Ok well in this chapter and for a few chapters after this we are going to be starting to get into the actual plotline of the movie now. So I would like to of course point out that all the quotes I used from the movie belong to the makers of the movie and not me.

Hope everyone enjoys this next chapter!

XxX – Arien

Chapter 3 – Commencement

Beth opened her eyes with a groan and winced at the blinding light that hovered there. The first thing that came to her mind was sunglasses, the second thing asprin. She rolled out of bed hitting the floor with a thud and crawled across the floor eyes closed searching for her bag. She found it, pulled out her sunglasses put them on and opened her eyes. "Thank God" she murmured out loud to herself before pulling out couple of asprin and taking them without bothering to get water. Leaning against the wall she remained there until she heard a knock at the door. Still half out of it, she looked down at herself, groaned and then grabbed her silk dressing gown and pulled it on. She stood up, with the world spinning, went to the door and opened it. There stood Braz and Zimsky.

"Er, Beth, Hi. We thought we should come check and see how you are" Braz said, a mild look of amusement on his face.

"Actually he thought, I got dragged along. Nice outfit" Zimsky added.

Beth raised an eyebrow before coming fully to her senses and realising that she was stood in front of the two men dressed in her pink snoopy underwear set, her blue dressing gown open down the front and her exceptionally long red hair just covering the fact that the snoopy vest top was see-through. "Oh Christ" swore Beth, wrapping her dressing gown around her.

"There look" said Zimsky. "She's fine, can we go now, I'm starving!" Zimsky started walking off down the corridor.

"You ok" asked Braz, more seriously this time when he saw her wince.

"Yeah I'm fine, just a headache, I don't remember coming back here, where are we?"

"We are in the Blue Suite hotel, Zimsky brought you back last night, he got fed up and decided that he was going, went to find you to tell you that he was going and you could come with him or walk to the hotel, and found you with some guy heading round the back of the club or something along those lines."

"Oh" said Beth. "Ok thanks"

"No problem" replied Braz. "You know you should come get some breakfast, it will do you a world of good."

Beth nodded before saying her goodbyes to Braz and closing her hotel door. Oh God, she was never going to live this down.

Zimsky sat at the table, eating a slice of toast and listening to the conversation between Bec and Josh. Apparently Serge was listening in too because he had moved closer to Josh whilst attempting to still look subtle. Zimsky turned his attention away from them when Braz spoke to him.

"She really did not look good."

"Serves her right" replied Zimsky. Braz pushed the matter a little further. "It was real nice of you looking after her last night." "Iverson was looking after Bec along with Josh, and everyone else was pissed. I was the only one left capable of looking after anyone" Zimsky said in a matter of fact manner.

"Speak of the Devil" Braz said, nodding in the direction of the door to the restaurant.

Everyone looked up at Beth as she sloped in, sunglasses still on and her hair vaguely tied back off of her face. She looked a little green.

"Hey! Party Girl!" exclaimed Josh patting her on the back as she slumped down in the seat next to him. Beth gulped and grimaced. "You don't look so good Dude" said Josh in a voice which grated against Beth's brain. She smiled weakly before reaching for the water pitcher.

"Here, let me" said Braz, pouring her out a glass of water. Beth accepted it graciously and sipped at it whilst leaning her forehead against her right hand.

"You know Beth maybe you should eat something yes?" came the voice of Serge next to her. Beth frantically shook her head whilst keeping it in her hands. Serge patted her shoulder sympathetically before turning back to his food

Beth jumped as a packed of something hit her hand. She looked down and saw a packet of migraine tablets and then looked up to meet Zimsky's eyes. He nodded to her, and she half smiled her thanks before opening the packet and taking a couple of those as well.

"There's been a call, we have to head back to base now guys" said Iverson entering the room. Bec nodded "Ok Bob, come on guys lets go, Beth, you ok to go in the car with Zimsky?" "Sure" replied Beth weakly before standing out and walking over to Zimsky who was waiting for her at the door. When they had all gathered their things together that group left, heading back to base.

On the way walking back the base from the cars, Zimsky had gotten into an argument with Bec over the nutrition program that they were to follow during their time on the ship. They were suddenly stopped in their tracks by Josh who was staring at the sky.

Everyone turned to look as they heard a crackling noise.

"Woah, that's high level static discharge!"

"I think we should check this out" added Bec, "This doesn't look so good."

The group rushed inside of the base to look at the computers. They were dumbstruck by what they saw. For the next ten minutes, they watched dismally enthralled as Rome was destroyed.

"This planet is decaying faster then we thought" said Josh, horrified.

"It's just the start" said Zimsky "Soon there will be EM spikes and microwaves will break though the weak spots and…."

"Alright", said the General, get this ship in the ground, now."

The General left leaving them standing there. "I had friends in Rome", Beth whispered deadpan. "So did I" Said Bec. They looked at each other then linked hands for support. Beth swallowed and hardened her composure and looked over at the boys. "Let's get going" She ordered. No one argued with her. Beth squeezed Bec's hand and then let go, walking off in the direction of the General.

Marianas Trench – South Pacific

It was pouring with rain and freezing cold when Beth and the others stepped off of the helicopter. Beth shivered as the rain ran down her collar as she bent down to pick up her bag. Zimsky was last to get off the helicopter, unceremoniously chucking his Louis Vuitton bag onto the floor and uttering a disgusted "Yuck!" before picking up his bag and carrying on with the others. "Summer in the pacific" stated Zimsky. Beth grinned from under her hood, pushing it up slightly to enable her to see where she was going.

