Chapter 49

Pride was not having a good day. He had assumed, being a homunculus, he'd have regenerated enough it would be hard to bother him. But for some reason, teleportation always got him. Disintegrating, only to be put back together somewhere else, rubbed him wrong, and was disorienting.

But aside from the terrible taste in his mouth, he felt okay now. So he stood up and tried to take in what was happening. The controls were on fire in places, the alarm was blaring, and the look on the Doctor's face wasn't reassuring.

"That's not right," she said, looking over what remained of the controls.

They seemed to be crashing, though where they were falling to was a mystery.

"Okay, okay don't panic," Tourmaline said, though it sounded like she was instructing herself. "We've been in a lot of bad situations before, and have we died yet?"

"Sort of."

"Yes."

"Multiple times."

"That's not helping," Tourmaline said.

"Then don't ask stupid questions!" Pride snapped back.

"How is that stupid? Most people aren't supposed to say they've died."

"We've already established I was dead," Greed said, raising a hand.

"Alright enough," the Doctor said. "Always a pleasure to meet new friends, but Greed, Pride, you can't fly a ship. Get into the next room. It's rather bunker like. The two of us will fly this."

"I'm not sure there's much left to fly," Tourmaline pointed out.

"That's okay," the Doctor said, as Pride and Greed left. "I'm hoping to call the TARDIS anyway. We just have to avoid crashing before it gets here."

The neighboring room seemed to be for storage. Well, there was a table and a fridge, so it probably mostly stored food, but there was also shelves of metal crates along the walls. The creates were strapped in, but with the ship rattling the way it was, the straps weren't really holding.

"Greed look out!" Pride warned as one of the straps snapped.

Greed moved back with a yell as crates fell towards them. He put his shield around his hand and sliced through one as it came towards them. (It looked like it had parts for the robots.)

"That was close," Greed said. "Let's get to the other side of the room."

At this point their tentative teamwork wasn't too jarring anymore. Just a little draining.

Greed took the lead. Pride let him. He didn't feel like being in front of the sliding crates unshielded. The two moved forward, heading for a gap between the shelves. It seemed likely any crates that fell out would slide away from them from here. They both pressed against the wall and slid into a sitting position.

"Interesting rescue," Greed said. "Still the Doctor is getting us out of this?"

"Yes. We'll be fine, you'll see."

The ship continued to rattle. Greed used his shield claws to dig into the floor. There was some popping from the next room that wasn't reassuring.

"Hello? Hello, stay put there." The voice sounded male and human. It was coming from speakers on the ship or something.

"Wasn't planning on moving," the Doctor said, as the voice echoed across the ship.

"Alright, we're bringing you in. These are the people, right Lilly?"

"Yes!"

"Lilly?" The Doctor asked.

"Don't worry. It's me Doctor. Aqua sent me to another ship, so I asked for help, and they came."

"Well, it is sort of what we do," the male voice said.

Pride stood back up and shuffled forward so he could see what was going on in the main room. He was vaguely aware of Greed following him. The Doctor was leaning forward, like she was expecting to see Lilly out the window if she looked harder. It was impossible to see Lilly, but something was going on out there.

The ship had slowed. While it was still on fire, Pride could see smaller ships outside, spraying something at them. It seemed that they were still going down, but now they were moving with a purpose. He frowned. At first glance it seemed there was no place out there to go to, but no. There was something below them, round, and blending almost perfectly with the area around it.

"Woah," Greed said. "Is that an invisible planet?"

"Seems that way," Pride agreed.

"So, disembodied voice-" the Doctor started.

"The name's Nate."

"-where are you taking us?"

"Vion."

[Vion doesn't mean anything yet, but it was like the only place for a chapter break.]