Chapter 25

Whatever these people were, they weren't humans. But biologically speaking, they were very similar. He could fix bones with ease. If someone was seriously bleeding, he could stretch their skin out to cover the injury. But that was just creating a large patch of thin skin that was easier to break than normal, so he didn't do so unless it was serious.

"Don't move around too much," he told a woman firmly. He'd just sealed the broken skin on her neck.

"And if I do?" she asked weakly.

"Then your death is not my problem."

Pride moved on. He didn't really think about why he was doing this, he'd just gone looking for the Doctor after all, he just focused on what he was doing and how to do it. He'd gone through every person in this section, and many of them were better than when he'd arrived.

He moved into a different section of the room, sort of out of sight. The people here were all currently unconscious. Or maybe just sleeping. He passed over two people with missing limbs. Couldn't do anything with that. Same with the person who had some sort of burns. He was starting to think this section was a different room to isolate the smells. They weren't great in here.

He moved on to the next beds. One person seemed fine externally. No obvious injuries. His breathing was normal. He just wasn't awake, and hadn't been for some time. Pride knocked on his head. Not that he expected anything to happen. According to Briar, he was in a coma. Pride skipped over him. He wasn't going to mess around using alchemy on an alien's brain.

The person next to him had ragged breathing. Once again, Briar filled him in. Apparently, the patient had been hit by some sort of toxic fumes the enemy used, and had lung damage. That was a problem. Another one. Without a Philosopher's Stone, Pride couldn't repair his lungs unless there was another lung lying around. And that seemed . . . unlikely. . .

His eyes drifted back to the man in a coma. The patient with damaged lungs took shallower breaths. Well enough of this. He was going to make alchemy useful again. Pride clapped his hands, moved near the coma man's chest, and suddenly froze.

"You can't kill or injure anyone."

Damn it! If he took someone's lung out, that would certainly count as an injury, even if it was actually helpful to someone else, and this guy was probably dead anyway.

"Pride? Is there a problem?"

Right. Briar was still hovering behind him.

He sighed and tried to explain in a way that was sort of true. "I was going to use this man's lung to repair the other man. It's not like he's using them. But my magic makes it impossible to kill or injure anyone, and that would qualify."

"I see." Briar closed her eyes and reached into her pocket. She spoke very quietly, presumably so no one in the other room would hear. "Tell me, would you be able to use his lung if he's already dead?" She drew out a gun, pointing it at the head of the man in the coma.

Well then. Pride hadn't seen that coming.

"And you'd be okay with that?" he asked.

"People are dying. I see them go every day. I can't say I know either of these two, but I know who has a better chance of getting up."

Worked for him. Pride nodded. The gun went off, completely silently. It seemed their mundane objects were more advanced than they first appeared. Pride clapped his hands together. He had a lung to remove.

Pride sat down by the bed, after resealing both patients' chests. That had been a chore. He had to take out a man's lung and put bits and pieces of them into someone else's chest, making sure he didn't die in the impromptu surgery process. It hadn't left a lot of time to figure out what he was doing, and was easily the bloodiest he'd gotten without slicing someone up before. But the man who'd been gassed was breathing normally now.

Briar had helped, a little, but he'd mostly shoved her away. Now she stood by the beds, looking pretty tired.

"Anyone else?" Pride asked.

"You can keep going?" Briar asked incredulously.

"I can do this all night."

Mostly because he'd already had a night's sleep, but no need to mention that.

Briar shook her head, taking deep breaths. She sounded normal again when she spoke. "No. There's another med bay around somewhere, but that's it for tonight."

Pride got up and followed her back out.

"Briar? Has anyone else come here recently? Someone called the Doctor?"

"The Doctor? No, just regular doctors." Briar shook her head. "Why? Someone you know?"

Pride nodded. "But it's nothing to worry about. She's-" He paused. "She's my teacher. She'll show up at some point."

"Really? Are you sure? It's just wizards are rare. I wouldn't expect two in one place."

In a place like this? "Trust me. She's bound to."