Sherlock Holmes and T-Rex in: The Adventure of the Harbour Capers
Holmes impatiently tapped his pipe as he waited for his partner, T-Rex, to finish reading the front page article in the paper which he had immediately thrust at the green-skinned antediluvian when it entered his Baker Street home.
"What do you make of it, T-Rex?"
"It is very strange, I cannot begin to imagine the motive behind this string of crimes. Someone has been attacking coastal cities in the southeast, robbing warehouses and setting the boats in the harbours ablaze. We are no strangers to villainy, of course, but setting fire to the ships seems like a pointless act if all you want is plunder."
"Yes, it does on first inspection seem needlessly destructive. It is a mystery, and as you know, I delight in mysteries. That is why I have decided for us to go and solve this puzzle. The last attack took place in the town of Chisford, so it would be sensible to begin our investigations there."
The dinosaur was visibly excited by this news, and threw up his tiny hands. "Let's go, Sherlock! Shall I call the railway station and find out when the next train for Chisford leaves?
"The next train leaves at 14:20, so we are in some hurry, but I did not want to bring you unprepared. We should leave immediately, before Mrs. Hudson discovers the gigantic claw marks you left on the floors she swept not half an hour ago; she does not have the most evolved detective skills, but I cannot see how it could escape her notice.."
"Yes! But I will have to meet you at the station, I think I might have left the gas on back at my flat."
"Unnecessary, my dear T-Rex, I can say with complete certainty that you did not leave the gas on."
"Amazing, Holmes! How did you deduce that?"
"Elementary: as you are a giant, carnivorous lizard monster, you have no need for a flat, nor gas to cook your food, which you eat raw."
"You're so cool, Mr. Holmes!"
"Yes, I am, T-Rex."
The two made their way to the station, and were soon on their way to Chisford. When they arrived, they saw many frightened locals who scurried quickly past the pair, some running in a panic, clearly unnerved by the savagery of the recent raid upon their docks. Indeed, once Holmes and T-Rex reached the remains of the harbour, they were shocked by the extent of the devastation; just a few charred husks still floated, the rest of the ships had either burnt up entirely or sunk to the bottom.
"Tragic, isn't it?", they heard. Turning around, they saw a well-dressed man with thin-rimmed round spectacles. A gentleman, one would have guessed, if not for his boots, which stood out as being crude and practical, more suitable for a fisherman.
"Very tragic", said Holmes. "Nevertheless, it is good to see a fellow scientist, as two minds can often succeed where one fails."
"Indeed, I am a scientist. I assume you have talked to some of the townspeople about me to know that, as I do not recall us ever meeting."
"That is not the case, your appearance renders you an open book! You are obviously a man of good standing, good enough to afford a not entirely incompetent tailor. However, your footwear reveals that you spend time on very worldly endeavours, something that would make a high street cobbler weep. Because of your standing, it is likely to be a hobby rather than practical work, and since you are here at the docks, my guess is that you study the creatures of the sea, or something else that would require the use of a boat, and that you came to see if any boats were left untouched by the flames so you could purchase one after your own perished. My guess is also supported by the knowledge that the esteemed Sir Charles, author of The Fishing Net is for Prawn, a complete guide to small crustaceans, is known to live in Chisford in his family mansion, and that you might very likely be he.
"Astounding!"
"So as not to leave you at a disadvantage, I will in turn introduce myself and my ally here. I am Sherlock Holmes, and my enormous friend is T-Rex."
"Hello!", said T-Rex, after getting over the post-Holmesian daze.
"We are here to solve this strange mystery.", Holmes continued.
"To do so would be to do me a great service! This attack has been a terrible setback, as I had just discovered a not only scientifically significant, but also extremely delicious prawn nesting area which I will be delighted to tell you about at length."
"If only that were possible, but we really must proceed with our investigations."
"Well, Mr. Holmes, I would be honoured if you would be my guest while you are here, I cannot imagine that you have lodgings here worthy of you."
"We thank you for your hospitality, Sir Charles. Also, if you would have your servants prepare a couple of ox carcasses for my friend's dinner."
"But of course, nothing could be easier."
