Disclaimer: Lewis, Feather, Linswe and some other lil' thingies you don't recognise are mine :P

This chapter is dedicated to Emma [again] for helping write it :P

Alice - Elizabeth: .; Well...it's funny you should say that....

Kat23a: Thanks for offering to help and sorry for the long delay O.o

--- --- ---

Chapter 6:soldier...servent...slave...

"Hey...Alice. Do you see that?"
"See what?"
"I...saw something moving in that pool over there...."
Lewis walked closer to the edge of the pool, peering down at the bubbles rising from the surface.
"Lewis! Get back!"
"Huh?"
Something shot out of the water, wrapping itself around Lewis' leg and pulling him under.
"Lewis?!"
Alive ran to the edge and peered into the water, She could just about see a small, blue, fish-like creature. She noticed more of them swimming towards them, attracted by Lewis' thrashing about. Alice was forced to jump aside as the creatures jumped out of the water, spitting a ball of green venom at her.

Alice pulled the knife from her dress and watched cautiously. Some of the fish-like creatures were now frequently leaping out of the water to try and hit her, while a few were closing in on Lewis.
Alice pulled five cards from her deck and threw them into the water, hoping that she'd manage to scare the fish-like things away. They darted away as the cards cut through the water. One hit it's target and the pool turned red with blood. Even though the creatures had stopped their attack Lewis still wasn't moving, he was sinking slowly deeper, unmoving.
"Dammit!" Alice swore and jumped into the water after him, she opened her eyes, the water was clear and she could see, after a fashion. Certainly enough to see the creatures approaching again. She could see them clearly now, fish with the legs of a frog, she twisted round in the water and smiled as her knife tore through the first of them. These things were no threat.
"I may be forced to change my opinion..." She thought as one lashed out with it's tongue and pulled the knife from her grip.
She concentrated, willing the knife back into her hand. In a flash of blue light it was there, she looked around and saw Lewis' sinking further downwards, his thrashing reduced to mere twitching. She swam downwards to him, putting the knife away and firing cards back up at the decending creatures. Annoying though they were she had to get him out of the water before he died.
Grabbing Lewis she swam upwards as hard as she could, slowed by his weight.

She burst out of the pool, gasping for air, her lungs burning, her head swimming, she still somehow managed to reach dry land again. She lay down, soaking, tired and covered in tiny scratches from the creature's claws and teeth. She glanced at Lewis. He lay still, his skin a dangerously pale colour.
She quickly knelt over him and pressed her head to his chest, the heartbeat was faint, and getting fainter. She glanced back at the pool and swore again. The meta-essence had sunk into the water, far too deep for her to retrieve it, and there was nothing else nearby.

Reluctantly she leant over him, taking a deep breath, forcing air back into his lungs.

--- --- ---

Everything went black.
Muffled voices sounded inside Lewis's head as his vision was clouded with a dark fog.
Heneedshelp!
Someonehelphim!
Lewis!
He tried to move but his limbs would not respond, not even the slightest quiver of his little finger. His body felt completely paralysed.
'Lewiscomeback!'
With this alerting his senses Lewis realised that his mind was awake and he could feel the breeze against the hairs on his cheek.
'Lewis I know CPR it'll be ok just hold on' Alice's voice…wait a minute…
Before Lewis knew the brunette girl leant over his body, pressing her chest against his, he felt the tingle as her soft lips touched his for the first time and gently she blew some air into him.
Lewis tried to move as he knew that if Alice knew he had knowledge of this then she would rip him limb from limb…literally.
Sitting up, Alice pressed down Lewis' stomach and Lewis knew he shouldn't…by god he knew he shouldn't…'shouldn't be craving the touch of a girl who'd kill you sooner than properly kiss you'
His rational mind. It sounded fairly quiet.
Once again, Alice leant down allowing her lips to press against his as she breathed into him, to Lewis it seemed to last an age he wanted to lift his hand up and run it down the slender killer's waist.
Touch…
His hand moved. Alice stopped immediately.
'Unconscious…no you're not, your hand moved…paralysis then, I'll need to go and fetch some meta essence.'
As Lewis heard the screams of a near-by ant getting disembowelled he inwardly sighed, contemplating what may have been one of the happier memories of his life that he would never experience again.
--- --- ---

They sat, weary, bodies and spirits dampned, a safe distance from the waters, both pretending that the earlier incident had never happened.
"What happened back there Lewis?!"
"I...um...can't swim..." Lewis muttered.
He sighed.
"I should've known better, the Vale is completely Snark infested."
"Snarks? Those weird fish creatures?"
"Vicious little scavangers. But weak. Shouldn't have been any problem..."
"Well...we'll have to find another way across..."
"Can we at least rest first?"
"...If we must..."

