Chapter 4: Fight for Freedom

Hopefully, these next two chapters do non seem so far fetched, (no pun there folks, honest), because one of my reviewers, Auraforce3000—I hope I got that right-pointed out a good point to me. While I managed to explain myself ( I think; inform me on that one, Auraforce), it brought up a few valuable points.

Maybe you guys can suspend logic for the next two chapters, and enjoy the awesomeness that is Kephra, lol.

The next four weeks had become agonizing for Kephra and Micah, as they and Absalom, the charmeleon guard, laid down their plans for escape, overthrowing the Black Pit Mines and freeing the other slaves in the process. The plan was pretty elaborate and complicated, relying on many factors to fulfill their plan, one of which was Absalom obtaining the keys that undid Kephra's and Micah's shackles. Absalom had no luck in getting them quite yet, but for Absalom to ask for the keys would draw suspicion and their plans would be for naught.

Such was the problem of their plan: it relied on too many factors that could change at a moment's notice, but they had to pray for them to succeed anyway.

And so, they waited. And waited. And waited.

The other slaves involved in the plan were growing restless as well. They would provide the distraction needed to ignite Absalom's plan into action, plus, they would also help free slaves, once they got the keys from Absalom, Micah and Kephra.

The air was beginning to grow crisp with the onset of autumn and Kephra was beginning to grow grateful for the warmer depths of the mine shafts and working at the smelters, even more so for the smelters, for they radiated massive amounts of heat. From what Absalom told them, when the charmeleon actually had the chance to interact with them, the guards would squabble over who had guard duty at the smelters dotted around the valley.

Then, their chance came.

That morning, Absalom came into the room, keys jangling off his belt. He was accompanied by another guard, the rhydon that always seemed to wake them and bring them their breakfast of thin gruel. The rhydon had the buckets of gruel and water in his hands. He knelt and slid them across the hard packed floor, chuckling darkly as one of them sloshed food out and onto the floor. He looked down at Absalom.

"Sure you can handle them? They seem like a rowdy bunch!" he laughed hardily, one hand on his belly, as if he told the greatest joke ever.

Absalom shook his head at the rhydon. "They're only slaves," he replied snidely, sneering at the slaves, including Kephra and Micah. "What can they do to us?"

The rhydon slapped Absalom on the back, the charmeleon staggering forward a few paces. "That's the way to think! Don't let them think that they can get to you." He snorted and spat at the slaves. "Sky scum." The rhydon stomped off, muttering something about the Tao's superiority.

Once he was out of earshot, the Absalom rolled his eyes, eliciting a few chuckles from the slaves. "Idiot." Absalom said. He pulled out a sheet. "Okay, from what I can tell, since this is my first time with this, the majority of the slaves from this bunk will be in mine shaft 8, save for the females." As a safety measure, Absalom began to read out loud the assignments out for that day, to make sure everything was going to plan-

-Until be came across Kephra's and Micah's names.

He paused, nearly stumbling over their names. They were to be assigned to one of the smelters, with Absalom as their guard for the day. He furrowed his brow in thought, wondering if the other guards knew something he didn't. He had made sure that he had kept the plans as secret as possible, quietly conferring with Micah and Kephra whenever he could, the pair then relaying Absalom's ideas to the slaves of their bunk.

"Is something the matter?" Micah asked, jarring Absalom.

"A bit. Kephra and Micah have been assigned to the smelters, with me acting as their guard." He shrugged. "We can still go through with the first part of the plan, but I don't know about the second now."

"Passing the keys to us?" the darmanitan who had spoken out so eagerly long ago asked.

Absalom nodded. "I mean, we could work our way around it, but we would have to make sure everything went according to plan." He turned to the slaves. "You know the signal, right?"

The minncino nodded. "Yes, we do. We may be slaves, but we are not stupid."

Absalom held his hands up in defense. "I did not mean anything by that, honest. I'm just making sure that we know what exactly is going to happen."

He shoved the scroll into his belt. "Let's get going before some of the other guards grow suspicious."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Kephra and Micah toiled at the smelters, the smell of molten metal and burning wood full in their nostrils on that autumn morning. The day thus far had felt busier than usual, with orders from the higher ups that the smelters needed to up production of the refined product. Some of the overseers had mildly protested this, saying that in order to increase production, they would have to build more smelters. The supervisor of the Mines ignored their complaints and demanded more product for the Tao army, lest they and the slaves suffer an unseemly punishment.

Kehpra's eyes occasionally flickered back to Absalom, who was hovering nearby, watching and waiting for the right time. He was waiting for the signal from the charmeleon, the one that would allow them to put their plans into motion. Micah nudged him. "Anything yet?" the raichu asked.

