A Second Chance for Redemption

Apologies for how insanely long it's taken me to update…this chapter was honestly a bitch to write, I'm not exactly sure why, but it was. Also, this is probably going to be my last very long chapter. I enjoy spending large quantities of time on editing and making everything just right, which really slows down updates. Future chapters will most likely be around 2000-3000 words or so, but never less than 1500. That way, I can cater to my perfectionist tendencies, and everybody else doesn't have to wait until a day past infinity to read a new installment.

Huge thanks to Skylark Starflower, TEH NUKEMAHN, Raynor Zeraph, Atravir, and zero9g9 for kind reviews. Feedback is always appreciated. Wait, scratch that…loved. Yes. Loved is a much better word :).

Anyhoo…on with the show!

A Second Chance for Redemption

A semi-original fiction

by Fusionmix

Chapter 4

†††

…You, you, now I see,
Keeping everything inside.
With you, you, now I see,
Even when I close my eyes.

-"With You", Linkin Park-

SHE CONTINUED TO STARE, eyes riveted to the spot where he had stood, until Kiara glanced over from where she was arguing intensely with the others and gave her the patented what-is-wrong-with-you look. "Oh…sorry…" Tera thought blankly for an excuse to leave. "I—I need to use the restroom."

Kiara nodded slowly, very slowly. "Um…yeah, you do that, okay?" She was probably even more skeptical once Tera sprang up and, using one hand to leap over her own chair; went swiftly and urgently up the steps in the direction Rigel had taken.

Perhaps it was only to her benefit that she was currently forbidden to traverse the walkabout. It definitely made navigating easier without scads of people swarming all over the place and blocking off her view of her quarry. Ah yes, there he was, walking at a more genial pace now that he was out of the line of fire for most of the crowd. It wasn't until he entered a minute one-man elevator with 'STAFF ONLY' labeled in bold black letters on its doors that she realized how stupid this was. Leaning against the now-closed elevator doors, she pressed hands to her forehead and sighed deeply. Bracing herself, she spun on her heel and glared at the button Rigel had pressed. Punching it herself, she waited for the welcoming honk of the car

Cautiously, she half-stepped into the boxlike car, leaving one leg firmly planted on solid ground. She suddenly felt claustrophobic as the light was blocked off and something clamped around her leg. The door had shut, right on her shin. Trying to push back through the doors and get out of the elevator became impossible as the pressure increased. Panic mixed with irritation welling up inside her, Tera threw herself against the doors, and then, recognizing defeat, yanked her leg in with her, losing her sandal in the process.

Comforted by the thought that she could just go back up, she found herself shooting downwards with a speed that was most likely over the elevator descent speed limit established by the government a few years ago. Some unhealthily smart people decided to invent a magnet powered elevator which actually was capable of causing a sort of weightlessness as its rider fell. While Tera thought the idea very appealing indeed, though most people apparently couldn't stomach it, so hence, nobody was allowed to enjoy it.

The thump of the elevator car as it came to a sudden stop threw her off balance; she caught hold of a side rail and steadied herself. With a disruptive squeak, the doors opened. Although one of them stuck, Tera discovered that kicking things as seen in movies actually could repair things. Either that or she had just broken something, but nevertheless, the troublesome door jerked convulsively a few times as if having some sort of elevator seizure, before opening fully.

The hall stretched as far as Tera could see, defying the circular nature of the building to slash out in a belligerent line. She was farther underground than she had thought. The hall was narrow, not in a cozy way, but in the fashion that causes a person to feel a vague sense of panic, and wish very much to leave immediately. Although Tera had never been troubled by claustrophobia, she couldn't help suddenly scooting away from the wall to stand where she at least wasn't touching anything, and had a modicum of maneuvering room to work with in case she had to run.

