Sorry about the April Fool's joke. I... didn't get talked out of it. That's my excuse. If you missed it, it's posted in my journal at cordria. deviantart. com for you to read.

This is the REAL chapter.

Warnings for language, violent murder, and general evilness of the Cori-variety.

Pits
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Page 12

Blink.

Blink.

What?!

I stared down at my hands for an incredibly long moment before slamming my eyes shut, my mind focusing around one singular thought: change back… Nothing was happening to my body, no fizzles of electricity meeting my grasping thoughts, no turning back into a human. I searched through my head for that distant feeling of warmth and life and humanity that was part of my mind. It had always been there, hovering right behind my forehead, a gentle little blister of warmth in a cold, dead body.

It was… gone.

Change back, change back, change back… Nothing.

Oh no, no, no, no. What was going on? Was I dead – a ghost permanently?

I'd always known that I wasn't really a ghost; I was far too human for that. My thoughts, my actions, my very existence didn't work the same as a ghost's did. Sure, I looked like a ghost and I had more than a few 'ghostly attributes' (as my sister put it), but I'd always been solidly human deep down inside. I'd never been truly dead. But suddenly that spark of life was yanked out from underneath me.

For the first time ever, the impossibly chilling feeling of death completely surrounded me and curled through every molecule of my being. I licked my lips and felt my body being to shiver. The world swirled and tilted as a feeling of extreme lightheadedness slammed into me. "No…"

I could hear the word echo perfectly around me. The normally cheering, partying, betting crowds had been totally silent since my strange transformation and the explosive death of Mimic just two minutes earlier. I could almost feel their confusion ripping through the fatal air of the pit.

My eyes drifted open again, focused past my outstretched hands and onto the ground. The energy I'd released had dried up all the mud, returning the pit floor to its normal sandy state, but I wasn't all that interested in it.

"What happened to me?" I breathed. I had absolutely no thoughts on the matter. Nothing in my head made any amount of sense and my brain didn't seem to be quite working right.

"Move, Phantom," a guard said hesitantly. My gaze drifted upwards to meet his and I felt a shiver slip down my spine when the guard backed away from me, red eyes sparkling with fear. "Please," he added.

I just blinked at him for a moment before taking a few steps in the general direction of the door that led out of the pit. My eyes focused blandly on the ground that was passing right in front of my feet and my mind was oddly blank. I just walked.

When I reached the large doors, two guards were waiting for me – an armed escort to the showers and then back to my room. "Stop," one of them barked, gesturing wildly with his baton, "you need to change to your human form to walk back. Walker's orders." The other guards remained silent.

"I can't," I whispered, not looking up.

"Walker's orders," he hissed again, leaning in so close that I had to take a small step backwards to prevent us from bonking heads. "Human. Now."

"I can't," I repeated sourly and looked up, more of a glare than anything else. I knew that my eyes were now a glowing mixture of blues and greens, seething with raw power and confused frustration. I watched with a slightly pleased feeling when the guard blinked and took a step away from me, the other two guards following suit even though I wasn't looking at them. "I tried."

The guard pulled that annoyingly familiar box off his belt and ran his finger lightly over the trigger. "That's not good enough. Turn human or we'll make you."

A snarl worked its way out of my throat. I'm not sure who was more surprised by the raw intensity of it: the guards or myself. I could feel my eyes burn as energy swirled drunkenly around me and I felt an astonishingly powerful wave of exasperation and anger rise through me. "Read my lips. I. Freaking. Can't." And I don't know why… I just can't…

The guard, however, had apparently had enough of our chit-chat. I watched – in almost slow motion – as his finger pushed down on the button. I felt the leathery collar around my neck fizzle and spark, and then all of my confused thoughts were wrenched from my head by waves of agonizing pain. I should be used to the shock collar by now, but it had never hurt that much before. Energy sizzled against my nerves like a thousand hot pokers jabbing into my skin. It vibrated through me like the shriek of fingernails on a chalkboard, smashing through every defense down to my very core. I felt my eyes water, my nose start to bleed, and my ears pop – all in rapid and painful succession.

The agony went on forever, slamming and curling and clawing and ripping and tearing and chewing at me from the outside in and the inside out. Every atom of my body wavered and sent flashes of pure pain up into my brain. I'm not sure if I screamed, or moaned, or just passed out without any sort of audible reaction.

I did pass out, and all my brain thought as blessed darkness swallowed me and carried away the pain was, it's about time.

