It was coming, The Doctor knew it was. He sat again in the now familiar room, with his old clothes drying by the fire. He sat spinning the earth crusted spade in his hands, as he thought on how long it had been. How many years? How many centuries? How many millennia? Bird. He scoffed mentally, only he would leave warnings to himself in parable. He'd fled Room 12 this time, unable to face the sheer futility of his task as he remembered, unable to face that wall.
The door creaked and there it was, the Veil. The creature from his nightmares, forever pursuing him, relentless and deadly. Never stopping, never resting. The Doctor stood drawing himself up to his full height. He was no longer afraid of death at this creature's hands.
The Veil advanced and the Doctor stood his ground, tall and defiant. It reached for him with a foul twisted hand. The Doctor stood fearlessly facing his death, raised his arm … and brought the spade down on the creature's hand with a sickening crunch. The Veil staggered with the force of the blow, wailing in pain. The Doctor stepped back with a smile.
"Oh sorry, were you not expecting that?"
The creature flailed towards him with its other hand. The Doctor casually stepped to the side. "The problem with you is that yes the slow implacable monster from my nightmares is very scary" He dodged another lunge, "But being slow can be…" he raised the spade "A little bit of a disadvantage".
A scream rang through the castle.
The Doctor stepped back again still smiling. The Veil was bent over, whimpering over the ruined mess of flesh and bone that had once been its hands.
"You see I was willing to take the long way round…" he darted in again swinging the spade. Another scream and the horrible sound of a leg shattering. "But then I started to think, purely in the interests of science, that if every room in this maze resets do you also reset?" The Doctor was circling the Veil now, as it desperately tried to clamber upright. The spade flashed again in the firelight as The Doctor brought it down on the creature's other leg.
"Of course when I realised that I didn't reset, well not without a little bit of help, I really got thinking. This might be a very clever little torture chamber you locked me in. But if I can die, me! The entire point of this elaborate labyrinth! The being you've expended so much time and power to trap in your little puzzle box. Well, then, if I can die let's see who else can die. You might be a construct built out of my very nightmares but you are still flesh" The Doctor glanced at the dark stain on the end of his spade "And blood".
The Doctor stepped forwards spade raised over the crippled creature on the floor. Then stopped.
"Maybe this won't be enough. After all this spade is as much a part of the castle as you are, or that window I've broken so many times. Maybe something that's part of the castle can't damage the castle permanently. Maybe all your wounds will heal as soon as I walk out the room. Maybe this spade isn't even real." The Doctor paused in thought as the Veil tried to drag itself towards him. Then he stepped back and looked around the room. The smile was back but there was an edge to it.
"Ah but you can control the castle. Of course you can you built it. But whatever this is, a pocket universe or miniaturised dimension it must have rules. Rules built into its programming, coding, soul whatever you want to call it. They could be mad rules built in the most twisted of minds, rules I could never comprehend but you! The clever ones who trapped the mighty Doctor. Well you are just a little bit thick aren't you? You built this place with the same rules as earth, give or take the odd resetting room or…" the spade smashed down again on the crawling figure's back "implacable monster."
The Doctor brought the spade down again and again on the Veil. Each time the creature let out a wail. Each time bones and twisted flesh broke beneath the blow.
"You see. You created and control the stones of this place, the furniture, the windows, even the earth. You can move rooms, fix a window or even repair a flower. But can you control what can be created using your creation? Can you break the physics of your little trap to protect your little pet without bringing this whole place tumbling down? Or to put it another way…"
The smile had gone completely from the Doctor's face. His face was no longer that of the rude old man with the sonic sunglasses that he pretended to be. His face was cold and terrible. It was the face of a man who would do anything.
"Have you ever heard the phrase 'kill it with fire'?"
The Veil did not die quickly.
The Doctor piled his old set of clothes on top and around it. Too weak to resist it could only moan and twist as it tried to dislodge the pile of half dry cloth. Breaking a chair into tiny pieces he scattered the wood on top of it. Then with a smile he reached into the fire and pulled out a burning log. Heedless of the heat and the burning of his skin he strode over to the Veil. It was whimpering in fear now. The Doctor stood over the crippled creature for a moment then dropped the log.
The flames roared up. Wood and cloth, even the creature's clothes, burned quickly, its flesh did not.
But the Doctor would not be denied. He piled more kindling on top of it. Broken furniture, tapestries from the walls. Soon he was pulling whole logs from the fire, their crushing weight adding to the Veil's pain as it burned in agony. He even tore down the door to the room, smashing its hinges, to add more fuel to the fire.
Hours later there was nothing left of the Veil but ash, a few scattered pieces of the clockwork mechanism that had propelled the abomination and the echoes of a thousand screams.
The Doctor stood in the centre of the room watching the still burning fire on the floor. His face grim.
"You really don't understand me do you?" he murmured to the people he knew were listening. "You must have heard the stories, heard those names my enemies give me. The Bringer of Darkness, The Oncoming Storm, The Executioner, The Living Death. The Warrior. Of course you've heard the names, probably heard them so many times you're sick of them, I know I am!" The Doctor laughed, a bitter broken laugh, his voice getting louder "Did you ever actually think what I must have done to earn those names?"
He was shouting now, pacing the room. "Did you think it was all clever traps and sonic screwdrivers? Did you think I carved a bloody path through the Time War by running? Did you honestly think that I never stood over a broken enemy and watched the light leave their eyes?"
The Doctor's anger was like a living thing, swelling up inside him. Fury that these idiots had thought they could break him. Rage that their schemes had taken Clara from him.
"Did you really think your little clockwork monster would stop me?" his voice dropped to a whisper "And do you really think your prison will hold me?"
The Doctor's voice had dropped even further, a whisper no human could have heard, but the listeners heard it. Deep in their very hearts they heard the whisper and felt fear.
"And when I have escaped this place. Do you think there is anywhere in time and space you can run where I won't find you? My reign of terror may end at the sight of the first crying child, but until that day, run. Run as far as you can and as fast as you can. Find a deep dark hole and hide in it because I am coming for you and there is no-one to hold me back, no-one to make me pretend I am a good man"
The Doctor stood defiant against his unseen enemies, his voice cold and bitter.
"There was a time when I would have shown you mercy; the peaceful, forgiving, compassionate Doctor would have shown you mercy. But no more. No more."