The light above her flickered unevenly, halogen bulb apparently on its last legs. All down the hall, placed at five foot intervals, they succeeded in forming a series of yellowy cones of visibility, but for some reason, whether it be the dust or the general darkness of the place, they did not illuminate the walls. This did have a benefit however, for down the corridor at the opposite end Tera could make out a lonely band of dim light weakly glowing from under a much larger door. Careful to step so that her shoes made no noise, she crept towards it, heart pounding so loudly in her ears that she was sure that anybody could hear it.

Without warning, there came a loud crash from a door not too far away, and a light came on; she flattened herself against a wall as a muttered argument broke out and more smashing sounds followed. A fight? Tera shut her eyes and willed herself to stop breathing so loudly.

A half-dressed man wearing only a pair of hacked-off jeans stuck his bald head out. Offhandedly scooping up a length of bent piping, he looked it over and hurled it to the ground. "…not going t' work. Any better ideas?"

A second man, who loosely dangled a crowbar from one hand, strode confidently up to stand at the first one's side. "Not exactly." The narrow hall with its cold cement walls worked like a sort of amplifier, taking their conversation directly to Tera's ears. This could work against her as well, she realized, and redoubled her already paranoid efforts to remain silent.

Both of the men trod slouchingly down the hall, the larger soundless on bare feet, the other clumping awkwardly in heavy boots. They both stopped short before the massive door at the end of the tunnel. The crowbar-wielding one dropped his tool to the floor and inspected the contents of the raggedy backpack he had been lugging. "Derek, what'd you do with the torch? I left it right in here…"

"Stop your whining," the shirtless one, Derek, removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth and motioned towards his accomplice. "Do you still got that lighter?"

After a cursory look-over of his pockets, the second one shrugged. On impulse, he snapped his fingers. The sound echoed coldly down the corridor. "I left the torch in the room." His voice no longer seemed as soft, and Tera could make out his accent. "Go fetch it, will you." Although faint, it was undoubtedly British.

As his bald companion stepped away from the wall and back into the cone of light emanating from the room, light glinted over the bigger man's upper body; light which flashed over silvery uncovered metal.

Gladiators. Tera had just, in her own stupidity, stumbled right into the dorm rooms for a bunch of most likely rowdy men. She began edging backwards towards the elevator, and inadvertently knocked her elbow into a button on its control panel.

"Access denied," came a female monotone. "Please insert staff passkey, or contact an overseer for assistance."

Tera squinted her eyes shut. "Crap," she breathed, as the cold feminine voice finished echoing down the hallway.

The man with the backpack froze before stepping fully into the dusty cones of yellowish light, away from the pack. "How did you get down here?" he snapped, in a tone more of surprise than of hostility.

Without bothering to answer, she made a scramble for the elevator and stepped hastily in. Tera braced herself for the jerk she knew was coming.

Except that it didn't.

The dull tapping of his booted feet across the concrete echoed through the corridor.

Clumsily functioning on frightened instinct, she tapped the 'close doors' button, and released a breath she hadn't known she was holding. It was only then that she noticed the silver print on the control panel.

"One way," she read it to herself in a whisper. Whose effing bright idea was it to build a one-way elevator?

That crowbar forced its way through the door, buckling the metal as if it were a sheet of aluminum foil. A pair of long-fingered hands followed, and proceeded to bend the edges of the doors, one centimeter at a time. As the Gladiator grumbled triumphantly to himself and inserted the crowbar again, Tera was momentarily tempted to grab the tool and try to pull it through the gap towards her, but the man on the other side would probably just yank her against the door instead.

She pressed herself against the elevator wall as the crowbar receded once more and a hand was thrust through again, scrabbling for the 'open door' button, but located the 'up' instead. Repeatedly, the crooked index finger hammered at the button, unaware (or perhaps in denial) of how useless the action was. Plastic casing cracked, and then gave in and shattered into brittle yellowish fragments.

Muttering filtered in from the hall. The arm withdrew.

"I'm looking for a Gladiator!" Tera began desperately, shouting through the crack. "He's called Rigel!"

