Draydeth

## Origin

Draydethgulfonareisma at the age of 8 was initiated into the Time Lord Academy and became a slightly above average student of the Dromeian Chapter. While he didn’t excel in any particular subject, he was able to do just around enough to be able to graduate. However, due to his unremarkable grades post-graduation, the job options he had were all pretty lackluster and had essentially damned him to a boring life, despite being a Time Lord. Eventually he figured that his best job option would be to start as a trainee TARDIS technician, essentially contributing nothing to the growth, nurture and building of TARDISes, but giving a spare hand whenever needed every now and then. It took him several years of this for him to finally be promoted to have an equal team of technicians, all working at the same level to construct good quality TARDISes to the more elite members of Gallifreyan society.

While Draydeth and his group continued manufacturing TARDISes, another group began occupying their space; military officials with TARDIS technician training - and they were creating War TARDISes. As it turns out, the possibility of a great war was emerging and the models that Draydeth was working so hard on were slowly becoming obsolete. It didn’t take long for the military officials to completely take over and it was either join them or get fired. He naturally joined along, but found the processes to creating War TARDISes a whole lot more complicated, and a whole lot less interesting than the other models. His inability to keep up with the military officials and those members of his team who had now gotten used to the development of the military grade models caused him to lose his job, which is when his life changed for good.

Now with no purpose on Gallifrey amidst the chaos of an upcoming war, Draydeth was being pursued by high ranking Time Lords to find a new role as a front line soldier. Draydeth had no choice now but to sign up for the Time War. His first few missions were simple enough; locate some Dalek camps and free the prisoners and labour workers. This was a success… for the first two operations. During the third operation, known as Operation Eegill, Draydeth and his platoon located a planet that had a giant Dalek Eyestalk built above it - thus the mission couldn’t be done as the others were as they’d be able to see. The operation involved more secrecy, with invisible TARDIS materialisation being utilised. What the platoon didn’t know was that they harboured a Dalek spy from the last operation. This caused the secrecy to be in vain as the Dalek’s were able to respond with full force regardless. The platoon split up on the planet’s surface as they were exterminated one by one. Draydeth, dizzy, disorientated, but overall disappointed hid behind a bit of rock and tried to find a way out. It would be then that he heard materialisation, but saw nothing. Then the door opened wide - it was a TARDIS that landed. Draydeth saw the opportunity and ran inside but before the doors closed a beam hit him in the lower back, penetrating him and hitting the console, causing the TARDIS to go haywire. Draydeth was regenerating, and inside of a damaged ship…

The first time one goes through the process is as painful as you could imagine when every cell of yours decays rapidly and then just as quickly grows again into an entirely new cell. No training, lessons or lectures could prepare you for the pain and shock, but once the process is over, instead of pain a whole new number of troubles arise. Disorientation, sight blurs, nausea, memory loss, it all kicks in once the cells have healed. But there’s a whole other bag of issues when the TARDIS is exploding. The once white walls with yellow-ish roundels have now caved in and are on fire, Draydeth attempted to gain control of the uncontrollable situation he was in.

“Ok ok, I just have to try and extinguish the fire…” he spoke aloud, his first words in the new body. What he didn’t expect was to have a voice reply back to him.

“I will do that for you now.” and smoke fell from the ceiling, extinguishing the many fires. Was this prost regenerative stress disorder or did the TARDIS just speak? He wouldn’t know of course, that Type 70 TARDISes, like the one he was in, had more complex controls, and one of these methods of controlling the TARDIS was voice activation. He attempted again.

“Now uhm… land somewhere safe?”

“That statement was vague, I am using the telepathic circuits to determine where ‘somewhere safe’ is.” The TARDIS began phasing in and out of reality on a barren planet, with the engines stressing due to how damaged it was. Draydeth walked out, hesitantly at first as they could be anywhere, but it would be safer than the exploding TARDIS. He left too slow though, and the blast flung him away, knocking him out.

Waking up, the first thing he noticed was the cloudless blue sky, the tranquility that came with the silence. Sitting up, he looked at the lump of rock with its doors slightly open. So did all of that just happen…? he asked himself in disbelief. Ultimately deciding that there wasn’t a whole lot he could do on an entirely empty planet, he entered the TARDIS. What took him by surprise was how the TARDIS now had no walls, the time rotor remained several meters away from the door but besides that, the room was comprised of infinite white emptiness.

