A Dish Best Served Cold

Summary: Moriarty is out rule the world once again and he's had it with Sherlock Holmes's interference. He has a plan, but the detective's friends may pay the ultimate price.

Disclaimer All Publicly Recognizable Characters, Settings, Ideas, etc. are the Property of DiC Entertainment and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Original Characters and Plot are the Property of the Author. The Author is in no way Associated with the Owners, Creators, or Producers of DiC Entertainment. No Copyright Infringement is intended.

Chapter 15 - Water Plus Electricity Equals…

Ventilation Shaft, Moriarty's 1st Base, Unknown Location in New London's Underground

Lestrade and Holmes continued to crawl down the shaft several minutes in silence. Eventually the tunnel's stone walls turned to metal. Lestrade figured that was a good sign, it meant they were heading in the right direction.

Holmes spoke up. "I see a small amount of light ahead to the right."

"Great can't wait to get out of this tunnel, providing that light turns out to be an exit."

"Let us hope so."

When they reached the source they saw they were in the vent that fed into the medical room.

Lestrade could not believe their luck. The place seemed empty and considering the hurry Moriarty and his men had been in she and Holmes should be able to find the necessary equipment to patch up his ankle. She got into position to kick the grate. It fell to the floor with a resounding clatter, she turned to Holmes.

"Do you want me to lower you down?"

"I would not dub it as a matter of choice Lestrade."

With that he began to back up. Once he was only hanging onto the edge of the grate with his finger tips Lestrade grabbed his wrist and carefully lowered him down. Once he was down, he hopped out of Lestrade's way and over to a cabinet that looked promising while the inspector let herself down. Seeing that Holmes was busy picking the lock on the cabinet she decided to investigate the various drawers and shelves.

"Ah ha," Holmes exclaimed, he sounded very happy.

"Find something?"

"Yes my deerstalker, Inverness, and cane."

Lestrade turned to look at the detective as he put in his Inverness, deer stalker, and extended his cane to lean on it. Grinning she said, "Feel better?"

"Much."

Lestrade continued to look for something to fix her friend's injury. Eventually she found a device labelled 'cellular regeneration accelerator'. It was a fairly large device designed to repair damage done to the whole body. Lestrade, deciding she didn't want to waste time looking for a more portable version, she drew Holmes' attention to it.

"Holmes come over here I found a C.R.A." Using his cane Holmes walked over to Lestrade. Five minutes later his ankle was as good as new.

"Well?" asked the inspector as the machine did a final scan.

"Good as new," Holmes replied.

Lestrade smiled and headed towards the door. Carefully and as quietly as she could she opened it and looked out. Sighting no one she signalled to her companion and the two started down the corridor.

"Any of this look familiar to you?" she inquired.

"Unfortunately no, seems our only option is to wonder around aimlessly in search of a computer system or some such thing that hasn't been wiped clean."

"Do you think Moriarty is still down here?"

"I think it extremely unlikely, my guess is that only those assigned to locate our whereabouts have remained behind."

"Maybe we could follow them."

"I think not, it would take far too long there is no way of knowing when they will return."

"I could let myself get captured, th—"

"Out of the question,"

Lestrade sighed. "You're the one who said we were running out of time. Chances are all valuable information has been erased and even if it hasn't, it would be to well encrypted we would need Tennyson, besides, Moriarty doesn't want me dead."

"I was not aware that was to be considered comforting."

"He won't torture me like he does you and your better at following people then I am." She admitted begrudgingly.

"No," replied Holmes.

"Who's the supervising officer?"

"I am more then capable of signing a resignation form."

"Ya but then Watson wouldn't be licensed to you since he still belongs to the Yard."

Holmes glared he had hoped she would never resort to using Watson as leverage.

Lestrade seemed to read his mind. "I would do everything I could to help you know that, I'm not threatening Watson just stating facts." Here she bowed her head, "I don't like it any more then you do."

