Finality

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: just letting you know i'm still reading.

With things as hectic as they've been the last couple days, I haven't had much time to catch up with ANYTHING.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Into the Mine

It was a deep silence as Sarah moved through the dim blue tinted tunnels through the mine. She had no real idea of where she was going or what she was looking for, all she knew was that she couldn't stay in one spot, mine or not she had just escaped the rebel prison complex and therefore, there was an good chance that the people that would find her would place a bullet firmly between her eyes. Though, at the moment, that too didn't seem like the worse option that could be presented to her. She pressed one slowly, her club held high, as her wet boots sloshed against hard stone ground. The pool of cavern water that she had landed in had been in a gigantic cylindrical room, the chute of water leading down into the pool and then moist stone leading up to the black roof at the top. Another tunnel to her back lead up towards the surface, or what she imagined to be the way up to the surface and most likely back to the compound, while her own path led her deeper into the cave. With no flashlight, Sarah kept her eyes squinted, trying to make use of what little light she had. Jumping from one light to the other, around corners, and then to another opening.

Her footsteps echoed across the ground and were joined with sounds of the creatures that inhabited the dark corridors that she passed through. Every few steps her face cringed with the sound of something else combining with the sloshing of her boots, sometimes it was a crunch as she looked down at a broken carcass, which would be briefly illuminated by the lights before fading back into the darkness or worse was then the step was followed by an even juicier slosh and she shuddered to think what kind of bug was covering her boot with its guts. Of course, that was ten times better than when the stray centipede or millipede was able to escape the sole of her boot and work its way up her leg. Sarah was barely able to cover her mouth to keep from screaming as she jumped to the side of the corridor and begun to beat her leg with her hand until the movement stopped. Taking a deep breath and letting the scream out slowly in the form of hot air she leaned back against the stone wall of the tunnel and sat on the ground. This was worse than anything she had been through before, besides her innate fear of the dark, the invisible creatures that infested the tunnels were almost too much to bear. She sighed again and used the club to help her to her feet as she stated walking back down the tunnel, following the blue lights into the unknown.

She followed the corridor for what seemed like an eternity before coming to another giant opening, a ridge that looked further done into the mine. Slowly she walked towards the ridge and looked down, the room was immense, and had to have been hollowed out in years prior, and even then it would have taken a massive effort to bore out the rock. Bright orange factory lights were shining from below the rock line as Sarah approached cautiously and peered over at the rebel lay out in front of her. Metal beams ran up the sides of the stone, well let with lights shining down on countless metal crates stacked against the walls. In the center of the room was an uncovered waterway with a few metal bridges running between the sides. On the right side of the room were conveyor belts as dozens of men in rebel uniforms moved from side to side, forklifts bringing the crates from against the wall and loading them into small boats that lead out through the waterways.

"A weapons cache. My God." Sarah said, her eyes wide as she drew back from the side of the ridge. "There must be enough to field an entire army in here? No wonder the war got so bad, this had to have been Aotearoan, there's no way the rebels could just make this in a few months." Now it was dangerous, she had escaped the rebel prison but instead of putting any distance between herself, the rebels, and the possibility of escape, she had only narrowed the playing field. "I hope Tom's all right." She couldn't help but picturing him either not surviving the waterfall, or already shot dead by the rebels who were after them.

Deciding that going any further into the cache was foolish she turned back into the corridors that she had come from and began to walk back towards the pool. There had been a few other tunnels that she could take and while getting lost in a cavern of this size could wind up making her lost for days, it was better than being captured in an Aotearoan weapons cache. Walking back up into the tunnel, she moved quicker than before, until the echoes of footsteps came from up the path. They were rushed, coming down the pathway fast, they were rebels and she was stuck. Now her option had been decided for her as she turned her heels and returned to the weapons cache. The ridge was circular like a balcony looking down, but there was a small area near the side of the ridge that was large enough to walk down towards the cache if you hugged the wall and moved at an extremely slow pace. It wasn't going to work, but it was the only chance she had

Sarah ran over, her feet light against the ground to the edge of the ridge and outstretched her boot out onto the ledge and pushed her weight onto her foot. The stone groaned against even Sarah's light weight as she closed her eyes just hoping for it not to fall toward the bottom of the cliff. The platform held as she scooted her foot forward to make room for her next foot. Sweat rolled down her face as she moved her second foot onto the ledge and braced herself. The stone screamed in agony at the added weight, never being disturbed in the millions of years it had existed in the cavern and Sarah's entire body tensed up as she clawed her hands into the hard rock, wishing with every ounce of her body that the rock wouldn't give in. It seemed like forever before Sarah felt like it was safe to even think about crossing the ledge further, she took another deep breath and scooted further across the ledge. Small pebbles began to fall from the stone, sliding down into oblivion as they dropped towards the bottom of the cache, every movement she made was nerve racking, knowing all too well that it could be her last.

The footsteps of the rebels coming down the cavern echoed out into the cache. Sarah couldn't even move her head to see if they could see her or not, she was trying to do her best just to stay on the ledge and closed her eyes as she tried to listen in on anything that could be heard from behind her.

"I swore she came this way, I heard the footsteps."

"Well I don't see anything, you realize that there are more places to come into than here. I don't see anyone or anything up here."

She could hear pacing on the ridge as the the rebel patrol searched for a moment. "I don't see !@#$, she must have gone a different way. We haven't found the guy yet either."

"Well then lets get out of here, hell she might have ended up in the cache, we might as well go down and talk to them about it."

"All right, then lets get a move on." Sarah heard them turn for a moment and then a scratch against the dirt. "Wait, hold on." Her eyes widened as she heard the footsteps turn once again, the sweat dripping off of her in waves and the thought of being discovered and still trying to maintain her balance on the ledge. She tried to stop breathing, anything, anything at all to keep them from hearing her any movement, any sound. The seconds just couldn't move slower, she hung by every breath that she could hear from the rebels across the gorge.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Sarah shut her eyes tightly.

"What? Oh, its nothing. I thought I saw something on the ledge, but its so dark up here that you can't see !@#$ anyways. It's probably just a bat."

"You got a flashlight."

Another voice pierced across the gorge. "Hey are you two coming or not. We heard something down a tunnel over here."

"All right we're coming."

Sarah held her breath for a few seconds longer as she heard the footsteps beat away into the stone corridors and finally out of earshot. Finally everything in her body came crashing down as she nearly slumped off the cliff as she clenched her fists and rubbed them against the stone, nearly crying from happiness. "Oh God, God, thank you." She hugged the wall, tears rolling down her face and then realized again where she was and how high up she was, and how weak the ledge was. The pebbles began to fall down the cliff once again as she clung back to the wall and calmed herself. "All right, just scoot a little bit more." She paused for a moment, the ledge still stable and moved on with her second foot. Sarah spent easily the next hour scooting along the edge around the cavern, every step asking herself if she would be alive for the next few seconds. Finally, the ledge began to widen and opened up into another large ridge looking down into the cavern, however this one also had a nice ramp that gradually led down towards the cache. She sighed and gripped the club as she walked against the wall down the slope, using anything available to hide herself from the rebels at the bottom.

The Weapons Cache

Reaching the near bottom of the cache, she found herself right near the piles of weapons crates that stood against the walls. There was an immense amount of boxes and crates, piled as far up as she could see, and enough scattered around that she'd easily be able to hide behind them and think of what to do next. Getting to her knees she peered over the crates and looked out at the operation in front of her. Dozens of rebels carried smaller crates and boxes, while the forklifts took the larger crates to the cavern boats in an almost mechanical fashion. Their faces gave no sign of emotion or any knowledge of something besides war and it almost made her feel a bit empty inside at what she was seeing from them.

"Commander!" A voice darted from her near left as she dropped her head to eye level. "Commander Kraze." Yelled a rebel as she ran out to a group of men standing near a boat at the center of the cache.

"Kraze." Sarah said to herself. "So we did make it to his base. Not in the fashion that I wanted to." Beating herself sarcastically. "But I need to get to him." Her anger beginning to build just slightly, but nowhere near to the point of sacrificing safety. This was the rebel's field and she had to play by their rules.

"Commander, we just got word from Auckland that they'd like the next shipment of material earlier than you previously planned. They're making another front against the Loyalists and they really need those weapons."

Kraze laughed and Sarah finally got her first good look at him, the great raider that she had been pursuing since Piopio. He was tall, with a short black coat and khaki pants, he had a short thin black beard and his hair was messy with think eyebrows covering his narrow eyes. Easily someone that had seen and caused enough death in his short life span and his laugh showed the lack of concern that he had overall. Kraze's skin was pale and while she couldn't make out the color of his eyes, they were dark and glistened in the orange light shining from the top of the cavern.

"They asked for an increase just the other day, so now they want me to triple my stockpile. I don't think Auckland understands that they have all the factories and I'm just stealing weapons from towns and villages."

"I have one of the colonels in command of the domestic factories on the phone if you want to take the call? Its in the command room on the table. I wouldn't normally bother you like this sir, but they said it was urgent."

He patted him on the shoulder and grinned. "Its always urgent. You should know that by now. We just need to keep killing and get them to shut up. Tell those idiots looking for that !@#$%* and her friend to get ready to ship out tonight, we have more important things to do."

"Sir." The rebel saluted and turned away from Kraze as the commander walked back across the cache to another tunnel that stretched towards off of the cache to the right. Sarah continued to watch from the shelter behind the crates as he passed her, his face sticking into the back of her mind as she looked up before he disappeared into the tunnel. Flipping back around she looked around at the crates, most of them were metal and locked tightly, but nearer to the ground, there were a few wooden ones that could be pried open with a little work. She set to work on one of the boxes and with all her strength, which at this point wasn't much anymore, finally pushed the crate open and smiled at the contents. .38 Caliber pistols, coated in a fine black stared back up with her. Reaching down Sarah pulled out on on the top and checked its cartridge, empty as she thought, but the ammo was included in the crate as well, so it was only a few more seconds before she was loaded once again. But even armed, any kind of aggressiveness would be foolish, there were dozens of rebels in the cache and all she needed to do was find and interrogate their commander. Sarah shook her head at the thought, it might be easier just getting rid of the entire cache.

The tunnel that Kraze had disappeared into was near the crates she had been hiding behind, but there was always a distance of about twenty yards that she would have to cross as well. Taking a deep breath she scanned the cavern, the rebels were still hard at work loading supplies and she had a few second time frame to leap over the crates at take off towards the tunnel. She did, running against the wall, trying to cause as little sound as possible as the bodies of the rebels moved in the distance in front of her. It was dim on the edges and that was really the only thing that was saving her as Sarah scooting towards the entrance of the tunnel and finally inside. The path went up a small hill and then down to a steel door, Kraze's command room.

She cocked the pistol in her left hand and held the club with her right as she advanced towards the door, covered in the sweat and grime from her trek through the cave, not the way a lady was to present herself to a military man. But he wasn't a real military man and she had lost all trappings of self-upkeep in the water chute. As she went to put her hand on the the door, the handle turned as the rebel who had alerted Kraze to the phone call stepped out. His mouth fell open at the woman standing in front of him as he opened his mouth to yell. Sarah pushed the pistol into his face and pulled him close. "I don't want to kill you, but if you make a sound, I will."

He slowly began to raise his hands to the air, but not wishing to take a chance with him fighting back she laid the club into his face and knocked the guard to the ground before peering into the Kraze's lair. She stepped over the body and beyond the steel door just as Kraze turned around, smiling at her and the door slammed shut and locked.

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: I was seriously holding my breath right along with her at that point on the ledge. Almost felt like I was there myself.

[Arkantos]

OOC: The following use of emoticons may or may not adequetly express my emotions of this.

[SpacingOutMan]

OOC: I know what's coming before all of you, save for Sarah, do! BWAHAHAHA! INSIDE INFORMATION!!!!

