Sorry for the huge delay between updates, I've had a hectic time lately. Family staying for Christmas, having to share my computer, and then a massive lightning storm knocked out the power for quite a while. I haven't abandoned this, I'm just hard pressed to find the time to write.

Rozen Maiden: Erdgeist

EPISODE 4

Deathtrap Dungeon

When Suiseiseki opened her eyes, she saw only blackness, and immediately began to panic.

"Ahh! I'm blind! I so can't see anything!"

Then Souseiseki lifted her top hat from her sibling's face and Suiseiseki found that she was not, in fact, blind, and calmed down somewhat. Her twin helped her up and she glanced around at their new surroundings.

"Umm, so where the heck are we?"

"It looks like the castle dungeons," replied Souseiseki, placing her hat back atop her head. They were in a barren stone hallway, the only feature of which was the flickering torches on the walls and an iron bound doorway at the far end. Suiseiseki groaned in dismay.

"Well so much for sticking to the plan." She jabbed her sister. "I swear, you are such a big hothead, Souseiseki!"

"You were charging Maleficent right alongside me," Souseiseki pointed out.

"Enough!" Shinku snapped. "We must escape back up to the caste, there's no time to waste."

They tried the door - the only obvious way out - but to no avail. It was firmly locked, and wouldn't budge in the slightest. The opposite end of the corridor to the door was merely a blank stretch of wall, and the hole in the ceiling they had entered through had since closed up. They appeared to be trapped.

"Well now what?" said Suiseiseki, growing increasingly frustrated. This was definitely not how things were supposed to have gone. And where was Celia? Presumably still upstairs with Maleficent, which could not be a good thing, as she would have no chance of defeating the Faust Maiden alone.

"Maybe Kanaria will have a change of heart and come rescue us," said Souseiseki, though it was clear from her tone that she doubted that possibility very much.

A loud grating sound came from behind them, and to their combined horror they turned to see that the stretch of wall at the far end of the passageway was slowly advancing towards them. The torches that lined the corridor all retracted into small niches, so that the creeping wall would not knock them down. The dolls had a few minutes at best before they were crushed against the locked door. Suiseiseki immediately began to panic, and frantically grabbed at her twin.

"Souseiseki, do something! If we don't get out of here we are so totally going to be turned into Rozen sandwiches!"

Shinku hammered at the door with her cane, but the thing was several inches of solid wood, reinforced with metal, and securely fastened in place. She would do as well to beat the walls for all the difference it made. Souseiseki joined in with her shears once Suiseiseki released her, but they were no more effective than Shinku's cane.

"We do appear to be in a bit of a bind," Shinku conceded.

The wall continued to move closer.

"Will someone think of something already!" Suiseiseki shrieked. Souseiseki and Shinku exchanged looks.

"I've got nothing," said Souseiseki. Shinku sighed heavily.

"Nor I," she lamented.

Suiseiseki collapsed into a puddle on the floor and wept in an overly dramatic fashion. "We're doomed!" she cried. "We are all completely doomed! It is so not fair! I'm too young to die! I'm too pretty to die! I have so much to live for! How could the great and fabulous Suiseiseki meet such an untimely and disappointing end? Woe! Woe!"

Shinku regarded Souseiseki with a deeply perplexed frown. "I realise that you are twins, but I really must ask ... why are you so in love with her?"

Souseiseki pressed a hand to her forehead and grimaced. "She has her moments."

Suiseiseki ceased her wailing and sprang upright, her demeanour completely transformed, index finger extended. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I think I know how we can get out of this lousy trap. It seems so obvious, I don't know why I didn't think of it before."

"Like that." Souseiseki pointed.

Suiseiseki had them press themselves up against the door, with herself in the middle and the other two either side of her with their weapons braced against the door itself. As the advancing wall reached perilously close, it came into contact with the tip of the gardening shears and the bottom of Shinku's cane, both of which were in contact with the door, and both of which were nigh indestructible magical weapons. The wall continued to press on, and in the process applied tremendous force against the locked door via the doll's weaponry. There was only two possible outcomes in such a situation; either the weapons would crumple under the strain, or the door would give way.

