WARNING: This story contains spoilers about certain characters. If you haven't listened to Gods and Monsters, and you don't want to know what happens to Hex, don't read. Seriously. If you're still here and you don't want to know about Hex's fate, please leave. Go and have a biscuit. Bye-bye!

SYLVESTER McCOY and SOPHIE ALDRED in...

DOCTOR WHO: DIRECTOR OF THE MONSTERS

by BIZARREPINEAPPLE15

EPISODE ONE

A place of all-consuming blackness hung in the void between realities and impossibilities. Total darkness, devoid of light or warmth or feeling or anything. Hot, cold, light, dark – all impossible to find in the place of blackness. Not a thing could be seen or ascertained from the cold, murky darkness which possessed this place, nor could a thing live and flourish there. It was neither in space, nor time, its existence impossible. Just one object was to be found there, one object in the all-consuming black. A chessboard.

A game was already being played on it, for the pieces were already scattered about the board. Some of these pieces were conventional ones as seen on standard chess sets from Earth, but some were odd, alien and distorted, unusual shapes unlike standard ones. A game was being played, yet nobody stood by the board. The game was in flux, a break perhaps, a spot of conquest and bloodshed before the game's resume. Then, impossibly from nowhere, the two players began to assemble to resume their game of life and death, purity and darkness, black and white.

Out of the darkness there appeared a figure, a tall man with black hair, dressed in robes of white, with a white hat plonked onto his head. He was self-illuminated with a white glow, and he walked towards the chessboard with a sense of anticipation and authority. Then came the second figure, from the other side of the void of eternal black. This man had grizzled, grey hair, and was dressed in robes of black, black to match his personality, black to match the colour of his evil soul. He was illuminated by a green glow, green to match the colour of his evil eyes. This new man walked up to the chessboard and turned to address the other.

"Your move, Time Lord," he whispered in his evil, sinister tones which managed to shake fear into the hearts of all of his enemies. His whispers sounded amplified yet there was no means of amplification.

"Indeed it is," replied the Time Lord. He took one of the pieces. The white rook. White, to symbolise the peace and good and purity inside this puny Time Lord, the peace and good and purity which the mighty Fenric frowned upon in this never-ending game. The Time Lord took the white rook in his long bony fingers and placed it near to the black bishop.

"A risky move, perhaps?" questioned Fenric. "That is your castle, after all, your keep, a place you seek to protect from my forces."

"Do not try to fool me, Fenric, with your ramblings. Remember, I have faith."

"A clever manipulation, nonetheless, for that is what we are doing in this endless game, is it not? Manipulation, deceit, lies and trickery, with soldiers and guns in it for good measure. I'm not sure giving soldiers from Earth's First World War, space guns was a sensible idea, but my forces have held them back".

"You babble, Fenric. Are you trying to delay the unfortunate inevitability of your move? Are you stuck?" asked the Time Lord mockingly, emphasizing the final word.

"Hmm... a clever deduction, but entirely wrong. So, you've made your move. What shall I do? Crush your fleets? Introduce a new element to this game we so crave?" Suddenly, an upright cuboid made of wood appeared on the side of the board, an upright cuboid looking suspiciously like a London police box. It caught Fenric's eye. "No, ah I see a new piece has entered the game, on the fringes of the board completely by accident. A new piece, fair game. Well, I shall have to manipulate this. Why, if it isn't the Doctor who has impeded me so many, many times. His TARDIS. Until now, our game has been merely a quarrel, battles fought between soldiers of different time periods and ranks on our world of evil. Now the game has purpose. Now the game is worth something, with the Doctor involved! Well, we must include him in this game of ours. A spectator. After all, is it only fair? I think it is. Well, Time Lord, are you willing to accept the Doctor onto the side of the white? Do not worry, this is not some clever trick or trap, it is but a genuine question. Will you accept the Doctor onto your side, into your ranks?"

"I will, Fenric. Combined, the Doctor and I will destroy you, Fenric. We have enough power. You have had your fun, materialising soldiers from Earth World Wars into this game to crush my fleets, but combined, two Time Lords are better than one Elder God. Fenric, may your bones shatter as your blood rains down in torrents upon the people of the Earth!"

"How... moving, don't you think? Then again, you Time Lords always were so beautifully poetic. Blood... hmm, that reminds me that it is only a matter of time before the Ancient One will be resurrected and I will triumph. Haemovore. It means 'eater of blood'. My Haemovore forces will destroy the Doctor and his puny friends!"

"Oh? And how do you plan to resurrect the Ancient One and the Haemovores, Fenric? They died!"

"The Doctor will inadvertently resurrect all my Haemovore forces, without even knowing it to begin with. He will destroy himself, and he will have only himself and his curiosity to blame. Of course I will give him a head-start, but he will almost certainly trigger his own death."