--- --- ---

Alice was asleep now, Lewis keeping watch again, trying not to think about earlier.
"You really should get some rest Lewis."
Lewis looked around wildly, not noticing the Cheshire Cat until it was right in front of him.
"You spend too much time like this. You're no use to Alice half asleep."
"It doesn't much look like she needs my help at all cat. I'm supposed to be guiding her,...not the other way round..."
"You misunderstand your place Lewis. You are a soldier, nothing more. Expendable. You are nothing."
Lewis fired a shot at the cat, which disappeared. He screamed in pain as a claw appeared from nowhere and dug into his flesh. He fell back, clutching at his face, blood streaming through his fingers and down his hands.
"Let that be a constant reminder of what you are."
The cat vanished.

Alice found Lewis in the shallows of the pool, firing wildly, the once clear waters thick with meta-essence. she watched as the water all but boiled, card after card exploding from his spear.
"Lewis! What the hell are you doing?!"
He paused, hearing her voice. The spear fell from his hand, landing in the pool with a splash, but he didn't seem to notice. He turned around slowly, his head down, hair obscuring his face.
He looked up.
Four identical red lines running along his face, narrowly missing his eyes.
"What happened to you?" Alice glanced to the huge mass of meta-essence.
he didn't reply.
"I know my place cat. I will remember this." He whispered under his breath.

They explored the nearby part of the shore for a while, searching for some sort of way to continue.
"Nothing..."
Lewis shook his head in frustartion, stabbing his retrieved spear into the ground a couple of times.
"There's no wood to make a raft..." Alice shook her head.
"No convenient giant leaves, nothing."
"Lookin' fer a way across eh?"
They both jumped, seeing a large pair of yellow eyes staring up at them from the water. It rose up, revealing itself to be a giant eel. The eel smiled, showing a row of jagged teeth.
"I can help ye across....fer a price."
Lewis eyed the eel suspiciously, Alice's face stayed carefully blank, betraying nothing.
"What price?"
The eel narrowed it's eyes at Lewis.
"Well, you have been in the wars, ain't ye lad?"
The eel sighed.
"Well now. All I ask of ye is this. You return to me something that was stolen. The head of me brother."
The eel could see their confusion.
"The ants took his head, and it is on display in their fort. All I ask is that ye return it to it's rightful place."
"You want us to go to a fort full of ants?!"
"Aye, well...when I say 'fort'...It's more an outpost really."
The eel grinned wickedly.
"Be thankful. My only other request would be that one of ye were a meal to pay fer the ut'ers passage."
Lewis saw Alice's hand instinctivly reach for her knife, and he grabbed it, whispering fiercely to her.
"We need as many allies as we can get! Intimidation and needless violence makes us no better than the queen."
Alice grimiced, but let her hand drop.
"Very well." Alice stepped forwards, "We accept your terms, we will bring you the head of your brother in return for passage across the vale."

Lewis and Alice set off for the ant's fort, having recieved directions from the eel.
"Can we really trust that thing?" Lewis asked as they travelled.
"Yes." Alice replied without hesitation.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because he told us he 'wanted' to eat us. He's honest."
"Not the same as reliable..." Lewis muttered.
"Maybe not."
Lewis jumped, he hadn't expected Alice to hear him.
"It's the best option we have at the moment."
Lewis sighed, she was right.

They had reached the ant's fort, and it lived up to it's name. A huge towering mass of grey earth and clay.
"It's going to be right at the top isn't it?" Lewis said to Alice, resigned to their fate.
"Yup."
"Hordes of ants?"
"Definitly."
"Certain death?"
"Most probably."
"Bring it on."

The first thing that greeted them as they walked through the door was the smell. Next came the floor. The colour of dried blood, drenched with it. Their eyes were led inexoriably upwards, to the mass of charred and twisted figures hanging from the celing, impaled upon wooden spikes. A mass of limbs, guts and gore. Lewis looked away. He didn't have the stomach for this, the smell of death hung heavy here. He reflected that he would probably grow accustomed to such sights, until it no longer caused him this feeling. It was a saddening thought.