"One more thing before we leave you, could you give us your account of what happened here? One never knows to what extent the papers can be relied upon."
"Certainly, Mr. Holmes. As you likely know, there was a break-in at the dockside warehouse just a couple of days ago, where a large shipment of timber was stolen. It happened at night, and apparently no one saw the thieves before it was too late. Then every ship in Chisford was set on fire, it was a horrible waste. As if that weren't bad enough, soon after a band of thugs decided to exploit the distraction caused by this tragedy to break into the harbour master's office, probably looking for petty money. Finding him still at work, they shot the poor bastard. Strangely enough, they took a bunch of harbour records with them."
"Why do you think these thugs are different from the first group, Sir Charles?"
"Well, when I say 'soon after', I mean about ten minutes after the first crime was discovered. Some people heard the gunshot after the work of trying to salvage some of the boats had begun. I can't see why they'd stick around that long."
"Thank you, Sir Charles, you've been most helpful", said Holmes. Tipping his hat, Sir Charles bade the pair farewell, as Holmes mounted the tyrannosaurus.
"T-Rex, this news of an additional crime is highly intriguing, and I do believe there may be more of a connection than our gracious host believes. Let us go to the warehouse first, then turn to the deceased official's office."
Nodding, T-Rex charged through the narrow streets to the warehouse, inflicting only minimal collateral damage. Arriving, the warehouse made a pleasant change from the devastation of the harbour, as it was completely intact, with no obvious signs of any ill event, apart from two guards newly stationed at the entrance.
"Hello there, gentlemen! Might my dinosaur friend and I perhaps be admitted? I am Sherlock Holmes, detective, and he is my assistant."
"No chance, mayor wants no more trouble with this; only police can enter, so get lost!"
"On the other hand", said the other, after T-Rex had let out a modest roar, "we can make an exception if you promise to keep your assistant from tearing us to pieces with its huge and terrible teeth!"
"Most excellent! T-Rex, you do have a way with words", said Holmes as the guards fled the area as quickly as possible.
Searching the area thoroughly yielded little, unfortunately, apart from a clump of seaweed which had to have been dragged there accidentally by either the dockers or the robbers. On Holmes' insistence, T-Rex brought the seaweed with him as they went to the dock office.
"Ah-HA! T-Rex, the carelessness of local law enforcement will never cease to delight me", Holmes said as he picked up a tiny object from the corner of the room.
"What did you find?", gasped T-Rex with wonderment.
"Nothing less than the bullet casing, and it is not of a type made by any of any of the major British manufacturers, which leads me to suspect that whoever assaulted this place was not just some opportunistic local."
"Oh my goodness, how exciting, Holmes!"
"Oh yes! But now, let us go to the mansion, there is no use in searching here any longer."
T-Rex stopped abruptly in front of Sir Charles' home, accidentally launching Holmes through the french windows leading out to the balcony. Brushing off glass shards, he got up from the shattered sofa and went downstairs to join T-Rex and their host for dinner.
"So, Mr. Holmes" said Sir Charles, passing along the foie gras, "have you learned anything from your investigations?"
"Very little as of now, I fear. The perpetrators left very few clues, very little of anything, in fact."
"Well, it might interest you that I've made some inquiries, and there seems to be a trend in what they steal. The other warehouses, when robbed, contained machine tools, steel and coke. With the theft of timber here in Chisford, it seems that the enemy is going after industrial supplies for some reason. Of course, it might be coincidence."
"I think not, Sir Charles, this is a very significant finding, and indeed, I had planned to investigate this myself, having sent certain letters to the effect. But now that you have told me, that saves me the wait. I shall have to think on this."
"What..." T-Rex queried between mouthfuls, crushing flesh and bone in his mighty maw, blood spurting from the ravaged remains of his third ox, "...what about the ships? What do you make of them?"
"An important complication", said Holmes thoughtfully. "But I have certain theories."
Before the fruits of his deliberations could be harvested, however, they were interrupted by the sudden entrance of the sinister butler.
"My Lord, there is a visitor."
"Oh? Well, show him in, perhaps he will join us for dinner."
"I am afraid, Sir, that she only wishes to see your guest, Mr. Holmes."