"How cowardly, Fenric. You do not kill your own enemies, yet you are perfectly happy to let others, even the intended target, do your dirty work for you."

"Can it be that we, the most powerful beings in the universe, are discussing philosophy? You Time Lords are the only cowards here. And even with the Doctor on your side, black will triumph. I will win, Time Lord, as I always win, and you know it. So... time to introduce one or two of my foul, corrupted agents of black and night, into your ally's camp. I shall begin... with Mr. Hex Schofield."

A box appeared, floating in the air next to the chessboard upon which wars were fought. A simple wooden box. Fenric opened it and extracted a piece. He held it directly next to the TARDIS. This was going to be fun. The game could begin, an Elder God and a Time Lord fighting over the Doctor, toying with him until he broke whilst fighting each other all the way. And now Fenric had received authorisation and clearance from the Elder Gods for the use of a couple of platoons of renowned evil alien races, which he now had good use for. The alien race in particular... well, it would be a shock for the Doctor when they finally appeared. He would give himself a new title: Fenric, Director of the Monsters. He commanded the monsters, he moved his pieces around the board with the skill and cunning and clever of a god, and that is what he was. A god. Yet he could crush all the other gods in his games of evil.

This wasn't going to be easy, for the Time Lord or the Doctor. Especially when the Doctor found the traitor in his midst, but that was all in good time... Fenric allowed himself a little chuckle at the thought. He revelled in the idea that he might even get the chance to have killed two Time Lords by the time this game was over. What a bonus for him.

"And now the fun begins," said Fenric, placing the piece down next to the TARDIS. The real game was beginning and after this, the Doctor's life would never be the same again.

"Professo-or?" asked Ace in a childish, whining whimper of a voice. She and the Doctor were walking through the darkened corridors of the TARDIS after having visited the food machine for a bite to eat. They were nearly at the console room, but Ace had had just one question she wanted to ask the 'Professor' as she'd affectionately nicknamed her time-travelling friend.

"Yes, Ace?" responded the Doctor in a completely serious tone of voice.

"I was wondering if I could have my Nitro-9 back," suggested Ace. Nitro-9 was an explosive Ace had designed herself. The Doctor always allowed her to keep three or four canisters in her rucksack, but he had banned her from having them after she triggered the beginning of a major revolution on the distant planet Kioe in the forty-fourth century.

"No, of course not! Well, then again... no! Definitely not! Okay, yes, but you must promise not to throw any Nitro-9 into the swimming pool again!"

"I didn't throw it, it fell out of my rucksack!"

"Likely story," replied the Doctor. "But, fine. Just be careful with your Nitro-9."

The Doctor was a mercurial, highly moral, and quite short Time Lord who travelled around in time and space using a TARDIS, a time-space capsule which he had stolen from his home planet of Gallifrey, where amber suns shone and orange citadels gleamed. He wore a ridiculous question-mark yellow and blue jumper with a dark brown jacket. He had a cream panama hat on, and a brown jacket. The Doctor had the amazing ability to regenerate, as all Time Lords did. Little did he know that that ability might just come in handy with what Fenric and the Time Lord had planned for him.

The two friends reached the door to the TARDIS console room and the Doctor pushed it open. Ace ducked under his arm and went into the console room. She saw the only occupant of it and froze with shock, horror and disbelief.

"Are you okay, Ace?" asked the Doctor, entering the room. He saw the occupant of the TARDIS too, and froze as well, blinded by amazement and denial. Because the occupant of the TARDIS was Thomas Hector Schofield. Hex Schofield, the Doctor and Ace's friend who travelled in the TARDIS with them, until a while ago, when he became possessed by the evil entity Fenric and committed suicide by flinging himself out of the TARDIS to deny himself the pain of dying from a bleeding shoulder. Yet here he was standing, in the TARDIS console room, smiling at the Doctor and Ace.

"Hey guys. I'm sorry I surprised you like this, but I was kind of running away from this old lady, like, and then I saw the police box and I thought 'no way, that's gotta be the Doctor and Ace' and here you are. Hey, are Sally and Lysandra in there, or have they gone?"

"I don't know who you are," said Ace, suddenly seeming very emotional, her voice wavering, "but you have no right to pretend to be Hex Schofield".

"I don't mean to pop your balloon or anything, but I am Hex Schofield. I'm not pretending to be anybody. Look, I'm Thomas Hector Schofield, I used to travel in the TARDIS, ooh, and I've got a tattoo on my shoulder".

"Your shoulder?" asked the Doctor inquisitively, coming over to Hex, who slightly adjusted his T-shirt so that the Doctor could see the tattoo. "The same shoulder which sustained a wound from a bullet which couldn't be cured. The bullet that created the wound that drove you to suicide. Look, I don't know who on Gallifrey you are, but you are not Hex Schofield. Hex would never call Sally Morgan 'Sally', always 'Sal', and Hex had a massive wound on his shoulder from a bullet, just before he flung himself into space and died".

