Chapter 20

[I am so tired today, when I really would've liked more energy to edit.]

The Doctor climbed out the window shortly after saying she needed the roof. That left the other four to sit in silence and wonder what she was doing. Well, Pride had assumed that was how things would go. Then Mr. Owens returned, probably just meaning to check in temporarily, and Lucy moved over to the radio.

"Excuse me? Fuhrer Mustang? Who is Pride?"

Mustang sighed. He could no doubt hear that was a child's voice. But since Pride wasn't offering anything up he spoke. "You'd know him as Selim Bradley. It's sort of a long story, especially since we're short on time, but he's the same Selim as back then. He's an artificial being created to help with the events that day."

No one would need to ask what day Mustang was talking about, even Lucy who hadn't been born yet.

"Artificial? You mean like that guy that attacked the Armstrongs?" Mr. Owens asked.

"What?" Mustang asked.

"Sloth?" Pride added incredulously.

"I, uh, didn't catch a name," Mr. Owens said. "But I was there. I was supposed to attack General Armstrong, among a lot of others, but uh, when we got there the big artificial guy was there attacking her, and then those mindless creatures came in to eat us. So there were a change in plan."

He sounded so awkward explaining it was painful. But that explained what happened to Sloth. Pride had been certain he was the last homunculous, but he didn't know what happened to all of them specifically. Sloth was the only one who could've feasibly disappeared off the face of the Earth without dying. So good to know.

"So you know something about this," Mustang concluded.

"Yeah." Mr. Owens confirmed. He looked at Pride again. "He's seriously one of those artificial creatures?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do about him?"

"That is an excellent question Mustang. That is my son you're talking about."

Pride felt an arm go protectively over him. Though he felt himself tense up a bit as it happened. He was fairly sure Mr. Owens asked what Mrs. Bradley was going, and that was a good question.

"You say he's dangerous, but for the past eleven years he's remembered everything and you've never had a single problem. I won't let you kill him."

"Just because we haven't noticed anything, doesn't mean nothing's happened," Mustang argued.

Well, he's not wrong, Pride thought. He had, after all, killed two people since the Promised Day. Although all things considered, two people was hardly a drop in the bucket for him.

"Ma'am, we may not have to kill him," Hawkeye said, in that tone of trying to calm a situation. "I'm sorry. I know this is a difficult situation. But please understand, we can't just let him continue wandering around unchecked either."

Mrs. Bradley opened her mouth.

"I think that's enough, don't you?" Pride asked, finally speaking up. As gently as he could, he removed himself from his mother's grip. "I don't need you defending me. They have plenty of reason to hate me." The feeling was mutual. He turned to the radio. "But, what do you plan to do? Do you really think you can contain me forever?"

"I don't know, but I do notice you haven't switched voices," Mustang said.

Right. And if he hadn't started using his shadow voice when everyone knew who he was, that strongly suggested he couldn't.

"Hello daleks!" The Doctor's voice echoed around the room, coming from the roof. "This is the Doctor speaking."

"How is she making her voice so loud?" Lucy asked, peering out the window.

"Yes, it's me. And you know what that means. I've got a plan to defeat you, blow you sky high." She began to explain. The Doctor often spoke in terms well beyond the understanding of the average Amestrian, but Pride was pretty sure what she was saying wasn't their actual plan.

"YOU WOULD BE HURTING THE HUMANS HERE," a dalek voice pointed out.

"Possibly. But so are you, and really, most of the humans are underground now. It'll be fine. Probably."

"YOU ARE LYING."

"Am I?"

Central lit up briefly. The dalek ship moved closer, the voices of daleks trying to scan for weapons in the background. The daleks in Amestris paused at least long enough to turn in the direction of the Doctor. Along the road in Creta, Phil let out a breath of relief as the dalek turned and headed back to the border, sparing him and the four other people crammed in the vehicle.

"YOU ARE LYING," the dalek repeated, more confident now. "YOU HAVE NO WEAPON."

"Just one you can't detect," the Doctor said. "Now!"

With the way her voice echoed, there was no doubt the others heard. One thing was for sure, Pride didn't have time to worry about them. A dalek voice was coming closer. He clapped is hands together and jumped away from the radio, towards the circle.

He wasn't quite touching it when the dalek burst in, knocking the door off its hinges. Mr. Owens shot at him, but of course the gun didn't do anything against the armor. Pride was in the air. It wasn't like he could change directions now and get out of the way.

"EXTERMINATE!"

"Selim!"

Someone moved past him in a blur, and it wasn't Mrs. Bradley. Lucy stopped in front of the transmutation circle, and was shot instead of him.

Meanwhile, Pride's hands hit the circle, and it activated.

The dalek in front of them lit up. Pride could see its armor splitting in the middle. It didn't disintegrate, because of the equivalent exchange, something had to happen to the material, but the effect was similar.

Pride yanked his hands off the circle. If the happy voices on the radio were any indication, the effect had been the same everywhere.

The same couldn't be said for the people in this room. Mrs. Owens let out a broken cry as she ran over and cradled Lucy. Pride . . . hadn't expected Lucy to do that. Oh he still didn't like her, but he'd never expected much of anything from her, and she'd just found out he was some sort of monster, with three other people in the room. Surely most people would've let someone else take that hit.

Al spoke over the radio, sounding considerably less happy than a moment before. "Um, is that ship still getting closer?"

Mrs. Bradley and Pride moved to the window. "I think he's right," Mrs. Bradley said.

She'd kept her voice steady. The same couldn't be said for her body. She placed a trembling hand on Pride's shoulder. Well, it had been a long day. Pride took her hand.

Then he leaned out the window. "Doctor! The ship is still coming!"

"Uh, yes, I noticed," the Doctor said. "I think the transmutation must have damaged it. And without any daleks to salvage the situation, it's crashing."

"So it's still going to crush us?!"

The Doctor was, unreassuringly, quiet as the ship drew nearer.

[Funny story, Lucy is actually just sort of a reference to a different post series story that I haven't written yet. I wanted to include her in this one, and since I did that, I thought she should do something relevant. Apparently that something was dying.]