The TARDIS console started to catch fire. Through the smoke, the Doctor picked up a piece of broken furniture and clobbered one of the creatures over the head knocking it off its feet.
The Time Lord and the rest of the Goblins however were soon thrown off of their feet as the Dragon again started to panic. The monster was being pulled from one dimension to the other. The Doctor in the confusion quickly ran around the console to see if there was any part of it that was still operable, but the whole thing was a mass of fire.
The Tardis was struggling with the Dragon, and the Goblins attack had only weakened her strength. The struggle between the TARDIS and the Dragon threatened to rip a hole in the time vortex itself.
The Doctor went to one of the roundrels and ripped it off and then tried to redeposit the power from various rooms across the lower deck of the TARDIS, (which caused them to vanish) into the console room.
After a few seconds the fire disappeared completely from the console and the TARDIS was in control again.
The Doctor then fired a small sample of excess energy left over from the lower decks at the Goblins. It didn't kill them, but succeeded in knocking the monsters out cold.
In the Inquisitore's torture chamber meanwhile Elena, Yarox, the villagers and the Goblins were now all more focused on trying to escape than in fighting each other. The Dragon's thrashing threw them wildly around the room. One of the villagers was even killed, when he hit his head against the steel walls!
Worse still the portal to the Inquisitore's hell started to fluctuate and it grow bigger. All of those at the back were swallowed by the portal, whilst those at the front struggled to crawl towards the door, but just as they reached it however the door slammed shut. From the main control room one of the Goblins, in a final spiteful act used the last of the power in the Dragon to seal the room shut. He was desperate that the humans would not just be killed in the crash, but have to endure the hell he had come from.
Elena thumped on the door as hard as she could, but it was made of reinforced steel. The portal drew closer and closer, consuming more and more Goblins and villagers. Stanley, Yarox, Sophie and her mother all huddled around Elena and tried to help her push on the door, but it was no use.
Stanley in a final act of self sacrifice pushed the others in front of him as the portal drew closer and he was pulled into it. The two villagers and Elena tried to pull him back, and with all of their strength, they almost succeeded, but just when they were on the cusp of pulling him free, the portal grew and completely engulfed Stanley. On the other side of the portal they could hear the screams of the damned souls of Scratchman's domain, whilst the heat was unbearable. As the portal grew larger and larger, Elena realised that unless they let go, they too would be consumed alongside Stanley and with regret she not only let him go, but pulled the other two villagers back before the portal swallowed all four of them. The last image Elena saw of Stanley was of him screaming, which lingered on for a few seconds afterwards, which felt like an eternity for Elena and the rest of the villagers.
Just as all seemed lost the TARDIS suddenly materialised around the frightened villagers. The Doctor had been forced to watch with horror at the sight of the villagers he couldn't save being pulled into hell whilst being completely helpless. Even when the TARDIS landed around them, not all of the villagers were caught in its dematerialisation field, and a further five were pulled into hell.
Only twenty of the villagers in total were rescued by the Doctors TARDIS, Mrs Tulloch, her daughter, Christopher, the family who had tried to escape with him, and Jonathan among them, but the Goblins still screamed in frustration and anger at the sight of any of them escaping.
"You think you have escaped, but you will still deliver him to this reality." The Leader of the Goblins said to itself.
The Dragon let out one last agonizing scream before its body vanished in a blaze of fire that spread out over the entire sky of the small island below. The TARDIS only barely managed to escape from being pulled into Scratchman's hell with the Dragon, but it was far from a smooth landing. The TARDIS simply plummeted to earth from the flames, rather than materliasing. The strain on the old girl had been incredible. Almost all of her power appeared to be drained, though fortunately the reserve banks were still fine. It was the first time the Doctor had been forced to use them however in over 2 thousand years.
"I'm sorry old girl, I really am, but it looks like we did it." The Doctor said as he gently tapped the battered console.
"We're fine thanks." Mrs Tulloch, one of the few lucky survivors alongside her daughter Sophie, said from the back.
Some of the villagers had been knocked out in the crash, but most were thankfully unhurt.
The Doctor left the TARDIS to see if there were any traces of "Scratchman's" influence, whilst Elena and Yarox tended to the surviving villagers. Many of the villagers however didn't want to even look at Elena after what happened with Stanley.
"You coward. Stanley was willing to give his life for us and you, you left him." One of the two she had pulled away said.
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"I'm sorry, there was nothing we could do, and if I hadn't pulled you free, you'd have joined him." Elena tried to say before more of the villagers cut her off.
Yarox soon came to her defence.
"Don't you dare call her a coward. I owe my life to her many times over. I can assure you she would have done anything she could do to save your friend." Yarox protested.
The other villagers weren't listening, except for Mrs Tulloch.
"All I know is that if it weren't for this woman, or either of her strange friends my little girl wouldn't be alive now. We should be thanking them." Mrs Tulloch intervened, with her daughter supporting her in particular.
Most of the rest of the villagers weren't convinced, and neither was Elena herself.