All activity on the opposite side of the elevator door ceased. Tera's heart soared for a moment, before it realized that internal organs are not designed to fly and sank back into its regular place as the Gladiator shoved his arms through once more.

A hint of an idea tugged at the edge of Tera's mind, jerking at the rug her panicked insides cringed on. Leaned against the corner of the elevator cab's interior was a length of rusty iron piping. Hefting the pipe and turning towards her target, she waited until the hands had a good grip on the doors, before she brought her burden forward. An acute and very unique crunching noise filled the air, followed by a sharp gasp. Tera's stomach cringed. The Gladiator struggled to pull his arms out of the gap, just as Tera rammed her makeshift weapon home again, mentally sealing her ears. She missed, however, denting the doors. Like some sort of medieval battering ram, he thrust his entire self against the space between, succeeding in grabbing one wrist.

He twisted; she dropped her weapon, and tried to squirm free. Panic welled up in her throat as thoughts of what he might do to her if she did not escape filled her head with looming and unpleasant images. A second hand snatched for her other arm; his beaky-nosed angular face appeared in the gap. She kicked upward, aiming at his nose, but skipped hitting anything altogether.

The Gladiator gave one last tremendous shove forwards; the tendons in his neck stood out like cables before he bent the already-rickety elevator door right out of alignment. "Now!" he stated loudly. "Could we please refrain from trying to smash any more fingers, thank you very much?"

"Wait," came another voice, Derek's, steadier and deeper-toned. "What're you doing?"

The British man loosened his grip on Tera's arm, but refrained from answering the actual question, obviously not wanting to admit that he had been injured by a female. "A girl showed up down here," he grumbled, and his grip loosened even more. "She tried to get out by the lift."

"Good thing you got her, then." He grinned, a slow, spreading expression which radiated familiarity. He shifted his attention to Tera before he spoke again. "Miss, you can't get out that way. We've tried. Even if we manage to get around the override code, you still need the ID card."

Tera was released altogether; a rough flick of her captor's wrist sent her sprawling backwards. She smelled iron; it was the blood from his smashed finger which had dripped across her arm. Feeling thankful for her already-ruined jeans, she wiped her wrist off, leaving another brownish stain.

Tera regarded the man from where she sat. Remembering that he could spring on her at any moment, she scrambled as gracefully as possible to her feet, slipping twice on the dirty grate which served as the flooring in front of the elevator. "I followed Rigel down." She preferred to leave out the part about getting her leg stuck; it had been morbidly stupid of her.

His grey eyes narrowed, and a few suspicious lines traced their way across his face. "You know him?"

"Well, I did, and so…"

She would have finished her explanation, but the lanky man had quickly glanced upwards. Some of his messy brown hair flopped over his eyes; he swiped it away as though in a trance. "Quiet!" he hissed in a hoarse whisper.

Tera fidgeted, only to receive a hard stare. "Screaming," growled Derek. "You okay?"

Feeling awkwardly at her bruised arm, she mumbled, "Yeah…I mean, yes, sure, I'm fine."

Stopping her before she could say any more, the other man, the English one, waved his hand to catch her attention. "If the bent door wasn't jamming it, would the lift work?" His voice was urgent, low-pitched and dangerous.

"I don't think it's broken, no."

"Are you sure?"

Tera nodded, unsure of why he was asking if he already knew the lift only went one way.

"Derek, I need the torch now. Try and see if Shawn's awake while you're at it." He watched the much taller bald man skulk off. Tera was busy wondering how he would listen to the gangly Gladiator she had been speaking to, but her thoughts were interrupted by a jab in the ribs. "Oh, and I'm Chris. You are?"

"Tera," she said dumbly, before Chris fumbled a lighter out of his pocket.

"You need to be more careful," Chris's voice was slightly muffled as his back was turned to her. "Why'd you follow Rigel down anyway?" He licked a finger and rubbed it against a thoroughly cobweb-infested panel near the elevator.

