The Rani

## Origin

Rani is a renegade Time Lord, an old classmate and friend of the Doctor and the Master. Or at least a former friend. Back in school, they were thick as thieves, but as they grew, they grew in very different paths. As they were initiated into the Time Lord Academy, each of them had experienced the Untempered schism in a different way. The Doctor (known back then as Theta Sigma) ran, the Master (Or Koschei as he was called back then) went insane, and the Rani (then Ushas) was inspired. She knew her purpose: SCIENCE. To unlock every secret the universe might hold, to explore the truth hidden in every corner of the vast endlessness of the cosmos. For a time, these traits weren’t enough to separate the trio, but as they grew, the metaphorical schism between them grew.

She worked as a researcher at the Academy for a long while, studying neuroscience and biology especially. That was until she was banished from Gallifrey, when an experiment of hers caused one of her rats to grow to disproportionate size and eat the President’s pet cat. Admittedly, it was a BIT messy. Though, the president really did overreact, in Ushas’ opinion. After all, it was just one silly cat. Since her banishment, she rarely interacted with Gallifrey.

That was why, when the Time War struck, and when all renegades and rogues were recalled to Gallifrey for a draft, the Rani refused. Why would she fight for a people who unceremoniously tossed her aside for such a trivial reason?

No, she wanted no part in what she saw as a frivolous war. As such, she contrived the best means of survival at her disposal:

She hid in among the safest place in the universe. Earth. She KNEW the Doctor wouldn’t let anything happen to that backwater little world. It was for all intent and purpose, the most protected planet in the Galaxy.

The only problem, when and where to hide.
Obviously somewhere in the late 20th or early 21st century. Advanced enough for her scientific mind to survive, but not so advanced that they were drawing too much attention.

Where? England. It was familiar enough to her. And the Doctor’s most frequent haunt.

Now, how to best blend in…
Who knew how long the Time War would last? And who knew how long she’d have to be hiding on Earth?

The younger she started out, the less chance of being caught. So she found an expecting couple, and tricked them into following her to her TARDIS. A quick (painful) pass through the Chameleon Arc, she matched her DNA to that of their unborn child, destroying said infant in the process. Oh well. They had a new child to raise instead; Rani. Haresh and Gita Chandra, the couple she had manipulated, took her, the fob watch that held the key to her identity, and her TARDIS (shrunken down to the size and shape of a moderate cupboard) home.

For the next 15 years, she was brought up as an inquisitive human child. Then, they moved to Bannerman Road, across the road from one Sarah Jane Smith.

It was through Sarah Jane and her son Luke Smith that Rani learned of aliens and the Doctor. It triggered… something… some tiny thread of recognition. But she pushed it aside. For a time, anyway.

But as time carried on, she began having dreams, latent memories of another life, of other worlds… other Doctors. She, again, put it aside as her imagination. She was, after all, a budding investigative journalist in this human incarnation. She had to be imaginative, right?

That’s all well and good. And it explained some things. Most of it, in fact. Until she couldn’t any longer. Until she found an old fob watch sitting on an old cupboard in the attic. Both items had been in her family as long as she could remember, but neither of her parents had any idea where it came from or why they still had it. It didn’t seem to even have a key or a way to open it.

Her inquisitive nature didn’t let her leave it at that, though. She HAD to figure out what it was and what was inside of it.

And why was it humming faintly? Perhaps the watch, that was left sat on the cupboard, hanging off the handle, held some answer? But every time she went to open it, something in her mind screamed at her to put it back. Some vague warning echoing through her thoughts.

But when she was in her mid 20s, she finally let her curiosity win out. She was visiting her parents, still on Bannerman Road even after all these years. Home for the holidays, as she did almost every year. It was after dinner, while on her way up to her room for the night, that she had recalled the watch, and the unopenable cupboard. As she reached the landing to her room, she paused, but kept on walking. As if being compelled by an inexplicable force, she made her way to the attic and directly in front of the mysterious cupboard.

There she stood, staring down at the dust covered fob. She looked from it to the simple wooden cupboard, searching for a place the watch might fit in, some sort of keyhole. After a very thorough examination and another struggle with the stuck doors, she even tried to look into the small, frosted glass panes embedded in the doors, but to no avail… So she picked up the watch and began to study that. It, too, looked relatively ordinary, just a plain old silver pocket watch. It didn’t even seem to fit with the cupboard, beyond being both bland. Still, SOMETHING kept drawing her there, drawing her to the watch and the cupboard. So, with a curious furrow of her brow, she almost reverently lifted the lid of the fob.

Lights swirled around her, through her…filling her vision and mind with LIFETIMES worth of memories. A whole new identity, a whole new *life* filled her mind, flooding her thoughts with its own, overriding her own 25 short human years with centuries… no Millenia, of its own.

A life full of heartless science and a single minded thirst for knowledge that superseded even morality, building itself over the compassion and human ideals and experiences that she had developed over her most recent lifetime.

The human, still within her, balked at the notion of such cold, clinical science. It chilled her to know all of the cruelties she’d undertaken in the name of advancing her own understanding of the universe.

But, at the same time, she didn’t doubt for a second that it was true. She felt the double hearts beating in her chest, the sickening wave of realisation of her knew reality. She KNEW she was like *him*, like Sarah Jane’s beloved Doctor. She felt it, as surely as she knew her parents weren’t really her parents… not anymore.

And she now knew what that cupboard was.
Her very own TARDIS; complete with a working chameleon circuit.

All of time and space was sat there, in her attic, all this time. And there she had been, living her life completely grounded. It hardly seemed fair! She could have left at any time! So, she did the sensible thing; she decided to enter her TARDIS (*her* TARDIS, it felt like such a foreign and exciting concept to her), and take stock of the situation.

As she did so, she began to feel the first telltale signs of regeneration. The pain in her every cell as they each in turn began to die and become renewed. The heat as the cellular regeneration created an exothermic reaction that started at her freshly formed second heart and spread throughout her body.

As the dimensionally transcendental ship’s doors closed behind her, she fell to her knees. A strangled cry escaped her, as her entire body was engulfed in a low, golden glow; shimmering, burning, tearing her apart piece by piece and rebuilding her with a new face, new form, new…everything.

She had barely enough cognisance left to set her TARDIS to a new destination before her vision faded to black and the glow around her began to fade as well.

Immediately following this, after changing out into suitable clothes, Rani found herself in London, 2008.

## Abilities

* Regeneration.
* Scientific expertise.
* Neuroscientific brilliance.
* Greater knowledge of biology.
* Skilled understanding of chemistry.

## Weaknesses

* Dichotomy between morals and science.
* Confliction of balance with research studies.
* Temper or frustration at hesitance of objectivity.
* Drive for scientific results may make one single-minded.
* Has 'hidden life' with human "parents"; Haresh and Gita.