--

What woke me up later wasn't so much the screaming of my body – which throbbed painfully at the merest thought of movement – or the gnawing ache of my stomach as it begged to be fed, or even the dangling curiosity of just what had happened to me in that pit fight… what woke me up were sharp, needle-like claws pressing into my cheek and a squeaky voice that I wasn't completely convinced was real.

"Hybrid… wake up. You need to get up."

I decided to place my money on real. Talking rats are a bit of a rarity in the human world, but not so much of an impossibility in the Ghost Zone… and this one was just annoying enough to be real. One eye crept open –ouch– and I took a slow moment to study the rat before answering. "I hurt, go away."

The rat cocked an eyebrow and chittered softly. "We need to talk."

"Later," I muttered, closing my eyes. I managed to have them closed for a matter of milliseconds before the stupid rodent brought his teeth and my ear together in a painful clasp. "Hey!" Jerking upright, I took a swing at the rat, knocking him off my cot. Alone for the moment, I closed my eyes and rolled my neck. The sharp ache of my body ebbed a little as I moved. "Fine. I'm up. What?" I snapped and tried to ignore the soft pain that occurred with every movement.

Jumping back up onto my cot, the rat chose a spot conveniently out of my reach and curled his blue tail around his feet. "We need to talk," he said again.

"I get that…" I trailed off as the thought that I was sleeping on a cot struck me. I was sleeping on a cot that wasn't broken. On a fixed cot. On a… where was my picture? "Crud," I hissed and scrambled off the hard wooden bed, a wave of anxiety slamming into me with the force of a tsunami, my breath rasping in my throat. The seven ghost lights overhead bobbed and weaved around in their own mysterious dances, following me around like a tiny entourage as I searched for the picture of my family.

"Looking for something?" the rat asked.

I glanced up at him, that tidal wave of panic cascading into my gut and, impossibly, growing bigger when I couldn't find what I was looking for. "A picture. It was here, but someone came to fix my cot while I was gone and now my picture is gone."

"It's under your pillow, hybrid."

"Under my…" I was across the room in the blink of an eye, pulling the pillow aside to study the charred picture, lying right next to the scorched purple scrunchie that Walker had given me in his attempt to make me believe I'd killed my best friends.

"You miss your family, don't you," the rat said softly.

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyways, feeling a small smile drift across my face as that incredibly powerful mountain of dread drained away. "Every day I miss them," I breathed, "and I want to go home." Too bad monsters don't get to go home. My breath caught in my throat at the sudden thought, my mind yanking my own thoughts in a horrible direction.

"You'll see them again."

Distantly, I shook my head. "I'm not sure, rat. How am I ever going to get to go home when I look like this? When I've done the things I've done?"

"My name is L'Jai, not rat, and you'll see home again. The way you look, it's not…"

"I'm a ghost!" I interrupted, my eyes flashing as a white-hot poker of anger suddenly erupted inside of me. "I'm dead. And now I'm going to have these stupid blades sticking out of my arms all the…" I trailed off, staring down at my arms in confused fascination. My arms were empty. No blades. No blades! "Where are…"

A feeling started deep in my stomach, rippled through my chest, and down my arms; it wasn't so much painful as just weird and different. Even as those words slipped from my mouth, I watched two shimmering, metallic blades grow out of my arms. Twisting one arm slightly, the shining flat of the star-silver blade caught the glowing green and blue ghost lights and began to glow.

I waited a moment, ready for my brain to spit out how it felt about this newest development. It supplied me with a short quip about Wolverine from the X-Men, but that was about it. I guess, on top of everything else that had happened in the past few hours, having magically appearing blades didn't rank too highly.

"Like I said," the rat stated, drawing my eyes away from the blades in my arms, "we need to talk."

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things… of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages, and Kings! And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. The tiny bit of unfamiliar rhyme popped into my head unannounced and unasked-for. I sighed and shook my head; too many confusing things at one time. I didn't want to know where it had come from. "Talk about what?" I asked after a few seconds, my brain willing to focus on something it might be able to understand. Perhaps the rat had some answers for me.

"What happens next." The rat's tail thumped softly against my ratted blanket as he said the word 'next'.

I didn't care what happened next, I wanted to know what was going on now. "What's happening to me?"

The rat blinked, obviously thrown for a loop by the question. "I haven't a clue," he stated shortly. "I could probably wager a guess, but it'd just be a guess. What we need to talk about…"

"Wager away," I interrupted. I wanted to know what the rat's guess was. It had to be better than my non-ideas.

