Chapter 58
"Doctor!"
Pride ran to the ledge and looked over, trying to see the Doctor. So far, all he could see was dust. The bridge was definitely in pieces, and no one was up on the ledge with them, but the Doctor had to be okay. She always had a plan. She always won.
"Doctor! Doctor where are you?!"
He leaned farther forward, his hands digging harder into the ground to keep himself upright.
"Pride, stop it."
Suddenly, Lilly was there, pulling him away from the ledge.
"Let me go. We have to help the Doctor."
"I know. I know!" Lilly's voice came out tense as she physically fought to keep him back. "But if we stay like this Porter is going to shoot us. Please Pride. We have to do something about Porter, and you know I can't."
Pride stopped struggling, partially because it was so weird to hear her talking like that to him, and partially because she was right. (Also a weird shock.) Yes. She was right. They had to do something about Porter. Right now, dust was up between them and him, but that wouldn't last. Was dust even an issue for Porter?
The first thing to do was get off the butte, and there was no bridge.
"Targets located."
"Move," Pride said.
But it seemed he didn't need to warn her. Even Lilly was smart enough to scramble out of the way when she heard that.
"Lilly, that metal plate from the dalek tower. Push it off the ledge."
"What? But-"
"Do you want my help or not? I know what I'm doing. Push it off the ledge."
There was no time to argue. They couldn't dodge indefinitely on such a small space. Lilly shoved the plate. As it slid forward, Pride clapped his hands and brought the ground up around it, covering it as it went across the ledge. There, a new bridge. Or at least it was good enough to run across.
Porter noticed as they started across of course, clanging as they went. He fired at their new bridge. Lilly and Pride stared to fall.
"Got you." That was Clare.
"You're caught, you're caught," the parrot on her shoulder-which was also a part of her?- said.
She managed to pull the two of them up on her own, which was good because no one else was around. The Doctor, Nate, and Galaxy were nowhere in sight. So all the useful people were gone in one hit. Fantastic. (Strangely, he found himself a little worried about Nate too. But he'd be fine, he had a shield. There was no time to worry about those three.)
"What do we do?" Lilly asked.
Well Clare sure didn't seem to have any answers. Okay. So Pride would get them out of this. He would save them. And unlike on the rebound planet, he would do it right this time. His brain scrambled to come up with ideas. An important part would be getting rid of Porter's ice patch. Another important observation was that every time Porter fired he recoiled a bit, the metal part of him much better at taking hits than the flesh part. And that gave Pride an idea.
"We need to get back into town!" Pride shouted.
"We'll take the bike! It's faster!" Clare called back.
Pride turned. Sure enough, there was a 'bike' near the cliff. It looked a bit like a motorcycle but it could hover, instead of using wheels on the ground, and it was big enough they should all be able to fit, though it helped that Pride was small. Clare had presumably used it to get here, since Nate had covered a lot of distance.
Clare and Lilly were already closer to the bike, so Pride started running for it. Abruptly he was tripped by something metal, and warm. Pride hit the ground and felt Porter's metal hand flip him around. He placed his metal hand on Pride's head. One of his feet also stomped down on one of Pride's wrists, stopping him from clapping. That had probably broken something.
"Get off!" Pride shouted.
"Pride!" That was Lilly.
Pride struggled with his free hand feebly. Without using alchemy, the most he was doing was brushing Porter. And his wrist and head were heating up.
"You made a mistake, not siding with me," Porter said, his voice taking on the metal echo it only sometimes did. "It was inconvenient to keep you alive this long, but I had to make sure you knew that, before I kill you."
Porter switched hands, bringing his flesh hand to Pride's head, presumably to blast him with his metal one. Well that was a mistake. He should've just tried crushing Pride's head like a grape with the metal hand or something. As soon as Porter's flesh hand was near his mouth Pride bit down. He didn't just bite Porter either. He dug in as hard as he could, ripping off part of Porter's finger, and started chewing.
Porter released him, pulling back with a yell that was more surprise and disgust than actual pain.
The goal had been to make him let go and it worked. Pride scrambled to his feet to see Clare and Lilly had mounted the bike and were riding straight towards them, possibly planning to run Porter over. Clare, upon seeing Pride escape, turned to the side slightly, and extended a hand instead. Pride took it, with the hand Porter hadn't stepped on. He could probably fix the break with alchemy, but if it had burnt he'd have to let that heal the slow way.
All three of them mounted, Clare started driving towards town as fast as she could. Porter fired after them, screaming and cracking the ground beneath him. The bike rocked violently despite Clare trying to dodge. Pride was glad he was in the middle, or he would've fallen off with only one good hand.
"We're going to die," Lilly said.
"We are not," Pride told her. "I have a plan."