"All right, all right, I'll come clean. I'm no more Hex Schofield than you are the Queen of Switzerland, Doctor. Ah, Switzerland. Where the last game began. But anyway, I'm just another pawn in this new game. But I tell you what – it was nice seeing my master's opponent once more. Goodbye, Doctor. I'll be off now".

"Hang on!" shouted Ace as 'Hex' turned to leave. Hex turned back around to face Ace.

"You can shout, can't you?" he said.

"You said you were a pawn in the game. The game... if that's what I think it is..."

"What? You think I might have said I was just a pawn in Fenric's game of chess, don't you? Well, even if I was, there'd be nothing you could do to stop it. Oh, all right then, I'm leaving anyway, I'll tell you. It is Fenric playing one more game of chess, but it's not the Doctor who he's playing against. It's somebody else, another Time Lord. But now Fenric's playing against you as well, Doctor. So... cheerio, then!"

'Hex' turned to leave but the Doctor ran up to him. "DON'T OPEN THOSE DOORS!" he shouted. 'Hex' ignored him. He wasn't real, it didn't matter if he was sucked into the vacuum of space. But the Doctor and Ace... it did matter for them. They would die if they were sucked into space. The fake Hex's hand rested on the door-handle. Suddenly, the TARDIS jolted, bucking about uncontrollably like a rabid horse. The fake Hex fell to the floor as the TARDIS' time rotor flung itself up and down. The TARDIS sped through the wilderness of the vortex.

"Ace, what did you do?" shouted the Doctor over the cacophony of tumultuous noise.

"I didn't do anything, I promise!" shouted Ace, clutching onto the console for fear of falling over. The Doctor stumbled over to the console as well and let himself fall onto it gently. "What do you think we do about him?" asked Ace, gesturing to the fake Hex lying unconscious on the floor.

"No idea!" shouted the Doctor in reply. The TARDIS stopped shaking and wobbling, and the Doctor and Ace were able to stand up without falling over. They went over to the fake Hex and Ace kneeled down beside him.

"So Professor, is he real?" she asked.

"Oh, no, no, no. He was going to open the TARDIS doors, thereby flinging himself into the vacuum of space. Unless he was willing to sacrifice himself, I find it very unlikely that he's real."

"So Fenric can make fake people?"

"Yes. Well, I imagine he ascertained that power a long time ago, but he has only found a use for it now. I wonder... yes, apparently, another game is being played, between Fenric and another Time Lord. Chess obviously, as it was the last time. And the time before that. Hmm... Fenric really needs to enjoy some new interests. Perhaps next time Snakes and Ladders might be more appropriate? Or Twister?"

"Yes, but Professor, there won't be a next time, will there? We'll stop Fenric. We've done it before."

"Hmm... yes," mused the Doctor, lost in thought. "Well, it must be an important Time Lord playing the game of chess, if Fenric is playing his games so soon again. But which Time Lord? Or Time Lady? That is the question."

"You're sounding so dramatic," said Ace.

"And I have good reason to be. Fenric and some unspecified Time Lord are playing games, and we're caught up in the middle of it all. This must have been a move by one of the players, placing a fake Hex in the TARDIS. It could have been Fenric, using Hex as a hindrance or an agent to lie in wait until Fenric told him to attack".

"Like... a sleeper agent, like in films?"

"Yes, a sleeper agent. Or, it could equally have been the Time Lord, feeling that we needed a bit of extra help to face Fenric. Whoever did it, it was obviously a mistake. I don't think an Elder God or a Time Lord would be so stupid and clumsy as to place a replica of a person we fully well know to be dead, inside the TARDIS. A miscalculation. What's really... bugging me is that I don't know who this Time Lord is."

"You'll find out soon, don't worry."

"I know," sighed the Doctor. "And somebody has moved this TARDIS to wherever we are now, and that was yet another move, but again, I'm not sure who's move it was. It depends upon the environment outside. If it's a hostile environment, it was most likely Fenric trying to kill us. If it's not, then the Time Lord is on my side and is trying to help. One thing's for sure, though – we need to be so, so careful, because Fenric must be much more advanced now than he was. When Hex sacrificed himself, it also killed Fenric, who had made his home inside poor Hex. But if Fenric has resurrected himself, then he's become much more powerful".

"Professor, he's coming round!" Ace interrupted loudly. "Sorry for interrupting," she murmured as a hasty afterthought. And it was true. The fake Hex had started to stir. His eyes opened and he sat up, completely perpendicular to the white TARDIS floor. He turned to Ace and the Doctor and glared.