"I would guess," the rat began with a heavy sigh, "that since you were a halfa – half human, half ghost with the ability to transfer between the two – that something has happened to halt that transformation mid-morph. You had black hair or white hair, now your hair is both. You had green eyes or blue eyes, now your eyes are both. My guess would be that before you had a ghost body or a human body… and now you are both, simultaneously." He paused for a moment. "More of a hybrid than a halfa, really."

My forehead wrinkled as I listened to that simple explanation. It made sense on some levels, but not on others. My instincts were telling me that, in essence, the rat was right… but that something was wrong with his explanation. It seemed a little too perfect, a little too readily available. And what was that something that stopped me from transforming? "A hybrid…" I breathed, wondering for a moment why he'd been calling me 'hybrid' all along if I just turned into one.

The rat nodded sharply. "Precisely. A not entirely unfortunate occurrence, in the long run – preliminary readings show that your inherent power level has jumped exponentially. We do, however, need to move onto more important topics."

My head shot up that that. More important? What could be more important than what's happening to me?

"I told you, briefly, of the resistance," he continued before I had the chance to speak, "and of the hope that we could destroy Walker and the Pits once and for all. Pieces are in motion and the plan needs to be kept on track. We cannot let it fall apart or everything may come to ruin."

My gaze dropped away from him as he spoke, slipping down to my study my arms. When I was fourteen and first figured out how to turn into my ghost form, it had taken me months to get used to the idea of having glowing skin. Now I felt like I was starting over. My skin was much more human than before, but it still held that fascinating glow of energy and my attention was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

The fingers of my left hand pressed into my right arm, brushing over the skin and then up the length of the star-silver blade. Even though the blade was made of metal, when my fingers traced the blade felt exactly the same as when my fingers were touching my own skin. It was still strange.

I spread my fingers and tipped my head to the side, letting my mind settle on the idea of the blades retracting back inside of me. I had the hope that the blades were like all of my powers – controlled by my thoughts. A small smile crossed my lips when the blades began to shrink. The cold metal felt like it raced up the veins in my arms, through my chest, and settled in my stomach. "Weird," I whispered.

"Are you listening to me, hybrid?" the rat squeaked in annoyance. "I'm detailing your part of this plan."

I looked up and shook my head, a flare of annoyance gushing through me like a miniature volcano, making my eyes burn a little. "No, I wasn't listening. I have other things on my mind." Trying to tone down the glare, I stomped on the impossibly powerful emotion that had rolled through me. To add another log to the fire of confusion that was my mind at the moment, I decided I needed to figure out why my emotions were so powerful and close to the surface. It was like a buffer was gone; every emotion I had I felt in a way I never had before.

"Then I'll say it again. Listen this time." The rat took a deep breath, shaking me out of my own musings. He didn't seem concerned about my rocketing emotions. "You're a big part of this plan if we're going to take down Walker and the Pits."

I opened my mouth to speak, but the rat cut me off.

"Don't interrupt me, just listen. You've got the key, hybrid. That key will give you a measure of control over the ambient atmosphere of the Pits complex. That means that you need to be in contact with the key as much as possible. Walker has, in essence, brainwashed a lot of innocent ghosts into believing that killing for enjoyment is the proper thing to do. You can change that by gaining control of the key. This…"

"Why don't you do it?" I interrupted.

He blinked up at me, his sapphire eyes glowing in confusion. "What?"

"You had the key. Why didn't you do this stuff you're talking about. Why me?"

"I'm not powerful enough," he answered softly. "I stole the key from Walker, but that doesn't make it mine. Possession is only nine-tenths of the law. Raw ability is the remaining tenth – a piece I don't have. The Pits will never be free unless Walker is completely removed from power."

I just nodded my head, glancing away from him.

"Hopefully," the rat continued, "this will stop ghosts from coming to the fights. We'll coordinate with the growing rebellion. At a future fight when there are few spectators to disturb our plans, the rebels will shut off the shield so that you can escape. The rebels will back you up so you can take out Walker."

"Just like that. Just kill him?"

He curled his tail a little closer to his feet. "I know you don't like killing, young hybrid, but it is necessary in this instance. Thousands upon thousands of innocent souls have been lost to the ravages of this place. Millions more will suffer if we don't act."

"I don't mind killing Walker," I said softly, shaking my head, "but he's a very powerful ghost. I don't think it'll be as easy as you're making it sound."

"For a halfa, yes – it'd be nearly impossible," he chirped, eyes gleaming. "But for a hybrid with a pair of Guardian's blades fused into you and the key to this universe in your pocket?"

I gazed at him in silent disbelief.

