"Well which one of you wants to go first." The Inquisitore said with a sadistic delight to the villagers.
The flame had grown stronger and thicker with all of the villagers, standing behind Elena and Yarox, both of whom were just as terrified, despite how much they tried to hide it.
The Inquistore wandered up to a small boy who it could clearly tell was more scared than the others.
"It seems to me like he's volunteering." The Inquisitore said.
Elena tried to jump the Inquisitore from behind whilst the Goblin was distracted, but two more of the guards instantly got in her way, though she was able to trip them both up.
Yarox and many of the villagers wanted to help, including Stanley and Mrs Tulloch (who held her daughter tighter than ever) but the Goblins had them completely surrounded with their weapons.
The Inquistore however was able to catch Elena with a quick strike of lightening from its hand, knocking her down. Yarox foolishly ran to help her, but the Goblin knocked him out with another blast.
"Save the cyclops for last. I want her to see what's in store for her. Get the boy." The Inquisitore barked.
Stanley however quickly pushed the boy behind him and told the monsters to take him instead.
"Please he's just a boy." Stanley pleaded. "He has his whole life ahead of him. I'm an old man."
Stanley's pleas naturally fell on deaf ears at first, but the Inquisitore soon believed it could have some fun with the old man. He seemed so brave and self sacrificing and the monster wanted to see if it could break him in front of the others.
"Okay" The Goblin said whilst smiling.
Stanley froze.
"What's wrong. Didn't think I'd really take you up on your offer."
Stanley tried to control himself as best he could, but he started to tremble.
"I'm not a coward like you attacking defenceless children." Stanley spat back.
The Goblin simply laughed at him and put its hand on his shoulder. With one squeeze it brought Stanley to his knees, before grabbing him by his throat.
"We'll see who the coward is."
The Doctor meanwhile struggled with his Goblin. He tried to reach for the wires at the back of the creatures head, but it was too fast and got hold of his hand when he tried to reach around, which it started to crush slowly. The Doctor however reached his other hand into a tiny break in the monsters metal chest which had been created by the fall. The Time Lord got a good grip on the wires inside and pulled on them, causing the cybernetic Goblin to fall backwards clutching its chest in pain, whilst the Doctor opened the TARDIS.
Before the Doctor could shut the TARDIS from the inside however, the Goblin hurled itself at the doors. The Doctor tried to push back, but its strength was too great, even in its weakened state and it managed to push the Time Lord back onto the console.
The Goblin staggered into the TARDIS, limping and clutching its chest and struggling to breath. It soon collapsed to its knees before barely even reaching the console. The Doctor approached the creature carefully. He knew it was spent, but he was still cautious. Even on its death bed the creature could and would still try and tear his throat out.
The Goblin tried to hurl itself at the Doctor again, but it clumsily fell on the console instead, barely able to hold itself up.
"Please." The Doctor said sincerely. "What's the point anymore. Just let me help you. Maybe I can repair."
"Never! For those who fail the master there is but one fate."
"There doesn't have to be. Please."
Before the Doctor could even finish the Goblin reached into its chest and tore more of its own wires and innards out.
"Such a waste" The Doctor said.
After he dragged the Goblin's corpse outside, the Doctor suddenly noticed that a large web of red tissue appeared to have grown from the bottom of the console to the top.
"Fools" The Doctor thought to himself. It was obviously a clumsy attempt to link the TARDIS with the beast he was trapped inside. The Doctor was still impressed however that the Goblins had been able to penetrate the TARDIS' defences at all, but ultimately these red vines would soon wither and die. Perhaps the Time Lord could use them however.
The TARDIS was connected to this creature, which was in turn connected to the portal Scratchman hoped to enter this world through. The plan had been to drain the TARDIS's power to widen the portal, but the Doctor now believed he could drain the power the creatures were using to stay in this world, using the TARDIS. He would reapply the dematerialisation circuits to create a partial lift off. It was risky and doing so would cause the TARDIS a tremendous amount of pain. Still he had no choice.
"I'm sorry old girl." The Doctor said as he gently tapped the console. "This is going to hurt. It'll be pain that you've never experienced before, but we have to to save the others."
As soon as the Doctor was finished resetting the controls however the TARDIS console began to go up and down frantically and smoke appeared in the room which choked the Doctor.
"Old girl please. I don't want to do this but we have no choice." He said whilst gasping for air.
As the Doctor reached for the controls again he was suddenly thrown towards the doors by an invisible force.