"That seems to be all that you can do now, point and glare, isn't it?" asked Ace with disgust.

"Where are we?" asked the fake Hex, mimicking Hex's vocal patterns and rhythms perfectly without even trying. It was a Hex so convincing it could fool anybody, apart from the few mistakes it had made. The unharmed shoulder and the reference to 'Sally' seemed to be the only two faults with this fake Hex, otherwise a perfect copy. He stood up and walked over to the console, the Doctor running after him.

"Don't touch a thing!" Ace protested, as she ran to the fake Hex, grabbed his human-like, warm hand and steered him away from the console. The Doctor flicked a switch on the console with one of his fingers and the scanner came on in the wall. As the two windows moved away from each other to reveal the image, Ace stared in amazement. The planet they had been taken to was made of ice, or covered in a whole lot of it. It was snowy and icy and looked very, very cold, and had mountains and ridges and lakes of frozen water. It looked glacial, palatial and beautiful.

"Where are we?"

"I have no idea, Ace".

"I do," replied Hex. "Fenric has moved his pieces around the board yet again, and this world is not as might be expected at first. It's perfectly safe to go out there, of course, but the real question is: 'will you make it back in again?'"

"Right, then, Hex, or whoever you are," said Ace. "We're going out there, into that freezing wilderness, because it must be something to do with whatever Fenric's planning, and just to make sure it's safe, you're coming with us. But first, Professor, please tell me that somewhere inside the TARDIS wardrobe are some spare fur coats!"

They'd got their heavy, warm fur coats on, apart from Hex because as far as the Doctor and Ace were concerned, he didn't need one. In fact, they were going to refer to Hex as 'it' from now on, because the thing that was being Hex wasn't real. The Doctor pulled open the TARDIS doors and Ace was hit by the freezing cold winds. Still, the fur coat kept her warm enough, providing at least a little bit of warmth against the chilly freezing wilderness. She, 'it' and the Doctor plodded off into the wonderland of ice, further away from the safety of the TARDIS with each step they took. It began to snow heavily as they walked, and Ace had to shout to talk to the Doctor.

"SO WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?" she roared at him over the howling wind.

"ANYTHING UNUSUAL!" he replied, equally loudly.

"LIKE THAT?" shouted the fake Hex, pointing to something.

"LIKE WHAT?" asked the Doctor.

"LIKE THAT MASSIVE BIG THUMPING GREAT ICE PALACE!" Hex shouted. The Doctor looked, and saw that Hex had been right all along. An enormous, intricate palace made of ice was right in front of them, blocking their path. It stood proud and tall against the onslaught of the wind and the snow and the ice, yet it didn't show any signs of having melted at all.

"Hmm... remarkable," mused the Doctor, rolling the 'r' of 'remarkable'. "Inside, do you think?" he asked. Ace nodded and she and 'it' followed the Doctor as he made his way into the ice palace through a large space where an entrance had been carved. They walked further and further into the ice palace, not talking because they didn't know what they would find. If they talked, maybe there could be people listening. If there were aliens in the ice palace, it was probably best that they didn't discover three strangers moping about looking for clues.

The ice palace appeared to be, like the TARDIS, bigger on the inside, for it hadn't seemed like the most spacious structure from the outside, but Ace, 'it' and the Doctor had gone through many, many rooms – barren, empty rooms made of ice. A massive ice palace that's bigger on the inside and never melts? thought Ace to herself. Huh. This place is seriously weird.

All of a sudden, without warning, the Doctor stopped. He anxiously scuttled over to a trough made of ice. It was intricate and had carvings on it, alien symbols made up of squiggly lines. The Doctor caressed the circular trough with his hands. Suddenly, there came a noise from behind him, a boot scuffing on ice. The Doctor, Ace and Hex wheeled around to see a fleet of ten Ice Warriors standing there: muscular, reptilian aliens from the planet Mars wearing green scaly armour. They had round, spiky heads protected by armour, and through large eye-slits red eyes shone through. Their leader, an Ice Lord, had a domed helmet and the same penetrating red eyes. Each Ice Warrior, including the leader, had an arm-mounted sonic weapon, a grey tube attached to the arm, and all of these were aimed at the Doctor, Ace and Hex.

"Doctor... what a pleasant occuranccccce... my name is Ice Lord Sadavaar and you will now be eliminated!" rasped the Ice Lord in a hissing, snake-like, asthmatic lisp. All of the sonic weapons fired straight at the Doctor.

SYLVESTER McCOY as The Doctor

SOPHIE ALDRED as Ace

PHILIP OLIVIER as Hex Schofield

JOHN STANDING as Fenric

MATTHEW MACFADYEN as The Time Lord

NICHOLAS BRIGGS as Ice Lord Sadavaar