Waiting On A Rival

Chapter 9

A/N ok a) 9 parts and over 800 reads?! Thank you so much. b) I have not seen the finale yet so please no spoiling!
"Wait, I'm confused," Cole said as we trudged through the forest.

"Well, Arthur was the son of King Uther Pendragon, but the kingdom wasn't-"

"No! I mean why you brought me," he specified. The question made me frown. Why did I bring him? He'd only slow me down.

Cole seemed nice and is obviously part of my future, but taking him along? It's like having a companion. I shook off the pause and answered swiftly, "Eh, decided you were looking for me and I needed help. My usual partner is being a jerk."

His eyebrows rose. "I'm sure you're talking about the Doctor," Cole guessed, "I first met him in that stupid bow tie." He chortled at this, but quickly turned serious, "So, you're past Celeste?"

"However way you look at it. Mind if you shut up a bit?" There was no lake nearby, but I decided to keep trudging.

"How do we know that they lead us to the right lake?"

"In Camelot, there's one major lake so when I said the lake, they assumed the important one," I said dismissively, "Now shush."

"What will we find there?"

"What part of 'shush' do you not understand?" It was silent for a bit, until Cole asked something else. "Why aren't you asking about your future?"

I smiled crookedly. "Apart from the universe collapsing? Once I hear it or read it, it's set. That's it. No changes, but now my future is unpredictable. I can say 'anything could happen' and it would be true. Sorry, I don't need a episode guide for my life." Birds tweeted a sweet melody and I hit Cole on the arm. "What?"

My arm lifted and pointed to the flash of water in between the trees. We smiled at each other and raced to the lake. It was clear and majestic, the definition of picture perfect.

"Now what?" Cole asked.

"Patience, young grasshopper," I sighed, "Follow my lead." I walked into the water, shoes and all, not caring if they got wet or muddy. He looked repulsed, but I pulled him along.

We swam to the middle of the lake and stayed afloat for a while. I looked at Cole briefly before ducking my head underwater.

The water was clear, clear enough to see the seemingly bottomless below. My hearts stopped when something shockingly human grabbed my leg. Cole looked more than shocked, but I looked at him encouragingly.

The things that grabbed us dragged us to the deep parts. When I felt like I couldn't hold my breath anymore, Cole and I landed on the cold stones. He breathed with labor for a while, but I decided not to waste any time and scanned our new surroundings.

"No metal," I muttered, "Primal stone." I groaned in frustration. "Sonic won't work on it." We were in some rock cage. Guess the metal would rust down here.

"How are we breathing?" he wondered, "Some air bubble? Oxygen enforcers?"

"Let's focus on getting out of this cell," I suggested, "Worst thing: water outside that floods in here as soon as we find an opening." With that, a pebble dislodged from the mismatched order and a stream of cold water fell through.

Cole sarcastically replied, "You had to say that." More pebbles fell and more streams of water came out. It filled the cell up to our knees.

"How did we get here?" I asked rhetorically, "It's not like the ceiling's like a lid if there's water outside." Scrunching my nose, I noticed him still holding his sonic. "Cole, give me that sonic!"