Excusing themselves, the master detectives followed the butler to the front door, where they met a young girl from the village.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I asked to speak with you alone, I'm not sure I could..."
"You needn't fear my colleague here. He may look intimidating and out of place, but he is gentle and kind, with a heart the size of a large dog."
"And big teeth!", added T-Rex excitedly.
"Very well, Sir. Thing is, Sir, I 'eard you was trying to find out who done in the poor 'arbour master."
"Ah! Well, yes. That is, I may find out while solving the real crime. Do you have any information?"
"Well, I 'eard the killers, Sir. People say they were just thieves, but I was near the office when they did it. Spoke a strange language, they did, Sir, like it was completely alien."
"I see. Of course, being an uneducated commoner, the strange, alien language beyond your understanding might well have just been French, Spanish, Italian, or even proper English."
"I know what I 'eard, Sir! And when I ran home, I saw they'd dug up me garden, Sir!"
"They dug up your garden?"
"That's right, Sir! I live quite near the warehouse what was robbed, Sir, so they must have done it earlier."
"Do you hear that, T-Rex? Our villains not only steal industrial materials and official records, they also rob the poor, British yeoman of his very soil."
"What jerks!"
"Have no fear, miss. We will certainly discover the roots of this mystery, and in doing so discover the roots stolen from your garden."
The girl left, and the dynamic duo retired to the sitting room.
"T-Rex, I believe we are nearing the dénouement of our little play. Tomorrow, we shall go south, where a large shipment of coal is due to arrive, which would seem an appropriate target for our friends. Then we will follow them to their base of operations and defeat them."
"Huzzah!"
Holmes and T-Rex said their goodbyes to their host in the morning, and travelled south to a yet-untouched city. After a brief hunt to secure the great prehistoric mind's lunch, they watched the important shipment being taken to storage, then hid near the edge of the water to prepare for their foe's arrival. Minutes turned to hours as Holmes patiently spent the time trying to teach his esteemed but less intellectually subtle partner how to identify a killer's dress size from the local swallow formations, until at last T-Rex saw something through the darkness.
"Holmes, look! In the water!"
It was an eerie sight as a large black shape appeared. Rather than sail upon the sea, it instead rose from the black depths like a monster, an ancient beast, its existence declared impossible by the foremost palaeontologists of the land. Such a creature had not been seen by the eys of man for thousands of years.
"Have courage, my dinosaur friend. I have prepared a boat here, we will take it and sail out to confront this phantom."
They quickly got out from their shelter and went in the boat. Holmes brought them to the mysterious shape, as T-Rex's lack of endowment regarding his arms had always kept him barred from the university rowing team, while the thing itself remained strangely immobile.
"T-Rex, if you would hand me one end of the wire lying at the bottom of the boat."
T-Rex complied, and Holmes leapt from the boat onto the shape, as if he wanted to strangle it himself! However, his landing produced a loud clang, as if landing on metal.
"I am intrigued to learn that these things actually work. I have read about them, but I had yet to see one in action, and had always gotten the impression that they were largely impractical. At least now we know that they can certainly be used for crime."
Holmes carefully went down the length of it, then stopped to tie the wire around a metal tube sticking up from the main body. At this point sounds were heard, even muffled voices.
"The harshness of the tone suggests that they are speaking German in there, curious indeed. I was well aware that our appeasement of the French had caused much anxiety in Mitteleuropa, but actually attacking cities seems surprisingly belligerent."
The whirr of a motor was heard, and the ship started to sink. Holmes nimbly climbed back into the boat with T-Rex, and started feeding rope over the side of the boat.
"Don't worry, this wire will go to the ocean floor if it has to, though I doubt they will go that deep."
They let the submerged vessel pull them for hours as it sailed down the coast, until at last it resurfaced. It then sailed a while out to sea, until it reached a rocky outcrop.
"Ah, look, Holmes, it's going through that small hole!"
Sure enough, the metal ship went through a small hole in the rocks near the surface of the water, the visible part of the entrance barely a foot high.
"The base of operations, no doubt. Now let us find out what they have been inconveniencing my seaside countrymen for, and how it could be important enough to risk stirring the Empire."