For good measure, Kephra glanced back one more time at Absalom. He gave a miniscule shake of the head and Kephra nodded, turning back to Micah. "Not quite yet."

Micah huffed and shoved another log into the blazing fires beneath the smelter, jerking his face away from the heat and the burning ashes that could come with it. "If we wait any longer, it won't work."

"Patience," Kephra appealed to the pokemon. "It will come soon."

Micah turned his eyes to the bright autumn sky, the perpetual smog of the Black Pit Mines obscuring the beautiful sight. "I hope so."

The pair worked for a while longer, taking a break to grab a ladleful of water from the bucket nearby. Absalom stood back a distance away, watching like an eager staraptor. His hand was hooked on the whip on his belt. Kephra shrugged at him, as if asking if it was time.

Absalom nodded slightly and scratched the side of his muzzle with a single claw, the signal to begin their operation. Kephra turned to Micah, ladle in hand. "It's time," he whispered.

"'Bout time," Micah replied. He began to shout loudly. "Give me that!" he snarled, reaching for the ladle.

Kephra snorted. "As if you greedy guzzler! You already had two ladlefuls!"

"I'll show you two ladlefuls!" Micah made a motion to lunge at the blaziken but Kephra laughed, yanking the ladle cruelly away and with his other hand, shoving Micah back and away into a pile of empty crucibles. The raichu shouted an obscene gesture and charged again, his tail whipping from side to side as he lunged for a second time.

One of the guards, a monferno, began to wade into their argument, whip in hand, when Absalom stopped him.

"I'll take care of them," Absalom said, eyes hard as flint. "They've been going at it for a while now, so I'm going to take them to the supervisor and have him deal with these two, since our whips won't seem to cut it." Absalom added with a growl.

The monferno seemed to catch his companion's intentions and smiled along with him. "Okay, I'll let you and the supervisor have a little fun with them."

"Thank you kindly," Absalom added sarcastically, storming into the area, whip in hand. He managed to pull Micah off of Kephra, holding him by the scruff of his neck with his claws. Then, with Kephra, he snapped his whip out and managed to wrap the end of the whip around Kephra's right wrist. Then, reaching into a leather pouch, he pulled out what looked to be a single manacle and a chain. He clamped the cuff around Kephra's neck, mouthing "I'm sorry" to Kephra. He then yanked sharply on the chain, forcing Kephra to cough and stumble forward. With Kephra under control, Absalom did likewise with Micah. Absalom pulled them forward as he began to leave the smelter. The monferno watched with barely contained glee, but then suddenly realized that they would be short on slaves to man the furnaces. "Wait, what about the smelters?" he called out to Absalom.

"Just get some more," Absalom replied coldly, dragging Kephra and Micah behind him like animals on a leash. As they walked towards the supervisors headquarters, some of the guards lording over their charges began to hoot and holler at the sight, knowing full well where Absalom was dragging them to.

"Don't give them cause to suspect," Absalom said quietly to the pair. "And ignore them."

Kephra nodded curtly, wanting nothing more to snatch to chain from Absalom's hands and wrap it around one or two of the guards' necks.

The headquarters of the supervisor was a long, rectangular, two-story building made of flat, off white stone, clearly dirty from years of activities from the mine shafts. A more recent one-story building jutted out perpendicularly from the older building; the more recent building served as living quarters for the guards. The roof was low and wide, while the windows that lined the building were thin and narrow, with iron bars over them and dirty from the dust constantly filling the air. The headquarters served many purposes, from housing the supervisor of the mines, to the kitchen, to a weapon storage for the sentries, and to offices for accounting and administrating the everyday affairs of the mines. As Absalom and the pair of slaves neared the entrance of the building, the pair of sentries, each wielding poleaxes, studied the guard suspiciously.

"I'm taking them for the supervisor to deal with them. They're disrupting production of the metal ore and the refined product for a while now."

One of the guards, a gabite, grinned under his conical shaped helm, standard issue for the sentries. "Have fun with them." He gestured for the other guard, a linoone, to open the door for them. The linoone glowered at his companion, but did it nonetheless, allowing Absalom, Kephra and Micah to enter undisturbed.

Once the door shut behind them, Absalom sighed in relief. They were in a broad hall that stretched to either side of them, with doors lining them. A staircase at either end led upstairs. Absalom looked down each way, making sure none were watching. "Give me your shackles," he commanded quietly.

Kephra obeyed first and Absalom fished out a key from his key ring. He put it inside the lock and turned. It made a clicking sound that seemed to echo in the hall. He did the same thing with the second shackle. The shackles popped open and Kephra wanted to weep in relief. It was the first time in over two years that he had actually seen his wrists. Absalom shut them, but not all the way close. "That way, they can simply pop off with this button," Absalom explained, pointing to a small button right next to the lock. Absalom then did the same thing with Micah's wrists.