"Well..." She was unsure of what to say to this man who just five minutes ago had been gripping her wrists brutally enough to snap them, had he held on any tighter. Tera rubbed one as she thought of something more intelligent to say. "This might sound sort of messed up, but I saw him a year ago, and—and…" Her voice died away. "Do you know how he beat Gilgamesh?"

Chris whipped away from whatever he had been struggling with to fix her with a piercing glare which could function as an acetylene torch were it any more intense. "He did what."

"Beat Gilgamesh. He was losing! Completely losing, and then he goes and flings Gilgamesh across the place and sets him on fire." Recalling the event, Tera's awkwardness temporarily vanished.

He stroked his chin, where a bristly forest of dark stubble cultivated itself. "Ah."

"This has happened before, then."

"Sor' of, yes."

"He looked normal when I saw him. Rigel I mean." Although it could not be said that she was exactly comfortable around Chris, she felt that keeping silent would only betray her nervousness.

He grunted in reply, still altogether occupied with squinting through the meager glow the lighter could provide on the now semi-clean shadow-shrouded panel near the elevator. "Well that's good," he said in a stilted, concentration-slowed tone, "Because if we're going to get out, and get you out while we're at it," A spitting noise, and a piece of wire hit the floor. "We'll need his help, dubious though it might be."

With a curse, Chris dropped the lighter and blew on a scorched finger. Like a drop of food coloring in a glass of water, the heavy scent of lighter fluid was beginning to permeate the airless space around them. Tera coughed. "Last time," Chris continued, voice sounding rather mumbly since his burnt finger was still stuck in his mouth, "The whole facility shut down for a week, just trying to figure out what happened. It'll probably happen again, so half of our plan just fell to pieces right there."

"A plan?"

"Of escape. Shawn—that's Rigel—and I were due to fight next; we were hoping to stage me losing. I'd hold one of the Controllers hostage and demand that we be released. When they opened the lower doors, Derek would jam them with something."

Tera digested this information slowly. Wonderful, she was assisting in an escape effort, just the thing she'd always wanted to do. Fantastic even. "Why did you want to escape?"

He stopped, suddenly, and fixed her with an expression of confusion. "We're gladiators. Slaves. The fact that this is the 22nd Century does little to change any of that."

"Like in Rome?" Tera asked in a weak little voice.

"Yup. Bright girl. Exactly like that, actually. I suppose the media makes us all out to be rich and famous movie stars?" Mouth still twisted in his ugly expression of sarcasm, he turned back to his job and said crossly, "Why am I even telling you this."

She sucked in her breath. "My god, I'm sorry!" With a pit in her stomach as if she had been punched, she leaned against the wall beside, but not too close to the man as he hunched over whatever he was working on. The metallic implants were prosthetics, not...and Marty wanted to be a Gladiator...and they were slaves. "I had no idea—I mean, I never knew, it's like…." She stopped, unable to go on, and dropped her gaze to her dust-powdered sandals.

He gave her a grim smile, which held no mirth. "Nobody gets told anything. You want to know something, find it out for yourself."

Acting on this, Tera stared at the open wall panel, trying to judge the purpose of the various wires which jutted out at all angles. Technology wasn't her thing. That was more up Kax's alley.

The hasty heartbeat of running feet, and then Derek returned, skidding to a stop and holding out a battered silver flashlight to Chris. The latter accepted it eagerly, and set to work trying to disassemble it. "Did you find Shawn?"

"No. Think he might've left?"

"How could he leave?" Chris spat, straightening up and gesturing towards the heavily reinforced steel hatch at the far end of the hallway. "Unless he has some sort of magical codebreaker, he can't open the door any more than we can. Is his dog still here?"

"Yeah. It was watching me when I went in to check."

Chris stretched his back thoughtfully, and sucked on his singed finger. "Tera,"

"Yes?" She hoped he wasn't going to ask her to do something rash.