They beached the small boat on the rocks, then Holmes grabbed his pistol and threw off his jacket. He went into the water, taking care to keep his gun dry in case it would be used. T-Rex stealthily cannonballed after him. As they passed through the entrance, they found themselves in a dark cave, with only the abandoned ship there in a body of water barely large enough to house it. At the back of the cave was a tunnel with a faint light shining from around the corner. Creeping closer, they started to hear voices again. Holmes cocked his revolver.
"Now let's hope my Prussian colleagues aren't busy, because they're going to have to investigate the mystery of some serious beatdowns when we're done here!"
T-Rex cheered, and Holmes jumped as best he could to high-five him.
"Achtung! Engländer!"
The guard ran back through the tunnel, and the boisterous voices heard before were replaced with a great commotion and the sound of people running back and forth to arm themselves and the clatter of bolt-action rifles being primed. Seeing as surprise was now out of the question, Holmes and T-Rex instead charged through. They dodged a hail of bullets as they rushed through the central chamber, a large cavern decorated with imperial German banners, various tables strewn with playing cards or bottles of liquor. Some of the tables had been kicked over and were being used as impromptu cover. T-Rex let out a primal roar, snapping his mighty teeth as he crushed one of these positions, the planks of the table turning to splinters, and the riflemen fleeing in every direction. Holmes saw one of the soldiers ready a hand grenade, so he put a bullet through his head, making him drop the explosive which then eliminated a group of his comrades in a fiery explosion.
At this point reinforcements were coming in from adjoining rooms, some equipped with heavy machine guns which let out a deafening thunderous sound, spitting out death at a rate made possible only through modern industry. Feeling challenged, T-Rex answered by breathing a great wave of fire, the ur-flame incinerating those who did not drop their weapons and leap for cover in time, and burning those who did so severely that they wished they had not. Then, however, he let out a howl; one of the Germans had managed to run up his tail and was now stabbing T-Rex in the back with his army knife. Seeing his friend in trouble, Holmes took a running start, then leapt onto the 20-foot-tall primeval killing machine. The German soldier was briefly shocked, but regained his composure and assumed a combat stance, preparing to fight Holmes atop the still rampant dinosaur. Holmes raised his fists, blocking a roundhouse kick. "Very impressive, Engländer! But you are no match for the secrets of the Orient!"
Holmes weaved away from a fast chop, then hit his unprepared foe with a brual one-two punch, sending him reeling back. "Your tricks may help you win the gymnastics medal, but they won't help you beat an old British boxer!"
Enraged, the soldier went for a low sweeping kick, seeking to send Holmes off the side of their living battlefield. He stumbled, but was saved as T-Rex turned to run after another gun nest.
"Ha! Having trouble keeping up? You are as old, weak, and decadent as your crumbling empire!"
"You mean the old, decadent empire whose troops are showing up right over there?"
Visibly disturbed, the soldier turned his head to look behind him, realising his mistake about halfway through as he was greeted with a bone-shattering uppercut upon turning back. It knocked him out cold, sending him tumbling down the back of the dinosaur. At this point, however, another ace rocketed from the sleeve, as a section of cavern wall came tumbling down, crushed under the weight of the Germans' newest, fiercest weapon, an enormous automobile completely encased in thick steel plates, with one big gun mounted on top, and several machine guns pointing out from small slits.
"I would advise you to surrender, intruder!", said a voice from behind the machine, "you and your pet are no match for our new Panzer battlecar." The voice's owner stepped out from the shadows, a decorated officer in immaculate uniform, his weapon not yet readied.
"Remarkable thing, isn't it? Completely invulnerable to attack from small arms fire and, I suspect, dinosaur teeth."
"I wonder, Sir, if you intend to put that to the test?"
"Not unless it is necessary. Now, who are you, and what are you doing in our secret submarine base?"
"Oh yes, do pardon me, I seem to have gone straight for the violence when perhaps conversation might have been a better starting point."
"You are a European statesman, then?"
"A detective, actually. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my partner, T-Rex. We are investigating certain attacks on English coastal cities."
"Well, in that case, Mr. Holmes, I am afraid I must disappoint you. It is not the vile hun that has been attacking you, and indeed, I am here to investigate the very same matter. Whatever is carrying out these attacks has hit Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven, and the Emperor wants it stopped."
