Chapter 5

"The bathroom," Pride said, voice utterly deadpan.

"Oh. Does she know where the bathroom is?"

"No idea." He seemed remarkably unconcerned. "What is that?"

"School uniform." She held up the white and light blue outfit, somewhat like hers actually. "Only thing I could think of. Is that alright?"

"Not the first one I've worn," Pride said, holding out a hand as she tossed the clothes at him.

As he went behind some more clothes to change, Lilly looked around and chewed her lip. The Doctor wasn't back yet.

"We can find the Doctor if you like," Pride suggested.

"I'd like to see what the others found actually." And share what she knew. "But the Doctor should get back first."

"Is this kind of thing unusual?" Pride asked.

He sounded mildly curious, but he didn't seem to behave the way a kid normally would. Did he? How did kids behave? Never mind that. She should probably answer.

"Well no. It's a bit of an experimental city. It breaks in places. But this isn't a normal case. Something was out there! Something put teeth marks into the hall! I've gone to school for four years for this and I don't have a clue what that was. Not that they'll take my word for it. No, they've got to look themselves." She huffed. "I think there's something funny about this whole place actually." She'd lived here a while, and something didn't add up.

Pride tilted his head, though his eyes remained blank. "What makes you say that?"

What was she doing? Yammering about all this to a total stranger she didn't understand at all. "I . . . I don't know if I should say." She rubbed her arms.

Pride rolled his eyes. "So, what are you going to do? Keep it to yourself until something inevitably goes wrong? Tell one of your coworkers? I'm sure they'll listen to you this time."

Oh she was not going to be talked down to by a prepubescent. She tensed up, shoulders going to her ears. "Listen here, I'm not just sitting on my ass. I've been looking into it on my own. You want to know what's going on? You want me to show you?"

"Okay. Let's go."

Oh. She hadn't expected him to say yes like that. Well, it would be nice to finally have somebody listen to her. So she led the way through the halls, tiptoeing and looking both ways for people. She had to check everyone once and a while to see if Pride was still with her. He was so quiet she couldn't just listen for him. Luckily, they hadn't run into anyone. It was night. The only people likely to be walking the halls were her and her coworkers, and they were probably still at the section of the hall that had been attacked.

Why were they doing this anyway? The original plan had been to wait for the Doctor and talk to Lilly's coworkers. Now they weren't going to either.

They reached the end of the hall. There was a room on the other side of the door, a sort of extension of the hall with how it was shaped, but it was a dead end. All you got was a wall that could probably open to the ocean around them.

Lilly slid the door open, the two went in, and she shut it again.

Pride strode to the middle of the room and put his hands on his hips. "So, what's so special about this room?" He was trying to seem nonchalant, but he wasn't completely succeeding. His eyes were too alert, his arms twitching just slightly.

"You see the box?" Lilly asked.

Pride nodded. It would be hard not to. It was the only thing in the room aside from them. A metal black box they couldn't see inside of, taller than both of them. Not that either of them were particularly tall. The box took up space, but no more than half the width or height of the room.

Lilly rapped on it with her knuckles. There was instantly the sound of water sloshing inside it.

Pride frowned. "But why would you keep a box of water out of sight? We're in the ocean."

"I assumed there must be something alive in there," Lilly said. "Water doesn't move that much on its own."

"Well then, it's a foregone conclusion, isn't it?"

Lilly stared at him, blinking stupidly a few times. What was a foregone conclusion?

Pride sighed and spoke like she was the child. "There's a strange creature in this box being kept a secret from everyone. There was a strange creature in the ocean that attacked this city less than an hour ago. Ergo, it's the same creature."

"Then-then we have to tell the others."

Just then there was the clicking sound of a lock sliding into place and most of the lights went off. All there was left were the dim emergency lights on the floor.

"No!" Lilly shouted.

She ran for the door, rattling the knob. She knew it wouldn't work, but she was panicking. This wasn't a good room to be locked in. If the doors to the outside opened they'd die for sure.

And a moment later, the doors didn't open, but water started coming in from somewhere. Again, small room. It wouldn't take long to fill up, relatively speaking.

"So much for staying dry," Pride said. He sounded entirely too calm about this.

He sighed, walking over to her, and clapped his hands together. Circle-less alchemy? Well, he couldn't do that.

"No wait!" Lilly shouted.

She slid behind him and grabbed his arms, stopping him from finishing the transmutation. Or at least, distracting him.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked. "Let go."

He tugged himself forward.

"I said wait! You can't!"

"I know alchemy, and I'm fairly certain I know the composition of this door so-"

"It's not about if you physically can. The base is protected from alchemy."

"What?"

At least he'd stopped struggling, his voice losing most of its hostility. (That had been a near constant, looking back on it.)

"Using alchemy in an underwater building presents obvious dangers. Therefore, there are defenses against it. If anyone other than Simon uses alchemy, the base is programmed to seal off the area alchemy's been used in and, where possible, open it to the ocean outside."

Pride thunked his head against the door, gazing at nothing in particular with an utterly unimpressed expression. "That sort of defense shouldn't even be possible," he said.

"It was tricky to design for sure," Lilly said with a shrug. She couldn't claim to be an expert. She hadn't designed the base, and she didn't use alchemy. "And probably faulty here and there. But I don't want to take that risk. Do you?"

His eyes darted back to the doors at the end of the hall, the ones that could bring the ocean in a lot faster than it currently was.

"Fine," Pride said, straightening up. "What do you suggest?"

Lilly let go and moved as close to the door as she could. She only had one idea, and she doubted he'd like it.

"HELP!"

[You know, I was thinking about how the first arc in Part One was about living water, and the first arc here has the ocean as the biggest threat, and this whole thing became really funny. Bit of a stretch, but I'm sure I could find similarities between all the arcs and their Part One counterparts if I wanted.]