"That's the other reason I'm here. You need to learn how to use those blades of yours more effectively." His eyes glowed in the faint lights. "Would you like me to train you?"

--

When the rat finally vanished back to wherever he came from to get some 'supplies' for the training session he managed to talk me in to, I was left to my own devices. Since my muscles were still sore from the shock treatment I'd gotten earlier, I curled up on the cot to take a nap. I've had the unfortunate chances to sleep on both the cot and on the rocky floor… and I'm not sure which is more comfortable.

This time, however, something was different. I found it ridiculously easy to keep my body floating a few inches above the cot and I knew – somehow – that I could keep myself in the air all night if I wanted. I had a bed of air. I curled up a little more, throwing the ratted blanket over me even though the incessant cold of the Pits didn't really bother me like it used to.

Yawning and curling one arm under my head to keep the thin pillow from falling, I closed my eyes and let myself drift into dreams.

--

I bobbed and danced to an ancient and powerful beat, twirling and swirling to a hidden rhythm so infectious that I couldn't fight it – and didn't really want to. The dancing was like an afterthought; a movement as unconscious as breathing. It just happened and was, like the wind.

I watched a single ghost pace sourly in his cell below me, talking to himself. Before I could really focus on what was happening in the tiny room, I was yanked backwards. Something that felt as powerful and as instinctive as nature curled a finger around my stomach and pulled. Colors blended into a chaotic pattern of greens and blues before settling again. The image below me was different.

A young woman, curled up in a corner with a red notebook in her hands. Another sudden mess of colors and the feeling of being dragged backwards, and the view steadied into one of a ghost with green hair sitting yoga-like in the middle of the room. Again, everything cascaded and I caught a glimpse of an empty hallway. Then a young man sleeping in a room. Then a ghost glaring at her door. Then two ghosts fighting in the Pits. Then a single guard stalking down a corridor.

Pictures flickered and flashed, snap-shot images of ghosts and humans that ranged throughout the Pits complex. Since it was just a dream, I went with it, flowed with it, let it happen. It made just as much sense as dreams were supposed to make.

One of the quick images steadied just long enough for me to see a familiar figure wrapped up in a blanket on her cot. For the first time in this insane dream, I fought against the intense feeling of being pulled backwards. I wanted to stay in this cell. The desire to move, dance, and swirl curled in my mind irrepressibly… but I stayed.

I stared down at the soft black hair in a sort of fascinated horror as I watched her breathe. She curled up a little closer, shivering against the cold. With the kind of fuzzy logic that was perfectly reasonable in a dream, I reached out and pulled her tattered blanket up around her shoulders. Her eyelids fluttered a tiny bit and I caught just the tiniest hint of her eyes opening before the yanking feeling was back.

Too impossible to resist, I let myself be dragged backwards and away, dancing chaotically through the messy blue-green mists. More images settled in front of me, blurring together into a long train of pain, sorrow, fury, and despair. Over and over, I saw tears fall and desperate fists fly and hopeless prisoners scream in anger.

But then something new happened. The dragging, swirling mass of color took longer and a feeling of intense fatigue slammed into me. The picture solidified before me but it felt like I was fighting to keep my eyes open. When everything finally settled down, I instantly knew where I was.

The lab. My dad was sitting in the darkened basement under a single light, working steadily at some small invention. I drifted closer, curious.

"Jack," I heard my mother say as she suddenly appeared into my view, "it's two in the morning. Come to bed." She rested her hand on my dad's shoulder and leaned in to give him a peck on his cheek.

"Just a little longer and I can finish this," he mumbled. "I can get this done and it'll work this time."

Mom had a small, painful smile on her face. "We're not going to do Danny any good if you get sick or get hurt from being tired. You can finish it in the morning."

Dad shook his head, his dark-ringed eyes haunted when he looked up, "You heard what that ghost said – what he's living in. I can't…" he shook his head for a moment, "I can't just let him be there. Every minute could be his last… Mads…"

"I know." She curled her arms around Dad's shoulders and rested her head against his head. "I know, Jack." I slipped a little lower in the air, watching with a dreamy detachment as tears slipped out of her eyes. After a long moment, she let go and wiped her eyes. "What tool do you need next?" she asked quietly.

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Can you get a battery charged up? I'm almost done and we can try it."

"Alright." Mom walked across the lab, closer to where I was bobbing and twirling through the air. She reached up onto a shelf and pulled down the box of batteries. After fishing one out, she placed it back, her gaze drifting around the darkened lab. She seemed to stare in my direction and, suddenly, her gaze was piercing into my soul. "Jack…" she breathed.

