User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-4028641-20151008023030/@comment-30325516-20191108154723

Just checked through The Velvet Dark again and it seems to set an interesting precedent for the Ainley Master. I’ll let you make of it what you will, but it appears that Ainley goes from being a stolen body to a new regeneration between The Five Doctors and Planet of Fire.

''‘I went to Gallifrey to help you, Doctor,’ he said with iron in his tone. ‘Begged by the Time Lords to rescue you and your past selves from the Death Zone. They promised me forgiveness. A new regenerative cycle.’ He paused and then spat, ‘But they exiled me instead!''

''They had ripped his last body from him, and he had only managed to hold on to himself with a barely conceivable strength of will. He consisted only of dark now. He had raged at the indignity of it all, at the unfairness.''

''They took back his TARDIS and tried to reprogram her. But she remembered him, searched him out. He had been so relieved when he’d found the old grandfather clock in the woods one day. Unfortunately he had not been able to cross the threshold, some limiting program that held. He’d pushed and pushed, and had nearly died in the attempt. But to his amazement, when he came to, he’d been confronted by the deathly grinning visage of his last life. His TARDIS had created a construct which was, in some sense, his Watcher, a form he could manipulate and, partly, inhabit. He’d realised how he could use it as a vessel. So he sent it in his TARDIS to watch for advantages, to search for help.''

''I need a corporeal body, Doctor. This dark is merely what I could remember.’ There was a terrible pause. ‘So I’m going to steal one of your lives.’ He stopped to let the fact register, like a man who has perfected his megalomaniacal statements. ‘There may even be enough of a connection between us for me to reoccupy a physical resemblance of my old body.''

''Suddenly realised how the Master intended to do this. Twelve mirrors in total; 12 regenerations. He couldn’t just steal a regeneration from a Time Lord, he had to channel it through all his previous lives until it came to what he was now. It was quite a risk, but also quite ingenious. The Master had lost none of his cruelty or shrewdness. He realised with horror that this might actually work.''

''As soon as he fell it shot straight into the Master on his throne. He seethed and hissed with electricity, his body steaming and crackling. The metal phoenix behind the throne, wings spread grandly, watched the Master’s rebirth from the shadows''

''He tried to steal one of my remaining lives.’ He looked down at the velvet-clad man. Those saturnine features and that trimmed goatee were unmistakable.''

''The Doctor managed a smile. ‘Actually, he stole a small piece from every one of his past regenerations. That’s what maintained him.’ He tapped both his hearts. ‘I think I’m all still here. Quite healed.’ He paused to consider. ‘And if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect he knew that this wouldn’t work. That he expected to lose. It rejected him, you see.''