"You said that you know Shawn, right?" Chris's grey eyes were hard and solemn as the words left his mouth. He looked to be around his late thirties.

"Shawn? Oh, Rigel, yes."

"I'm busy trying to divert the power from the lights to the lift to override it. Something's going on aboveground, and it's the perfect chance to get us—you out of here. I've no time to go try and get Shawn. I need you to go and find him before the lights die."

Bewildered, Tera tried to hide her expression by nodding, but asked, "Didn't Derek just do that?"

Mind whirling, Tera was sorely tempted to inquire as to what exactly was going on, when the cold feminine computer voice which had given her away earlier spoke up: "All contestants, please return to your rooms. All upcoming events have been cancelled due to unexplained circumstances. Do not attempt to utilize the elevator. A staff member will arrive shortly to escort you to safety.

Both Derek and Chris froze, and for a moment, their shocked expressions seemed comical. Chris slowly sank against the wall, and slid down it. The fabric of his burgundy t-shirt snagged on the rough cinderblocks, yet he continued, until he was sitting on the filthy ground. On the other hand, Derek screamed something in what sounded like, but probably was not another language, and kicked the elevator's console, hard, foot connecting with a satisfying CLANG to the metal.

Chris's face was pale, and only now could Tera see the despair etched in worry-lines across his forehead. "Something's really gone wrong now. Six doors down, the one on the left. Go!" She recalculated his apparent age, coming up with early forties. Suddenly processing what he had just ordered, she turned and darted up the passage.

She whipped through the doorway Chris had indicated—Six down, not five, six—and stood for a moment, panting from adrenaline and taking in her surroundings. Looming low over her head, the oppressive ceiling stretched in a dead grayish tint until it came to another cinderblock wall, where it merged with peeling bluish paint against a plywood barrier and sagged downwards in several places. This is how the Gladiators live? Tera thought with revulsion, stepping around a puddle of equally dirty liquid which could have been water or some form of molding drink. The previous theory was confirmed when a shallow plink allowed a lonely grey water droplet to fall from the sagging ceiling into the pool.

Other than the mournful plop, and the unheard whisper of ripples in the puddle, no sound disturbed the depressing atmosphere of the room. She briefly wondered what the meaning was of Chris's words, and where exactly Shawn was, when a sharp yapping cut through her thoughts.

A dog was linked with a rusty chain to a bent nail jutting out from the wooden partitions that served as barriers between rooms. He (for it was a male) lunged forward against his chain, scrabbling with his paws as if to clutch onto air itself and pull forward against nothingness. Creamy-white fur.

Tera took both a sharp breath, and a hasty step backwards. The highway dog. How had he managed to get all the way here? There was no doubt that this little creature had been on the road just a few hours prior to now; he even wore the same green collar.

He had stopped barking, and was wiggling happily from a half-sit as she cautiously approached. "Nice doggy," Tera crooned, holding out a limp, as-unthreatening-as-possible hand to the blunt, whiskery muzzle. The dog barely reached to her knees when she bent to slowly pat his neck and shoulders, careful not to startle him.

"You've met Mick then, I see," came a sudden voice from behind her. "He likes you."

She whirled about for what felt like the umpteenth time that evening, nearly falling over in the process. Rigel had propped himself up on his elbows from where he had been lying unseen on the cot in the corner of the room. He had discarded his armor, apparently, exchanging it for a plain sleeveless tee and jeans. From the condition of the shirt, he might have been wearing it underneath the armor. "Oh…sorry," Tera mumbled, backing up and almost tripping again. "I—Chris told me to find you."

He let himself fall backwards and let out a deep, ragged sigh. Seeing this, Tera continued, "Derek went looking for you already, but he said you weren't here."

Rigel, or Shawn, as he should probably be called, smiled. "I was here, but I wasn't ready to wake up yet. I didn't need Baldy to find me, so he didn't." Still smiling disarmingly, he swung his legs over the side of the cot and pushed himself off of it. He staggered; caught hold of the head-bars to keep from collapsing. "What happened?"