The latter happened, the entire thing wrenching out of its frame and collapsing into a splintered heap on the floor beyond. The dolls spilled through the now open doorway and landed on the twisted wreckage, glancing back to see the blank stretch of wall, now finally at rest. Souseiseki threw her arms around her twin and chuckled.

"Thank you, Suiseiseki."

She giggled. "It was so nothing."

"On the contrary," said Shinku, who then proceeded to hug them both in an uncharacteristic display of affection that quite startled the gardeners.

Maleficent snarled and slapped the water with her hand, breaking up the image of the smiling Rozen Maidens. She turned away from the pool at the heart of the courtyard and glowered at one of the decorative statues, while Celia watched her with a faint smile.

"You keep underestimating them. Maybe they're not junk after all."

The Faust Maiden snorted at that and crossed her arms. "They are nothing more than wind-up toys," she spat, "clockwork creations filled with gears and springs. I am so much more than that. I am made from my father's flesh and blood, just like a real girl. How can they possibly compare?"

Celia glanced down at the pool. The surface of the water was still rippling from Maleficent's angry blow, but Celia took comfort from the narrow escape she had just witnessed. She turned her gaze back upon the dark doll.

"Your father may have put his flesh and blood into making you, but Rozen put his heart and soul into making them. As far as I'm concerned, they're every bit as real as I am."

Maleficent rounded on her with a sly smile. "Are you real?" she said. Celia frowned at the question.

"What?"

"Well I mean ... how do you know that you're real? Perhaps you aren't. You have no past, no memory, no family. By all accounts I am more demonstratively real than you are. I have a father. Sisters. A home. What do you have? Can you prove that you're a real girl?"

Celia didn't answer. Maleficent's questions cut too deeply for her to think of anything to say. The doll laughed and gestured at her.

"You stand there in your borrowed dress, and you have the audacity to boast of your own authenticity, yet you don't even have a name!"

"I do!" She stamped her foot. "I am Celia Delacroix!"

Maleficent scoffed at her assertion. "A fake name for a fake girl. Those worthless pieces of junk in my dungeon are more real than you are." She smirked. "I know; I shall call you Nemo. That's Latin for 'nobody'. It suits you perfectly, for that is precisely who you are."

Celia clenched her hands tightly, her nails digging into her palms, her face reddening with anger. Even so, tears threatened to spill forth from her eyes. She fought them back and focused on her anger. "I am not nobody!" she insisted hotly. Maleficent extended her arms.

"Then who are you?"

Unable to give any sort of an answer, Celia turned away and growled at her own inability to reply to such a simple question. She had no idea who she was. The doctors, police, and government people had been unable to find a shred of information about her. She wasn't on any database, she wasn't listed in any files, and no one had come forward to claim her. Maybe she was a nobody after all. A fake girl, with no name, no family, no home. Nothing. How could she possibly prove that she was real?

Celia froze, a sudden memory rising to the front of her mind. That wasn't entirely true. She turned back to Maleficent with a deeply thoughtful expression upon her face.

"You're right, I don't know who I am," she said carefully. "But they do."

Maleficent frowned. "What?"

"The Rozen Maidens recognise me. They all do. They all feel as if they know me, deep down. Of all the places I could have ended up, I wound up in the one place where I was recognised." She took a deep breath, drawing strength from the simple fact that she clung to. "I helped them when they were most in need of help, when no one else was there to help them. I was in just the right place at just the right time to help the only people who might know who I really am. That's no coincidence. I'm here for a reason." She pointed sharply at the pool of water, which was once more reflecting an image of the Rozen Maidens. "I'm here for them. They're the key to finding out who I am. I'm connected to them somehow."

The Faust doll approached the pool and placed her hands upon the edge of it, a bitter sneer showing on her pale face. "Is that so? Then if I destroy them..." She glanced at Celia, her eyes flashing in an unsettling fashion, "You will never learn the truth about yourself."

Celia wailed desperately. "Why are you doing this? They never did anything to you!"

"My father is going to die soon. Their father knows a secret that could save him, but he refuses to share it. Their precious father is condemning my father to die."

Maleficent passed her hand over the pool, causing the surface of the water to become engulfed in emerald flames. The light of the fire danced in her wild eyes and she grinned like a demented shark.

"Perhaps if I send Rozen his daughters' heads on a plate, he will reconsider!"