"And I take it you were in England to find the perpetrators?"
"Precisely, Mr. Holmes. Indeed, we'd been there a few times to investigate, we assumed that your government had a hand in it, which is why we broke into the harbour office: to see if we could find any official directives or such ordering attacks. But then we learned that you had been victims too, so we decided to wait near a likely attack site and follow the villains back to their base. Unfortunately, we were rudely boarded, and had to dive and turn back. It would be unfortunate if our submarine were captured for study, even by our sometimes-ally, England."
"Then you leave us in a somewhat awkward situation, as we have left your home here in a bit of a disarray."
"We're very sorry!", said T-Rex, picking limbs out of his teeth.
"That's quite all right, many of these soldiers were about to go on home leave anyway, their replacements should be here soon. We will bring you home, but I must ask you to swear that you will not speak of what you have found here."
They swore on their words as gentleman and dinosaur, and were soon seen safely back to Chisford. That, however, left them close to square one as they returned to Sir Charles' mansion.
"Welcome back, Holmes", he greeted them, "and T-Rex. I take it you didn't catch them?"
"Not quite, though I'd quite like to know how you know that, Sir Charles."
"Didn't you hear? There was another attack while you were gone, which obviously means you haven't stopped them yet."
"Oh, blast! Were there any significant clues?"
"Not as far as I have heard, I'm afraid."
"And now even our old clues are going off", said T-Rex, brandishing some slightly charred seaweed, "some of this seaweed you made me carry around got burnt in the fighting."
"T-Rex, you excel yourself! Sir Charles, you are a biologist, is there anything you can tell us about this seaweed?"
T-Rex dumped the pile of dry seaweed on the dinner table, and Sir Charles adjusted his spectacles as he took a closer look.
"Most unusual. This is a deep sea species, and not a common one, certainly not one you're likely to find stranded on the beach."
"We didn't, it was found at the site of the break-in."
"Well, I know of only one place in Europe where you'd find this kind of seaweed, but unless you have specialist equipment I don't see how you could get to it. And before you ask, it's equipment that I would die to have, but that I unfortunately do not."
"Luckily", said Holmes, lighting his pipe, "we know where to get that kind of equipment."
T-Rex looked through the periscope, seeing nothing but sea in all directions.
"Holmes, are you sure this is the place?"
"T-Rex, I hope you are not starting to doubt my skills so much that you do not think I have the ability to read maps correctly."
"No, no, Holmes, but there's nothing out here."
"Of course. It was a deep water seaweed, so we go deep. Fill the tanks."
"Aye-aye, captain."
The submarine creaked as it took on water. The sunny sky was replaced by bright blue water, which then turned into an enveloping inky blackness as they went deeper and deeper.
"Tell me, T-Rex: what do you think we will find at the bottom?"
"Seaweed?"
"Yes, T-Rex, but we can't very well arrest the seaweed. I meant ultimately; have you yet figured out who our culprit is?"
"Oh. Well, it wasn't the Germans."
"Certainly not, an attack happened while we were keeping them company, so we are their alibi for that."
"So it's got to be someone else. Someone with the ability to go deep underwater, to the source of the seaweed we found, and who has reason to want to steal industrial supplies and to destroy fishing boats. Oh, and to steal dirt from that peasant girl!"
"Ergo?"
T-Rex paused, unsure. "An underwater city of evil fish people?"
Holmes turned towards a window and looked out, the water quickly getting brighter as they neared their destination. He put on his hat. "Well done, T-Rex."
The submarine approached the great underwater metropolis, a collection of giant glowing spheres, like suspended air bubbles lit up by glowing algae. Faintly one saw shapes swimming around the perimeter, guards prepared to alert the city to intrusion. As our detectives were detected, some of the guards swam back towards the city, while others approached the submarine, their hideous, scaly bodies visible through the portholes. One knocked on the front window and pointed towards a part of the city, a large stone sculpture in the shape of a shark's head which began to open, revealing a way in through the mass of giant teeth. Deciding to oblige the valets, the two sailed into the belly of the beast. Passing through the airlock of the beast, Holmes and T-Rex climbed out of the submarine, facing a squad of fish men armed with spears, two of them dragging along man-sized killer crabs on leashes, wildly snapping their giant claws in the direction of our submersible supermen. One of the men stepped forward.