Mom's eyes didn't leave. She was looking straight at me. "Jack!"

Then everything seemed to explode and I was yanked backwards with a scream, closing my eyes against the chaotic, swirling, dancing blue and green ghost lights.

--

The guards appeared at my door almost before I had woken up. They shuffled me into Former's office with little more than scowls, their fingers hovering over the buttons that would activate the shock collar the instant I did anything they didn't like. I just sighed and kept my head down as they shuffled me through the dark corridors, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't do anything that they would take as aggressive. The last thing I wanted was another experience with the collar.

When the heavy door slammed shut behind me, I glanced up and around at the now-familiar book room, shaking away the remains of my strange dream. I hesitated as my eyes caught something new. A miniature version of Former was sitting at the large book instead of the normal Former. Fuzzy black hair, odd blue eyes, dark skin, ragged clothes, somewhere around my age. Carefully studying the newcomer, I waited for Former to appear around a corner and explain who this was.

When the teenager finally looked up, a huge grin split his face. "Phantom!" He bounced out of his chair and practically danced over to me in a way that eerily reminded me of the ghost lights that haunted my room. "I can't believe I get to meet you! It's a good thing that my brother's sick. I mean, it's not a good thing 'cause he's at Doctor Mary's and that's no fun since she's evil, but it's a good thing for me. See, I talked Elise into doing double duty for me so I could do Gory's job and let him stay home and get some sleep today, which isn't going to be so good for me because I'll have to pay Elise back and she'll save it for the next time we have to clean out an elephant stable or something and I'll have to do it all on my own and that's going to take forever, but I guess that's just life." He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "Name's Mica. Mica Former. Pleased to meet you, finally. I've been waiting and waiting to meet you; I've heard so much about you from all the ghosts. You're kind of a hero."

I blinked at his rambling monologue and shook his hand. "Hi…" He never seemed to come to a stop, constantly shifting his weight on his feet, but I figured he would be a few inches taller than me if he held still. The strangest thing about Mica was his eyes; something about his eyes made me shiver whenever he looked at me.

"Are you ready for this fight? It's against a human again and I know you don't like that very much. My brother complains a lot whenever he finds out that you get placed against humans. He used to think you should've been up against some of the strongest ghosts out there, but I don't think he thinks that any more. He had a really weird idea a few days ago and he won't talk to me about it and there's really not much I can do about it because he's human and I can't see things about humans like I can around ghosts. But I think it's got something to do with you." Mica smiled, moving away from me and whirling around the tiny, book-covered room. "I haven't told him that you've got Walker's knife, by the way, 'cause he won't tell me what he's planning, but I know he's planning something or else he wouldn't be talking to Doctor Mary quite as much as he does. He couldn't possibly have a crush on her, not again."

It was official. I'd never met anyone who talked as much or as fast as this kid. Then, quite suddenly, one of his fast-spoken sentences slammed into my stomach. "Walker's knife?" I whispered. How did he know about that? Who would he tell?

He laughed a little. "Oh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone. I think that Gory's got an idea on how to get out of here, that's why he's chatting with Doctor Mary rather than sleeping. She's usually horrible and really mean, but she's got definite connections to the real world. For my last birthday she got me a pair of sunglasses. Not sure what I can do with sunglasses when I'm in the Pits since it's always so dark, but Gory says it's the thought that counts in the end. So I'm saving them for when we get free." The easy smile faded for a moment. "I've never seen anything but the Pits, not that I remember anyways. You're going to free us all, right?"

"Uh…" I took a small step backwards. "What?"

"L'Jai was telling me all about the rebellion that's forming." He settled back into his chair, his fingers sliding over the numbers in the book, making small changes to the huge ledger. "They're going to free us and you're going to help. I see it around you." His blue eyes flickered up and fixed on me. I shuddered at something in his gaze and took another step backwards. Then he nodded. "Yup. You're going to do something special to save us all."

"I…"

"The human's name is Sophie. She's a 1-H, which is kind of weird. You don't see many humans who win their first fight. That's what the 'one' means, you know – that's she's won one fight. I think it's got more to do with the fact that she was placed against another human in her first fight and he had a heart attack and died in the pit without them ever having to touch each other and I heard that seeing her opponent die like that did something not very nice to her mind." Mica's smile slipped back onto his face. "So I hope you do good, knife-bearer. It was nice to meet you and maybe I can come visit soon and I'll make sure to tell my brother that you sent him wishes to get better."

