Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot, and Phoenix. Don't own the song "Hallelujah" but I like it, so I made it my ring tone. Let us push onwards!

The Authors slowly descended through the cavern, and occasionally somebody in their group who had fire abilities would send a burst of fire out to light the way--safely away from the walkway of course. The darkness was never completely pierced, and after a while it was impossible to tell whether they were ten feet or ten stories from the bottom.

Another gap in the walkway came, and Soldier ferried each author across the missing portion. This was the fifth one, and it was really starting to unnerve some of them. Or at least one of them.

"Please don't make him lose his grip," Loony prayed, as Soldier carried him across. Soldier rolled his eyes, and deposited him on the other side of the walkway with D-Dude, who had glided across. The Dragonsaur took a deep breath, and breathed out a fireball into the center of the crevice. It slowly descended, and just before it flickered out, he could see something metallic become illuminated by the flame.

"I think we're close to the bottom!" he exclaimed, and started heading down ahead of the others.

D-Dude was right about being close to the bottom, the others found out when they caught up to him. However, the "bottom" where they were wasn't the real bottom. That is, they were on a wooden platform whose edges were five feet from the sides of the cavern. Then about twenty feet below them was the true bottom, with plenty of stalagmites coming up to spear anybody who was unlucky enough to fall down there. The metal that D-Dude had seen was a golden idol, set above a opening about fifteen feet above them in the opposite wall.

Rook was counting down on his fingers. "Three, two, one." There was a cracking sound, and suddenly the platform wasn't quite as stable as it had been a few seconds before.

"Get to the center!" Colette shouted, and they rushed to get to the middle of the platform. The platform stabilized for the most part, giving them a moment to think.

"Alright, I think I can carry everybody up to that opening," Soldier said. With her permission, he picked up Colette and carried her up to the doorway easily.

Above the doorway, the idol's ruby eyes glowed, and when Soldier went to fly back out, he was knocked back by an invisible field.

"So you can go in, but you can't come out that way. Whoever built this wanted to make sure that you couldn't get past easily by just flying," D-Dude realized. "This is all about distributing weight."

From above, Colette shouted out "Hey, there's a rope ladder up here!" and let it out, keeping the other end tied.

"Right," Xem said. "Now we have another seven feet to get up there."

D-Dude nodded. "And I know how to get up there. Xem, Rook, Loony, when I tell you to, run to that end of the platform--" he pointed to the far end of the platform "--while I got to that end, and get up the ladder. When I jump off, you need to restabilize it."

When they were in position, D-Dude shouted "Now!" and ran toward the doorway while they other three went the other way. Like a balance, the lighter end raised up, and D-Dude managed to scramble up the ladder awkwardly.

They did it again, with Rook going up the ladder, leaving Loony and Xem. Once more they went, and with a little adjusting, Xem went up, leaving Loony by himself.

"Now what?" he called up to them.

"That is an excellent question," D-Dude said, avoiding the question for the moment.

"If you have to leave me behind, please come back for me," the Fictorian Ninja said.

Soldier called over to them "Move it! Loony, get ready to jump over this thing!" He was rolling a giant golden idol across the ground. "Saw it and wondered what it was for, now we know." He pushed the idol over the edge, and it worked in the same fashion as before. Loony jumped over the idol, and managed to get up the ladder. The platform was destroyed behind them.

"I really hope that wasn't the only way out," Rook said, looking out at the stalagmites.

"Why would it matter? The barrier stops us from going that way anyways," Colette pointed out. "Let's get going."

BGBGBG

The path was very straight-forward beyond that little moment with the platform. Occasionally some kind of puzzle, but they were very easy to solve.

"How long have we been down here?" Loony asked.

"About three hours," Soldier replied.

He sighed. "Are we there--" he started, and was cut off by D-Dude hitting him with his tail. "What?!"

"Mosquito," he said simply. Loony said nothing in response.

Rook had been silent, and suddenly stopped.

Inside Rook's mind…

"Hold on to your underwear!" Numbah 2 shouted, laughing like a loon.

Outside Rook's mind…

"That's can't be good," Rook said, and suddenly the floor opened up beneath the Author Fighters, sending them speeding down a slick chute.

After getting over the original shock of it, they were laughing and enjoying the ride, before the chute bottomed-out, and they were dropped into clear water, probably an intentional offshoot of an underground river.

