Gasp! Two reviews! Cookies for them!

Saismaat, yeah I tend to jump around from following one person to another, but don't worry it should be mostly back and forth between Riddick and Jack... and at least I've finally stopped writing I when it's not in first person... If it should get too confusing (that goes for anyone reading this) just tell me and I'll try to cut down on it, or try to make it clearer for everyone.

LaisonFan2, yeah a possessive Riddick is my kind too! . . Actually I like most of my men that way.

(Disclaimer: Pitch Black/TCOR stuffs are not mine...)

ooo

Jack jumped back up onto her feet, glad to see that the other guy finally just stayed down. The announcer declared "Kyra" the winner after a few prolonged seconds and she moved over to a corner to slump down to the floor while they got the unconscious man out of the ring and produced the next one. Meaning she had ten or so minutes to sit down and breath before she had to go at it again with some other guy who had probably been resting up, until now. She still had two more fights till intermission, and she was beginning to regret setting up the fourteen fight gauntlet…

Maybe just for a crazy second, when she had been talking to Mr. Talish, she had thought Riddick would be doing this, and really any less probably would have been insulting to him. However, for her… fourteen fights was a brutal walk to blood loss, a concussion, and then, finally, unconsciousness…

Sure the first few went down easy enough for Jack, but they were starting to get better. They stopped underestimating her when she used third guy's bodyweight against him and sent him into one of the chain-link walls. Actually, as she looked up she noticed some blood covering a few links next to her, which had either been her meeting with the wall or the other guy. It didn't particularly matter though, or so Jack decided.

People were being generally loud around the ring and Jack wasn't concentrating enough to be able to tell if she was the underdog or the one people were picking for the win. She had been the underdog earlier but people were so prone to changing their minds… Still as Jack wiped some blood from her cheek she vaguely thought that people were also prone to changing their minds back…

As for Riddick he had been standing back in the shadows watching the fight on one of the big screens that sat above the ring. Tasha stood next to him, and occasionally behind him when the people around them got a little frisky. Every time "Kyra" took a hit the girl would whimper a little, and Riddick just rooted himself to his spot.

They were in the lower levels of the Oasis casino; it looked rightly dingy and rusted for a fighting ring. The casino upstairs looked in better shape when he had been running through it after Jack, but then again you had to enter through a back door and walk down two flights of stairs to get down to this area. Blood seemed to be the dominating smell in there but Riddick didn't really mind. It was the dirty little non-secret of the casino, The Pits. Really, if Jack hadn't been the one in the ring, this would probably have been his kind of place.

Tasha didn't look like she belonged there however, but Riddick didn't warn her away. If she wanted to ruin the innocence of her eyes then far be it for him to stop her. There was no way of knowing if the girl watched the fights regularly, anyway, and she wasn't Jack so he felt no need to protect her beyond keeping her from disappearing into the crowd to never been seen again. Tasha was still a kid after all.

She had tried to run towards the ring during the fourth fight when Jack flew into a wall in a way made the cage clatter, probably a little to loudly, but Riddick kept a hold of her arm, kept her from distracting Jack. (It was hard enough to think after you meet a fence and then the floor.) Now, a few fights later, Tasha looked up at him and insisted, "You need to do something!" Her brown eyes were pleading as they looked up into Riddick's goggles. "Go take her place! The troll will gladly let you take over. I just know it; some dude did it to save his brother. It was controversial, it got him more money he loved it."

"Not my fight," Riddick growled at her, as he looked away from the blonde. It went against him wanting to protect her, but Jack would learn. She didn't look in danger of dying, but the blood spilling down from a cut on her cheek did look particularly gory. Riddick figured that there was a possibility she was in danger of getting tetanus, but that was about it and she would be fine after a med shot from his ship.

"There are nine more fights!" Tasha yelled, frustrated, as she stomped her foot. It showed she was still actually a young teen despite her prodigy status. "Pick one and make it yours before she gets hurt again!"

Riddick stopped before he repeated himself and looked down at Tasha. "This is how she got hurt?" He asked his voice straining. They both knew he meant when Jack got hurt and Tasha called Imam. Riddick still didn't have the details on it but fourteen rounds in that cage was enough to give him a decent picture.

"Once you hit the A block fighters you get to use weapons. Jack will get a staff, but the other fighters can use whatever they want as long as it doesn't have a blade, mostly they'll use other staffs, wooden swords, some have clubs or bats. Then once A5 comes around she'll still have that staff if it doesn't break for some reason, but she'll be going up against shivs and swords mostly. Those fights are for five blood drawing hits, in the gauntlet she doesn't have to win, but she can't pass out." She paused for a second before adding, "Jack did okay last time until she hit A7 of her ten person gauntlet… the guy got her in the gut with some kind of staff with a metal ball on the top it ripped three already open wounds even wider." Tasha explained as she glared up at Riddick. Before he said anything, though, the announcer's voice came over the speakers.

"Next fight in the gantlet, Kyra against the A10 fighter, James, blunt weapons allowed. All bets are open and will close in five minutes." The announcer said with minimal enthusiasm. People came to The Pits for the fights, not the commentary. The announcer just introduced the fights, and opened and closed betting.

Riddick looked up as Jack pulled herself up onto her feet and took her weapon from an employee, who quickly scurried out of the cage. She stood there for a moment or two before a man walked in with a bat over his shoulder like he was going to hit a home run. It in no way comforted Riddick that Jack's head was probably going to be used as the ball. The fight wouldn't start until the announcer said, so when some guy, about Jack's age, walked up talking to Tasha he let his attention rest on the two next to him instead.