Outside the Doctor saw that much of the forest the TARDIS had crashed into had been burned to the ground by the dragon in its death throes. The Doctor would much rather be out here even if there was danger than deal with the villagers. Though they were his favourite species, the Doctor could sometimes get more than a little frustrated at human beings tendency to lash out when they were scared, and he was in no mood to deal with it.
In the distance the Doctor saw a few of the Scarecrow's shuffling awkwardly in his direction. They all looked extremely weak however and some of them were even collapsing.
"Please." One of the Demons whimpered as it crawled along the floor to the Doctor.
"We're being pulled back into his domain. We can't go back, we can't. He promised us peace if we delivered you to him. Please for our sake's Time Lord."
The Doctor kept his distance from the Scarecrow's. He knew they wouldn't last much longer in this reality, but still he wasn't taking any chances.
"I'm sorry" the Doctor said. "I wish there was something I could do for you, but I had to protect this world."
"Please, please don't let us." The Scarecrow said before it and all of the others around crumbled into nothing but dust. Their minds or souls had been pulled back into the hell from which they came. It was over. All of Scratchman's influence had been seemingly purged from this universe and the monster was sealed back in its pit. The cost however had been huge. Another entire universe would still have to suffer under that creature, whatever it was and there was seemingly nothing the Doctor could do to help them.
The Doctor, Elena and Yarox would be forced to spend the next day on the island. The TARDIS was not only in no position to travel, but they needed to make sure there were no more portals left over from Scratchman's dimension. The villagers didn't speak much with the three time travellers during their stay. Not only was there still resentment towards Elena, but the villagers didn't trust or like the Doctor much either. Many feared that he was in league with the Demons, or that he was a Warlock of some kind. The Doctor and Elena and Yarox still helped the villagers search the island for other survivors (of which there were sadly none), but other than that they kept their distance.
By the time a team arrived to rescue the villagers, the TARDIS was ready to leave and the Doctor, Yarox and Elena slipped away without even saying goodbye. Despite this however both Jonathan and Mrs Tulloch did personally thank them for what they had done, but even then they still kept their distance from the Doctor and his friends. It wasn't that they thought they were evil, but they felt they were part of a world that they didn't couldn't deal with.
The story of what happened on the island would briefly become a sensation, though the government was quick to supply a cover up story, and the island was subsequently abandoned. No one dared to ever set foot there ever again.Jonathan and Sophie however at least became life long friends, and later married and had children. The two would also investigate other supernatural occurrences across the earth, becoming two of the most celebrated and in some ways infamous supernatural investigators of the 20th century. Their adventures however are stories for another time.
As the TARDIS hurled its way through the vortex, there was an awkward silence among the three time travellers. Though Scratchman was defeated, the cost had been too high. What troubled the Doctor the most however was the fact that he still had no idea what Scratchman really was. The Doctor could never stand not knowing the truth about somewhere he had visited or a new life form he had discovered, but when it was something that terrified him it was absolutely unbearable.
"Well lets hope the TARDIS will take us somewhere a bit more relaxing next eh" The Doctor said. "I think after that ordeal she'll probably want a rest for a bit too. I'm heading down to the library."
In truth the Doctor was wanting to look through his books to see if he could find anything about Scratchman. It would be hard to separate the myths from the fact, but surely there must be something, he thought to himself. Sadly the Doctor was too consumed in his latest obsession to notice the pain his companions were in. He didn't mean to insensitive, but the Doctors desire for new knowledge ironically often caused him to overlook what was right in front of him.
Elena meanwhile just wanted to retreat to her quarters below.
"You know it really wasn't your fault Elena." Yarox said to her as she left the console room.
"I know you mean well Yarox, but please I just, I just need to be alone." She replied somewhat coldly to Yarox.
Yarox decided to head back down to the TARDIS' garden. This tiny, artificial construct was the only place in the history of the universe Yarox had ever felt safe.
The experience had arguably shaken Yarox more than the Doctor and Elena. Yarox had long heard stories about the golden age of humanity from his own time, whilst the Doctor had promised him a chance to see the universe when it was young and healthy.
Now that he had actually visited the past however, he saw that it was full of just as much struggle, desperation and death as his time. It may have looked more peaceful on the surface, but underneath all of the different life forms were still fighting with each other just to survive.
Was there ever a period of peace in the galaxies history Yarox thought to himself as he fired up the Doctors projector, which created the illusion of a sky over his garden? Still as Yarox looked up at an illusion of the Illexian galaxy, he couldn't help but be captivated at its beauty. Was all of the pain and misery he had witnessed throughout all of time worth it for this?
Suddenly however the illusion began to fade and the roof above turned to fire. As Yarox looked around he saw the trees in the TARDIS garden began to wither and turn black.
Yarox backed away slowly only to be greeted by an all too familiar sound, one he had never hoped to hear again in his life.
"HALT, STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DO NO MOVE!"
Yarox turned around to see two Daleks, the monsters that still terrified him far more than even Scratchman or any of his Demonic minions gliding in his direction, their guns raised and ready to fire.
To Be Continued