Chapter 18

Pride looked at Oliver. He looked a little scared, which was the norm, but also angry. That he was less familiar dealing with. And he wasn't quite sure why Oliver was angry.

"What was that?" Oliver asked tightly.

"Alchemy."

"And why didn't you use it before?! You could've gotten us out of here. Celina could've lived!"

Ah.

Oliver stepped closer, waving his hands around. Looking at him crossly, Pride stepped to the side. Ice was still creeping around the room. If he, even accidently, pushed Pride he'd probably slip and fall on ice he'd rather avoid.

"There are rules to alchemy that makes this method less than full proof," Pride said. "And I wasn't sure it would work. It was only worth the risk now with you so near the controls."

"Well now you know it works, so free us. Let our friends in."

"Calm down. Why don't you just use the controls?"

And preferably soon.

"You-" Oliver stopped, cutting himself off. "Why wouldn't you free us? Even if the ice stops, we still need someone to open the door." It seemed like a sort of rhetorical question. Oliver wasn't expecting Pride to answer, because he was going to answer himself. "The Doctor doesn't know, does she? She thinks you're a normal kid, and normal kids don't know alchemy, do they?"

"Why would I hide something like that from the Doctor?"

"Don't know. But I can prove it. Doctor! Did you know-!"

Oliver planned to call his bluff by telling the Doctor right now? And he thought Pride had too much ego. Why did he think that would work? Pride was certainly not going to let that happen, and Oliver was too hung up on their argument to have proper situational awareness.

Pride shoved him as hard as he could. Admittedly that wasn't very, but it didn't need to be. They were in a room with ice on the floor, and Oliver hadn't been expecting it. With a yelp, he slipped and fell, his head making a cracking noise. He was still alive enough to look shocked, but ice wrapped around his mouth before he could say anything else. It was such a human way to kill someone, but at least he'd shut up.

"Oliver? Selim? What's going on?!" the Doctor shouted from the other side of the door.

"Oliver fell into the ice!" Pride called back. "I think he's dead!"

He put some effort into sounding distressed. Luckily it wasn't too hard. He was still in danger himself after all.

"Never mind that!" Milan shouted. "Kid! You have to turn off the ice!"

Well he had a point there. Pride ran over to the controls, dodging slick spots on the floor. The controls were a mess. It was just a bunch of unlabeled button and dials. There was a screen above, but it was off.

"Oh yeah? And how do I do that?!"

Mike tried to answer, but it sounded like gibberish. The technology was well above the Amestrian level. And it was admittedly a little hard to make out his words through the door.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Pride shouted, grabbing his head and shaking it.

"You're making it too complicated!" the Doctor said, telling Mike off.

She then tried to relay directions to him, but he tuned her out. There had to be a better way to do this. He spun around. There were still some clean dry spots on the floor. He could try using alchemy to open a hole and jump through, or maybe just break the ground entirely. He could probably do that without making it obvious alchemy had happened.

Pride clapped his hands together and jumped off the chair, pressing his palms onto the floor. Only nothing happened. Right. The floor was probably made of something different than at home. Was he going to have to use alchemy on the door after all? He'd sort of been avoiding that, but it was going to be better than any alternatives at this rate.

He tried to move, to stand up, only he couldn't. One of his feet was stuck in place, and the other slipped out from under him. Right. He'd been watching where his hands went, not his feet. He face planted, both hands flying forward, one getting swallowed by ice. That was going to make it hard to clap. He scrambled to his feet as best he could, but he couldn't get all the way up, and it was continuing to grow up his arm. It was slower than it had been with Oliver for some reason, but that wasn't comforting.

The Doctor meanwhile, was still calling out to him.

"Doctor! I'm stuck!" Pride shouted. "It's the ice!"

He jerked his hand, even as the rational part of his brain told him he was being stupid. He couldn't break out of solid ice with only human strength. But the rational side of him was in the back of his mind and going further by the moment. He was being frozen. His arm was frigid and he couldn't feel his hand at all. He was tired, and couldn't think, and he was pretty sure his breathing was getting too heavy.

"Doctor please! Do something, I don't want to die!"

His vision was going dark around the edges. Was this seriously how he was going to die? He had to . . . he had to do something. His eyes roved around the room. He should . . . he could. . .