As she did, gradually the black silhouette of the ship came into view. "Wow" she muttered stopping for a moment. "Yeah" Josh agreed with her nodding with a slight nervous look on his face. Beth raised an eyebrow mirroring Josh's nervous look before shrugging at him, and heading out to catch up with the others, Josh followed closely behind her.

As they caught up, Serge turned to them and waved a bottle of champagne in the air. "I was saving this for later but…" Everyone laughed. Serge handed the bottle to Josh and he popped the cork. Beth turned to Braz, "So what you calling her?" "Virgil" Braz replied. "How apt" Beth quipped raising her glass. "Here's to Virgil". "To Virgil" murmured everyone else.

Josh and Beth looked at each other again. "Off we go then" "mmmhmm" replied Josh. They picked up their bags once again and they all headed off to suit up.

Half an hour later, they were strapped in securely and ready to go. As Bec and Iverson began checking that everything was ready for the launch, Beth looked around the ship. Josh was looking a little pale; she understood perfectly she was feeling a little ill as well. Josh was claustrophobic, Beth was just damn scared. Serge was looking quite excited, whilst Zimsky was spouting off some crap into his dictaphone. Beth took a deep breath closing her eyes to calm herself. They sprung open again when she heard the engines starting up. A few seconds later, she heard the launch count begin. "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, launch".

She barely had time to register the clamps releasing on the ship before her stomach was lurched into her throat. Beth bit back a scream, closed her eyes and gripped the armrests of the chair, her knuckles turning white as she felt herself pulled backwards with the ship. It seemed like the ship had been falling forever before Beth felt them hit water. Down and down they sunk until she felt the compartment in the ship start to level out. Beth remained tense, her heart pounding until she felt a hand un-gripping hers from the armrest. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath as Zimsky rubbed the blood back into her finger tips.

"Ok?" he questioned. Beth nodded.

"Hell of a ride, huh" he stated grinning at the sick look on her face.

Beth nodded again before turning to look around. Serge was rubbing Josh's shoulder whilst he gulped for air in between repeatedly saying "I'm all right Man". Braz, Bec and Iverson looked perfectly composed and were busy checking computers.

"Beth" Zimsky grabbed her attention again, "you can let go of my wrist now"

"Sorry" she finally got her voice back and releasing Zimsky's wrist from the death grip she had it in. "You need to check your computers" Zimsky reminded her, shaking his wrist. Beth nodded, turned her chair to the front and pulled her computer screen up in front of her and began checking over for any predictions.

Zimsky sat back down in his own chair mentally sighing in relief as his legs threatened to give out on him. Bloody hell I feel sick, stupid plan, launch the ship with us backwards, who came up with an idea like that? He thought to himself, outwardly still trying to look perfectly calm, macho and nonplussed. Ow he added in his head checking his hand was still attached. Taking a subtle deep breath he pulled his computer in front of him and started checking things as well.

Commander Iverson started to give orders out to Bec but stopped all of a sudden, then the most amazing sound they had ever heart hit their ears. Whales, whispered Beth, a silly grins lighting up her whole face. "They're singing to us" said Bec turning round and smiling and Josh. "Actually, Virgil's resonance tubes are powered up to vibrate sub-sonically, were singing to them."

Suddenly a currant started pulling them fast. Everyone kicked into action.

"Hull integrity holding" said Serge

"Let's increase impeller speed, I think we will need extra control" added Braz.

"Erm, kinda picking something up on the predictions program here" Beth said.

"What?" said Zimsky.

"The volcanoes nearby have just started radiating heat which means T-Stage is about to begin. I think there is going to be…."

Suddenly the whole ship started to shake.

"Why did we have to launch underwater" wailed Beth.

"Because the crust is thin here" replied Zimsky, "downside is there's lots of seismic activity". He continued his voice rising just slightly at the end of the sentence.

Oh great, stupid Zimsky, were going to die and it's all his fault, Oh God, oh god, oh god" Beth held her breath waiting for the underwater earthquake to stop. It never did, they spiralled down and down in the resulting whirlpool getting faster and faster and closer and closer to the sea bed.

Zimsky hissed and winced as a rock impacted with the ship, mentally praying everything was going to be ok. He was not going to die five minutes into this mission. He turned to Braz when he mentioned something about pressure and started arguing with him. Everyone including Braz ignored the argument. "Ok standby to engage front and lateral lasers please" said Braz. Beth switched off for a moment watching the screen at the front of the ship, they were getting pretty close. "Just give it a couple more seconds" said Braz trying to calm his panicked companions, "The lasers will fire!". Josh, Zimsky and Beth all had their eyes closed, Serge was shouting at Braz to fire the lasers, closer and closer, the ocean floor surged up against the ship, just 29'000 feet left to go, "Do it!" , "Do it" screamed Zimsky followed by Josh…… a few more seconds…. And the lasers fired. They were though.

A few seconds followed and the journey smoothed out a bit. Everyone let out shaky laughs and went about reconfiguring the ship for the rest of the journey. It was during this that Braz and Zimsky started another argument. There was a barrage of sighs as everyone mentally prepared themselves for the next fifteen minutes of annoying bantering between the two.