed himself for as he spun around, wrist pointed in the man's direction. "You could say that." Connor eyed him closely, taking a step forward and inhaling deeply. Not demon, but something, he just couldn't be sure. He'd never really met a human before now and his father had carried the stench of the Quor'toth with him for as long as Connor could remember. "Where is this?" |
| The Master shrugged, wrinkling his nose a bit at how very dirty the boy was. "No-one knows. Somewhere in between places and times. People are just arriving here from all over." He studied the boy with interest. The surge of energy that had accompanied his arrival was still making his skin tingle and the drums beat faster in his head. "Where did you expect to be, then?" |
| Connor didn't lower his arm or relax his guard, but he did step forward a little, "Like another dimension?" Like the Quor'torth had been. He couldn't help wondering if this was another 'hell dimension' too, or if this was close enough to the one he'd been born in for him to have made a mistake with the portal. The man didn't seem all that threatening but Holtz had taught him well to be wary, it was possible demons wore human faces here too. "The Hyperion. LA, even." He wasn't about to lower his weapon just yet, but despite moving closer to the man nothing was setting off his senses to tell him this was a demon. "Are you a demon?" It seemed easier to ask, even if he wasn't likely to believe the answer without getting close enough to really check. |
| "No, I'm not a demon, so you can stop pointing that - whatever it is - at me." The Master sauntered forwards a couple of steps, hands in his pockets (one of them closing around his laser screwdriver), very cool and sophisticated. "And yes, like another dimension. Only we seem to be between dimensions. People are flooding in from all sorts of different versions of reality." He raised an eyebrow. "And now apparently from a reality where there are demons in LA." |
| Connor's eyes narrowed at the order and for a moment he kept the weapon fixed on the man. He couldn't sense anything demonic about him though, something still not quite right, but not demonic. He was odd to say the least, more relaxed than Connor had anticipated a human to be but from his words he sounded almost used to this sort of thing. "There aren't any demons here at all?" He lowered his arm, though he kept himself wary. The thought was astounding to him but he could imagine there was the possibility of a world without demons, one where the humans won. "So where are you from?" |
| "None that I've seen," the Master confirmed, with a tiny, amused shrug. The kid obviously believed in demons and he wasn't going to try and convince him otherwise, but he did find the idea quite funny. "I came from the world without demons. Earth, 2009." |
| "2009?" Connor didn't have the greatest grip on dates but he knew that was a good few years after his birth and since the portal was meant to return him to only a few days after, something had obviously gone wrong. No Angel then, no...nothing. A world without demons didn't have the satisfying feeling it should, in fact it made Connor edgy, made frustration creep in. Usually when he felt that way he ran, but in this world he didn't have a clue what he'd be running into. "Who are you?" |
| Well, there didn't seem to be any point beating about the bush with this boy. He looked like the sort of person who would respond better to his true self than the Harold Saxon person. The way the drums were beating out hard and fast at his proximity gave support to that argument. This was not a time for subtlety. The Master smiled a slow, lazy smile. "I am the Master." He squinted at the boy. "Who are you?" |
| "Connor." Saying his name, the name Holtz had told him to use made him pause, wanting to retract the answer and give the name his father had given him--Stephen. "The Master? Master of what?" It seemed like an odd name to him but he'd been known as the destroyer on more than one occasion, so what could he say? |
| "Of everything. Well, eventually everything. Right now, it's just Earth, but the preparations for universal domination are going along very nicely." Though he wasn't quite as sure about that as he had been. He wrapped his fingers round the folded bit of paper in his pocket with instructions for how to foil Martha and the Doctor written on it. He pursed his lips. "So who were you expecting to have at the other end of that nasty-looking weapon of yours when you materialised? Just any demon, or one in particular?" |
| "Right, just Earth." Connor rolled his eyes a little at that. He couldn't see how the man expected to accomplish any kind of take over or dominating in this reality, let alone any other dimension. He took a step closer, eyes moving to assess the rest of the room, listening to hear for anyone else who might be around. "No, not any demon." He drew his eyes back to the Master's. "Angelus, a vampire." My father. And it was all the more frustrating to feel ready to face Angel, to have the energy to but also the frustration at not being able to expend it running through his blood. "So Master of everything, huh?" The idea amused him, wondering how the man would cope against demons if he'd never even come up against them. "Why are you wanting to dominate everything anyway?" |
| The Master raised his eyebrows condescendingly. "What else is there? It's either rule, or serve, and I am not the type to serve." He looked at Connor again, studying his weapon. "I've never heard of Angelus. Perhaps he's unique to your reality. I take it you think he's some sort of vampire?" |
| "Serve who? I don't serve anyone." Connor's eyes narrowed at the look, body tensing slightly as he moved back a step. Just sounds like an excuse, all of it. Mind games, the kind demons play... "He is a vampire, a pretty nasty one too. Drinks blood, has been dead two hundred years or so." He smirked slightly, stepping forward keeping his focus on the Master. "Not all that unique though, plenty of vampires over there, he's just the worst of them. The strongest. The kind that would rip your heart out just because the noise of it beating offended him." |