At any rate, as we talked about Sarah, make this all your own.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Kraze's Theme

Sarah turned back to the door in horror that she was no trapped in the room as she looked forward again to see Kraze tossing the small cell phone onto a wooden table in the center of his command room. He eyed Sarah with the same beady eyes that shone brilliantly in the dimming light of this addition to the mine. She stepped forward, her pistol raised and out, pointing at Kraze, she could just start shooting now, kill him off quickly, but he had the information she needed and if possible Sarah would rather do it without taking his life, even though that was probably an impossibility from the start. But even more so than anything, Sarah couldn't pull the trigger, she was too nervous, her entire body shaking as she stepped further into the enclave.

Kraze's command room was most likely bored out just like the cache that she had just left. It was smaller, a cylindrical room leading up to a water dropping at the top of the room, perhaps a water chute above them, she couldn't be sure. Passing under the tunnel and entering the enclave proper, the stone seemed to almost shine an aquatic blue or green along the walls, colored by the lights underneath the small waterway in the middle of the room that stood between Sarah and Kraze.

"So you're the woman that I've been hearing so much about lately." Kraze said as he scratched his beard and smiled down at the girl. He was a few fight higher than Sarah as the waterway divided the room into a ridge and a pathway that led up to where Kraze stood, along with the table, and a few metal crates that stood behind him. "You've been causing quite the ruckus you know that. Breaking out of my prison, then helping more people that we captured, who are menaces to society breakout as well." He was smug. "Probably murderers or something rather and now you released them back into the world. Very good on your part." He paused and looked her over. "You are?"

"Here to find my family." Sarah's hands shook in anger and the pistol along with it, pointing it directly towards Kraze's chest. "You should be dead, for what you're men do to the people of this country. In Opunake and Piopio."

"Piopio? You were at Piopio? So you cause more trouble than just breaking out of prisons then. You do have a name don't you?"

"Sarah."

"Ah, well, Sarah, I'm afraid that you made a huge mistake in coming here for that reason. Because first of all, even if you honestly expected for me to tell you where you could find your family, or who they even are, which I assure you that they're dead, how do you expect to leave here? The same way you came in?" He smiled at her as he picked up a small controller from the table, holding it in the air to show that it wasn't a gun. "Lets say you find someway to make it back to the prison, there are men searching the halls looking for you and your friend. In addition they are in the tunnels and the cache is filled with men as well. What's to say that I would let you leave alive after helping you find this information too." He continued to walk down the path towards the waterway. "No Sarah, you made a crucial mistake in thinking that escaping your cell was even a good idea. Who knows, maybe we even would have let you go."

"You would have killed me anyways." A hint of despair in her voice.

"Now...yes...yes we will." He pressed the control in his hand as the entire enclave began to shake and the walls behind where Sarah stood began to shed their stony casing, revealing steel turrets sticking out of the wall. Guns! Immediately, the turrets poured volley after volley of bullets to where Sarah stood, if it hadn't been for her first reaction of seeing the turrets on the wall then she would have never already begun to bolt for cover away from the walls. She could hear the sounds of bullets striking the ground behind her as her voice whimpered in fear as she ran as fast as she could away from the stream of metal death following her. There were a few metal crates on the ground near the wall that Sarah was heading for, thick steel, the only think that she could possibly hope to hide behind and wait for the bullets to stop and somehow return fire. The bullets came closer and closer to her feet, closer and closer until Sarah jumped into the air to clear the crate and the pieces of metal ricocheted off the plastic sole of her boots cutting the plastic to bits. She held her arms out as she fell and the ground neared her face, then coming to hit the hard stone with a thud as she rolled into the wall. Sarah breathed heavily, the adrenaline nearly pouring out of her body as the bullets pounded hard into the front of the crate.

Kraze watched safely from his side of the waterway as the dust cleared across the cavern. He waited to see Sarah's body laying still on the ground a bit further from where she had started running, but she had disappeared entirely. "Well we're all very impressed Sarah, you're quick for a girl, but you had a head start so I don't know if its entirely fair. Of course now you're cornered and I have the upper hand once again." There was a chuckle in his voice. "You like the turrets? They're Aotearoan installed, this used to be a bunker for the government, for the true leader of New Zealand. You can tell they didn't want intruders."

Sarah sat behind the crate trying to steady her breathing as she gripped the gun, there wasn't time to aim, she just had to get in better position. The turrets couldn't hit every part of the room and even from behind the crate she could see on the wall in front of her various platforms that jutted out of the stone that wound up the cavern. She just had to get out of their line of sight, that was it. Holding her breath, Sarah jumped up from the ground and unloaded her pistol at random at anything was in front of her. Kraze jumped back, surprised at the sudden attack, ducking for cover first before turning back on the turrets aiming as Sarah ran to the next metal crate. Kraze pouned his finger onto the control as the turrets let lose their stream of bullets, cutting the ground from the metal crate and left. Hearing the bullets, Sarah's heart jumped as she tried to run faster towards the crate, but then she realized she wouldn't have the same opportunity of surprise as before. But was there time? There had to be, instead of jumped down into the gully between another steel barrier and the wall, if she could just get a little further, she could get onto on of the stone platforms and totally out of the way of the turrets. But was there enough time? Sarah didn't think, there was no time to think, only act as she ran forward across the metal crate, the pinging of the metal blasting all around her.

Reaching the ledge Sarah threw her hands out in front of her and grabbed onto the stone, the jagged ground ribbing the cloth tied around her hands right off and the ground tearing open her scabs from before. But there was no time to cry, as she flung her legs over the ledge and landed face down on the cold ground. As she did, one bullet grazed through her pants lightly, tearing the skin apart at her calf. Sarah cried out in pain, the tears running from her eyes as she bit down hard on her lip, nearly to the point of bleeding, trying to distract herself from the pain. With her clothes all ready cut up, she went right to work trying a shred of cloth back around her calf as tight as she could to stop the bleeding.

Kraze stared in disgust, her bullets hadn't even come near him and yet he had covered himself for no good reason. If he would have just pressed the damn button she would be laying face down in a pool of her blood by now. But for all the bullets firing away at her, they all just passed into the stone, inches from where Sarah lay on the ground. "No!" He screamed and threw the control onto the ground and ran back up to the table and grabbed his own pistol as he began to run over to where Sarah was. "If I have to do it myself, so be it." He fired a few blind shots near Sarah, that bounced off the rock around her as she slid against the wall herself, trying to find as much cover as possible.

The wall jetted in and out nearly at every corner as Sarah thrust back, guarded by the stone wall and turned her body ever so gently to see Kraze coming up the ledge towards her. Firing a few more shots into his direction, he ducked down against the wall and returned fire, trying to advance if he could, but taking every step careful, unless he knew it was safe. They sat and pressed as much fire onto each other as was humanly possible with the limited supply of ammunition in their pistols. The stone shattered around Sarah's face over and over, bullets coming closer and closer with every one of Kraze's shots. She poked her gun out once more and fired towards him, but as the trigger pulled, the pistol only made an empty clicking sound and her heart dropped into her stomach. Frantically Sarah searched everyone on her body that maybe she had brought extra bullet from the ammo case in the cache, but no such luck. She looked out at the ledge and saw Kraze step out from his cover in the rock, no doubt he had heard the click as well. He smiled at her face, at her paleness, and at the glossiness and fear in her eyes as he walked causally down the path.

Fear and desperation slowly began to over take Sarah's body as she began to shake again and her feet shuffling out of the. Finally, with emotion and terror taking over her reason, she dashed out onto the path and sprinted towards the end, just wanting to make it to the end of the ledge. But Kraze had a perfect shot at her back, aimed at the back of her neck, pulled the trigger and click. Both Sarah and Kraze froze where they stood, Sarah turned to see Kraze's face pulsing with anger as he looked at his pistol and then smiled as he place the pistol back into its holster. "I don't need that piece of !@#$ to kill you. Guns are for the weak anyways, a real man can break someone's neck in their bare hands, and yours will snap like a twig."

Sarah didn't say anything, only clenching her fists as hard as she could she was at least still holding her pistol so she wasn't totally unarmed as Kraze approached, slowly, menacingly. She gulped, her throat dry as he only came a few steps away from her, again Sarah began to sweat as she looked up at the man who was at least five inches and one hundred pounds heavier than she was. They stared at each other, Kraze only smiling down at her before he lunged forward trying to grab Sarah's shoulders. She jumped back and bashed him over head with the butt of her pistol, it phased him briefly as Sarah turned to run and put more distance between herself and the raider, she jumped down to a ledge up above where the waterway was following and dangerously close to the machine gun turrets. But as she jumped down to the ledge, Kraze was right behind her and just as Sarah was getting to her feet, she felt her shirt yank back at the raider's arms encase around her in a deathtrap. Sarah squirmed as hard as she could trying to free herself from any means possible as she felt his hand begin to wrap themselves around her neck.

"Didn't think this is how it would end did you. Don't worry. I did." He said, beginning to squeeze as Sarah began to spit out drops of saliva and gasped for air. Her legs kicked in a frenzy as she was lifted off the ground and just as the work was beginning to fade around her, her flailing legs found the center of Kraze's pelvis and with as strong of kicks as she could muster bore into him. Kraze lost his grip on Sarah for a moment as she escaped from his grasp and started to run back down the ledge, but though he couldn't catch her, Kraze swung his great arm out and caught Sarah in the side of her chest, sending her towards the edge of the platform. She tittered for a moment before the raider shoved her down the side of the cliff, out into the open air only to scrape down on the ground near the waterway. Sarah lifted her head from the ground and opened her eyes, her whole body felt like shutting down and she could barely get back up to her knees. "You know Sarah, you're making this boring for me." Kraze yelled down as Sarah could barely get to her knees, as she coughed and wheezed. "But you know, I think its time we end our fun. You see what I found here." He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a stray bullet and loaded it into his pistol. "I figured I would save this for our farewell don't you think?" He said cocking the pistol and aiming it at her head.

"No." Sarah coughed. "I like a much louder good-bye." The control for the turrets which had dropped to the ground lay only centimeters away from her as she lifted her arm and brought her fist down on the control as hard as she could.

"What?! No! No! N--" The sounds of bullets tearing through flesh erupted through the cavern, Kraze could barely scream after the bullets began. Sarah didn't dare look at the carnage and kept her head down against the ground while the bullets flew, the dust raised, and droplets of blood rained from the sky.

[Razgriz 2K9]

, just . No, it's crazy awesome!!!!

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: Whew...I was biting my nails the whole time there...

[SpacingOutMan]

OOC: Obviously nice writing, especially the descriptive 'showing' instead of mundane 'telling'. There were a few spelling errors that detracted it a bit, but that is being really nit picky and kind of ridiculous. They probably just sneaked in without your notice. Other than that, you definitely brought out the 'motif' I mentioned in our conversation: carnal fear and instinct. It absolutely helped the fight scene remain intact and threaded together.

One thing you want to look out for, though, are your placement of adverbs and sometimes the adjectives. Don't take this the wrong way; this is just a suggestion for better flow and to reduce awkward sentences. For instance:

As she did, one bullet grazed through her pants lightly, tearing the skin apart at her calf.

That is the sentence used in the near-beginning of the battle scene. It is obvious what the verb and adverb are. I will bold the verbs and italicize the adverbs (I know that you know what they are, but perhaps other people do not):

As she did, one bullet grazed through her pants lightly[...]

Read the sentence aloud and you might notice it. As she did [PAUSE] one bullet GRAZED through her pants lightly. The adverb is intended to compound upon how the verb is being done, usually resulting in the adverb following, or preceding, the verb in the typical sentence. In this example sentence, you have the adverb following the plural noun. The only time you will have adverbs in the beginning or end of a sentence is when you are using an adverb of frequency (always, generally, etc.) and an intransitive verb. Mind you that adverbs will also affect following adverbs, so for instance if "I was walking extremely slow", or should be "I was walking extremely slowly".