"Tash, what are you doing in here? We told you to stay out of The Pits!" The boy said as he grabbed onto the girl's arm, but Tasha merely pulled away and scooted closer to Riddick making him turn his attention to the older man and ask, "And who the fuck is he?"

"Pip, this is… Richard he's a friend of Jack's," Tasha said, remembering that she was supposed to call him by his first name, because it was less conspicuous then Riddick. After all there were only so many Riddicks running around, but there were more Richards then could be counted.

"Oh so you're Pip…" Riddick hummed as he sized the boy up. The kid to his credit had a decent build for someone who probably didn't eat often, and shaggy brown hair that hung down to his chin. His eyes were a sharp blue color, and Riddick almost disliked him on the spot.

"Yeah, I am what of it?" Pip asked as he wondered just what Jack was doing with friends like this guy here. Actually beyond Tasha, Pip didn't know how many people Jack actually considered a friend. Not even Gigi, one of the other girls that called The Den home, and the girl even grew on him after a while. Tasha just seemed way too smart, probably the reason Pip didn't trust her.

Pip didn't get an answer though as Riddick's attention was pulled to the screen above the ring by the announcer closing the bets, and starting the fight. It started out okay, some clips, and close calls. No one was really winning, until the A10 fighter got Jack in the back… She stumbled forward and lost her hold on her weapon. She tried to regain her footing, but failed and fell forward onto her hands and knees. Luckily, because of her fall, she missed being smacked in the head.

This sent Riddick's brain into hyper drive over his options. It didn't take long to pick one either. "Tasha do you know how to kill the lights down here?" Riddick asked suddenly though he didn't turn his goggled gaze toward the girl in the least. He heard a timid "sure" before he looked towards her then Pip. "Take her to kill the lights," then when they didn't move right away Riddick pulled up the hood on his jacket and growled, "Now!"

The two ran off before Riddick started to slip closer to the ring. Jack was back on her feet, but her dilemma seemed to be how to get her staff when it resided behind the man with the bat. Even worse was the moment she caught sight of Riddick her attention was torn in two. Riddick stopped at the barricade that kept five feet between the audience and the ring and his hands gripped the rail as his goggled gaze rested on the two fighting.

Jack's attention was thrown back to the fight when she found the bat coming towards her head. It missed, barely and she staggered back wondering what the Riddick was doing there. He had said that he was just going to stay at the den and wait for her to come back. Jack didn't even know that Riddick knew where this place was…

It all confused Jack, but she kept sliding back to keep out of reach of the bat. At least she was confused until the lights went out and she couldn't see anything. That was when she realized how Riddick got there, and what was happening. Tasha shut the lights off, and as the announcer wasn't saying anything to the yelling masses she figured that the power went to. This meant that Riddick was officially up to something…

Jack went to yell at Riddick, tell him that if she didn't continue her friends would be in danger. She didn't get a chance though as she felt something move in front of her face and found that the idiot from A10 was still trying to get her. She moved back more only to wince when her back hit the fence of a wall. She couldn't see anything in the dark but the happy noise from in front of her told her that James new she was in front of him.

She quickly ducked to the side hoping James would go the other way or just hit the wall. Not that it mattered, because her attention was pulled to the wall on the other side of the cage, where the door was. Jack pressed back farther into the corner saying, "No, tell Tasha to put the lights back on. I have to finish or we're all going to get in trouble.

Jack sucked in a breath when she heard that horrible noise of a body hitting the ground. She hated that limp noise that told you no one was home in that body. Being a hired gun didn't help it at all…

"Riddick… why won't you listen?" Jack breathed as she clamped her eyes shut against the darkness. It was no use to have her eyes open; she couldn't find Riddick in the darkness like he could find her. "I can't leave them." Jack said, trying her hardest to convince him. She knew that he was there, that he was listening to her. It was merely that he didn't care what she had to say at the given moment in time. Her thoughts were confirmed when she found herself being lifted over Riddick's shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes before he turned and walked away.

Jack struggled at first and even heard him grunt after she hit him particularly hard in the stomach with her knee. She only stopped when Riddick turned sharply and she hit someone whose only response was to elbow her in her shoulder none to gently. Jack actually thought about trying to get do again, but a growl followed by Riddick gripping her legs tighter stopped her.

ooo

Jack frowned at the red emergency lights that were flashing once they got back to The Den. It hadn't taken them that long, but Tasha and Pip had been nowhere near the exit of the fighting ring, and no one was calling out to her now. That still left two others unaccounted for, but Gigi and Victor barely showed up unless they really wanted a bed to sleep in.

"They wouldn't come back…" Jack insisted to herself before she shot off into the basement she called home. She had felt the warmth of Riddick's hand coming closer to her shoulder, but she didn't want to chance that he'd pull her back. Her mind wouldn't rest, and she had to make sure no one was there; she had to see it with her own eyes.

Jack pushed a chair out of the way, and didn't even take the time to go around their makeshift wall. She just pushed passed the bed sheet to get a look into the computer area. Her worries only half settled when she didn't find someone dead and slumped over in the chair. The little message warning blinking on the screen made rush over to the computer to make it pop up, though.

Her heart dropped when it wasn't Tasha's face on the message, and her stomach tied itself into knots when the troll said one simple thing, "Your friends will be mine, and your bounty will go to whoever gets you first."

Then the screen went blank…