| The Master stood his ground as Connor gradually, step by step, came closer. No way he was letting some slip of a boy intimidate him. His eyes grew colder, while at the same time the drums beat out exultantly, enjoying the anticipation of violence. "He sounds like my kind of a guy," he observed, with a chilling smile. "And that would be me you'd be serving." His fingers curled tighter round his laser screwdriver. Just give me an excuse to use it, boy. He hadn't hurt anyone for two weeks, and after his night with the Doctor, he was very much in the mood for it. |
| Connor smiled, stepping closer but keeping guarded, tense. Seemed like this dimension didn't need any demons. "I don't serve, I tend to destroy." The last words, more familiar rolled off his tongue, excited energy sweeping through him and only growing as he moved. The Master didn't look like like much, wore a harmless face, but Connor had seen some of the most powerful creatures wear frail disguises. He could attack, could catch the man by surprise but he wanted to see just what the Master thought he could do. "And you really wouldn't like Angelus." |
| The Master gave him an amused smile, eyes not cold anymore but hot and inviting. "I'm rather partial to destruction myself. We could work together, you know - annihilate worlds, obliterate suns, wipe out whole solar systems." He shrugged, remembering where they were. "Well, if they have those things in this godforsaken place. If it's not just some reality created for some alien's experiment or entertainment." |
| "Alien?" His words confused Connor, although he didn't let it show. He didn't let himself relax, kept moving ever so slightly, holding himself back from circling his prey. The Master seemed more inviting now, something that surprised Connor. Holtz had always made it clear no matter how much he cared for Connor, he was an aberration; something that would be viewed as wrong in the world of humans as much as he would in that of demons, yet this man seemed to like that side of him. "Work together...I don't serve anyone and when we find Angelus, he's mine." His eyes flicked down to his weapon for a moment and then back up at the Master, smile still playing around his lips. "Can we find some demons to kill?" |
| Oh, at last! Someone else here that he could lead into destruction and mayhem! (Well, there had been Lucy, but the Master hadn't seen her in ages - he was wondering if she'd found a way back home.) "I really don't know if there are any demons around here," he said, still holding his ground, still calm and relaxed, even while the drums beat away furiously in his head. "Though if you've been washed through, it stands to reason that others from your world may have been washed through too... I suggest you just go out and have fun. When I said work together, I didn't mean side by side." He looked the boy up and down again with a distainful eye. "Don't get me wrong, but you're really not my type. Just go out and see what you can find to play with. Wreak havoc. Destroy things. Liven things up a bit." |
| Connor smirked, the man was far from his type anyway, which was amusing since he was only the second other human he'd ever seen. Or remembered seeing either. "Yeah, I'm heartbroken." Liven things up. Destroy things. He could do those, especially if the man was right and demons had come through. "Just call me if anyone interesting shows up, any demons; you don't want to be having all the fun to yourself, right?" |
| The Master gave him a supercillious look. "You're welcome to the demons. Just don't forget to annoy the humans too. A little bit of random destruction could really get them worried." And without getting him into trouble with the Doctor for actually (God forbid) hurting people. He could do without the Doctor coming after him and trying to kill him, thank you very much. He was doing his best to stay on the Doctor's good side while he was here. Well. He wasn't managing that very well so far, but he was trying. In between trying to have a little fun to stave off the complete and utter boredom. He smirked at the boy and inclined his head towards the door. "Off you go then. Go and play. And if I see any demons, I promise to yell for you." |
| "Right." Connor nodded, his eyes moving to the door as he walked towards it. Not that he had any intention of becoming the man's lackey and actually following his destruction and mayhem plan, but since it did fit neatly alongside his own it couldn't hurt to going along with agreeing. "It's gonna have to be random, this place-it's different." Not home. Too bright and unimpressive and sedate. He smiled slightly, "I think you might be the only person who'd like where I come from, there's nothing but destruction there." He really needed to find his way back to the Quor'toth, to his father. Or better still to Angel. Hopefully the Master was right and some demons had been washed his way because right now, Connor needed a fight. He'd done it every day of his life, it felt wrong not too now. "Have fun with with domination." |
| "You too." The Master watched him go with a slight smile. He was under no illusion that the boy felt he was acting under orders, but it was pleasing to have someone around with a similar taste for chaos and mayhem. And there was a lot of fun to be had from dropping a loose cannon into the middle of a crowd of ordinary, peacable people and watching it go off. His smile widened. Oh, yes. This had the potential to be a lot of fun! |
| Connor ran his fingers over the knife in his pouch, nodding absently as he moved towards the open door. Demons or not, he still cautiously approached it, still moved out quietly his eyes darting around to keep an eye out for attackers. Mayhem...sounded interesting. Not something Holtz would approve on, at least not unless demons were involved but if it flushed out said demons for him to attack, he was all for it. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure that humans who protected and lived with demons themselves were all that much better. Perhaps the Master was right in some aspects, it could be interesting, fun even. Although he did feel completely uncomfortable, this wasn't his world it was...wrong. |