What would sound better is this:

As she did, one bullet lightly grazed through her pants lightly[...]

OR

As she did, one bullet grazed lightly through her pants lightly[...]

Personally I prefer the former over the latter as it flows better off the tongue. Just make sure, as we talked about briefly, you read everything aloud. I have the same problem where I put in too many commas or wrongly place adverbs that ultimately break down the flow of each sentence, or change it altogether for that matter. So just watch out for word and punctuation placement.

There is also a subtle flaw to descriptive writing that is seldom noticed (Just a fun note, seldom is an adverb, and in this case it precedes the verb noticed ). Epithets are, as you may know, specifically used to create poetic 'nicknames' instead of relying on repetitive names. For instance, Lucifer has many epithets such as Satan, the Fallen Angel, the Fallen One, the devil, the King of Darkness, and countless others. What you need to look out for, as a writer, is the damning "he" and "she", along with using the character's name over and over again.

It's very difficult to try and start an action sentence without using he or she, but it can be done. It just requires a precise way in rearranging the sentence so that you don't have to start the sentence with 'he' or 'she', but at the same time it doesn't make it awkward either. You can do this in a variety of ways and you have the luxury of several options. For instance, take the sentence:

Her eyes looked up in terrified anguish.

Instead of starting the sentence with her, you could write the alternative:

Terrified eyes looked up in daunting agony as her body writhed in pain.

It all depends on how you want to portray the scene at hand, as we talked about. The same thing can be done to help remove the repetition of writing 'Sarah' over and over again. Come up with epithets such as 'the lone maiden', etc. Of course they don't need to be silly as that since this isn't an epic poem, but nonetheless I know you could think of something.

Again, great writing and I can't wait for more. And please don't take my criticism with a grain of salt. Writing is a very subjective art and there are countless perspectives to a single sentence. For the third time, though, great job!

EDIT: Ironically in the adverb section, I made a very obvious grammatical mistake with a misused adverb. Go figure. lol

Edited August 20, 2009 by SpacingOutMan

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Kraze's Theme (Reprise)

Sarah raised her head from the ground and slammed her head on the turrets' control in front of her, ending the chaos from going on above her. Weak, tired, and on the brink of collapse the woman got up to her knees and then fully stood up to look around the room. The cavern was literally smoking from the amount of bullets fired, while a steady stream of blood poured from where Kraze's body laid on the ground. His lifeless eyes staring back at her, still watching her every move, it was almost hard to picture him dead, that even those bullets could kill him. Looking up at the top of the ledge, where Kraze's table and cabinets stood, the reason of what she had even come here flashed back into her mind with sudden urgency. Her fight with Kraze had easily taken a ,few minutes, ten at the most, which for a raider commander to be stuck in his office that long, people would begin to think something was up. Dashing through the pain in her joints, Sarah ran up to the cabinets and flung open the doors. She had to give the rebels credit, looking through the piles of papers, maps, and plans, they kept everything organized. So she was able to make quick work to find prison logs, and important figures that had been held captive throughout the civil war.

Shuffling her fingers through the papers as fast as she could, Sarah finally came face to face with Evan's photo and just seeing him again, even on paper made her heart break. The other papers dropped from her hands as she held Evan's photo and report tightly, not even bothering to read information written down, but instead just savoring the moment to look at his face again. Sarah touched his face gently, her hands running over each bump in the paper. "I'll be there soon Evan. Just stay safe for a few more days. Please." She smiled and turned her eyes towards the written information, but before even reading a word a banging sound came from the other side of the steel door; her time was up.

"Commander!? Commander?! Is everything all right? We heard gun fire!" The door vibrated from their pulling. "The door's locked, Commander Kraze are you all right?"

"Damn." Sarah clenched the paper in her hands before folding it and tucking it into her back pocket. Kraze was right, this was when things got hard.

"Commrander! Commander!" The voices pounded on the door, yanking hard at the handle.

Sarah glanced her eyes around the room, Kraze had various weapons laying around in the crates. Running over to a few of the wooden boxes on the sides of the walls, she pried them opened and equipped herself as best as she could, a reloaded pistol and a few grenades for a bigger explosion. If she was going to escape, there was no other way, but through destruction, the rebels wouldn't let it be any other way. Finally the door gave way as five raiders ran into the room, guns ready, looking over the cavern in suspicion. "Commander?" They said in hushed voices, while Sarah had jumped down behind one of the metal crates, as quiet as she possibly could. Peeking her head over the top of the barrier, she watched as their eyes jumped out of their heads when they finally discovered Kraze, laying there in a pool of blood. "Commader Kraze!" All five ran over to the ledge stood in silence for a moment.

"Is he?"

"Of course he is! What does this look like you idiot! Its those two prisoners they brought in today, they escaped. One of them must have made it to Kraze." The raider stopped and pounded the ledge with his fist. "God knows how they got to him. But they couldn't have gotten far. We have to--"

As the raiders had been talking amongst themselves Sarah had been fiddling with the grenade in her hand. All five of them together, she wouldn't have a better opportunity than this one. Pulling the pin, she counted to two, and then launched the grenade as hard as she could towards where the raiders were standing before diving back on the ground.

"What the hell!?" One of them yelled as he began to walk towards the crate where Sarah had dove under. "Its one of the prisoners. C'mon we hav--" The ping of the metal against the ground stopped the raiders in their tracks. They looked down in horror and turned to run screaming before the explosion pierced through Sarah's covered ears as the shrapnel from the grenade covered the room mauling and killing anything in its path. When the vibrations had died, she lifted her head back up and watched the smoke clear from the waterway. The guards laid dead on the ground, mangled from the grenade, added to the sounds of voices and screaming from down the cavern hallways. They were already coming. Cocking the pistol and holding onto another grenade with her left hand, Sarah looked down the hallway as the voices came closer and closer. Pulling the pin of the second of three grenades she hurled the bomb into the tunnel and jumped behind the wall by the entrance. The blast came and before the smoke even cleared she dashed out into the tunnel, boring through the smoke, dust, and crumbling stone. As she walked through the tunnel, Sarah kept her pistol raised as she ran through, nearly tripping on the bodies moaning in agony on the ground. She didn't want to shoot to kill, it wasn't in her, but she needed to survive as well and Sarah wasted no breath if the glistening eyes of the rebels still alive in the cavern turning around the corner, she unleashed a steady stream of bullets into their chests.

Reaching the bottom of the tunnel, Sarah stopped at the entrance back into the cache and peered around the corner at the frenzy that was beginning in the cache itself. Men were running around with guns, tripping over each other, trying to figure out what was going on. There were explosions coming from Kraze's tunnel, but in the smoke and confusion from the grenades, some of the raiders had even thought that some of the explosives they had kept in their crates in the cache had exploded. They ran quickly, some of them towards the tunnel, placing Sarah in a sticky spot once again. Now the plan was simple, somehow she had to find a way to escape. There was no point in trying to climb back up towards the ridge above, it was too dangerous, a small ledge, along with the raiders pointing all of their guns at her. Suicide didn't even describe it. She looked around the cavern, there was another tunnel that most likely led back up towards the prison complex, being on the same wall as the tunnel above on the ledge. The only other way out of the room was through the canal that ran through the center of the room, there were a few cargo boats floating steadily on the water. She just needed a distraction and a lot of luck.

Sarah still had one grenade from Kraze's room in her hands and there were enough explosive boxes in the cache to make the fireworks last for a very long time. The problem was getting the grenade over that far and then surviving the blast long enough to actually escape. Getting closer and closer to her position, the raiders were finally right in front of her and Sarah clenched her body tight as she felt like she jumped out of her mind and watched her body move in ways that she never thought possible. Nothing to the point of superhuman endurance or strength or will, but a courage that not until under such pressure did she every possess. Sarah fired into the ground of raiders running up towards her, her bullets piercing through the smoke as she bolted out from her shelter in the tunnel and ran towards the crates marked 'explosives' near the far side of the cache. In the chaos and confusion the raiders opened fire on a figure running through the smoke which they could barely see. But she kept running, there was no more feeling in her body but to run and run hard. Her lungs beat against the inside of her chest screaming to get out, clawing to break free, joints and muscles wanting to shut down, but knowing all too well what would happen if they did. The shrieks of the bullets were everywhere around her, but she couldn't stop, she couldn't die...not here...not...not...here. Pulled the pin of the grenade and threw it towards the crates of the explosives.

Time stood still for a moment, amongst the sounds of bullets and screaming, Sarah couldn't hear anything. She floated through the air without a care in the world. Sound stopped, light stopped, and the world stopped. She saw the bullets and the mouths yelling as if in a dream. Was she dreaming? Was this real? Her head turned as she saw the ground on the other side of a steel barrier and then there was an echoing from the side and the wrinkle in time ceased and Sarah hit the ground hard, turning into a roll as the grenade went off over the crates of explosives.

It was a sound that had never graced her ears before, beautiful and yet terrifying. Screaming mixed with flame, pain mixed with colors of red, orange, and yellow. She couldn't look and instead buried her head hard against the ground, like an ostrich trying to avoid a predator from taking her life. The rumbling never ceased and fearing that she would loose her chance to escape, Sarah got back to her feet and looked in horror at the destruction that she had caused. The cache was in flames as the raiders had given up any hope that they could stay there and live.

"She's dead! Save yourselves!" Were the screams that echoed through the flames. "Get out of here! Leave everything! Just keep moving!"

Through the red and gray smoke Sarah could see the figures running back up into the tunnel towards the complex. There was no better chance than right now to escape and in reality if she waited any longer, escape might not be possible as she would already be blown away by the flames. Leaping over the crate, Sarah flew towards the cargo boats sitting in the canal and began to unhook the boat from the metal rings grounded into the solid earth, as she did so another familiar voice broke through the smoke.

"Sarah! Sarah! Are you in here?!" It was Tom.

"Tom?" She screamed through the smoke. "Tom! I'm here, I'm at the canal, we have to get out of here!"

A figure became silhouetted through the smoke and flames and slowly began to take shape. Tom's beaming, yet worried face nearly broke when he saw Sarah standing there. "Oh thank God you're alive." He ran over to her and embraced her tightly. Sarah returned the gesture but only for a moment before throwing him off.

"Tom we have to get out of here!" Explosions rocking the cavern. "Or we're going to die. Help me out here!" Tom nodded as she set to work unhooking the vessel and pushing it into the middle of the canal, while Sarah sat down at the control panel, flicked the switches, without even bothering to look at what they said and pressed the ignition button. The engine roared and then puttered out again as the steel beams holding bored rock in place began to give way. "Damn it! Damn it!" The girl cursed as she slammed her finger into the button again and again, but the engine only groaned for a moment before dying again.

"Sarah! Start the boat!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying! It...it...won't start!"

Another explosion threw Tom onto the ground of the ship as small rock from the walls and ceiling began falling from the sky. "Damn it Sarah! We're going to die in here!"

"Shut the $%&@ up I'm trying!" She turned angrily to the panel and pounded her fist one last time holding it there as the engine squealed in mechanical pain and with a roar and having all the dials unfortunately turned up to full speed, the boat lept forward in a bolt of energy towards the entrance to the passageway throwing Sarah back into the seat near the panel. They roared forward as flame and rock engulfed the rest of the cache and as they entered the cavern's waterway, flame shot from the passageway illuminating their route through the mountain tunnel to where ever it led.

"$%&@ we're going to die in here!" Tom shouted in fear, his head buried in the boat's floor. "Sarah can't you do something!"

