Penultimate chapter
The Doctor blinked the light from his eyes and instantly knew where he was...he was back in the town.
He was thankful that he was at least dressed and he would have found the thought of wrestling naked with Jack amusing at any other time.
But the thing he was now hunting for wasn't Jack.
He climbed a ruined wall and sniffed the air; he filtered out the smell of human death and scorched buildings, searching for the thing that had tried to kill him.
Its stink was still in his nostrils, an ugly mix of its true nature and what should have been the pleasant smell of Jack.
He froze when that smell became strong once more and he jumped off the wall and set off with purpose.
It had expected the Time Lord to fight; all the Time Lords' it had consumed had fought, for a little while, but all succumbed to it in the end.
It had thought it had the Time Lord back at the motel, but then the human it had imitated had shifted the balance and the Time Lord fought harder.
It had been surprised to see the human alive...that was something it would go back to, once it had devoured the Time Lord.
But what surprised it and made it crave the Time Lord even more was the power that surged from the Time Lord into itself...this one was truly powerful.
It had only had a taste before the energy between them erupted and it had found itself back in the place it had started.
It wanted the Time Lord even more and this time it would get him. It closed its eyes and began to...its eyes snapped open and panic swept through it, albeit briefly...it couldn't transform to its larger state; it was stuck in the form it was now in.
The Time Lord must have taken more energy from it that it had thought, no matter, it would regain it and much more when it finally found and finished off the Time Lord.
It sniffed the air and found what it wanted and moved off in the direction of its unfinished meal.
The two met in the ruins of the town's main street and faced each other like cowboys in an old western
Except these weren't two desperate old gunfighters facing each other in the final dance of death...these were two powerful beings, who were fighting to decide the fate of an entire world.
Neither spoke, no words were needed...no insults to goad the other into moving first.
It was predator verses predator and only the strongest would prevail.
With matching snarls they ran straight toward each other and met with a clash of body's and became locked in a struggle of strength.
The not Jack shrugged off the Time Lord and thrust him backwards and laughed.
"You think you can match my strength...you are weak compared to me."
"Who said this is a battle of muscle," the Doctor snarled and launched himself forward and with a move that he'd stolen from one Captain Jack Harkness, he hooked a leg round the not Jack's leg and they went crashing to the ground.
Using his superior speed, he clamped his hand on the not Jack's head. "I don't need muscle to defeat you," he snarled and forced his way into the not Jack's mind.
It snarled as it felt the Time Lord smash into its mind...a foolish move.
"You think you can destroy me by crushing my mind? You are not my first Time Lord...see what I am."
It flashed images through the connection into the Time Lord's mind, images of the faces and names of the Time Lords it had consumed.
It felt the Time Lord falter and it poured more into his mind...the pain and the torture of its victims as they died.
He felt the Time Lord recoil and with another snarl he ripped the Time Lord's hands from its head.
"I am S'axcytha...the Devourer... the Terror of the Dark...the Soul Thief."
The Doctor reeled away when the images had poured into his mind...faces and names that were etched in Time Lord history...the fallen.
When the not Jack snarled its name he staggered even further away a look of horror on his face.
"You can't be...you're not real."
"What, you think I was just a tale to make little Gallifreyan children behave, a scary tale told on a stormy night. Such lies, I am real and now you will know why they told tales to frighten."
The not Jack pounced and the Doctor didn't have chance to react and it was upon him.
The Doctor let out a scream of agony as what felt like daggers sliced into his very core.
It was as he was screaming that a shot rang out, kicking up ash next to both of their heads.
"Stop right now or I will shoot you!" Jack's voice rang out.
It rose from the ground, taking the Doctor with it and it faced the one who had spoken.
"You again, you are most persistent. Take your shot, but if I suffer, so does the Time Lord."
It laughed when the human did not carry out its threat.
"Humans, so weak...then die instead."
A bolt of brilliant light shot from its free hand and hit the human square in the chest and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.
It ignored the frantic cry of the Time Lord and poured more death at the human. It watched with disinterest as the smouldering remains fell to the floor.
It turned back to the Time Lord, expecting to see a cowed and fearful victim.
It was mistaken as the eyes of its next meal flashed with their own fire.
"That was a mistake," the Time Lord snarled. "Time for you to die now."