“I made the console room vacant so that you can add the features that you want.” spoke the TARDIS. “A blank canvas, so to speak.” Draydeth began to feel overwhelmed with ideas now that his head was finally becoming clear from being unconscious - a lot has happened in a short space of time, a lot he believed didn’t up until now. He didn’t even have time to process his regeneration, but most of the trauma was already over and done with during his long sleep.

“So… you’re a TARDIS…” he attempted to rationalise out loud.

“Yes.” the TARDIS responded abruptly.

“Ok… and, you saved me, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You made me.” Draydeth paused. “I’ll send you my history telepathically.” Suddenly, hundreds of images entered his mind, of him and his crew growing a TARDIS. This was the first TARDIS that Draydeth worked on from his promotion, and thus he put extra care into his duties. He unknowingly made the TARDIS a Type 70 instead of a Type 69 - a change so subtle the rest of the team hadn’t realised either. This personal touch made the Type 70 want to seek Draydeth out and found him at the point where the future of his timeline was uncertain.

“Well I’ll be damned. Th- thank you.” The TARDIS did not respond - Type 70s are designed for basic user interface, including voice activated controls, but the spirit of the ship wasn’t fully allowed to come through. “I would like to give you a name.”

“Rila.” the ship responded.

“Rila? I… love that name.”

“I read the timelines and found out that was the name you’d give me, so I decided to use it prematurely.”

“Right… not much of a personality - but if I know TARDISes, and I do, a bit, then I can fix that!” Draydeth was hardly a gifted genius when it came to TARDIS designs, but seeing as some of him was implanted accidentally, he felt that with a bit of technical alterations he may be able to use the exploit to open other branches hidden to most TARDIS pilots and give the TARDIS more of a personality. This wasn’t an easy task, but now with a time machine he had plenty of time (and indeed space) to fix this.

And off they went, for multiple years - small changes were done to the interior. For example, the time rotor now emitted a purple light. He also now had a wall lined with doors that led to various rooms, such as a bedroom, a spa and a study. The wall appeared to have nothing behind it, but when the door would be opened you could see the room on the other side - the same bigger-on-the-inside illusion that TARDISes normally had. The rest of the white void remained vacant however. On the other side of the doors ( ), you would find Draydeth’s bedroom, a study and the Eye of Harmony engine room where he would work on what he called the “Draydeth quirk”, the essence he accidentally introduced to the TARDIS in order to unlock more of this TARDIS’ sentience.

One time Rila landed in a large, beautiful forest, and took the form of a large ancient willow. As Draydeth stepped out he noticed how undeniably tranquil the forest was - more peaceful than any place he had ever been to before. It was then a bird suddenly landed on his shoulder. Draydeth wasn’t very keen on strangers, humanoid or not, so he shooed the bird almost immediately, but the bird was keen on Draydeth, so it kept following him around the forest, landing on him every now and then always to be met with shooing. Then suddenly the bird began to peck him on the face, scratching him to the point where he bled a bit. Draydeth was furious and reached for his staser pistol before the ground began to rumble and shadows loomed over him. He turned to face upwards only to realise there was a fleet of Time Lord bowships overhead. They found him.

He ran and ran through the forest, hoping to find somewhere to hide but the ground was almost uniformly flat, and while it was a forest, the trees weren’t dense enough to make for good hiding spots. The bird appeared again, hovering over a path that Draydeth had initially run past. He stopped in his tracks and began to think maybe the bird was trying to help him, hence the pecking. With no better option, he followed the bird down the path and ran. The bowships were a constant menace to him - and he knew that the Time Lords knew they could finish him any time, but were merely toying with their prey. Pricks, he thought. The bird always appeared in front of him, moving in and out of the path before he came across a dense section. The trees here were so packed that there was hardly any space to walk through them; if he was going to lose the Time Lords anywhere it was here. He followed the bird into the dense forest before the trees opened up to a clearing. It was like a whole room, but the ceiling was comprised of packed foliage where the bowships wouldn’t see them. The bird flew to a nearby pile of nuts and seeds, and picked up a few berries and offered it to Draydeth. Maybe this bird isn’t too bad after all…

Draydeth spent days in the clearing, sometimes leaving the clearing to find fruit - it was hardly enough to sustain him. The bird would sometimes disappear into the forest and return with a tiny bit of red fabric to signal that the Time Lords were still there as the bird was taking the fabric from their robes.