They pressed on, Lewis thankful that they had left that room.
"It'd be too easy if the eel's head was amongst those bodies.." Alice muttered to herself, throwing her knife at an ant as it came round the corner. She yanked it out of the resulting corpse and slashed another as it too came round the corner, almost without looking.
Lewis was too busy covering her back with fire from the spear to notice, thankful that they were making such quick progress, and that the design of the fort stopped the ants from massing into overwhelming numbers.

They had scaled several floors, but even Alice was beginning to tire, try though she may to hide it.
"You're as stubborn as any boy..." Lewis thought to himself, aware that he was just as bad.
He knew he had to do his duty, the thought enforced by the claw marks across his face. Alice was tiring fast, he had to protect her.
Summoning a reserve of strength from some hidden depth, Lewis sprung into life, cutting through the oncoming ants like a whirlwind. Alice seemed surprised, briefly, then she smiled. She grabbed a few meta-essence and re-joined the melee.
"Little more than drones." Alice commented, cutting down a battalion of ants.
"Such is the life of a soldier." The cat remarked, slowly weaving it's way through the dead bodies.
Lewis glared at the cat, he knew that had been directed at him, what could have caused this hostility?
"Don't let Meta-essence become a drug. You can't depend on it forever."
The cat vanished again, leaving one last taunt as it faded from view,
"Halfway there."

[Several floors later.]

Lewis staggered up the stairs to the next floor.
"We...have to be...getting...close..." he gasped for breath. Under constant fighting conditions the meta-essence wasn't being given time to work properly, and he had several half-healed wounds, as did Alice, although she had sustained far fewer. Due in part to her natural skill, and partly due to Lewis' newly formed protective nature.
Lewis looked around, this floor was empty.
"What's going on? I don't see any ants..."
"We can't have killed them all....there's......no way..."
"Two children, wipe out a whole army? What do you think this is? Fantasy?"
They looked up at the ant that had decended the stair case, bearing the makings of a commander.
"You will go no further."

The commander clapped it's hands twice and two ant lions dug their way out of the floor.
Alice jumped over the first antlion, and continued heading straight for the commander,
However, she was too focused on her target to see the other antlion burrow up behind her and prepare to bite off her leg. Lewis threw the spear, pinning the creature's head to the floor. To his growing horror it continued moving about, freeing itself and continued moving, the spear still embedded in it's head.
He was forced to jump aside as the second of the two antlions burrowed up next to him, narrowly avoiding it's grasping jaws.
Alice had reached the commander, and with a simple slash of her knife his head left his body.
"My purpose...has been...served....you...will...die h...ere...."
The commander's body collapsed, and Alice turned her attention to the pair of antlions that were closing in on Lewis.
She drew the cards out of her pocket as Lewis jumped onto the back of one of the creatures, pulling his spear from it's head. The creature thrashed about for a moment or two as meta-essence streamed from it's body, then it disappeared underground, the other following it's lead.
Lewis looked around warily, the antlions could appear from anywhere.
Alice jumped as the ground beneath her exploded, firing a handful of cards towards the first antlion as it rose up from the ground. Most of the cards missed, a few hitting their mark and remaining lodged in the creature's skull.
"Persistant aren't they?" Lewis fired a few cards at the other antlion, leaving thin cuts across the top of it's body.
Alice nodded briefly, stabbing the knife into the face of one of them, right between the eyes.
It kept on moving.
"This is ridiculous..."
Lewis, completely exhausted, had been reduced to supporting himself with the spear, and was backing away from the creatures slowly. Alice ran back to join him, knocking aside an attack from one of the antlions.
"We might have to settle for just slowing them down."
Alice threw the entire deck of cards at once. The antlions were flung backwards and left pinned to the wall by the cards.
"Wait..."
Lewis walked right up to one of the creatures. It struggled but couldn't move.
"Right!"
Lewis levelled his spear at the undefended insect and cut straight down it's exposed stomach. It screeched for a moment, then lay still, decomposing before their eyes.
Alice walked up to the other and whipped out her knife, cutting off each of the antlion's limbs before finishing it off.
"Shall we go?" She said sweetly, gathering up the cards.
Lewis nodded, still slightly stunned by Alice's violence.