Energy wasn't something that she had in abundance at the moment, but with every ounce of strength in her body she forced herself back up to the panel and the wheel as the boat thundered through the darkness of the tunnel. Behind them was a horrible rumbling sound as a massive crack began to follow them from the cache towards the exit of the tunnel. Grabbing the wheel and the throttle, Sarah pushed it down as far as it would go as the vessel jumped again with a new burst of power to the stars and clouds at the end of the tunnel. They were so close, with one last ditch the boat jumped out into the night air as the rocks fell behind him crushing everything in their way.

Freeing themselves into the outside, Sarah pulled back on the throttle and the boat came to a stop on the cold outside ocean. They were somewhere on the coast of the North Island. Looking back at the land, the shore was close, with a small fire burning on the hillside. No doubt a raider encampment to take the material that Kraze stole from the outlaying regions to ship to the rebel army on the Island. They would be expected no doubt and what had happened in the weapons cache had probably already been relayed.

Tom groaned getting back up to his feet and glared at the woman staring in front of him and finally got a decently look at Sarah even in the moonlight and God did she look bad. His own clothes were covered in dirt and a bit damp from his ride down the water chute, but his partner on the other hand was a complete mess. Sarah's hair was ragged in a messy ponytail that was barely held together at this point, she was covered in blood, dirt, and grime and her skin almost gave off a slime look to it. She was bleeding from her forehand and all across her arms and upper chest. Her jeans were ripped and her tank top a faded white color mixed with the various colors of filth of the evening. "You uh, been through a lot?"

Sarah glared back at him. "Don't ask, but I'm glad your safe. I was worried that the raiders had caught you in the tunnel. We must have gotten separated on the water chute."

"What did you land in anyways?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it."

"All right, all right." He raised his hands in the air. "But now what?"

Sarah smiled reaching down into her pocket and pulling out the prison records on Evan. "I found my husband's prison record so we'll be able to know exactly where to look now." She walked over toward the control panel, their only source of light, holding the paper up she started to read. "Damn."

"What's wrong?"

"You were right. We have to go to Auckland?"

"So we have to break into a prison there then?" He chuckled sarcastically. "That'll go over really well I'm sure of that."

"No. It doesn't even say. It just says, 'Transported to Auckland. Location: Confidential'" Sarah crumbled up the paper and threw it in to the water. "A lot of help that was." Sarah looked up at the moon above her, the cold in the air finally beginning to seep into her bare arms. "$%&@ it all." She turned back to Tom. "Listen, you've been through enough, you don't need to go any further, we should get you bac--"

Tom covered her mouth with his hand and smiled. "I came this far, why would I honestly just make you go it alone now. We don't know where your husband is, but he's somewhere in Auckland. That was an official record after all and the rebels are people like you and me. We're not important in the world Sarah, they might just give him back to you. Especially if you came all this way and blew up their weapons cache."

She chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure that would make them give him back to me on a silver platter."

"Well its worth a shot and either way, how about you and me think of getting out of this cold. Especially you, you're going to catch sick in a few minutes if we don't get you warmed up. There's some encampment up there, even if they are rebels, we can probably take care of them if we're careful enough."

"They're probably waiting for us to be honest. We're supposed to be carrying a shipment of weapons for them."

Tom pointed to the back of the boat. "Wish we have, how about you just follow my lead, okay." Sarah nodded as Tom told her to wait underneath an overhang of the boat on the back deck, he said she would know what to do when the time came. Sitting down at the panel, Tom gently drove the boat to the shore and docked at a small wooden slip on the beach. Moments after he tied the vessel off, two men from the encampment up above, walked down, their AK-47s slung around their shoulders. They had stern faces as they stepped onto the vessel and eyed Tom suspiciously.

"We heard something was up in the cache. A lot of static from the radios and now nothing. Is everything okay down there?"

"I'm not sure, I was getting the same static that you were. The boat had some engine trouble in the tunnel, so it took us a little long to get over here."

"Boat trouble? You flew out of the tunnel like a bat out of hell."

"Part of the problems was speed, now do you want the !@#$ or not?"

"Who do you think you are?" Said one of the rebels looking down at Tom, the rebel was easily a foot taller than him. "Barking orders at us like that. You want to go take a dip in the water for a bit."

Sarah slid out from the enclave of the boat, pointing the gun at the back of the raiders' heads. "No, I don't think either of you two are in the right line to be threatening anyone."

The rebels smiled hearing a woman's voice behind them as they turned and chuckled at Sarah holding the gun to their faces. "Sorry sweetie, but after we get rid of the stick man over here, we'll get you cleaned up and have a bang up night. How about that."

"Not even close."

One rebel laughed as he stepped forward. "Well then we'll just have to do with it you screaming then, but first you're going to have to give us this gun of yours." He reached out to yank the pistol out of Sarah's hands and two shots rang out. The guard stumbled back, holding his chest, tried to raise his gun before Sarah placed another bullet into his neck. A frenzy broke out on the ship as the second guard in surprise, attempted to grab Tom as a hostage, but Sarah's pistol rang out again and in a storm of bullets the second fall back towards the edge of the boat and collapsed into the water. Silence took over the vessel as it floated at the dock. Sarah's hands began to shake again as she fell to her knees and throw the pistol to the side.

"I...I can't do this anymore." She said the tears running down her face. "I'm not a monster like them. But I'm turning into one."

Tom ran over to her and bent down to hold her against his chest and wipe the tears from her eyes. "No, you are not a monster and you aren't turning into one either. Sometimes we have to do terrible things to get what we want, you're learning that that hard way. I think by the end of this..." He coughed. "We all will. But we have to go and get moving again, c'mon." He lifted her off the boat, as they took a few more rounds of ammunition with them from the weapons crate on the boat as Tom took of his jacket and wrapped it around Sarah as they began walking up towards the encampment at the top of the ridge.

[SpacingOutMan]

OOC: I had completely forgotten a key thing when I talked to your over IRC! It was your use of dialogue verbs, but this most recent post does very well in providing more flavor to the batch. Fantastic job! Grammatically speaking, watch out in some instances when you are using punctuation in dialogue. For instance:

"Oh man, this blows." Donner yelled.

Grammatically that isn't too great because it fragments the sentence, but more importantly it is two separate sentences, which isn't what you want to do.

"Oh man, this blows," Donner yelled.

That would work a tad better, or even better (since it is someone yelling):

"Oh man, this blows!" Donner yelled.

That is, again, nit picky but it is something that you definitely want to watch out for. When it comes to descriptive narration, I fall into a very fatal trap: focusing on the substance and forgetting the technicalities. That is also what breeds the issue of excessive commas. With that said, these dialogue punctuations obviously don't apply to everything, mind you.

She chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure that would make them give him back to me on a silver platter."

One rebel laughed as he stepped forward. "Well then we'll just have to do with it you screaming then, but first you're going to have to give us this gun of yours."

Those, as far as I know, work and I actually use a similar technique in certain occasions.

Of course, don't take this with a grain of salt, etc. Pretty much the same old stuff. However, I do have one suggestion that could provide a helpful, or hindering, touch. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Say, for instance, you come across a scene that is very depressing or saddening. What you can do here to amplify the dreary mood is use very dark and depressing language. This is where poetry is so useful, and why personification is one of my favorite poetic tools. It's one thing to show that the character is upset and bewildered, but it is an entirely different thing to expand that despair from body to environment. An example would be how artists use different colors to give off a certain mood. They will paint a figure in a certain position, and around them they use specific colors to compound upon the emotions. So if they are sad, shades of dark blue and such work perfectly. Since in writing you can't exactly paint a picture, you need to describe the 'blue' world around the character during a trialing time, or a 'red' world for anger and rage.

It's something you can try and it demands intricate attention to detail. I personally love using this strategy in my writing, but that's because what I lack in, perhaps, streamlined story line I make up in heavy description of pretty much everything. If done right, such attention to detail will actually grab the reader more intensely than its counterpart of detailed brevity.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

The encampment was abandoned when they reached the top of the ridge, no doubt run by the two raiders that Sarah had done away with on the boat. Embers from the dying fire were still drifting up into the cold air, giving a cozy warmth to anyone within five feet of the flames. "Here." Tom said to Sarah sitting her down on a wooden chair next to the fire. "Keep warm, I'm going to go find us some clothes and some food and then we'll figure out how to get out of here." Sarah nodded, still holding her arms in a death grip, rubbing them up and down, doing anything to return warmth into her body. The girl's teeth chattering furiously as Tom left her and walked off towards the tents on the other side of the camp. Opening the flaps, the smell of old meat and spoiled milk ran up his nose and he nearly vomited, but taking a deep breath of the outside air, he want back into the tent hoping to find things better than the smell that was permeating around the room.

Checking the duffel bags under the cots, he found a few jackets of varying sizes, most likely civilian before a village had been raided, there was an old Aotearoan uniform, that was ripped along the sleeves, and a pair of worn gloves with holes littering the forefinger and the palm. He sighed at the meager findings, but gathered them up in a ball anyways. His flannel shirt was barely enough to keep him warm and Sarah was running around in a tank top, she'd freeze to death without at least a little covering. After gathering up the clothes, he searched around for anything else of value in the tent, valuable to their survival at least. There was a fully stocked first aid kit, gauze, antiseptic, pain killers, splints, even morphine, if they really needed it. In addition, he also pulled a few boxes of crackers, some cookies, a few cans of soda and a bottle of whiskey. He chuckled, "Well just the thing to raise my spirits a bit at least." However, it was at the bottom of the duffel bag that lay the greatest gift, he could find, a set of keys. The raiders had some kind of vechicles and that would make the journey to Auckland so much easier, from where every they were at the present time.

Rolling everything into a ball in his arms, Tom stepped out of the tent and walked back over towards the fire. Sarah looked up fearfully when she heard the footsteps, but realizing it was him, her face turned back into a smile. "What do you got there?"

Sitting down next to her, Tom took out the first aid kit and grabbed her arm. "Just hold still, you need fixed up a bit. All right." Sarah cringed as he applied the antiseptic to her cuts and then wrapped her hands and arms as tight as he could in gauze. "I'm sorry it hurts, but I don't want it getting infected, this way, you'll be able to relax on the drive as well."

"No its okay, you're right, rather get this taken care of now." She cringed again, biting down on her lip. "What else you come across in there?"

"Some clothes, a few things of food, and these!" He held up the keys. "Now we'll really make some record time to the city." Tom almost seemed excited to reach Auckland, more so that Sarah had been lately. Maybe it was because their journey was finally coming to a close. They had been through a lot already and Tom had really come through for her. He was looking so positive on the situation, while Sarah who had been the optimistic one most of the time was beginning to doubt that she would ever see Evan and Heather again, it was amazing in itself that she had survived this much and it seemed far fetched that she coudl survive more. Nonetheless, he was her inspiration now, as Tom finished wrapping up her hands and arms. "There must be a truck, or a van, or a car somewhere around here. Anyways, put these one, you have to stay warm." He said tossing, the ripped Aotearoan uniform and a winter coat, at her. While he put on another thick coat and zipped it up to his neck. "Lets go look for those trucks."

They left the fire still burning and began to walk up a gravel pathway towards a ridge at the top. Everything else around them was just snowy plain, so a path of anything would lead them to something that could help them. As they walked though the darkness, Sarah turned to Tom and stopped. "You know, I never really asked. What happened to you after the water chute? After we got separated and all. You kinda just disappeared and then reappeared. Like did you have any trouble with the guys that were chasing after us?"

Tom looked at her and smiled, but it was a strange smile. It was a smile that said, not to worry and that everything was fine and would continue to be fine, but it wasn't the kind of optimism that she was used to. "I got lucky, the chute through mean into the bottoms of the cavern, but I wasn't even near the cache. It was some kind of mine and I was running away from the guys from the prison the entire time, they were right behind me most of the way. But there were a few enclaves I was able to crawl into. They must have passed me at least three times. Then I sort of followed them after while. I remember, I was walking real slow at one point and then the entire cavern started to rumble and I was able to follow the screaming and the quaking easy enough."