“I think I’ll name you Bongo. I had a robot dog named Bingo back on Gallifrey; useless bit of junk but the name is fitting enough for you.” He spoke aloud to the bird after day three seeing as he was incredibly lonely and since meeting Rila, had not spent more than a day away from her. The bird whistled in response.

After around two weeks, the bird disappeared and reappeared like it would twice a day, but this time returned with a leaf. They’re… gone? He was surprised, but wasted no time running back outside. Upon leaving the dense forest he noticed that there were in fact no bowships anymore or any sign of Time Lord activity. Draydeth paused for a while to think before remembering the way back to his TARDIS.

Off he ran back to be reunited with Rila and Bongo following right behind him until he was finally in front of the old willow tree that was his TARDIS. He thought he was in the clear before a Time Lord in army uniform stepped out from behind said tree. Almost immediately, Bongo began to fly towards the Time Lord and pecked them in the face, reaching for critical points like the eye before it got a good hit.

“OH YOU PIECE OF-” he yelled as he drew his staser rifle and aimed it at Bongo. Something took over Draydeth, as he jumped towards where Bongo was shooed to and jumped in front of the only creature in the forest that helped Draydeth survive. The blast from the rifle was fatal for Draydeth - but fatal in Time Lord terms isn’t the same as for humans. Draydeth fell to one knee as the Time Lord spoke. “Rassilon wanted me to bring you to Gallifrey for your sentencing, but I guess I’ll have to do it now.” Draydeth began to glow yellow - another shot would change his definition of fatal.

“Do… do I get last words?” He asked. The Time Lord chuckled.

“Go on.” Draydeth opened his mouth, distracting the Time Lord from what he was doing, which was reaching for pistol.

PHEW PHEW

Two shots, one for each heart. Now that was fatal, as the Time Lord fell dead. Bongo landed on Draydeth’s shoulder as it chirped sadly.

“Stay… stay away Bongo.” But Bongo wouldn’t leave. Draydeth grabbed Bongo and threw him in the general direction of the willow tree, and as Bongo turned in midair to fly back towards him, Draydeth erupted into light.

In the place of the brown haired man was now a black haired man. His hair was large and poofy; an afro. Bongo was perched on one of Rila’s branches, a bit confused and approached the new Draydeth hesitantly. When Draydeth smiled at Bongo, the bird knew that he was still his friend.

“You can come if you like.” Draydeth snapped his fingers and a door opened, revealing a hole in the trunk of a tree emitting the white light of the interior. Bongo flew in and perched on the wall of doors, having nowhere else to really stand. Draydeth followed him in, and realised Bongo’s situation. Draydeth paused his work on the “Draydeth quirk” and instead grew a forest in the console room to fill more of the empty space. Bongo now had a place to fly and play just like he did in his old home - but sometimes Bongo will reside on the shoulder of Draydeth and accompany him outside of Rila’s doors.

Draydeth now has grown cold to the universe which has given him nothing but grief and especially the Time Lords, but his heart is warm to Bongo and Rila, which using the quirk has gained more of a personality, with less barriers around her true sentience.

## Strengths

While he holds an emotional bond with Rila and Bongo, he doesn’t for anyone or anything else. This allows him to think extremely critically, willing to sacrifice anyone else that needs be. He’s also extremely accurate with his staser.

## Weaknesses

While usually devoid of attachment, if anything gets remotely close to harming Rila or Bongo, he becomes emotionally crippled and weaker as opposed to stronger in rage due to these being the only emotional connections he has ever made. His ability to control any emotions he may show are most likely to be his downfall.

He’s only ever mastered his ray gun, any other weapons given to him he may find it harder to operate, or his aim will be worse.

## Paraphernelia

* Gallifreyan Staser pistol
* Bongo, when taken out of the TARDIS, can sometimes be used to reach difficult to reach areas