"Besides," she continued raising her head and glaring at Holmes, "You know as well as I do that the rules regarding consultants have changed since your time. Consultants have to be properly registered with the Yard and have a supervising officer to make sure they don't do anything illegal. And FYI: that last part is partially your doing since you were in the habit of burgling suspects' houses. If you aren't registered you aren't allowed to help with Yard work and that would seriously hamper your ability to deal with Moriarty."

"I am well aware of the facts Lestrade," Holmes reminded her coldly, "Regardless, your plan is not an option."

Lestrade glared again, Holmes knew she would never reprimand him or do anything to jeopardize his position in the yard because she knew he was the only one who could stop Moriarty. He would also never break a law while under her supervision because if caught he might end up with another supervisor who did not share this view—though he could break a law while not engaged in Yard business without jeopardizing her position. This put them on equal terms and made Lestrade the superior on paper only. Both had realised this on day one.

Suddenly Holmes stared at something over Lestrade's shoulder a few feet away. "What is it?" she asked.

"The camera which is at present behind you has adjusted its position."

"So?"

Holmes sighed. "Well, I might be stepping out of the realm of probability here Lestrade, but would that not indicate that someone is viewing us through it?"

"It could be motion detecting."

"I think not, we have not altered our position significantly for some time, and it explains how, even during our re-entry into this fortress, we did not activate any security measures."

"If the security was working when we came in through the shaft then…"

"Indeed, we were permitted entry."

"Oh, excellent, excellent, although I must confess to being slightly disappointed, after all, I did expect you to come to that conclusion much sooner."

Both detectives instantly recognized the voice as belonging to Moriarty.

"What's your game Moriarty?" Lestrade's voice was laced with hatred.

"Game? Oh, I must commend you inspector, such an excellent choice of words, you are right of course, this is a game, I wonder if you two can get out of here alive."

Lestrade and Holmes heard the thud of metal feet on the plastic tiled floor. The sound was similar to that of Watson when he walked except there was more then one and they sounded a lot bigger. The two saw three very large humanoid droids heading towards them with two arms and two legs and had a single telephotoscop on the right side of their heads. They were navy blue in colour with silver lining and much bigger then the good doctor.

"Might I suggest that you run?" Lestrade could hear the sadistic glee dripping from the criminal's voice.

Lestrade grabbed Holmes' wrist. "C'mon!"

After the detective turned away from the droids and was running at top speed she let go. Holmes didn't comment, just ran.

"This way," he warned, grabbing Lestrade and pulling her down another corridor to the left. The droids had started to fire. Fortunately the two detectives had managed to get out of the way in time.

Lestrade poked her head around the corner and fired at one of the droids with her ionizer her shot hit one directly but had no effect.

"Useless." Lestrade growled as she glared at her ionizer as if the situation were its fault. She debated whether or not to chance another glance around the corner to see how far off the droids were. "So what now?"

"Now I suggest we continue our retreat." Holmes replied and the two took off.

Moriarty's voice echoed throughout the room once again "Oh really Holmes, you cannot possibly be serious, after all, you must remember the near endless expanse of my security system."

"Do you ever shut up!" Lestrade yelled.

Moriarty chuckled but did not continue on his tirade.

"We need a plan, weapons, anything."

"I have my cane, I've managed to disarm droids with it before." Holmes reminded her as memories of the fight he had with the server droids during the adventure of the Second Stain swam into existence behind his eyes.

"Were they military droids designed to inflict severe bodily harm?"

"…No."

"Well then, I'd say we have a problem."

"Nonsense Lestrade, we have but to use our eyes and brains and a solution will present it's self."

"Uh huh," Lestrade shoved Holmes to the side and into another corridor, before making a quick turn herself into said corridor herself.

"For example," continued the detective, "there is a broom closet just opposite the hall."

"A broom closet? What good is that?"

"The closet itself is of no use to us, however, the chemicals used in the cleaning products very likely to reside upon it's shelves are quite a different matter."

"That's right! I used to make smoke bombs all the time when I was little using stuff like that."

Holmes spared her a glance, the girl was serious. 'Why am I surprised?' he contemplated, 'Did I honestly think that Lestrade would do something normal like play with dolls during her childhood? Women have certainly changed since my day.'