"You won." Tera bit her tongue, but she had already said it. No taking it back.

His face contorted in pain as he clasped a hand to his pale forehead. "So I did." His black hair, which had obviously been spiked up at some point with gel, now lay in a sort of rats' nest against his head, all except for a large tuft in the front, which flopped down to his eyes.

Tera took a hesitant pace forward. "Are you alright?"

Shawn waved her away, and wobbled again to his feet. "Yes," he gritted, before nearly toppling over. "No, I'm not, but at this point, it looks as if I'll just have to make the best of it, hmm?" He smiled again, and his voice seemed surer. "Anyhoo…" He paused. "I do know you!" Seeming to forget his infirmity, he grinned insanely. "You were there last year before I died!"

The way he said it made it sound like a fairly regular occurrence. "You died."

"Yeah, sorry, we can get reacquainted later. You're Tera, right? Right. What's going on?"

"The lights are turning off in a couple of minutes, we aren't allowed to go anyplace, Chris and Derek are acting like the world's coming to an end, and a staff member is supposedly coming down to 'escort us to safety'." She made a mocking quotes-motion in the air with her fingers.

As she said this, Shawn's confident expression melted from his face. "Sure. Once we're all dead, yeah, then the staff member comes down and drags to bodies to safety—where we never get seen or heard of again." Noting Tera's confused appearance, he held up a hand to stop her from speaking as he bent and then straightened again, extending his arms high above his head as he stretched. "Well then." He trotted out into the corridor.

"Unhook Mick, will you, and bring him out here. He won't bite."

Tera bobbed her head in acknowledgement of Shawn's order, realized he couldn't see her, and was about to shout out something along the lines of 'Got it', when he called back, "Good. If the chain jams, get angry at it. That usually works." His voice was slightly echoed, as he was speaking from further down the hall.

Tera complied numbly, fumbling at the primitive clip, which, fortunately for her clumsy fingers, kindly refrained from jamming. It was just as well, for at that moment, the room darkened. Groping along the wall, still holding Mick's chain, she tripped on something, again, and barely managed to avert her fall by clutching the edge of a bookcase. Everybody's falling down, she thought to herself, mimicking a phase she and a friend had so often shouted while watching Saturday-morning cartoons a decade ago.

Only the glowing orange-yellow orbs of Mick's eyes marked where the door was, but a faint gleam was slowly fading into visibility. Chris had given up on whatever he had been doing to the poor flashlight, and was utilizing it like a normal person. "Come on," he gruffly stated, shining the light into Tera's face as she exited. He quickly jerked the beam away. "Sorry about that."

Derek appeared behind him; Tera gingerly brushed past the towering bald man to leave the room. "Why not just go out the emergency elevator hatch thing if we're stuck here? That's what I was trying…" She trailed off, remembering that Derek had said that the lift only went one way for the occupants of the passageway.

"The screaming's going again," Chris whispered.

"Warning. This level is now under Orange Level Quarantine. Do not attempt to utilize the lift or exit. Please remain where you are until a staff member arrives to escort you to safety." The ridiculously calm voice of the computer added more stress to the already strained atmosphere.

Derek kicked the console again. "They're just goin' to leave us!"

"Pretty much," Chris nodded, speaking in a light bantering tone even though his face was grim. "The minute the alert level hits red, we don't have to worry about this anymore."

Tera shook her head, inching closer to the three men, wary but too curious to keep away from the conversation. "What do you mean?"

Chris, who apparently was the self-appointed spokesperson for the group, idly jiggled the more damaged of the broken lift doors. "Screaming equals bad things happening. Quarantine equals we're stuck here. Elementary enough for you?"

Ignoring the insult, Tera nodded, plastered a goofy smile on her face, and added sarcastically, "Wonderful explanation. You should become a college professor."