The TARDIS would never harm him. Clearly something else had got inside the TARDIS. The Doctor ran to try and help it again but something was holding him back and more red vines began to crawl up from under the console. It seems he had misjudged the Goblins. The Doctor using all of his strength managed to push through the force field and grabbed onto one of the red vines.
The Doctor tried to pull it from the console, causing more of them to wrap themselves around him. Just as all seemed lost, the old dematerialisation sound started to chime in and the vines collapsed.
"Thanks old girl. I knew you wouldn't let me down." The Doctor said as he brushed his suit down.
It would take less than 10 minutes for the TARDIS to absorb the power, but there were two major obstacles. The creatures who could enter the Tardis would all be down here to stop him. Also if Elena, Yarox, and the others were not in the TARDIS when the power was drained, they would be pulled into Scratchman's hell!
The Doctor would have to hack into the Goblins monitors to find where they were, and then teleport the TARDIS to save them, which he could do as the two ships were now connected. However he would have to wait until the Hydra's last few seconds in this dimension after its power had been drained. If he broke the link before then, the power wouldn't be drained. If he was lucky, the Doctor would have just 30 seconds to rescue his friends.
The Time Lord adjusted the scanner and to his horror saw where the Goblins were holding his friends.
He could see Stanley being brought to the flaming portal, but there was nothing he could do. Stanley could hear the screams of others who had been trapped in the flames as he was brought closer, but he still did not back down.
The Inquisitore was getting angry. He was sure that Stanley was weak and would have broken down and begged for mercy by now.
"Why are you willing to sacrifice yourself like this? Do you not know what awaits you?" The Goblin said.
"Of course I'm scared. I'm absolutely petrified, but unlike you I'm not going to let that fear turn me into something I'm not. You're only doing this because you're afraid of your master, or because he's already broken you. I pity you. He's taken everything you once were away and replaced it with his own perversion." Stanley said.
The Inquisitore spoke in a more calm, and serious tone to Stanley. "You will lose yourself eventually. No matter how hard you fight. No one has been able to withstand."
The whole room started to shake, which was followed by the alarm.
"ALERT, ALERT THE HYDRA IS BREAKING FREE FROM OUR CONTROL."
The Hydra could sense the Doctor draining the energy that was keeping them in this dimension and started to panic. Despite the Goblins conditioning the Dragon's self preservation instincts kicked in. It flew wildly threw the air, and started to burn the forest on the island below. Several Scarecrow's were caught in the monsters flame breath. The beast nearly flew itself into a small mountain before the Goblins were able to reassert control over the Dragon.
During the confusion meanwhile, Elena seized her chance and attacked the Inquisitore. Her mutated metabolism had allowed the Cyclops to recover from the monsters blast a lot quicker than Yarox. Elena delivered a fury of punches and kicks to the Inquisitore, before ripping the wires out of his head, after which she kicked him into the fire before he died. Just before the Goblin was thrust into the flames it let out a pitiful scream for help.
Stanley and the other villagers, did their best to fight back though only really Elena was able to make any difference, kicking two more into the flaming portal.
"Yes" the Doctor said enthusiastically. "Just hold on for a little longer Elena."
Elena meanwhile jumped straight onto two of the beasts from behind and ripped the wires from the back of their heads before they could get back up and used the energy blasts from another's hands to kill two more.
The rest of the Goblins then turned their attention to Elena. She was able to dodge the Demons blasts from their hands, though she wasn't able to attack the cyborgs either. Whilst they were distracted, Yarox picked up the arm of one of the two Goblins that Elena had killed and was able to fire it at three more Goblins knocking them to the ground. When they turned to face him Elena jumped two more and ripped the wires from the back of their heads, whilst Yarox blasted two more.
Unfortunately before Elena and Yarox could celebrate their victory, several more Goblins came pouring into the room.
"There must be something I can do." The Doctor said as he frantically tried to work the controls.
Just then the Time Lord heard a thumping on the door. Dozens of the Goblins had arrived back at the TARDIS. The Doctor had tried to block the two doors with various bits and pieces of furniture from the lower rooms that he had dragged up stairs in the short space of time. (He hated being away from the scanner for even a second.)
The Doctors clumsy barricade however didn't do much to hold the Goblins back and he ran to the doors to try and hold them off. All he needed was a few more minutes.
The Goblins however pushed the Doctor away and soon tore through the furniture.
"You have lost Time Lord." The monsters said as they fired at the console to try and undo the Doctors drain on their energy.
"No stop you'll destroy us all." The Doctor screamed, but it was too late.
The Goblins blast caused black smoke to erupt from the console, flooding the entire room, as lightening bolts began to fire everywhere.
To Be Continued