"It is not often we get visitors down here. Sekolah will be pleased."
"You're the ones who've been stealing stuff and sinking ships around Europe!", exclaimed T-Rex, very excited by his brilliant deduction, "you can't get proper industrial supplies underwater, so you have to steal them!"
"Soon the fires of industry will burn even here in the deep sea, and we will destroy the surfacers with our might!"
"You destroyed the boats because they were used to hunt your tasty fish brethren!"
"When we crush your puny civilisation you will no longer be able to hunt, kill, and eat our smaller cousins, when we should be doing that instead!"
"And you dug up the girl's garden for its delicious worms!"
"Well, we don't like to deny ourselves the small pleasures."
"Sorry to interrupt your moment of glory, T-Rex, but this Sekolah, I assume he is your leader, and that you will take us to him?"
"Sekolah is the great father of sharks. You will be sacrificed to his glory, after which we will activate the weapon and obliterate London, the first of many cities yet to burn!"
"This really isn't how it usually goes when we discover a new society of primitive natives. Are you sure you can't take us to your leader? I may have some shiny beads back on the ship."
"Your arrogance will not change your fate, surfacer!"
"No, but perhaps this will", said Holmes as he drew his pistol and blew a hole in the commander's skull. Infuriated, the other guards unleashed the crabs, and they themselves rushed at T-Rex and Holmes with their spears.
"Was this really necessary, Holmes?", queried T-Rex as he stomped one of the crabs, flinging some guards into the walls with a sweep of his tail.
"I believe so, this is much more like the African reports!", said Holmes, holstering his pistol and taking out a rapier. He nimbly dodged a fish man spear, stabbing its owner in the throat before stepping back to parry a monster crab claw being swung at him. "Now come on, T-Rex, you can fight smarter than this, think!"
Instantly realising what Holmes was getting at, T-Rex unleashed his fire breath, perfectly grilling the surviving guard party.
"Excellent work, T-Rex. When the going gets tough, I know I can always count on you to think with your stomach. I am afraid we will have to leave the buffet, though, as we have some sort of weapon to disarm."
Mounting T-Rex, the colonialist companions went on a rampage through the halls of the fish man city, burning or stomping anything that took issue.
"Honestly, Holmes, this seems like a step down from the German special forces."
"Are you complaining?"
"Well, it just seems unusual, you'd think the final challenge would be the greatest."
"You mean from a storytelling perspective?"
"Precisely! It seems like it'll make the story a little awkward to tell when I'm going to try to use it to pick up chicks."
"Don't worry, T-Rex, we can just embellish it. Maybe you could say that they had..."
"A 35-foot-long flying demon shark?"
"No, that's stupid, no one's going to...", Holmes started, but had to interrupt himself to leap off T-Rex, narrowly avoiding a sharp tooth the size of his head, which instead impaled his deerstalker. T-Rex sank his teeth into the giant white shark's dorsal fin, struggling to pull it away from his more edible partner. A laugh was heard from the end of the corridor, and it came from a fish woman covered with elaborate jewels, standing atop a giant lobster.
"Fear the wrath of Sekolah, mortals!", she said, before muttering an incantation. She finished it, and a group of living skeletons appeared, shambling towards Holmes, waving their scimitars.
"You know, T-Rex, this would be absolutely fascinating if it weren't so incredibly dangerous", Holmes commented as he parried and thrusted, unsuccessfully trying to find something worth stabbing on an animated skeleton.
"Mmh-hrrm!", T-Rex said in what might be agreement, still locked on to Sekolah as he wrestled with the divine shark, being flung every which way, the shark furiously thrashing and trying to get loose.
Changing his plans, Holmes ran through the skeletons, approaching the dreadful thermidor and its master. She spoke again, her webbed hands crackling as she threw a lightning bolt in his direction. He managed to dodge it, and it struck one of the skeletons, shattering it and sending bones flying in every direction, a few embedding themselves in the fighting titans, the shark shaking its head violently, and T-Rex roaring in pain, letting go of the fin. They went into a stand-off, each snapping while waiting for the other to make a move. Meanwhile, Holmes was in a dance, trying to avoid the huge claws of the lobster mount and find a way to get at the priestess on top. "T-Rex, I need a hand!"