Sarah looked up with dismal eyes and nodded her head. "Lucky for you then, I wish I could have been that lucky."

"Yeah, you seemed to have a full length adventure going on when I got there. Collapsing half a mountain and all."

She chuckled. "Yeah, you could say that. I'm just happy to be out of there and I'm happy that your safe Tom." The girl turned to embrace him, but Tom's eyes widened as he ran forward, leaving Sarah behind.

"They do have trucks!" He ran over to a few old pickup trucks with empty wooden crates in the bed. "You'd think they'd have a better method of transporting the material." Opening the driver side door, a musty smell of old beer and cigarettes and dirty padding escaped through the cracks and as Sarah opened her door it nearly made her vomit.

"We're riding in this thing? God, Tom this truck doesn't even look like it'll move."

He sat down and turned the ignition, the engine sputtered, much like the boat had in the cache. But instead of dying after a few moments, the truck made a weak wailing sound and the vehicle began to vibrate. Tom pulled back the gearshift and set the truck into drive and they were off. "Success." He cried and flicked on the head lights. "Now we're getting somewhere."

"Thank heavens." She sighed and leaned back against the seat. For as grimy and disgusting the truck was, Sarah was just happy that she'd be able to relax for a moment. Taking off her coat and tossing the pistol beside her, she twisted the knob for heat. The vents roared, spitting out dirt and a smell of raw eggs that lasted for a few moments before giving off that luxurious feeling of warmth. They drove for a long time with the windows down as they journeyed back onto the main highways.

They were much closer to Auckland then previously imagined when the truck veered off of the small back roads and out onto the freeways heading north. A sign in front of them pointed into the direction of Tuakau, which was only a few kilometers away from the center of Auckland and the weather was beginning to lighten up. Sarah had already drifted off to sleep, worn down from what had happened in the caverns as Tom looked on down the road with a sad face glued onto his face. There was no turning back now.

Auckland had been one of the largest staging points of the rebellion that had swept the country, so it was foolish to think that the city would be well guarded, as well as dangerous for anyone with suspicious intentions entering. If they had entered any other way, any other way at all, on foot or in Tom's original truck the chances of them even getting into the city itself were slim to none. But as they pulled towards the city checkpoint, Tom stopped sweating as the guard smiled back at him.

"You the delivery boy?" He said with a chuckle after tapping on the window for Tom to wind it down.

"Yeah, that'd be me. We're coming from the cavern on the coast, but there was an incident so we don't have much to deliver."

"Incident?"

"Prison break, things got pretty ugly."

"No kidding." The guard looked back in the bed of the truck at the empty crates, there were a few weapons, but it was pretty much bare. "Was it even worth it to waste the gas to bring this to Auckland?" The guard said suspiciously and looked into the cab and saw Sarah sleeping against the seat. "And who's that?"

"Hey I'm just following orders, they tell me to drive the truck, I drive the truck. I'm not trying any problems, honestly, if you want me to turn around I can do that to." Tom looked at his partner and ran through the ideas in his head. "I don't know, Emily something, they put someone with every truck so she got assigned to mine or something."

"She looks pretty ragged, everything okay?"

"Eh, we had some trouble on the way over." Tom glared at the guard. "Seriously, I'd rather not talk about it. If I could just get all this delivered and out of the way?"

The guard nodded and smiled. "Sure thing, sorry about that." He turned to his comrades holding the gate closed and nodded to them. Slowly the metal gates where pulled apart. "See you around then."

"Yeah, thanks." Tom gave a weak salute to the guard and drove the truck through the gates and down the roads leading into Auckland proper.

Auckland was dark as Tom steered through the streets of the town and then the sweat began pouring off of his brow in waves. The streets were full of soldiers, trained rebel soldiers with their guns fixed to fire. His hands tightened on the wheel as he heard the familiar groan from the passenger seat as Sarah's head lifted up from the side of the cab and looked out into the dim streets in front of her. "Are we in Auckland?" She yawned.

Tom nodded as they came to a stop light and the truck stuttered for a moment in idle activity. "Yeah, we are, but I'm going to find us a place to stay first. All right." He looked over at her, barely able to keep a smile on his face as she stretched her arms again and yawned. The girl really was tired, Sarah had little energy conserved from the cavern and any bit of sleep she welcomed.

"Well tell me when we get to the hotel then." She said resting her head against the window, using the coat as her pillow.

Tom never answered only stepping on the gas pedal as the light changed as drove off back down the street. But he passed the inns and the hotels that had the lit up vacancy signs, nearing the center of the city, the centerpiece of the rebellion in New Zealand. Finally he arrived at the building that he had been asked to come to and with Sarah still asleep, ran his hand over her pistol resting on the middle of the cushion between them. He checked to make sure it was loaded, cocked it, and turned over to Sarah. "Sarah, Sarah, wake up. We're here."

Sarah opened her eyes and her eyes nearly jumped from her head when she saw the sign. "Auckland Barracks?" There were rebel soldiers staring out at the truck from the windows inside, she could see the shadows of guns and even the guards outside the barracks had begun to leave their posts, approaching the vehicle slowly, menacingly. "Tom, what's goin--" She turned her head to see her friend, but only saw the barrel of her pistol staring back at her. "Tom?!"

"I'm sorry Sarah." He said frowning. "I know that this isn't right, but I need to see my kids again too."

"I...I...I don't understand Tom." She said shaking in anxiety and fear. "You said that they were in Brisbane? Did you lie to me or something?"

"No, but the rebels did find me in the cavern and they said it was either me or you and that if I helped bring you in to custody here, I'd get ransom money and they wouldn't kill me for helping you out all this time. I didn't tell you really how I managed to escape the caverns, the rebels found me, they were going to kill me but they said that I was a New Zealander, I was an Aotearoan and you are a foreigner. In that aspect, they're right too. They said they could help me, get me to bring my kids back home and even give me enough money to really provide for them in New Zealand than having to send them to live with relatives." Tears began to flow from his eyes. "They said that is was either you or me and they can track me down and kill me, they can't do that with you. I'm sorry Sarah, but..." He closed his eyes tightly. "Just come with me."

Sarah didn't say a word, there was really nothing to say at this point and there was no point to think of something to say. "Sorry." She said and latched onto the handle of the door and flung it open. It was another time where her body didn't respond to her mind, where her emotions and her cries took over any idea of logic or thought that she could possess, but at the time, even her thoughts and logic said the same thing. 'Run!' Dashing out of the cab of the truck, the guards from the top of the barracks broke into a run. She heard a shot go off from inside the truck and break the glass of her window, when she slammed the door back in Tom's face, but she never looked back. If she looked back she would slow down and if she slowed done she would be caught. Sarah had no weapon, no way to defend herself and no way to really interrogate. She was stuck and this time there was no chance at escape. Only trying to hold off the inevitable.

Her feet echoed down the paved streets in the dead of night. The streets were abandoned, yet worse, they seemed never ending. She ran and ran and ran but never seemed to be getting anywhere, always only an earshot away from the trampling going on behind her from the guards and Tom. If they caught up with her, even in range they could take the shots, she didn't have time to think, her heart raced and yet even then her whole body felt like molasses and that her shoes weighted tons and only she was moving this slow. 'What's wrong with me?' Her mind said down to her, what was wrong with her feet, and her legs, and her arms, why was she moving so slow? Why was the world moving so slow? She tripped the ground turning down a back alley and ran into the darkness, but the feet still followed her. She couldn't escape the city, she didn't want to, she just needed time, time to plan, somewhere to go, somewhere dark.

A metallic echo suddenly sounded from the ground below her and she froze for a moment. There was no place to hide and she couldn't outrun her pursuers all night, this was her only chance really. Reaching down, she pulled at the metal handles on the sewer as hard as she could, her muscles bulging under the immense weight of the sewer lid. It had always been a proven fact that in times of great despair or anxiety, human beings were capable of amazing feats of strength. Sarah was by no means out of shape, but when the lid finally budged from the ground, even she was moderately surprised at what she had done. But it had been her last hope to survive. She looked as the guards and Tom turned the corner and stared at her as she placed her waist down into the sewer.

"Stop!" They hollered.

She didn't look back and let go of the sides of the ground, descending into the darkness once again.

Edited August 23, 2009 by Sarah Tintagyl

[Eggman Empire]

This story is really intense! 5 star rating! This is better then some of the published books I've read before.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Sarah hit the cement at the bottom of the sewer hard, the sound of the thump ricocheting off the bare brick walls down the abandoned corridors. Her heart was still racing from running away from her pursuers on the streets and her breathing was heavy, but there was no time no to catch her breath as the sounds of the guards and of Tom traveled from the roads above and down the hole. She had the advantage of the dark now, without dim orange lights shining from the ceiling that looked as though they hadn't been cared for in years. Getting back up to her feet, Sarah looked up at the hole she had jumped down, she could see the moon and the shadows of her pursuers flashing against the pale white light, they were getting ready to follow her down the hole. Not stopping for a moment, the girl took off to her left down the corridor to God knows where. She just had to keep running, she had to find a place that she could hide from the guards.

The sewers under Auckland could be described as no less than an engineering marvel, even in the absence of light. Stone walls ran the length of long corridors that mimicked the streets of Auckland above. Every few meters or so there was another cover and the moon light from above fired a bright ray of white light that penetrated through the darkness. Two paths of concrete ran the sides of the corridors and in the middle was at least five meters wind waterway carrying the dirt and waste from the city out either to the coast and into the ocean or perhaps some cleaning plant, either way, the system was absolutely massive and Sarah could easily lose herself within the corridors.

Turning the corner down the first corridor, she heard the first echoes that the guards had reached the bottom of the sewer. A rambling of voices and footsteps that all said the same thing and thought the same way filled the corridors. Sarah stopped running for a moment and listened to the footsteps, there had to be at least ten of them, maybe more, some going left and come coming in her direction, giving her two ways to look at it. For one, it would be just like in the streets above, only darker and easier to hide in and that if they didn't have a large amount of men, they too could become easily lost down here. On the other hand, she was unarmed, tired, and a little bit scared, Sarah could still defend herself, but the guards running through the sewers would very soon have the same element of surprise that she had enjoyed at first. Hearing their footsteps beginning to close in she set off running again down her corridor, but to put real distance between herself and them, the water way had to be crossed at some point. Stopping at the corner, she looked down into the dark liquid below her and breathed the fumes coming from the water in; the girl instantly gagged. The smell of human feces, garbage, and other vile materials and minerals invaded her nose and made her step back from the ledge. She couldn't do that, not that, she was already dirty, but this was over doing it. But the foot beats wouldn't wait for her and they were closing in, the sewers were a great place to hide, but if she was going to hide down her, she needed to use everything, the entire sewer.

Closing her eyes tight, Sarah took a long and deep breath, nearly gagging again from the taste of the air entering her mouth. Jumping into the water, her boots touched the stone floor of the waterway with a loud sloshing sound. Sarah's body froze and shivered at the feeling of the water and other feelings flowing into her boots, there were other feelings of tiny creatures crawling around her legs, she wanted to scream, but she couldn't, she couldn't scream, she couldn't do anything, all she could do was keep walking and deal with the sensation after crossing the waterway. Every step she took was like stepping into a bear trap, her feet and calves were covered in the waste and the smell was nearly paralyzing, she couldn't move, she didn't want to move anymore. Sarah just wanted the water to sweep her away and kill her in the process, because if anything else of that water touched her body, she would rather die. Finally her hands touched the ledge in front of her, pushed herself up out of the waste, was the best feeling she had felt in a long time. But it had come from escaping the worst feeling she had had; ever. Getting both feet onto solid ground, Sarah looked back down the corridors and could see the shadows of the guards in the orange illumination. It was time to start moving again.

