Riddick was becoming a great deal more familiar with the miniature prison societies that lurked around the pit fights. He'd usually made it his habit to check them out once in what passed for a week or so, whenever there was a new prisoner drop of any substantial size. Mostly, though, it was so he could size up the competition, see who was likely to give him trouble. The fights had the nice side benefit of giving the newcomers a lesson in Slam City life, which kept the number of people who tried to notch their belt by taking him down to a minimum. Still, watching the fights meant he could see who was likely to be trouble and who could be slammed into a wall and left for dead.

Now, though, he had a new reason to watch. And he started watching the crowds a little more, as well. He hadn't meant to, but she had asked him to keep an eye for her and see who got suspicious of her disguise. It wasn't a bad idea, especially since he had been promised first crack at her once she got unmasked. The favor had turned into a pleasure, and an intriguing study in the seamier side of the Slam. The gamblers, he'd noticed, were so desperate that it leaked off of them like a bad smell. The more bloodthirsty ones ran in packs, with their chosen champion fighter as the alpha male. The drifters wandered in and out, using the pit fights like their own Pay-Per-View tri-d network. As good a reason as any to watch, he supposed.

Today Fantine was going one-on-one in the Pit with a bruiser he vaguely knew as 'Christian.' She, still sporting her torn sweats and the hood pulled down to obscure her face, was delicately beating the living daylights out of the other man. Now, however, she was billed as 'The Fury.'

He wondered how many of the people watching the fight today remembered or had even learned their mythology, how many of them knew that the Furies were women. He wondered how many of them remembered their history, who the Furyes were. He wondered if Fantine knew. She probably saw it as her private little joke. Just another example of how clever she was, how much he would have to watch her. But there was no way she could have known... was there? Just another eerie coincidence.

"This isn't a fight, it's a massacre," a voice said ruefully from behind and to the left of Riddick.

"You got that right." Riddick chuckled, glancing over his shoulder. It was the red-head from the first night of her fights, which explained the comment. Of all people, he'd know what it felt like to be on the other end of those feet and fists. He'd know better than to underestimate her. "Riddick," he introduced himself, extending a hand to shake. The red-head actually seemed to have a brain left in his head. "Richard Riddick."

"Nick Lawson," he shook Riddick's hand, still keeping one eye on the fight. "I take it you saw that first melee where he kicked my ass?"

Riddick experienced a brief moment of cognitive dissonance as he remembered that when Fantine was The Fury, she was a 'he.' "Yeah, I was there. Lost some good money on you, too."

Lawson laughed. "Well, don't feel bad. I lost some good money on me too, that night. He came out of nowhere and took us all by surprise." The red- headed man stared thoughtfully into the Pit, where Fantine was clearly toying with her opponent. "Wonder where he came from... and why he doesn't want us to see his face."

Riddick shrugged. "Probably somewhere unpleasant. Maybe he's got hideous facial scars or... something." The subject was making him uncomfortable. For some reason he didn't want anyone else to know Fantine's secret. Probably because he was too possessive, too secretive himself to want anyone else to know. He knew what it was like to have your life depend on one small piece of crucial information.

It didn't look like Lawson was particularly suspicious, though. "Probably..." Lawson said, dismissing it from his thoughts. "Although he'd have to be pretty ugly to stand out in this crowd."

Riddick snickered. "Yeah."

"Oooh... that has to hurt."

Christian, getting tired of being hit and not being able to hit back, had charged Fantine. She had turn and run, causing the crowd to think she was running away from the fight and getting a hissing in result. The noises of disapproval had died away almost instantly as she had proceeded to run up the side of the pit, nearly falling into the audience, and flipping neatly behind Christian, kicking him into the wall. Riddick and Lawson winced, imagining the man's nose breaking with the impact. The man howled in pain and backed up, blood covering the front of his shirt in scarlet confirmation of their assumptions. Fantine backed up too, and stood lightly on the balls of her feet, bouncing just barely visibly. Riddick wondered if, like the last time she'd had a lengthy fight, this was the sign that she was going to end the fight soon. Christian either hadn't been to the last fight or just didn't have the brains to know better.

Which reminded him... "Whatever happened to the other guy?" he asked Lawson.

"Other guy?"

"From your first fight."

"Who... the big bruiser? Comatose. Doctors in the infirmary say he probably won't wake up. They'll keep him on ice for another couple of weeks and then break him down for spare parts." Lawson shrugged, the expression on his face suggesting he wasn't happy about it either. "Not exactly the nicest way to go, but even if he did wake up he'd be partially paralyzed from the way he got hit on the spine, and the lack of oxygen to the brain didn't help either. Man's probably a vegetable."