"How should you know; you ever been to college?" Chris's lip curled in disgust. "Shut up and let me concentrate." He turned back to the elevator, looking up and squinting in infuriated concentration at the emergency hatch. "Derek, see if you can get the casing off the console."

Shawn stared pointedly at Tera until he caught her eye, then looked away and said shortly and quietly, "He's afraid. Unless we get a way out of here and convince somebody to unlock our wristbands for us, we're proverbial toast." A distant glow came into his eyes. "Toast is good, but not when you're it."

"Is that some sort of restraint?" Tera posed the question as innocently as she could, trying not to sound like a complete ignoramus. This really was not the sort of situation she wanted to be in at the moment.

Shawn held out his arm. The pale light of the halogen bulbs caught an impossibly thin band of metal around his wrist. "They interact with your implants, meaning the metal in you, and when the going gets tough, the Controllers decide to push the button, and this little device tells all the robot bits in you to explode." He made a flower-like gesture with both hands. "Poof."

"Do you have it also? The metal parts, I mean."

He shook his head. "Nope. No metal in me. I'm safe. But they," he said, pointing first to Derek, then to Chris, "have steel and plastic. So unless somebody can get the bands off of them, they're pretty much screwed as soon as the Controllers hit the panic button. If they try to remove the bands themselves, the bands go ahead and skip the entire 'push the panic button' phase."

"Wait, plastic?"

He pointed to Chris again, and pulled a wry face. "Artificial lungs."

"Oh." She decided not to ask any further into the matter. "Why can't I get the bands off for you? Since I don't have to stay down here, I could-"

Cutting her off for the second time in a few minutes, Shawn beamed her a wide grin. "I'd ask you to, but there isn't an alloy on earth that can cut this stuff."

"Then how do they get them off?"

"We get issued with them when we first 'arrive'." He made quotes in the air to indicate sarcasm. "They don't come off."

"Not even once you're dead," added Chris darkly from his corner.

"Oh." she said again. And once more, she decided not to press too hard.

Then again, she wouldn't really have had time to pressure the topic, for at this moment, what sounded like a shout rang out aboveground. Derek quirked a bushy eyebrow, and Chris's forehead wrinkled up in confusion. Shawn's mouth became a lopsided 'o'.

Tera turned towards him. "Did somebody just say 'huzzah'?"

It was at precisely that moment that the entire tunnel shook, and one end of the ceiling quivered futilely before, in a screech of protesting stone, it collapsed, obliterating the elevator, the console, and that end of the passageway altogether.

Naturally, this was the worst possibly time for Tera's phone to start ringing.

I just realized that we didn't have any conversation involving Misery and the Doc…very sorry that it's still not that fanficcy, but I actually had a nice and happy (well…not that happy…violent maybe?) fight scene here which involved…things that are fanficcy. Sadly, this chapter had made it to 7000+ words and I decided that it was getting too long. However, anybody who's played Cave Story knows what's going to happen following the amazing and wonderful "Huzzah!"

The next chapter may be a little slow in coming, since I need to adjust my writing style a little bit. In fact, I'm not even sure I like this chapter. I may take it down and edit it again, but I at least don't hate it like I did chappy 2. I have chapter 5 all planned out, and in 6 the plot will be making a major transition (largely original to lots-of-Cave-Story-stuff), so it will take me a while to write it. And in case anybody wants a teaser…somebody dies next installment. I haven't decided who, but a lot of characters will be exiting the story, and one or two will be exiting life. I'm so cruel and heartless.

For anybody who though the getting stuck in the elevator bit was stupid, I'll have you know that both my brother and I have had the same thing happen to us. Twice to me actually. I tend to learn some things slowly. It was in a hospital, and you'd think the doors would close slowly for all the wheelchairs and old people, but if hospital elevators close quickly, a run-down one in an arena would probably be a lot easier to get stuck in. Eh, never mind.

Word Count: 5694