"Now, your necks, if you would." Kephra knelt and Absalom undid the chafing cuff around his neck. Like he did with the wrist cuffs, Absalom shut them once again, but not all the way. He did the same thing with Micah. "There," Absalom proclaimed. "That should do it. Now, let's go greet our supervisor, shall we?"

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Absalom, with Kephra and Micah in tow, knocked timidly on the door of the office of the supervisor. The ursaring was pouring over papers strewn across his desk. The whip and his sword were within hand's reach. Kephra immediately began to study his movements, wondering which he would reach for first: the sword or the whip.

He assumed the sword.

Kephra began to map out his moves. "I could reach out before he got it. But then I would have to portend with the whip. I could always cut the whip before he got to it," he planned, imagining the ursaring going for the weapons. "If I have to, I'll have to stab him, which wold send all of our plans smashing into tiny bits, but it is a necessity we'll have to make."

". . .These two slave were bickering at the smelters," Absalom was explaining to the ursaring supervisor. "They've been at this for a while, disrupting our production and the other slaves, making it more difficult for them to toil under these conditions."

The ursaring seemed to be more annoyed at Absalom's intrusion. He glared at the charmeleon, one claw tapping the dark wood of his desk. "And you couldn't deal with this yourself?"

Absalom tut-tuted , trying to lighten the mood. Kephra was fiddling with the shackles, waiting for the moment to strike. "Because we already tried, sir. They're nothing more than stubborn pig-headed Sky scum."

The ursaring studied Absalom for a moment, like a scientist observes an insect. Absalom's heart pounded in his ears and he wondered if the supervisor suspected something. The ursaring's left hand started to inch towards the whip. "Very well then. If you cannot deal with them, then we shall make an example of them, no?" He cocked his head to one side, chuckling darkly. "I haven't done this in a while."

Then everything Kephra, Micah and Absalom planned went to pieces.

There was an audible thunk as Kephra's loosened shackle managed to undo itself and fall to the wooden floor. Absalom, shocked, dropped both of Micah and Kephra's chains, letting them rattle to the floor. The ursaring stopped, just as he was reaching for the whip, intending on whipping Kephra and Micah to inches of their lives.

Kephra froze. One of his shackles had just fallen to the floor.

"What is this treachery-" the ursaring began to growl, but Kephra had flung off the other shackle, rippng the neck chain off his neck. He held the loose end of the chain in his right hand and he launched himself across the table, his thick nails skittering across the wood, scattering the paperwork in a white storm of paper, as he launched himself at the ursaring, whipping the chain over his head. The chains thrummed as Kephra swung at the ursaring, who was now frantically scrambling for the sword. He had just managed to pull it halfway out of the sccabard when Kephra swung the chain in a downward arc, striking the ursaring on the right wrist, shattering all the bones in his wrist, slamming his hand to the table. The sword clattered from his hand and onto the floor. Absalom dove for it, grabbing onto the hilt and rolling away from the ursaring as he did so.

The ursaring yowled as Kephra brought the chain up in an upward motion, the neck cuff end of the chain hitting the ursaring on the bone just above his eye. Blood poured from the wound, splashing over his black and gold tunic, and the supervisor dropped back, his hands clutching his face moaning all the while, the chair he had been sitting in tipping backwards. He stumbled, trying to flee the vengeful slave, until his broad back was now pressed to the wall.

Still clutching his wounded eye, he happened to glance up at Kephra advancing towards him, the chain still spinning, the low thrum of the chain links a death knell to all who heard it. "Mercy! Please, have mercy!" he beseeched the wrathful slave, whose face had gone as hard as frozen granite, all light gone from his blue-green eyes.

"Mercy?" Kephra laughed mirthlessly, shifting the chain from hand to another, walking towards him ever so slowly. "You, who had given us no mercy, whipped us until we bled rivers of blood, deprived us of food and water when we didn't meet your lofty standards, beg for mercy?" The ursaring dared to nod and Kephra sneered, a chilling expression. The blaziken was now out for blood, his world, his vision now veiled by a blood red tint. His vision was now narrowed to a tunnel; all he could see before him was the gray blur of the chain whirling in his hands and the sniveling, cowardly supervisor crouching before him, blood seeping from between his claws.

"I give you none."