Riddick's eyebrows arched upwards again. The woman was impressive, more so if she knew what she'd done to him. He hadn't seen any signs of remorse or pity for the man she'd apparently killed. "Looks like he'll have company."

Christian didn't seem sure what to do. Charging had gotten his nose broken, but standing there and trying to punch hadn't gotten him any points either. Fantine bounced a little more, waiting for him to make up his mind, and then seemed to get impatient in a pretty spectacular way. She leaped into the air, twisting her torso around, hurricane kick to the head with first one foot and then the other. She landed nimbly on her feet and waited to see how the other man would react to that. Riddick could see the man's eyes glazing over even from where he stood. Lawson's breath hissed inward, impressed.

Christian swayed a little on his feet, and then Fantine leaped up and kicked him in the chest again. He fell down and didn't move.

The crowd was silent for a little while. Then the chant started to rise.. "Fu-ry! Fu-ry! Fu-ry!"

"Holy shit..." Lawson whistled. "Looks like there's a new favorite in town." Fantine was rocking from heel to toe, waiting for the excitement to die down before she made her quick exit. A couple of the guards opened up the doors to the Pit again, their faces expressionless. She bounced a couple times and then ducked out between them.

"Yeah..." Riddick watched the crowd, trying to see where she came out, but couldn't. If there was ever a time when she was going to be discovered, it would be before or after the fights. Before, when she was too hyped up to be cautious, or after, when she was too tired.

"You ever fight in the rings?" Lawson was looking at him now, with a kind of speculation in his face that Riddick didn't at all like.

"Sometimes. When the money's good enough." It was an easier answer than he'd given Fantine, and one Lawson would probably accept with fewer questions, from what he could tell of the other man. "Not lately."

"Ah." He left it at that. "What do you think the Fury fights for?"

It was a damn good question, even knowing what Riddick did about the fighter. "I don't know..."

"I think he fights because he likes it. Because he likes to overpower people with what he has. He's not much stronger than a quarter of the guys in here, and definitely weaker than half. I'd say he falls into the lightweight category. But he's faster than most of them, and more clever. And he likes to beat them that way; he likes to make them feel slow and stupid. It gives him a feeling of power."

Startlingly accurate. Riddick could see it. "What were you on the outside, a shrink?"

Lawson laughed. "Close. A social worker."

Riddick hated social workers. "You were a what?!"

"Social worker, orphans, foster kids, placed them in temporary care, permanent care. Counseled the ones that got bounced from home to home." He shrugged. He looked embarrassed by being caught out as someone who actually cared about his fellow man. Not entirely a mistaken idea, since most people would as soon shiv him as look at him if they thought he was weak. And for most people in the Slam, caring equaled weak.

But it didn't make sense. "So what's a social worker doing in the Slam?"

"I ran street fighting tournaments on the side." Lawson's grin was wide, maniacal, and not entirely sane. But it did explain his analysis of Fantine's fighting style. "Used to be a professional kickboxer before I busted a knee, went into social work 'cause that's what I had my credentials in, got drawn into the underground scene... it went on from there. I figured it wasn't a bad way to make a little extra money."

"Sorry I asked," Riddick muttered. He hated psychos; they were usually unpredictable, unreliable, and dangerous.

"Even fought in a few of them," Lawson continued, and now Riddick was really sorry he'd brought it up. "Killed seventeen people in the ring before they finally busted us. Goddamn politicians got me convicted of murder one, conspiracy, accessory, and reckless endangerment. I never, ever brought those kids to the cage fights. Ever. They don't need to see that kind of thing." He degenerated into muttering to himself.

Riddick just stared at the man. The guy was even more whacked than everyone said Riddick was. No wonder they'd sent him to Slam. "Course not," Riddick said, trying to shut him up.

It seemed to work. "Sorry... pisses me off, that's all," Lawson pulled himself back together and looked over at Riddick. "So, know where a guy can get a brew around here? I know I smelled something good..."

"If you can stomach the home brew, sure," Riddick grinned. A man's first taste of Cross's generator-room alcohol was always something entertaining to watch. "Come on, I'm sure we'll be able to talk someone out of a pint."



"So what's his name?"

Fantine nudged the unconscious body of Nick Lawson with a sneaker-clad toe as though it was something that might bite her if she got too close. Riddick stared blearily down at the man who had until half an hour ago been his drinking companion. "Nick..." he said, after a few moment's thought. "Nick Lawson. Kinda crazy."

She sat down beside him. Somewhere in the last several hours she'd changed out of her fighting uniform (or what he'd come to think of as her fighting uniform) and into more normal prison clothes. Her blonde buzz-cut hair was starting to grow out, he noticed. Or maybe that was just the alcohol. She definitely looked a lot more delicate out of the ring. "Probably just freaked out at being in the Slam. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd be in here. What'd he do?"