The dinosaur turned, and Holmes leapt aside to avoid the fire breath. The priestess managed to conjure some kind of barrier, but her creature was not so lucky. "You will pay for killing Chippers, you monsters!", she shrieked, producing some sort of enchantment, then running straight at Holmes. At the same time, Sekolah had taken advantage of the distraction to lock its crushing jaw on to T-Rex' tail. Panicked and furious, T-Rex turned his head trying to spew fire at the shark, but it did not let go. Holmes thrust his sword at the enraged priestess, but the weapon simply dissolved. She clawed wildly at him, tearing gashes in his coat and vest, and scratching his skin. Disarmed, Holmes reverted to the old standby and punched her in the face. The ungentlemanly act had as little effect as it deserved, as she did not budge an inch. At this point fish man guards appeared at the other end of the corridor, and they began to run towards the battle, brandishing spears and nets.
"Some people have all the luck! She's throwing around miracles willy-nilly..." , Holmes said, backing away from the raging fish woman as the guards got closer and closer, "...I'd be happy with just one right about now!"
Just then, there was a deafening explosion. The glass-like material of the walls shattered, and water rushed through the hole, quickly spreading through the hall. A metallic, half-drowned voice was faintly heard through the roar of the water, a loudspeaker going, "Guten Tag, Engländer!"
Holmes waved through the glass, then leapt onto T-Rex who had freed himself in the confusion, and they rode away quickly as a second torpedo hit the outside of the corridor, increasing the violent flow of water. After a few turns they made it to some sort of ritual chamber, in the centre of which they saw a rocket. Not a toy rocket as you might see in China, but a giant one surrounded by scaffolding, pointed through a hole in the roof through which water was mysteriously not flowing. Holmes and T-Rex quickly climbed the scaffolding as the water rose, streaming in from the breach made by the second German submarine.
"Is this the weapon, Holmes?"
"It certainly doesn't look pleasant."
They found a hatch near the tip. Opening it, they saw a large red crate, a grinning skull painted on the lid.
"I have an idea, T-Rex. Help me get this thing out."
They pulled out the crate, placing it on the scaffolding. Then Holmes signalled to T-Rex to enter the compartment. He did, bumping his head against something on the ceiling. Immediately, a voice was heard: "T minus 20!"
Holmes joined him in the tip of the rocket. "T-Rex, I hope you have some sort of dinosaur god you can call upon."
"T minus 15!"
"Oh sure, I talk to him all the time!"
"T minus 10!"
"Really? Well, T-Rex, chances are that you'll get to introduce me in a moment."
"T minus 5!"
"I often try"
"4!"
"People just think I'm crazy."
"3!"
"Ah, T-Rex"
"2!"
"Aren't we all?"
"1!"
Holmes shuffled in his armchair, trying to get comfortable. "Say, T-Rex, could you pass me that tray of éclairs?"
"Certainly, Holmes. Oh, did you read the news?"
"You are referring to the article on a mysterious earthquake in the North Sea, causing giant waves in Norway, Denmark and the North European coast? Yes, interesting read, indeed."
"Do you think we should investigate it?"
"I don't think that would be necessary, T-Rex."
Holmes sipped his tea as T-Rex threw his own tea and cup into his giant maw.
"I do hope Mrs. Hudson comes back from the hospital soon. The doctors said it was only shock and that she would be fine, but we are running out of clean cups."
"It is very modern, Holmes."
"You can't say that my new installation art doesn't arrest the eye."
T-Rex nodded, turning to look at the half of the room that was occupied by the wreckage of the rocket, still sticking through the wall and out to the street.
"Anyway, we can let Mrs. Hudson clean up while we're gone, T-Rex."
"Oh, are we going somewhere?"
"We are. I found something in the rocket that suggests the fish people weren't acting alone."
"May I see?"
Holmes rose and went to the drawer, where he dramatically produced a crocodile tooth-lined hat.