Taking off down the corridor as fast as her body could carry her, she ran as far to the point where the sounds of the guards' pursuit could no longer be heard. Sarah looked back, no shadows graced the orange lights, she was safe, at least for now. Running her back against the stone, she slid down to the ground and held her legs in her hands. Closing her eyes, she tried to remove herself from the surroundings, but the smell from her boots slowly rose back up into her nose and her body shivered as she lunged forward and thrust out everything she had eaten in the past two days onto the ground in front of her. It was absolutely horrible, Sarah watched as slime, mucus, and other odds and ends jettisoned from her mouth and her body onto the concrete in front of her. She held her stomach as tears rolled down her face, as the feeling returned and another stream of vomit flew out from her mouth. Coughing up the remains of the throw-up, she pulled a few strands of mucus from her nose and spit from our mouth and flung them to the ground. Everything had just exploded in her face, everything. When she had fallen asleep in Tom's truck as they were leaving the encampment, for all the shortcomings and for as pessimistic as she had become, she really did still try and hope for the best and Tom had inspired her to see that there was still light shinning at the end of the tunnel for her. Now, as she sat in the dark, crying into her knees, the smell of vomit, !@#$, and rotten water hovering around her, she felt as black as the corridor around her and that any chance of now, getting out of Auckland alive had disappeared with Tom's true colors. She wanted to hate him, but even with everything going so wrong for her, even then she couldn't bring herself to want the man dead, maybe she would do that same thing if she had been in his shoes. They weren't friends after all, they had been thrown together by fate.

Amidst her sobbing slowly traveling down the corridors, it was soon joined by another sound. Sarah lifted her head for a moment and looked down the ledge to her left, and then to her right, there was nothing, but the sound of forced breathing, almost like a wheezing sound continued to penetrate through the darkness closing in on her. Jumping up to her feet, Sarah clenched her fists and as she did, a strong dizzy spell set it from the smell still in her nose and the weakness in her body from vomiting. The sudden movement brought her falling back down to the floor and Sarah reopened her mouth and began purging herself once again, loudly, continuously, the steady stream of vomit again forcing itself from her body. She wheezed herself looking down the corridor on all fours and she could see the outline of a dark figure. It moved slowly, cautiously, was it a guard?

"He-Hello?" Her voice raspy and week from her current state. The figure paused for a moment, cocked its head to the side and suddenly broke into a full out run at the girl. Sarah had no time to get up, she barely had gotten to her feet when the back of her head was struck hard by the end of a club. She fell back and into the arms of the creature from the dark. The orange lights had faded, but she didn't know if she had been knocked out, or they had just entered another dim part of the sewer.

Temple of the Sewers

It was a fantasy world, her eyes struggled open at the room around her and at first glace Sarah couldn't even tell if she was in the sewers anymore or some dank temple of sorts. The narrow corridors of flowing water had opened up to a massive hub somewhere underneath the city, it was remarkable that a place like this even existed, where chrome pipes ran along the walls, shinning brilliantly in the flickering of hundreds of sconces that were attached to the walls, or that lanterns hung from hooks on the ceiling gave off eerie lights of blue, green, and purple. She tried to shake the fog from her eyes and her head and get a better picture of what was going on around her. Both her arms were held out and her feet dragged against the concrete as two figures, dressed in black uniforms, dirty and ragged walked her through the hub. Looking around in the underground temple, Sarah saw many more black uniformed figures looking at her with cocked heads from a distance, they wore pistols at their sides while others carried automatic weapons at their shoulders. Some were men, some were women, but Sarah could only tell from their outlines. Looking forward, her captors crossed two wooden bridges over the waterways, heading towards a center circle where another figure stood. One thing she automatically realized after crossing the first bridge, was that while there was still a musty smell in the sewer itself, this area was much cleaner, which made her really wonder, who these mysterious figures were.

The two captors walked Sarah up to the central figure in the middle of the hub, there the concrete passageways joined each other across the waterways to form a small circle where everyone on the outer rim of the hub could see and hear what was going on. She was dropped on the ground in front of the figure with a thud as Sarah winced and rose back to her knees and looked up at the woman that stared down at her. One of the guards walked from the side of the hub and handed the woman a blue lantern, she took it silently and grabbed Sarah by her collar and rose her up to her face. The woman was especially strong, which made Sarah even more nervous for what was in store from these figures in the dark.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The woman neared her face into the lantern light. She had a rough face, beautiful and yet dangerous and daunting, much like a diamond. Sarah couldn't truly make out what color her eyes were from the trickery of both the bright blue light of the lantern and the other colors of the hub and they gave off an onyx hue combined with other dark blues and purples, as the ocean under the moonlight. Her voice was like acid and cut Sarah's courage and bravery down a few notches from even looking at her with a straight face. But as Sarah looked away, the woman caught her face in her thin fingers and scraped her nails against Sarah's cheek. "I asked you a question intruder. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Sarah turned at looked up at her and swallowed the spit in her mouth. "My name is Sarah Kline," she said, not wishing to give any reason for ransom or holding to these people in revealing her true identification. "I came down here to hide from the Aotearoan rebels." She tried to free herself as best as she could from the grip of the woman, as if to plead her journey to the other dark figures of the hub. "My family was kidnapped by them a few days ago, I came from Australia to find them and bring them back. I've been wandering through New Zealand since then, making my way up to Auckland because they're being held somewhere in the city. I made a friend along the way, but he was working for the rebels as well and now I'm stuck." She looked back up at the woman and sighed. "Please, I don't mean any harm. I never even knew that there were people down here, because you don't seem like you are part of the rebels."

"Because we aren't." The woman brought her face closer to Sarah and her eyes narrowed. "You know nothing about us or our history or why we are down here. But that is the response I would expect from a foreigner, yet it amuses me that you may have endangered my entire population because you seek sanctuary."

"Population?"

"Yes you stupid girl, population, do you know nothing of the history of the country you are gallivanting across?"

"I know quite a bit, but I didn't know that there were villages of people living in the sewers under Auckland."

"Auckland!" The woman laughed and smiled. "You think the Marchar only exist in Auckland, you really are ignorant."

"Marchar? You're Marchar? Then you are th-"

"The Margravine Liselle, yes, the traitor of the Marchar people that gave Camberlain back to the Aotearoans." Her anger exploded. "And for what!? So that my people could be forced under the streets of our cities, that I am Queen of a race of sewer dwellers?! No, we have been through so much, while the Marchar who abandoned their homeland, those traitors that live in Europe with the Nordic barbarians or even worse those that are under the guise of that whore of a woman from Brisbane." Sarah's eyes looked towards the ground. "My people and I decided to stay, because we expected everything to be like the way it was, Lord LeVentNoir reigning over us, Glorious Aotearoa, but even that wasn't to last and now this new government has forced us into the sewers. No I will not be part of this New Zealand and their idea of government corrupting all that was good on this land."

"So you are rebels?"

Liselle tightened her grip on Sarah's collar. "No." Acid ran down Sarah's face. "Those, monsters that call themselves Aotearoan are not true Aotearoan. We offered our services, we offered to serve on the front lines to take back what was rightfully ours and what did they do. They took us and imprisoned us as outsiders, they massacred us where we stood. No these rebels are just as crude and barbaric as those who they are fighting against."

Sarah's eyes brightened as once against she tried to loosen Liselle's grip. "So, then you could help me?"

Liselle smiled down at the girl and then laughed while she was joined in by the other figures in the hub. "Help you, you are fleeing these Rebels are you not. Do they know you came down into the sewers?"

"Y-Yes."

"Then you are just as treasonous as they are, just as vile, just as dangerous and you will be dealt just as they would be. Killed."

Liselle threw Sarah back onto the ground as two guards came down the pathway to the center circle. Their uniforms straightened, pistols at their sides, and a saber hanging from their waste. As was protocol with all Marchar society, these people were traditionalists. The two guards reached down and grabbed Sarah by her arms, holding her tightly as one of them grabbed her head, pushed the strains of side revealing her neck to Liselle. Sarah's eyes widened looking at Liselle taking a knife from her uniform and fingering its blade gently. "How are they the barbarians when you're the one practicing human sacrifice?"

"Human sacrifice?" Liselle laughed. "Hardly, but why take you out to a abandoned section of the sewers and you have the possibility of escape, when we could do this right here and now?" Liselle stepped up to Sarah's neck and placed the blade against her skin, it was kind of ironic in a way, dying by the hands of a people that she held eternal respect for, she watched Liselle take a breath as she readied her muscles to slice open Sarah's throat, she closed her eyes and waited for the blood and air to pour out from her neck.

"Margravine! Margravine!" Came the yells from down the sewers. Liselle pulled the knife away from Sarah's throat and looked up at the three guards running down the corridor.

"What is it?! What's going on?"

"The rebels! There are reb-" A series of shots rang out, automatic weapons pouring into the hubs as the two guards dropped Sarah on the ground. In the confusion, the hub erupted into a frenzy as the dark figures readied their guns and ran towards the corridor where the rebels were advancing from. Feeling freedom once again, Sarah lept up and bore her fist against Liselle's face sending the Margravine to the floor of the circle. Liselle, being caught off guard fell to the ground, but quickly rolled back up to standing, her uniform dirty and torn, but flexible to move in. Standing back up she held her dagger pointing it at Sarah.

"No, I'm not letting you just get away like that. Your death is just important to me as theirs is."

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: Whew! That's a lot of reading for me to catch up on, but I finally did. As good as ever, I see.

I'm still biting my nails...you're gonna put me back into a habit I broke long ago if you keep this up...but don't let that stop you...

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Their eyes narrowed at each other while the hub exploded into a rapture of fire and explosion as the the rebel guards appeared out the darkness engaging the Marchar vanguard in the darkness of the first corridor. But as this was happening another duel was going and this one was much more personal. Liselle screamed as she charged forward with the blade a blind slash towards Sarah's stomach, it was sudden and while expected the sheer agility of the Marchar Duchess was faster than Sarah had anticipated and the knife caught the edges of the uniform as the blonde moved back towards the edge of the circle. She rose her fists in front of her face and bent her legs down to get into position to defend herself effectively, Liselle backed up and did the same, holding the dagger out slightly just to show Sarah that any attack would be met with the sharpest resistance possible. The blonde and the black-haired Duchess looked at each other for a long time, Sarah's heart was beating ferociously as she ran forward and let loose a flurry of punches and then sweeping the floor of the circle with a gracing trip step, as fast as she could trying to catch Liselle's legs on her left calf sending her to the ground. For was as quick as Sarah's assault had come, there wasn't much she could do about the dagger and for every hand attack attempting to make contact on Liselle's face or body, the knife parried them out of fear and Sarah could feel herself moving back again towards the edge. The sweeping kick had even come from a more retreating move as a last ditch attempt to put some room in between them, it hadn't worked.

Liselle smiled as the blonde stepped back toward the edge of the ledge, now it was her turn. She came slowly, menacingly, giving Sarah more than enough time to react to her gaunt. But the problem here was that anything she did, Liselle had the weapon and the upper hand, at least she did for the moment. The dagger danced around in the dark, the sterling silver of the blade shining blue, then red, then purple in the dimming lantern light of the hub. It seemed to cry out in anguish as its cold blade continued to come closer and closer to cutting the flesh of its enemy, but for as well as Liselle had used the blade to parry Sarah's attacks, Sarah took hand parrying to a new level. Every cut of the dagger was met by a hard wrist against Liselle's own hands and arms, kicks were dangerous because if either woman was able to grab hold of the boot then it would be a crushing blow whether from being swung into the water below or having their foot broken in a snap of the fingers.