Kephra swung the chain once, the cuff of the chain hitting the ursaring under the chin, jerking his head up at unnatural angle. The supervisor slumped against the wall and fell over, his head now at Kephra's feet, neck broken. His red veiled vision faded away and he saw the blood staining his improvised weapon. Kephra stood there, the chain held loosely in his hands as he gazed down at the fresh corpse

"Oh holy All-Father, what have I done?" he whispered raggedly.

"Um, Kephra?" Micah called out to him, his chains and shackles long since removed. He glanced fearfully down the hall, the sounds of charging guards growing louder and more fervent. "We're going to have company!"

Absalom held the sword out with both hands, visibly shaking. He had never been in a real fight. True, he had fought with Rhion when they were younger, banging wooden swords and shields while playing soldiers, but nothing like this. And yet, the urge to fight was inexplicable, unexplainable when asked later. The flame at the end of his tail grew to a white hot flame, like the heart of a furnace. He clenched the hilt of the sword tighter, the leather hilt biting into the skin of his palms. "We don't have time to have you beg forgiveness!" Absalom snarled.

Kephra became aware once more and he looked around his settings. There was a chair just to the left of him and the table behind him, the papers that had seemed so important to the ursaring now splattered with his blood. Micah and Absalom were hovering in the threshold, sparks trailing off of Micah's cheeks, embers glowing in Absalom nostrils and the corners of his maw.

The first guards, the two who had been sentries at the door gawked at the scene before them. Acting only on instinct, Kephra knelt down and grabbed the back of the chair and flung the chair across the room, over Micah and Absalom ant at the guards. The wood splintered on contact and the guards staggered back. With his free hand, Kephra launched over the table, fire trailing from his limbs for the very first time in over two years.

Seizing the opportunity, Absalom sprang forward, ignoring the splintered pieces of wood. He deflected one of the guards' poleaxes with the sword he purloined, sending the poleaxe away in a wide arc, and the guard with it. Absalom then angled the sword down and sent the blade through the guard's back, through the thick padded shirt and hauberk. Broken chain mail links went flying and the guard slumped to the ground. The second guard, the zangoose started to back away when Micah sent a bolt of lightning at him. The bolt struck him fully in the chest and the guard was sent flying back fifteen feet, the metal he wore acting as a lightning rod, sending the electricity into his heart.

Kephra reached down and picked up the poleaxe the zangoose had dropped. He began to charge down the hall, into the living quarters of the other guards when Absalom shouted at him.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he called out. In one of the charmeleon's hands was the ring of keys the ursaring carried.

Kephra stopped. "You free the slaves and rally them to action, I'll deal with the guards! And the weapons storage!"

"Let me go with you1" Micah shouted. "It's suicide to go alone!"

"Absalom needs you!"

"No! I won't do it!" Micah insisted.

Kephra was tempted to sigh at the raichu's persistence, but decided to let him go with him anyway. "Fine, you can come!"

Micah grinned, a smile that had eerily echoed Kephra's from only moments ago. "It'll be my pleasure."

"Okay, so I'll head out to the slaves and begin to free them and you deal with the guards!" Absalom saluted with his bloody sword. "I'll see you on the other side!"

"If the All-Father will grant it!" Kephra and Micah began to ran down the hall and to the newest addition to the headquarters, where the guards and weapons were housed, while Absalom ran out the way they came, praying the entrance wasn't overwhelmed with guards eager for his blood.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The guards in their quarters were sitting around a piece of wood and a empty barrel that served as a table, gambling and playing with crudely carved dice and the silver coins that served as the currency of the Tao Empire. The weapons were all along the way to Kephra's right as he kicked in the door, hunks of burning flying away. The guards ceased their game and turned around to find Kephra at the wall, picking out a longspear. He was definitely not a guard. He hefted it and grinned, admiring the handiwork and the balance. Micah picked off a mace.

Kephra waved.

"Hello boys."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The mincino and the darmanitan chipped away at the iron vein in the wall, the pickaxes in their hands. The darmanitan hefted it in one hand, the shackles at her feet rattling as she did so.

"Shall we?" she asked eagerly.

The mincino, seeing her intentions, looked down the line of slaves laboring away. The other slaves caught the mincino's eyes and he nodded. One by one, the slaves lowered their pickaxes, gripping them tightly, fearfully, knowing full well that some would not live another day.

One of the guards, the rhydon, noticed the slowing of work. "What's going on!" he thundered, sending the whip which way and that. The slaves were now beginning to turn around, their expressions hard. The rhydon seemed oblivious, until he decided to whip the darmanitan. With extraordinarily quick reflexes, developed in the mines, ironically, she managed to catch the whip in her hand and yanked the rhydon forward, and drove one of the ends of the pickaxe into the stunned rhydon's chest. When he sagged to the ground, the darmanitan leaned in and whispered:

"We're breaking free."