"Wha…"

The doors leading to the Pits suddenly slammed open and cut off whatever I was going to say. Mica turned to the guards. "Sophie, pit five!" he announced. "You'll like pit five," he winked at me. "It's a-maze-ing."

He was still chuckling, and I was still totally mystified, when the doors slammed shut and I was escorted through the tunnels towards my twelfth fight.

--

"Okay," I said softly, running my hand through my dual-shaded hair as the guards flew up into the air and the shield snapped on overhead. "This is new." This was my first fight in pit five and it looked like, as the chatterbox had sort of mentioned, a maze. The crumbling stone walls went all the way up to the faintly glowing shield and I couldn't see much through the shadows that crept around the corners of the walls. My opponent, this mysterious Sophie, was nowhere to be seen.

The first step, I figured, was to find my opponent. I closed my eyes, searching for the elusive feel of the human that was in the pit with me. For my previous fights, I'd felt the sticky-sweet scent of fear even before I'd stepped foot onto the pit floor. Human emotions traveled really well in the Ghost Zone and humans normally stood out like a beacon you could sense for miles around. This time, I hadn't felt anything. It was bizarre. And, since I was currently in a pit fighting for my life, it contained a feeling of dark foreboding.

There. I opened my eyes and focused them in the direction of the tiny wash of emotion. It was faint, but definite – there really was a human in the pit with me. The mob watching our fight was loud, a constant moving blur in my vision, and I had to focus a little to push them out of my mind. The crowd was, apparently, displeased with the lack of emotions flowing off of my opponent.

I slipped through the shadows, pressing my hand against the first cracked wall I came across, testing a theory that had settled into my brain. It was, as I had figured it would be, made of the same material as everything in the Pits – meaning I couldn't phase through it. Continuing my quick search of the area, I noted that flying over the maze would be impossible with the shield so close to the tops of the walls. The only option available to me was to go through the shadowed mess.

Shaking my head, I let a small sigh drift out of my mouth. There were endless amounts of traps possible in the darkened recesses of the maze. Who knew what was in there? I silently cursed Mr. Lancer and the stupid assignment that he had made me do on the myth of the minotaur and the labyrinth. I had all sorts of pictures jumping into my head of large, power creatures hiding around every bend.

I pinpointed my opponent once more, noting that she hadn't moved at all, and took a few cautious steps into the dark interior of the maze. The only light came from the faintly glowing shield almost twenty feet over my head. Swirling my hand through the air, I collected a handful of ectoplasm and forced it to glow like a small lamp. By the glow of my own eerie, green energy, I could see that the teetering walls of the ancient maze swept off in both directions… both ways ending in sharp corners that led deeper into the shadows. "Oh… fun," I whispered sourly.

After randomly picking to head right, I steadfastly refused to look at the random creepy-crawlies that infested the old maze as I floated into the air and flew over the shattered and crumbling floor. I hesitated at the corner, my mind supplying me with a nice image of a monster huddled around the corner, waiting to take my head off when I poked it around the edge. But, unable to come up with a better idea, I stuck my head around the corner.

An empty, dark passage. I breathed a small sigh of relief, slipping forwards through air. The Ghost Zone is a haunted place and feels like it, but this maze was creepy with a new definition of the word. I glanced once behind me and hurried a bit faster, checking out the passages that broke off of the one I was on.

Nothing to the left. Nothing to the right. Still nothing behind me. Nothing in front of me.

Twelve turns later, I drifted to a stop and studied the seemingly never-ending shadowed corridors with a quickly-developing sense of frustration. Everything looked the same. I had no idea where I was and no clue where I was trying to go anymore.

I peeked around another corner, annoyed and irritated at how lost I'd gotten myself. How Walker ever expected this to be a spectator sport, I didn't think I'd ever understand. I had to have been in here, drifting randomly, for almost twenty minutes – it had to be kind of dull to watch. Creepy to be in, but boring to observe.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, however, I picked up on something new. The noisy, angry crowd had fallen silent. I froze, tipping my head to the side as I tried to listen. Above the scratching and slithering sounds of the ghostly inhabitants of the maze and the soft crackling of the shield, I couldn't hear anything. "Maybe they all went home?" I wondered in disbelief.

Glancing upwards, I blinked in surprise to find all of the ghostly spectators floating over the maze, staring down at me through the shield. My forehead wrinkled in pure confusion. Why were they staring at me? What was I doing…

Sophie.

