Fight for Freedom

(a/n) Hello! Yes I am alive it is true! Damn GCSEs and coursework are slowly starting to pile up on me :( but I've been trying to get this story out for a while. Thanks to all my reviewers who obviously reviewed my story and gave me confidence once more! Anyways, no fighting in this one however, more of an advance in the story, it was quite tough making this decision, seeing as no matter which way I went the story would be drastically affected. But I hope what I agreed with you like so without further a due, I give you:

Chapter 15: Last chance

(Read and enjoy)

"I'm gonna have to ask you to take your boot of please sir!" the medic had to shout loudly over the crowd. Vick sighed angrily and reluctantly lifted off his boot.

Vick winced as the boot slipped off the end of his toes and into the medics hands; he put the red dampened boot to one side. The medic inspected Vick's foot closely.

"When did you pick up this wound!" he shouted again to be heard.

"During the match I told you!" Vick replied, he hadn't told the medic anything actually, but he liked to think he did.

"But this wound looks like it's at least a day old!" he said and looked up at Vick with a curious expression on his face. Vick was about to reply when Lock butted in after what he had just heard the medic say.

"Over a day old? That can't be, he obviously picked it up in the match!" Lock said firmly at the medic. He just shook his head in reply.

"No, no, you can see the blood clotting there, a scab has already started slightly, and besides, if he got it in the match, this small wound would have been fixed when he re-spawned. The only way for it to stay there was if it was inflicted before the match took place!" He looked back at the wound and touched it with his fingertips. Vick winced again and withdrew his foot from the medic's grasp.

"That's a good point actually. You absolutely sure this wasn't before the match Vick?" Lock asked, somewhat concerned now.

Vick was struggling for words, he tried not to make eye contact with Lock and the medic but it was next to impossible. 'What would happen if I told him the truth? Would they kick me off? But I'm a good member of this team, but what about getting around me-'

"-with Phoenix." Vick had accidentally trailed off from his thoughts and spoke a few words from his mind.

"With who?" Lock asked curiously, Vick could tell he had just basically blown it.

Vick lowered his head to the floor, he felt Lock's eyes burning through to the top of his head and looking into him, he knew it was a lie. Vick needed a lie quick; he was running out of time. Was their any point? Would Lock find out anyway? What would happen if he did? In a split second thought which he didn't even consider, Vick blurted out:

"Phoenix was the one who hit me in the foot!" he didn't even really think about where what he just said would lead, no doubt Lock would tell everybody else in the team and they would certainly bring up points that Vick couldn't answer without telling the truth, it was unbearable.

John glanced back to where Vick, the medic and Lock were standing. Lock looked very concerned with something, John took a step towards the trio but had his attention grabbed by an exceptionally loud scream from a girl in the corner of his eye. "Viper!" she screamed. John smiled and winked at the girl as she gasped and put her hands over her chest whilst most of her friends clapped and laughed in amazement.

Even though Thunder Crash had lost that match and their CTF trophy with it. They seemed to have no problem in taking it though, they were lapping up most of the crowd's cheers and hollers, and Malcolm was receiving most of the praise obviously.

John smiled as he watched Malcolm and Tamika pose for a photo from one of the members of the crowd. It also seemed that hundreds of newspaper reporters were there taking photos and making their money. Something else caught John's attention again, and Rae's, Gunther's and Amon's attention too.

"You were with Phoenix during the monthly Free-for-all?" Lock screamed. Most of the crowd went silent and some small hovering TV cameras focused in on the action. Vick had nothing to say, nor did Lock. The paramedic seemed to be backing away slowly, embarrassed by the incident that had made about 90 of the crowd fall deadly silent.

The rest of the team walked slowly towards Lock and Vick, and the Thunder Crash team had turned their attention over from the cameras to the shouting.

"You mean you were just 'hanging around' with Phoenix, and you wonder why you got shot in the foot! You do know how many enemies Phoenix has don't you! It's no god-damned wonder you got hit! You fucking deserve it!" Locks' voice hit an almost frightening climax as he finished off his final sentence before turning away and storming back towards the lift that would take them back to their cells, ignoring the unbearable embarrassment. Everything was still silent; you could hear a pin drop for miles around.

Gunther raised both his eyebrows at the paramedic who shrugged and started walking away from the arena center. Gunther turned to John and Amon; Rae had gone off after Lock down the lift.

Gunther stammered for what to say next. He tried smiling at the crowd to pretend that nothing had happened. Thunder Crash and Kill Switch both trudged back to their lifts ignoring the silence and trying to focus on what Lock was going to do.

All eyes were now on Vick, it was hard not to hear what Lock was screaming about anyway. He slowly got to his feet, ignoring the pain once more. The staring eyes of the spectators burned a hole through him, he daren't look up to face them, he kept his head low and trudged back towards the lift with John and Gunther following behind him.

As the lift went down the crowd started to liven back up again and was once again live with conversation, mainly people from the press who commented on each match for a specific team. There was a huge amount of tension in the lift, John cleared his throat and both Gunther and Vick quickly snapped their heads up to look at him as if he was making a gesture towards them.