Out loud he asked, "How are you with explosives?"

"Let's see what we've got." She said as she opened the door.

"Just take what you can carry, time is of the essence."

Indeed the droids had just rounded the corner. Lestrade grabbed a bucket with some cleaning supplies and few other items she recognized from childhood, and ran out the door followed by her companion. The two ran as fast as they could and just barley managed to dodge a couple of blasts before rounding another corner.

"We need to put some distance between ourselves and those droids if we're going to make anything useful with this stuff." Lestrade yelled back at her companion as she continued to run.

Holmes' glanced over her shoulder at a stairwell. "This way" he shouted as he ran and opened the door motioning her through.

'Of all the times to act like a gentlemen,' Lestrade thought as she ran through the door followed by Holmes.

The two ran down the stairs until they reached the bottom floor. Holmes turned to Lestrade. "Can you make any…" he trailed off when he noticed Lestrade was unscrewing the cap of a cleaning solution she had already removed the cap off another.

"You want a smoke screen now?" she asked

"Yes," he answered.

Lestrade poured the contents of one solution on the ground, then another. Instantly smoke started to rise. By this time the droids were close. Holmes extended his cane and held it over the stairs, the first droid, thanks to the smoke didn't see it and tripped, falling into the others and causing a lovely domino effect. As soon as the first one had tripped Holmes had grabbed Lestrade, barley giving her time to wrap her fingers around the handle of the bucket of cleaning supplies and ran out into the next corridor. They continued to run down one corridor then another.

"My dear Holmes, I do not remember anyone suggesting hide and seek." Moriarty's voice issued through the sound system.

"Nor do I." Holmes replied as they came to the end of a hallway, but instead of rounding another corner he stopped and turned to Lestrade.

"Your ionizer," he extended his hand for the weapon. Lestrade handed it to him. Holmes fired at the ceiling exposing wires. Using his cane the detective hooked one and with a tug brought it down.

The exposed end came down and almost hit him, but he managed to avoid it. Carefully he grabbed the wire and placed it on the floor which had plastic tiles not sheets of metal like the walls, by this time the droids had rounded the corner and the two detectives were in the line of fire. Holmes shot at a sprinkler on the ceiling as he and Lestrade ran around the corner.

Now we all know what water plus electricity equals—when the droids came into contact with this resourceful little trap they were fried. Fortunately, this sprinkler system like all sprinkler systems of the time, was designed so that they only went off in the areas where there they registered fire, and since Holmes and Lestrade ran as quickly as they could around the corner they did not get wet and were thus not affected.

When Holmes thought they were a suitable distance away he grabbed Lestrade's shoulder and the two came to a halt. The detective removed his hand from her shoulder, "I think it would be best if we took this opportunity to rest." Though he and Lestrade were in excellent shape they had been sprinting the entire time and were, understandably, worn out. The two detectives just stood for a few moments panting.

Then Moriarty's voice began once more, reverberating off the walls. "Bravo Holmes, I must confess I did not expect such resourcefulness on your part, nor yours Lestrade, I am impressed." Lestrade rolled her eyes.

"In fact, I think I shall permit you five minutes repose before my droids resume your pursuit."

"How many do you have?" Lestrade demanded, clenching her fists.

"We left a total of ten behind." Her opponent informed her.

"Great. So after we deal with the next four you'll send another three after us!"

"Sadly no" Moriarty sighed into the speaker "I am afraid the other three are quite preoccupied with Watson and the Irregulars."

"What?" Lestrade and Holmes exclaimed simultaneously.

"Did I not mention their entrance into the building? It was but moments ago, just as I was sending your pursuers after you, my my, I am forgetful these days, aren't I?"

"Where are they?" demanded Holmes, his voice raised.

"Tsk, tsk. Now Holmes that would be telling; surely you would prefer to come to your own conclusion? You are after all, the Great Detective. Figure it out."

Next update will be on the 16th of November before noon sorry this one was late I have final tomorrow so it slipped my mind.

Tootles