I instantly reached out with my senses, searching for that faint and elusive human scent I'd picked up on earlier. It was less than a heartbeat before I located her. She was just a few feet behind me, her emotions curled up into a tight ball of expectation and derisive amusement.

I spun, my hands coming up in a futile block, just catching a glimpse of a lithe human woman already throwing herself out of the shadows. No blades! my mind shrieked at me, that cold rushing feeling slicing through my chest and down my arms even as the thought settled into my brain. It almost hurt as the blades slashed into existence on my forearms just in time to catch Sophie's blades and turn them aside.

Sophie, snarled in rage, her emotions tingeing the air around her as she landed heavily on the ground and spun to face me. Brown eyes were wide and sharp with insane fury. "Damn ghosts!" she shrieked at me, cutting at me with crazy swipes and thrusts of her blades. "I'm going to kill you dead!"

Pushing myself backwards and out of range of her frenzied attack, I watched her for a moment. When she sliced at me, leaving her body open to attack, I slammed out with a foot and caught her firmly in the stomach. She doubled over and collapsed to the ground. "I'm a ghost," I muttered and dropped to the ground, "I'm already dead. Find something less stupid to shout about."

She literally hissed at me, her narrowed eyes almost glowing with the intensity of her insane rage. Spitting once in my direction, she got to her feet, whirled, and vanished back into the shadows.

I took two steps forwards before catching myself. I was a glowing ghost stuck in the darkness. Sophie was a non-glowing human. It was panther vs. firefly in the middle of the night; it wasn't hard to figure out which was the easier to spot and track. A few choice words slipped into my mind as I tried to come up with a plan of attack.

Tipping my head to the side, I closed my eyes and prayed that Sophie didn't attack just at that moment. For some reason, her emotional aura was too weak for me to pick up normally – it took a bit more effort. She was… there. My eyes flickered open, studying the darkness in the direction of Sophie's aura.

Two steps forwards, and Sophie's form materialized before me. She was crouched, her rusted blades held up in a simple guard. "Sophie…" I whispered and watched her flinch. Her clothes were muddy and ratted, blood and wounds speckled all over her body. Based on what the chatterbox had told me, her first fight hadn't given her those wounds – the injuries had to have come from someone else or herself.

"Stay away from me," she snarled in a faint British accent, a growl bubbling in her throat. "I'll not die at the hands of the dead."

"I'm only half dead… does that help?" I wondered faintly, taking another step forwards. I wasn't sure what use talking to her would have – she was going to die soon any way this worked out – but it was a nice reprieve to have her not attacking me.

"Stupid, damn ghosts. Rot in Hell!"

I saw the thing in her hand a moment too late. She whipped it through the air with deadly accuracy and it slammed into the side of my head. Collapsing to the ground in a fit of pain, I could feel my cold blood cascading down the side of my face. Whatever she had hit me with had been sharp. My head was still ringing when I managed to get my eyes to focus on Sophie standing over me, her eyes blazing with rage.

Her blade went up, no doubt with the intent to plunge it down between my eyes before I recovered the ability to move, when my emotions suddenly kicked back into overdrive and swamped my mind. The scared fury that had been quietly bubbling in the background of my mind started to literally burn in my veins. Anger and fear fueled my energy, slammed into my muscles, and it completely over-rode my common sense.

By the way, common sense was pointing out that I right about now would be a good time to move out of the way. My emotions were screaming at me to attack, damn the pending fatal thrust.

A growl tore from my throat as I twisted my body, scissoring my feet around Sophie's legs and sending her sprawling to her hands and knees. I found myself in a crouch, pushing myself up to continue the attack. Stupid human, how dare she attack me? I stepped towards her, just in time for her to lash backwards with her foot and catch me in the leg.

She scrambled back to her feet and twisted to face me, but it was too late for her. Swallowed by rage, I followed her forwards, ignoring the sharp pain in my leg and the blood dripping down my face. I slashed out with my blade once and she managed to parry it with a scream of defiance, leaving her body open to attack.

With a snarl, I leapt forwards and carried her to the ground, her breath whooshing out of her as her back connected heavily with the ground. I felt her aura spike with fear. Pinning her arms and legs to her sides, not even noticing as one of her blades sliced open my leg, I glared at her. I was furious beyond all measure and I wasn't entirely sure why. Crazy, insane human. A blight on the land. She doesn't deserve to survive. She attacked me!

The thoughts were mine, and I was totally carried away by them at the time. Later, when I was calmer, I couldn't figure out why. Too many of my friends were human... I shouldn't think those kinds of things. But there I was, filled with anger that this human, a living, breathing soul, had dared to try to fight with me. For those few moments, consumed by my own emotions, I was thoroughly convinced that I was better than her. That I deserved to live and she deserved to die.