In addition to the stress and gravity of what lay in front of her, a madwoman with the deadly skill of knife warfare, the environment that Sarah had been thrown into was just as bad. All around the center part of the hub were the sounds of gunfire, the ever present explosion of the loose grenade going off or defusing in the waterways around the hub, and then the horrible sounds of men screaming in agony as they lay bleeding on the ledge of the sewer or a worse fate if they had fallen into the waterways and a liquid combined with human waste and sewage cleaning chemicals began to seep into their bodies and cuts, chemical burning they alive in the cool water of the sewers.

Liselle charged again as Sarah dropped to the ground and kicked her legs against the ground, she caught the Duchess' foot for a moment and attempted to trip her to the ground, but no such luck as Liselle jumped out of the grasp of Sarah's feet, she stabbed the knife into the ground and the pinging of steel against cement echoed through the hub as Sarah rolled her body around the cement circle trying to put a little more space from the tinging of the metal. She pressed her hands against the ground and jumped up to her feet facing the outside of the circle and felt the hands of the Duchess encircle her and try to force her to the ground. But where was that dagger? Liselle had Sarah in a death grip with the dagger once again slowly rising past her chest to rest against her throat, the sweat began to roll down her face as she struggled to move her arms and free herself from Liselle's grasp. She screamed as her veins bulged from her neck and arms all her strength trying to break out of the grip, finally as the blade touched her neck, Sarah lunged forward and Liselle's broke away as the knife left a small mark of slash skin on Sarah's lower throat.

She jumped out and immediately Liselle jumped forward as well, as the two women fell back against the ground. Liselle landed on top of Sarah as she pushed her shoulders to the ground and steadied her dagger once again, but with only her shoulders pinned against the cement, the Duchess had made a severe mistake keeping Sarah in place and with all the strength she could muster in her legs, the blonde brought up her legs and kicked Liselle hard in the stomach sending her over Sarah's head as the dagger flew out of her hands and landed on the edge of the circile, whilst a splash signaled that Liselle had be dunked into the water.

Sarah rolled up from the ground and looked down the corridor at the battle that was just beginning to finish up between the rebels and the Marchar, the rebels, through sheer numbers and firepower had gained the upper hand as the Marchar split into all directions, abandoning the hub. Watching the rebels move further into the hub, Sarah realized that now it was time to start running once again, she had avoided death from Liselle, but it was the rebels who had forced her into the darkness in the first place. Grabbing the dagger she got to her feet and began running down one of the cement paths leading to another dark corridor. Liselle rose her head from the water and yelled back at Sarah as she ran into the dark.

"Come back here! I'm not finished with you!"

Sarah never turned back, only shouting at the stone wall. "Yeah, well I'm done with you."

Liselle smacked her hand against the water and looked back, watching her soldiers fleeing in all direction from the advance of the rebels, it was time to leave, time to leave the sewers, time to leave Auckland and find greener pastures somewhere else. But there would be a day when it would change. Turning back towards the corridor, she shook her head. "You can't run forever."

Tom and the rebels wasted no time in clearing the hub, but while the Marchar were their enemies, Tom and the others had a reward if they captured Sarah, whereas the others were just for the fun of killing and shooting. They had seen the corridor that she had fled into and jumping over dead Marchar in their way, they made quick work to reach the other side of the hub and run into the dark. Sarah knew as well that she couldn't keep running like this, no down in the sewers and not in Auckland, if she was going to survive, any way at all she had to either lose them completely, or exterminate them totally, both options were pipe dreams at best, but really, everything that had happen thus far had been part of a pipe dream. The foot beats of the rebels in pursuit echoed down the corridor and she picked up her speed, nearly tripping over her own shoes that she was beating down on the cement so hard. Being in such a quick run not looking out for anything in the dark, when Sarah turned the first corner and collided with another body, the dark figure had been caught so unaware that he was pushed and nearly trampled to the ground.

Sarah stopped for a moment and looked down at him, he was dressed in a Marchar uniformed, armed with a rifle around his shoulder and a few grenades strapped to his uniform. He shook his head and attempted to point his rifle up at the girl who had knocked him down, but by that time, Sarah's knife was already on his neck ready to slash. "I would suggest just giving me the rifle and the grenades, then we can both leave happy. Okay." He scoffed, but there was no real other way around this and with heavy eyes he tossed the grenade belt along with the rifle into the girl's hands. "Thanks." Sarah said strapping it over her shoulder. "But I would get out of here, there's like twenty guys coming around that corner in a few moments who will probably kill you, so just fair warning and all." She said taking off down the corridor as the loud echoing of boots filled the region of the sewer they were in.

She kept moving down the pathway, as fast as she could before the echoes seemed to be right on top of her. Turning around, Sarah fired four shots into the dark and the foot beats stopped if only for a moment, before fire was returned. Ducking down on the cement, the entire sewer felt like it was cramping around her and indeed it really was. Auckland was a city surrounded by water and to think that some of the sewer line did not border the water outside was foolish. However, to both Sarah and the rebels, the thought hadn't crossed their minds. Taking both grenades from the belt that she had strapped around her shoulder, she pulled the pins on both grenades and threw them into the dark and started to run. There was screaming and then there was a moment of silence before the explosion as Sarah's feet seemed to fly through the air down the corridor. The corridor lit up in a flash of white light as everything seemed to stop and Sarah felt herself fall against the ground onto the concrete and looked back at the smoke and the rumbling sound coming from that part of the sewer.

As the dust began to clear in the darkness, Tom and a few other rebels stepped through the smoke and rose their rifles, pointing at the girl laying on the ground looking up at them.

"You've come far enough Sarah. Its time to come with us." She tried to grab the rifle, but she was too slow as they fired a warning shot amidst the rumbling in the sewer. "We don't want to kill you here, but we will if we have too." They looked down again as the sewer continued to rumble and as Sarah closed her eyes waiting for the moment of capture, there was a blasting sound and a pause as the world seemed to stop spinning and there it was. The walls had begun to cave in from the blasts of the grenade, Tom and the rebels turned back to watch the dark waves blasting from the walls of the sewers flooding down the corridor. Sarah lept up from the ground and took off to the nearest metal ladder leading to the surface that she could find as did the rebels. Grabbing onto the bars she began to climb up to the top of the tunnel and rested her hand on the sewer cap at the surface. Many of the rebels grabbed on as well as they put aside the difference of the bounty for a moment to escape the wall of water that was barreling towards them. Pushing as hard as she could, the cap came up off the ground and the light of the moonlight once again entered into the sewer. Sarah looked down as the rebels near the bottom of the ladder were the first to disappear inside the waves.

"Sarah please. Help me." Tom cried up to her as she turned back, hesitating for a moment before offering her hand.

"Hang on I got you." She smiled as another rumbling sound caught her ears. Looking down the corridor she gazed in horror at the second wall of water coming towards them. "Tom! Don't let go! Don't let go!"

"I won't...I wo-" The wall hit and Sarah felt the grasp of his arm disappear and her own grip on the ladder was pulled nearly out of her skin and when it ended, Tom had disappeared, vanished in the darkness of the sewer. One single tear dropped from Sarah's eye as she turned away from the sewer and out into the moonlight once again.

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: Wow...

Argh, I have no nails left to bite!

[Sargun II]

OOC: SPOILER - SARAH RESCUES HER CHILD

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: No, really? I never would have guessed...

[Eggman Empire]

OOC:SPOILERS: Sarah will most likely eat something in the next chapter or two. No word on whether it's a ham sandwich or a burrito.

[Sarah Tintagyl]

The Munitions Factory

Sarah was just happy to be on the surface again. Looking back at the rising water bubbling just below the cap of the sewer made her entire body shake in weakness, one wouldn't even be able to know how many people Marchar and rebels alike that lay dead in the sewer and now encased in a water grave that she had used to escape. Her hands were bleeding, but as Sarah looked down at her fingers and palms and felt their contours, it made her jump back for a moment, her skin that had been so smooth, so soft was cut and coarse, running from the tips of her fingers all the way up her cut and bleeding arms. It wasn't just her arms that hurt either, her entire body ached from her adventure thus far and she didn't even feel like she had the energy to go on, but she had lost her innocence long before staring up at the abandoned factory in front of her. Since Piopio when she had killed those two raiders and had looked into their eyes as their life forces faded from their bodies and she hadn't shed tears, even Sarah's humanity was beginning to come in question. But none of that mattered anymore, now it was just getting Heather and Evan back, unfortunately, she still did no know where the were.

This particular section of Auckland gave off a different feeling from the other parts of the city, for one she was in some kind of industrial center and looking towards the outside of the center, nothing but ghettos criss-crossed the terrain. That was the feeling, she didn't feel safe, even with a rifle carried on the back of her shoulder, Sarah could just feel that it hadn't been by sheer chance that she had surfaced here. Wiping her eyes from the pinging pain she felt from seeing Tom swept away in the darkness of the sewer, Sarah adjusted the rifle on her back and began to walk towards the building. All signs on the outside pointed it to being abandoned, broken windows, coated in a black dust covered the massive complex and crude red brick was chipped away easy enough by Sarah's non-existent fingernails.

Walking the perimeter of the building, Sarah began looking for the way out of the industrial center, until as she turned the corner of the building, voices caught the inside of her ear. Slowly she peered her head around the red brick and cursed. More rebels, it was like she just couldn't get a break anywhere, but one didn't just wander into the city central to rebel operations and simply just ask for her family who was being held prisoner back. Though Tom had made it feel that easy. Turning on her heels, Sarah turned to leave the compound another way, before once again she was caught between a rock and a hard place. "God dammit all." She swore after seeing a second rebel patrol need one of the exits of the compound. "What in the hell could they be guarding even." Sarah was honestly just lucky that they hadn't seen her in escaping the sewers, so she did have that going for her.

There weren't many options now, she could either go back into the sewer, attempt to fight her way through the rebels guarding the exits in which she would once again reveal her location to the entire goddamned city of Auckland, or she could wait it out and start planning a different move, but in all truth Sarah was starting to lose hope, she couldn't keep this up for much longer. Most of the entrances around the building were locked, as Sarah went from every door around the perimeter that was still save, nothing, nothing was open, the building was completely enclosed and she was running out of time, the patrol was making its way around the building and she had to hide herself somehow. For a moment, Sarah thought of shooting the lock with the rifle, but she might as well just go around screaming 'shoot me!', instead in her last ditch effort she began to kick one of the door knobs with her boot trying to break the look that way. Holding her foot suspended in the air, building up as much energy as she could, Sarah laid into the knob as hard as she could. She groaned as it barely budged and the footsteps on the pavement stopped, alerted to the sound. They knew she was there.

Sarah smashed her foot against the knob harder the second time as the metal began to rotate around the holder in the door. Now the footsteps on the other side of the building that burst into a full out run. Picking up her foot again, she slammed into the knob and the lock broke inside the door as she flew to throw open the door and into the darkness inside the building. She didn't think of looking around at first, Sarah wasn't worried about that, she was worried about the guards that were already bearing down on the door. There were places to hide in the building for sure, but then they would spend the rest of the night looking for her and that was as good as being caught. Grabbing the door knob she held it tight against the door and closed her eyes. It was really a last ditch effort, but she did have the rifle just in case. Sarah held the knob and listened on the other side of the door as they passed.

"It came from over here." She heard the voices on the other side of the barrier and held the knob tight.

"I don't see anything." The light of a flashlight moved across the door, under its cracks. Then the door knob began to jiggle as Sarah held as tight as she possibly could, sweat dropped in beads off of her face as her knees dug into the stone floor of the building as the knob continued to jiggle, if they just yanked on the door, it was over. But the jiggling stopped and the light faded. Sarah heard the foot steps begin to break into a run again as they continued around the perimeter of the building as she fell back onto her butt and looked at the door and nearly cried. It felt like waves and waves of stress were being lifted off of her shoulders in matters of seconds. Sighing she got back up from the ground and faced the inside of a massive munitions factory in full production.

