Chapter 15

Pride moved further into the room while he could. The aliens were still processing what was going on, but it wouldn't take them long. Sure enough, they raised their guns as he reached the steps on the other side of the room. (Lilly seemed to be following him. Mic had run towards the machinery.) Odd the one before hadn't brought a weapon, but he'd probably wanted a challenge. Hunting humans for sport was more Lust and Gluttony's thing, but he got the general idea.

Pride clapped his hands together brought the ground up to shield himself. The barrier shattered from the force of the weapons, and being made of metal it would be dangerous to be hit by the pieces now flying everywhere, but it had still kept him protected from being shot.

Pride moved up the stairs, not bothering to keep track of Lilly. If he could get close to aliens he could use alchemy to tie them up, use the floor and railings to incapacitate them without injuring them. But he would need to get closer, and it was difficult when he had to keep blocking their attacks. Also, he was running out of material, since it kept shattering away. He needed a distraction.

At that moment a metal shard hit one of the guns, making it malfunction. The alien looked at it in confusion, trying to yank it out, while the other alien looked at where it came from, only to move out of the way as Mic threw a metal shard at them too. It seemed he'd picked up the pieces of Pride's shields after they shattered.

Well that worked. Pride moved as fast as he could. Once he was in range, he clapped and had the railing wrap around one of the alien's arms, pinning the arms to his body and making it impossible for him to keep fighting. He still struggled, but it was clearly useless.

"Enough of this!" shouted the other alien. Form the voice, Pride would guess she was female. "These are humans. We'll give them the gas."

She raised her hand. In it, sat what looked like a round bomb. Then she dropped it, let it roll out of her palm. It tinged against the ground, and fumes blew out of it in all directions. Pride grimaced and covered his face. It stung a bit.

Below him, he heard Mic scream. Evidently it stung a lot more for someone else. Pride turned towards Mic, squinting. Even through the smoke, he could see Mic coughing, and skin coming off. This was followed by liquid that was probably blood coming out of his body until he dropped onto the floor.

"Mic!" Lilly shouted. "Oh my God! Mic!"

"That came from the rafters," the female alien said. "She must be out of range of the gas."

"I can't go after her," the one Pride had trapped pointed out.

"Well we're not letting any of them escape. The gas will have killed those two. I'll go after her. You find Nox. Maybe he can get you out of your mess."

Well, it seemed in the clouds, they thought he was dead too. Hadn't they talked about this gas like it was specifically for humans? Well then, there it was. Finally. If anyone wanted to argue he was human, they could tell it to the human killing gas.

Now, he still had to worry about getting the Doctor back, and being in a cloud where everyone assumed he was dead did give him an advantage.

The Doctor was led through the jungle by the man, Phil he'd said. They went along the treetops for a while, but the Doctor could tell they were gradually going down. Eventually, Phil slipped and slid the rest of the way down on a particularly thin tree branch, landing on the ground. The Doctor also allowed herself to slide down, but on her feet, not her butt like him. Phil looked at her ruefully, but she didn't know why.

As they moved, she kept an eye on the forest. It seemed legitimate, more than that leopard had been. The moss she ate tasted like normal Bryophyta moss, which was almost disappointing. But something was still off. The tree branches seemed to be positioned conveniently for easy climbing, until they weren't. Evidently you weren't supposed to climb in some areas. She also noticed a camera or two in the trees. There were probably more. Add that to the robot cat and this was certainly a very intentional operation.

"Come on," Phil said stiffly. (Everything he did was a little stiff.) "It's not far."

"Well I should hope not." They'd been walking for a while. "What exactly is 'it' anyway?"

"Home," Phil answered.

He slipped between two large boulders. The Doctor did as well. She was shorter than him (height was something that took some getting used to) but it was still a tight fit for her. They dropped a little ways, probably underground now, and the space opened up into a large underground cavern, with a fire going in the middle, a few tools and equipment lying around, along with several people.

"Or, it's a safe place for us to live anyway," Phil said. "Those dustballs don't find us here."

"Dust balls?"

"It's what he calls the creatures," a woman said. She was sitting on a make shift bed, leg missing. "The ones hunting us down."

"I like it. Good name. Scathing."

Phil scoffed. "Not scathing enough if you ask me. There used to be more of us. Half the town, roughly. It's only been a week and so many of us are gone."

The Doctor looked around. She hadn't gotten a good look at the town, didn't know how many people that meant there had been. But she'd take his word for it.

"And you're sure this is everyone?" she asked. "Maybe the others found a different hiding spot."

Phil sat down by the fire. Another man, younger, handed him a piece of meat he'd been cooking over it.

Phil sighed. "It's possible. We found one or two people later. But the town's not that big, we know the people there. We started out so close to half the people, it seems like a pretty big coincidence if that's not true."

"Sorry you had to come here," the other man by the fire said. "It seems like it affects anyone who comes near town."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Ben," the woman with a missing leg assured him.

"She's right," the Doctor agreed.

"Effecting people in town," Phil muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. "What's even happening to the other people in town? Did they get sent somewhere as well? They could be in danger. I have a brother who didn't come with us." He clearly added that last sentence for the Doctor's benefit, everyone else would know.

"They're in danger whether they were sent somewhere or not," another woman said, standing up. "I'm a single mother. What's happened to my daughter? I'm not just going to sit here, cowering in a cave."

"Quite right Sue," Phil said. "We know what we have to do."

"Oh no," Ben said, shaking his head. "No, no. Not this again."

Phil continued. "We have to get to the tower and destroy those dustballs."