They reached the bottom and Vick rushed off hurriedly to get away from the two. John looked at Vick's blood drenched boot that he limped on on each step. Gunther glanced at John and patted him on the back.

"Nice job there man, you bagged us a trophy!" he chuckled and walked off ahead to his own cell. John smiled and walked back to his own cell, passing Lock's one on his way, he had his head in his hands and clearly didn't wanted to be disturbed. John pondered over what Lock was actually going to do with Vick now that his secret had been unveiled to just about everybody with a TV. Whether he would kick him off the team, or just keep him on a very tight shift when they weren't fighting. It would all unravel for him John thought.

Phoenix chuckled to himself whilst he sat in the grand chair in front of the computers. The main system was still pretty much irreplaceable, but that didn't seem to occur to Phoenix, he was still forcing Erik to work on it day and night to get it working again so Phoenix could start to interfere with everything again.

He had disposed of the bodies of the Liandri guards without any hassle; the 'incident' was cured with a quick bribe of a guard who helped them to clear up. Erik stated that he had managed to 're-route the module leading into a hacking device of the Unreal matrix'. None of this really meant anything to Phoenix; he just wanted to get Erik to finish it for him while he pondered about how to next interfere.

Rae sat down next to Lock, still with his head in his hands. He let out a long breath as Rae reached her arm over his back and patted him. Lock looked up and into her eyes and opened his mouth as if to say something but nothing came out. Rae knew what he was really going to say anyway. Lock stood up sharply in a violent rage.

"I can't believe it! I just……what kind of idiot would wanna do such a thing! It makes no god-damn sense for Christ's sake!" He turned to the wall and leant against it shaking his head. Rae sat back and kept her head down like a small child who was the real culprit, avoiding eye contact to not be involved.

Lock spun around to face Rae again. Again he opened his mouth to say something but he quickly changed his mind and turned back to the wall. Silence followed without much haste. Each kept their thoughts to themselves, especially Rae, she knew Lock when he was angry, but she'd never seen him like this, it had really startled her.

"Well… what are you gonna do about it? I mean if-˝

"-I don't know! What the hell do think we should do! It's not like Vick even god-damned cared in the first place is it?" Lock loudly interrupted.

"Hey don't take this out on me!" Rae countered sharply. She stood up and brought herself to Lock's eye level. He stared back into her eyes with a furrowed brow. Lock turned on his heels sharply and left the room leaving Rae standing in the center. She let out a sigh. "Jesus Christ Vick, you've really done it now".

"Don't you think I'm aware of that?" Vick said as he emerged around the corner to the cell. Rae didn't answer; she just stared back at him. She wasn't as angry as Lock, but she was still pretty annoyed. Vick took a step closer, he looked at her in a way that he never really had before, like she was some kind of traitor. This however wasn't the case at all, and it wasn't long before somebody had to say something before Rae would start to feel quite threatened.

"Why Vick? Why?" Rae said calmly as he took another step towards her. He didn't reply, he just kept the same stare at her every step he took forwards. Rae was actually starting to get nervous now, still Vick didn't reply, he was now merely a few steps away from her.

Vick raised his right arm up towards Rae's face. Rae quickly batted it away with her hand and looked down on the floor as if she already knew that she had annoyed him.

"What the hell are you doing!" Lock's voice echoed piercingly around the room. Vick wheeled around and tried to act as if nothing had happened. Rae still didn't say anything, she looked very relieved after his appearance, but she still refrained from speaking.

"Well? What the hell were you doing? You've already pushed your luck enough don't you think?"

"Maybe if you weren't on my back all the goddamn time, maybe I could tell you sometimes!"

"Don't you shout at me! If it weren't for you none of us would be in this godamn mess in the first place!" Lock raised his voice a lot.

Vick smiled, he seemed to find it rather amusing when he got Lock especially angry. He quickly snapped away his smile before Lock made another comment. Nothing was said for a few seconds, all eyes in the room were on Vick, he stood there, emotionless as usual.

Lock couldn't just walk away without saying something; he wasn't that kind of person. He took a few steps in Vick's direction, he came right up to Vick's face, breathing quite heavily.

"You, are on a fucking thread you are. And if I get even the slightest kind of incident again you are gonna be outta here so godamn quick it'll feel like somebody shoved a rocket up your ass." Lock said through gritted teeth. "One more chance, and that's it, your gone. Now get the hell out of here."

Vick pushed Lock in the chest slightly to get him out of the way. Lock swatted the arm away, like Rae did, and pushed it back towards him. "Jackass" he mumbled quietly. Vick heard what he said, they both knew it. The tension within the team would now be unbearable when they were fighting and even when they were not.

(a/n) Sorry for the short chapter, it was mainly an advance on the story than anything else. I hope you liked it, again I would like to apologize for the lateness of the chapter, and I assure you, that the next update will be along by the end of the week. If it does not, you can personally come round my house and shoot me in the groin with a tazer gun. :)

P.S It would be great to get some reviews from the original supporters e.g. Dynamis, Cursor, Lacrease and Miranon.