Perhaps the worst part was the fact that I was sincerely enjoying the feeling of fear bubbling off of her. There really is no way to explain to a human was it feels like to be surrounded by the aura of a powerful human emotions. It bubbles deep inside of you, warm and fizzy, like a combination of the universe's best soda pop and the feel of a first love. It's nearly impossible to resist for any length of time.

And I'd never, ever, felt it this powerful or this pure. It might have to do with the fact that I was a bit more ghost than usual. It was… addicting. Thoroughly wonderful.

Her fear fizzled pleasantly against my nerves and I hesitated for a long second - wrapped up in the feeling - before continuing with my attack. My blade flashed out, neatly drawing a line over Sophie's throat and watching with a furious sense of satisfaction as ruby liquid spilled from her.

Then it was over. The emotional high I'd been riding, unthinking, vanished from beneath me. I staggered to my feet and pushed myself away from the quickly spreading pool of blood. Oh… I just… I…

My stomach twisted with a sense of finality and I heaved, what little food I'd eaten burning its way up my throat and out onto the ground. Closing my eyes, I banished the blades back from wherever they came from, shivering at the cold feeling of metal racing through my veins, and pressed my palms over my eyes hard enough to make stars dance behind my eyes.

Sophie's body twitched a few times as I pushed all of my emotions back into a small corner of my mind. I didn't have time to deal with the mental consequences of killing her in a fit of rage. I couldn't even worry about why my emotions had been so overpowering. Right now, I had other issues.

Like the fact that I was still in the middle of a labyrinth, completely lost.

--

The young human uncurled from her spot in the corner, stretched and allowed the red notebook to drop from her fingers. "I still don't get it," she murmured. "He must die at the end. Walker lives… or maybe he escaped…"

She picked up the bloody, rusty knife and balanced it on her palm for a moment. "This is the key, it's got to be. But it doesn't open my door." Shaking her head, blinking back the tears that prickled in her eyes at the thought of her escape-cut-short, she curled her fingers around the blade. "This was the key. Was." She snorted. "Apparently not anymore."

Raising her arm to throw the disappointing bit of metal into a different corner, she suddenly froze. Thoughts coalesced in her mind. "He took the key with him. He's still got the key."

She stared up at the knife, words from the story replaying in her mind, whispering out through her lips. "For the first time in all the time I'd been in the Pits, I really got to see it. It had been a nice knife at one point, sharp edges and an artistic handle. It was pretty basic though – simple wood and steel with some small engravings. The only thing that seemed out of place on the streamlined weapon was an ungainly jewel stuck onto the butt of the knife. I scratched at the dried blood on the jewel with my overgrown fingernail. It was a beautiful deep-sea blue, with some kind of golden symbol inside of it." Her eyes trailed over the knife clutched in her hand. Simple blade, artistic handle, mangled end. There was no crystal on her knife. It was missing.

"I understand." Her smile was fierce. "The crystal is the key. He's got it. He's still got it. He hasn't fought Walker yet."

Giggling crazily, wishing against hope that her idea was right, she placed the knife back down next to her and snatched up the notebook. "He's hiding in the Pits somewhere." Her eyes glittered. "He hasn't left yet."

Turning the page, she continued to read…

--

Whatever FFN did with their formating thingy, they need to UNdo. I'm totally annoyed by formating at the moment. Please don't bug me about italics/linebreaks/bold or whatever else you see formating wise. I can't get it to work.

Thanks to the following reviewers (very few of whom got replies, since I got busy and life happened but I appreciate and love every last one, I'll reply to them soon): Enray, Kinoshita Kristanite, PixieGirl13, Thunderstorm101, anonomyous, Erin, kdm13, char13s, Werewolf of Suburbia, Kit turned Mighty, hermie-the-frog, Cutesycat, KittyGrl24, katiesparks, at-a-glance, bluename, Nylah, TexasDreamer01, FunkyFish1991, FieryPhoenixSong, Invader Johnny, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Rakahn, Dark Austral, Hiei's Cute Girl, Chaos Dragon, Zela Tokrub, Secret Spy Guy, AnimeBando33, ShandowFox123, New Ghost Girl, pwykersotz, skitzofrenic, and Shining Zephyr!!

The plan would be to update in about a week, but you know how my plans go. :) Don't hold your breath for too long.

Thanks for reading and please review!

-Cori