Riddick laughed. "You'll love this... he was a street fighter. Ran one of the tournaments in one of New Sol's big cities. And he took care of kids. Social worker."

Fantine stared at the unconscious red-head. "Social worker. Huh. And a street fighter? I guess that explains how he survived so long in the Cage..." She started to chuckle. "Social worker and a street fighter. Christ in a ten-gallon bucket. What the hell is he doing in a place like this, did he molest the kids or kill people in the street fights?"

"Killed people," Riddick shrugged. "He seemed pretty upset that someone might think he hurt the kids. That's when he went kinda crazy."

"Ah, he's probably just not used to this place. Give him a few weeks, he'll just shrug and say he's innocent like everyone else does around here. Lots of people get a little crazy when they go to jail, whether it's the Slam or the Lockdown Resort," she named one of the other prisons famous for its minimal security and extravagant priviliges.

"True... and some of them stay crazy..." Riddick was sobering up now. He also hadn't had nearly as much to drink as Lawson.

"True."

Fantine slid down against the wall and sat, putting Lawson between her and Riddick. Whether she'd positioned them that way consciously or unconsciously he didn't know. Neither would have surprised him. She seemed used to prison life, which meant she'd probably been in at least one before. It wouldn't have been like the Slam, though. Nothing was like the Slam. But he still wondered; there were so many questions he wanted the answers to, none of which he wanted to ask her. This woman, so different from most other women, and this place, so different from any other prison -- they were going to drive him mad.

He looked down at his cup and grimaced. You probably got a better quality of alcohol in other prisons, too, although it was also probably more expensive. This stuff, brewed in the pipes in the generator room by an enterprising old man named Ben Cross, was probably more suited to killing infections than killing brain cells, and had been used for both. Still, it was alcohol. He did a brisk business in the foul-tasting stuff with real alcohol so hard to come by in prison, even for the rich folk.

She noticed him making faces into his cup. "What's that?"

Riddick grinned to himself. This was going to be fun. "Here..." he said, making his tone as mild as possible, "Try it."

"Try it..." She made a suspicious face at him, figuring something was up by how innocent his tone sounded. "Okay, now I know you're up to something."

"Okay, don't try it." He shrugged, pulling it back. Knowing she'd take it.

"No, I'll give it a try..." she grabbed the cup from him and took a big swallow... bigger than he would have recommended for a first try. Sure enough: she made a hawking noise and coughed it up, eyes watering. "Shit! What the hell is that stuff?"

Riddick couldn't answer at first, he was laughing too hard. She looked a mess with her face streaming and her nose wrinkled, her mouth puckered up. "Generator-brew alcohol. Probably adulterated with other kinds of bootleg beer, whatever people can smuggle in here. It tastes like absolute shit, but it gets you real drunk, real quick."

She was still blinking, though her eyes were starting to unfocus. "I see that... holy shit. That really is strong. Fuck."

"Your friend Nicole was probably going to drag you down here, pour it down your throat, and talk you into becoming one of her harem of bitches," Riddick pointed out. "I wouldn't drink it around anyone you don't trust."

"So... don't drink it at all." Fantine smiled humorlessly. "Since I don't trust anyone in Slam further than I can throw them."

There wasn't much he could say to that. He didn't trust anyone either.

Between them, Nick Lawson was finally starting to wake up. "Oh god..." he muttered, "Did anyone get the tag number of the transport that hit me."

Fantine laughed and passed Riddick back his blindness-inducing beverage. The bigger man smirked and poured it onto the tile floor, watching as it trickled down the drains lining the center of the hallway. "Welcome back to the land of the mostly living," she said amiably, listening to the liquid trickle.

Lawson winced. "Don't laugh so loud. In fact, don't breathe so loud." He pushed himself to a sitting position and winced. "Ow. I guess that's one advantage to living in the dark... the lights don't blind you when you get hung over. Warn me next time, you bastard," he rolled his eyes in Riddick's general direction.

"Of course not," Riddick said, smirking. "Lawson, this is..." he paused, letting Fantine figure out what she wanted to do about her identity.

"Fantine St. Germain." She threw Riddick a grateful look. "I caught your fight with the Fury the other day. Not bad."

"Thanks..." he winced. "I think. Though right now I kind of wish he'd killed me."

"Riddick sprang the rotgut shit on you too, huh?" she clapped him on the shoulder in a display of mock-sympathy, which only had the effect of causing Lawson to groan more. "See, now, I was clever enough not to actually drink the damn thing. But, by all means... better you than me."

Lawson blinked hazily at her. "You're a bitch, you know that?"

Riddick and Fantine laughed. "Lawson," Riddick shook his head, "I've been saying that since she landed in here."