Loony, his hair still sticking up, laughed. "That was awesome." He swam to the edge, and pulled himself out of the water. "You planning on getting out anytime soon, Xem?"

The Roswellian was enjoying the warm water, swimming a backstroke. "Only way this could be better is if there were fish in the water." He sighed, and got out of the water as well.

"Hey guys, over here!" Colette said, gesturing for them to follow her down a passageway. The boys followed her down the hallway, which was far less of a mess than the other passage, before they took the slide. The walls and ceiling were clearly defined, and there was enough room that they didn't have to go single file. They had to go up several sets of stairs, probably enough that they were taken up somewhere around thirty floors, but not all at once, at least.

Finally, it opened up, and a few of them gasped. The room wasn't very big, but laid into the walls were many beautiful gemstones, reflecting the light from the torches, clearly lit with magical fire, as the flames were pure white.

In the middle of the room was a pedestal, about waist level, and hovering a foot above the top was a gemstone, that looked to be completely black. It was shaped like a diamond. It gave off an aura of magic, very old and powerful magical. It was exactly what they were looking for.

"Who wants to bet something happens when somebody takes it?" Rook asked needlessly.

Since nobody else was volunteering, Loony stepped up, and took the shard carefully between two fingers. He pulled it away from atop the pedestal, and met no resistance. The torches didn't flare up, and no huge stone ball came rolling down to crush them. No sand started pouring into the room.

There was a rumbling sound, and a bit of a scraping noise was heard. "I think we're going up," Rook realized. "It's an elevator!"

"If there's one thing I know," D-Dude said. "Then it's that the chance that this was made by solely Ancient Egyptians is about none."

The elevator sped up over time, taking them the rest of the way to the surface.

BGBGBG

Soon after the six had returned to everybody else, the Author Fighters were on their way to their final location.

Somehow everything's gonna fall right into place. Phoenix grabbed her phone from her pocket. "It's from…" She trailed off.

"From who?" Hikari asked.

"McKenzie," Phoenix said, smiling. "She's one of my friends! From Unity!" She flipped her phone open, and hit the talk button.

"Phoenix!" McKenzie said. "Can't believe I finally got in contact with you! I was starting to think you were dead!"

"Well, I'm here," Phoenix said.

"Where is here?"

"Well, right now…somewhere over Europe. I think we just passed Germany," Phoenix said, looking out the window. "Oh, there's goes Luxembourg."

"So you're on one of the Earths. Which one?"

"The one with the Author Fighters," Phoenix said.

"Did you get to meet any of them?"

"Meet them, I'm one of them!" Phoenix exclaimed.

"HOLY SHIT!!!" McKenzie said so loudly the others could hear her, without the speaker even being on. "YOU'RE AN AUTHOR!!! Quick, turn on the speaker!" Phoenix hit a button, and everybody could hear McKenzie even better then.

"Nukid! Are you there?"

"Yeah," Nukid said tentatively.

"I wanted to say that I think you're so hot that Axel is jealous of you! Will you go out with me?"

"No, he will not," Phoenix said. "Goodbye, Kenzie."

McKenzie sighed, and it sounded like static over the phone. "Fine. Just don't isolate yourself from me again. We're friends, right? So don't shut yourself away!"

Phoenix hesitated. "Alright. Talk to you later." She shut the phone. "I'm sorry about that, Nukid. She's a crazed fangirl. The Author Fighters…I wouldn't say they're famous, but they're fairly well-known in at least where I lived." She sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes.

-----

"We're friends, right?" He nodded slowly. "Then, there's something I need to show you." She started to pull the glove off of her right hand.


And yet another chapter, and another section done! I was going to say that you shouldn't expect many more updates for the rest of September (I have tennis almost every day) but I found that if I listen to music, it helps me focus more than silence. So considering I don't put it off, I should be able to do at least one if not two more chapters in September, thus getting through Moscow. Yay for that.

And by the way, that girl, McKenzie? That's the name of my actual best friend, in real life. Though she's not that kind of fangirl. And she doesn't want to date Nukid. She doesn't read fan fiction. At all. She just draws fanart occasionally. And not very often. And it's usually for things like Disney shows, or maybe an anime. Yeah...