More than just a munitions factory, the building served as a place of steel productions as great mechanisms below a metal balcony never tired over an almost endless supply of rebel material pouring in from all over New Zealand. Sarah got up from the ground near the door and walked over to the edge where the factory descended into the Earth. Not far, but most of the production was kept down below, while above her lay countless storage containers of weapons, ammunition in thick metal crates, much more think from the ones she had seen in Kraze's hideout, the operation here was much, much more organized. Walking around the balcony looking down towards the production lines below, Sarah found a small metal staircase that spiraled down towards towards the metal grating floor below that. Here along conveyor belts, the robots with mythical efficiency pushed molten steel in great iron vats at the end of the complex towards shaping containers and continued along until the finished product was created, and at this speed it was no wonder that the rebels were at such an advantage in the war and as there were belts for guns, there were sections dedicated to a seemingly endless supply of ammunition, artillery shells and even the encasing of larger guns.

"Incredible. So the mechanics of Aotearoa aren't all lost."

"Do you really think they would be Miss Tintagyl?" A voice came from the loudspeakers that ran the building. "Do you really think that those fools that run this country now, or should I say attempted to run this country could even attempt to match strength with the indomitable technological power that Aotearoa was blessed with. This rebellion is over. The rebellion of this damned council and your play-thing ruler, Hiley."

Sarah looked around and pulled the gun off of her shoulder as she looked around the darkened room, the only illumination coming from the molten steel shining from the vats. "Who? Who are you? How do you know who I am?"

"The greatest traitor in world history how could I not know. I think Lord LeVentNoir should have expected it to be honest, the way you through the Nordic bonds off of you in such a dishonorable way was the same way you backed those fools running my country now! But everyone knows your face dear Sarah, which will make it even better when your body is being dropped in molten steel, hopefully I'll be able to see that pretty face scream before your eyes burn out of your skull."

The sheer morbidity of the voice make a feeling of nausea sweep over Sarah's body, but hearing some of the words that the voice said made her feel fear much more than sickness. "LeVentNoir? Is that you?"

The voice chuckled. "No, I could only wish that it was. Wish that he was still alive and with us. But its because of people like you that we can't have good things. But that will all change tonight and joy, I'll have the chance to kill three birds with one beautiful sweep. You, your daughter, and your lover."

"My family!" Sarah's fear was immediately replaced by her building rage that she had finally arrived at the end of her journey. "Where is my family!?"

"Oh, now you're the one that is going to make threats? No Miss Tintagyl that will not be allowed. But please, first, let me introduce myself." The factory seemed to heighten the amount of production as bright florescent lights turned on, nearly blinding Sarah as a man dressed in a white suit with long brown hair and bifocals resting on his crooked nose. "My name is Gustave Andros, Doctor Gustave Andros." He smiled, his grin twisting in his face. "And I am the future of this country, the future of Aotearoan technology that will rewrite this country and rewrite this world. My dear Sarah, there were so many things that My Lord did not accomplish, there were so many wars that were not accomplished, so many campaigns that could have brought the entirety of the Pacific under our jackboots." Andros signed and turned away. "But all for naught I'm afraid, all for nothing. I was once one of the greatest minds of Aotearoa, now I am a worthless engineer making weapons for this worthless rebellion. But sometimes, even I get joy out of my work." He smiled, his grin reaching both of his ears. "Like tonight."

"SARAH! SARAH!"

"Evan! Evan! My God! Evan where are you?!"

"He is safe." Said Andros, for the time being. "So is your daughter. Unfortunately, you are not. So I would take this time to pray to what ever God you humble yourself with Miss Tintagyl, because you are about to depart from this world." The lights vanished and Sarah was once again in the dark.

Her breath nearly stopped as she looked around the room, her hands bled sweat and the gun moved with its own will as she began to walk down the pathway towards the vats, the only source of light in the room once again. Then the shots came from the darkness, dozens of bullets, dozens of flashing lights all around her and then silence. Sarah lay on the ground, she knew she was bleeding but she could tell from where and she know that it wasn't fatal, she had been shot before and that had hurt much worse than perhaps the bullet that had grazed her here, she had just been lucky. But the guards didn't know that, she laid facing the ground and listened to all the footsteps, she listened to the breathing, she listened to the quiet chuckling from all sides. But the calmness that Sarah had exhibited for so long on her journey was slowly disappearing from her body. She closed her eyes as she tried to recall everything that had happened thus far, she could feel her body began to shiver as the cold from the Charon began to envelop her, the fear of the wolf, the kindness of Tom, the rage of Piopio, the bloodthirst of Kraze, the betrayal of Tom, Liselle, Tom's death, and now hearing Evan's voice again. Her eyes opened and looked at the vats, the lights illuminating her silver eyes as she jumped from the ground and fired a shot into the nearest rebel who was always illuminated by the vats.

He fell back against the metal floor with a thud as the other rebels raised their rifles again to fire, Sarah ducked down again into the dark and looked up at the environment she was in. Again, she was in an area of intense mechanics and other delightful explosives, and the rebels always carried some kind of grenade or something with them and that's all she needed to make this place burn down in flames, a fitting end really. Crawling on the ground she could see the body still slightly illuminated by the light of the vats, while the other rebels in the room ran looking for the girl's body that lay somewhere on the floor. Reaching the body, Sarah pulled it under a conveyor belt with her and searched through his body for anything of value, the pistol he had in his holster and two grenades. It wasn't much, but it would be enough.

She took a deep breath and raised her body up and fired her pistol aimlessly into the crowd of rebels before pulling the pins of both grenades, throwing one at the crowd and the other towards the hub of conveyor belts at the other end of the compound. The crowd screamed before taking any shots at what had been thrown at them and began to run as Sarah dove back down to the ground as two explosions set in motion two other explosions and the triggering continued throwing gears, cogs, and belt into the air, while sprinkling the ground with bits of molten steel. Standing back up as if rising from the dead, Sarah's body was covered in cuts and bruises, literally bleeding from every extremity, her face, her legs, her chest, and her arms. Sarah's blonde hair was ragged and hung down pasted to her back from sweat as she looked beyond the vats at the sounds coming from the end of the compound.

Sarah's Theme (Reprise)

Walking through the smoke coming from the factory, Sarah walked up another metal staircase towards a small balcony at the top of the production room. It was dark, except for a few computerized lights coming from the end of the room. Andros only smiled back.

"I was right about you. I was right that you are more than most that what people talk about. I was right that you are not a normal person and perhaps I underestimated you Miss Tintagyl." He leaned back in his chair. "So am I. I am a unique individual as well. There are many unique individuals in the world and its time like these when we must ask ourselves why we are here. You and I are not much different Miss Tintagyl, we both desire something and we are both willing to kill for it are we not?" Sarah looked down at her feet and a single tear rolled down her right cheek. "Ah, so you see, you are the same monster that you paint other people as. I see the darkness in your soul Miss Tintagyl and I see that a madness that could be unleashed from you, could be a madness not easily replicated." He crossed his hands. "But I know your type, you see madness differently than I do. You call it duty, I call it madness, you call it desire, but you know what?" He smiled. "I call it desire as well. But I'm afraid that your desire has met mine, and you know the problem right?"

"Problem?"

"What happens when an immovable object meets and unstoppable force?"

"It stops?"

Andros smiled and chuckled. "No my dear, it EXPLODES!" He pounded his fist down against a panel as his chair was encompassed in a glass case as Andros seemed to rise up from the ground and the computer that ran the room around him began to rise to become a force of its own. Sarah backed up in horror at the laughing madman as his 'creature' rose from the ground, it was like from a science-fiction novel, a cyborg, a machine that moved at Andros' command. "You see, you see what Glorious Aotearoa can create! You see what I can create with my skill and how you, Sarah Tintagyl, the leader turned adventurer, the heroine, has no help or aid to defeat it." The machine began to walk over towards Sarah, the entire building vibrating from the landing of a leg of the machine. The factory was already smoking in the other end of the compound as Sarah turned on her heels and began to run back towards the production lines. "NO! There is no chance to run now! There is no reason to run now! You were so close! So close!" The machine clamored towards her.

Sarah turned around and aimed the rifle at the machine, blindly firing in the air, but the bullets only made the small yellow sparks as they ricocheted off the metal body. "No Sarah! That will not do I'm afraid! That will not do at all!" He followed her down into the production lines as she tried to run into the smoke. "And you will not hide from me either, its time to say good-bye Sarah!" The machines arms slammed into the side of the compound, spraying out hot steam and rocking molten steel from the vats onto the ground, transforming the munitions factory into what could only be described as a living hell of machine, industry, and fire. The steam and fire lapped the sides of the building and the machine as Sarah looked up at the chaos that Andros had only created in a few steps. Once again she aimed the rifle up at the glass container that shielded him and took her shots, one cracked the glass and the machine took a step back before advancing once again so that he was literally over top her her. Sarah's mouth agape as Andros looked down from the cracked glass and smiled as he shifted the controls as a mechanical arm swooped down and grabbed around her chest as it lifted her up to his the glass encasement. The strength of the machine was literally crushing her body in its grip as Sarah could feel the blood beginning to drip from her mouth. "You see why that countries can't have nice things, because people like you think you can change the world. But that ends today, and Aotearoa will rise again. But like I said, I want to see you burn." The robot began to move towards the molten vats, as Sarah began to slip in and out of consciousness while in the grip of the machine, but as the grip began to lessen its grip to get ready to drop her, Sarah's hand touched the cool metal of the pistol she had taken from the guard.

"No." Was the only word she said as she took the pistol out and fired wildly into the glass. The machine ceased movement for a moment and whined in pain as electric sparks jumped from the panel. Andros screamed as she jumped from the chair as the grip let go of Sarah's body and she dropped to the ground, barely able to keep her eyes open as she hit the ground, landing in a pile of gears and cogs. Andros' screams filled the air for a moment, as there was a gulping sound coming from the vats before darkness completely enveloped her.

"So this is what dying feels like." It was calm, peaceful, besides the sounds of mechanical fire burning behind her ears. "So this is death."

---

A drop of rain was all that it took for Sarah to open her eyes. Her sapphires fluttered open and took in the gray expanse above her, a vast gray sky with thunder beginning to roll in from the distance. Another drop fell from the sky and landed on her face, she stretched her back muscles and a sharp pain enveloped her. "Well at least I know I'm not dead."

"Dead?" A voice chuckled from behind her. "You're far from dead." The voice was familiar, too familiar. Turning around Sarah's eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

"Evan?"

"In the flesh sweetheart." He smiled back at her, Sarah was laying against is legs and Heather lay on the grassy patch next to them, gently cooing, resting on Evan's outstretched foot. "We thought you were dead, when Andros started that damn thing up, I did my best to get out of the cell he had me in, I guess I didn't really have any desire until I saw you on that camera, I just started running into the bars, over and over again, luckily, that was an old building." He showed his arm and the cuts he had going down his body. "Though that's nothing compared to you. But after I got out, got Heather and found you, the factory and the entire city garrison seemed to be in such confusion as to what was going on, that I just found the nearest car I could. But we should be save here. Its surprisingly warm right now."

She turned around and stared at his face, her lips shivering in happiness and despair. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"It would take a lot more than that to keep us apart Sarah, a hell of a lot more than that." He leaned forward and kissed her passionately on the lips as the rain began to fall down on them. "You're an incredible woman, don't let anyone ever take that away from you."

But as they sat in the rain, all Sarah could think about was what that journey had did to her, to her body, to her mind, to her soul and she knew that she had become what Andros had talked about and that she would never be the same again.

FIN

FIN

[Subtleknifewielder]

OOC: Just finished this. I know, i know, late...but better late than never.

Nice Wrap-up.

[King Kevz]

OOC: Wow that was amazing, it was all amazing. Congratulations on writing such a moving story Sarah look forward to the next one you right