BatIM Five Trials

Chapter Eighteen

"I have one final thing for you to do, my little errand girl," Alice's voice spoke up after a couple minutes of silence and said teenager nearly dozing off. Jade looked up, despite thinking Alice wouldn't see her.

Please, give me five more minutes, Alice. . . Jade thought, though remaining silent.

"Freedom comes with this last task, but you'll have to go even deeper. . . down, down, down, into the abyss. I'm sending you a little present. A little firepower. Take good care of it, it belonged to someone very special." Jade saw the cylinder turn after Alice spoke. From a distance, it appeared to be some kind of stick with a base, or perhaps that was meant to be used to hit with blunt force.

Jade sighed and was about to get up when Boris put a hand on her left shoulder, looking concerned. "I might as well get this over with, Boris. I don't want to be here longer than I have to be, and I'm sure neither do you." She said in a tone which implied that she'd rather keep resting. Boris begrudgingly took his hand off of Jade's shoulder and instead put it under her arm to aid her in getting up, sparing her using her injured shoulder more than she had to.

"Thanks, Boris." She nodded with a small but grateful smile before walking back out of the lift and across the bridge. Now that she was closer, she could see the weapon Alice had provided for this final round. It was a gun. Not a small gun like a hand pistol, no, this one was quite large, requiring both hands and a shoulder to use. It looked almost like a machine gun.

You're kidding me. I'm being given a gun?! Alice, please don't tell me this is real. She picked up the gun, which felt both light and heavy at the same time. It felt too legitimate to be a replica, but there was one test she had to do to ensure its authenticity. She put it up to her dominant shoulder, right hand at the trigger and left hand to hold it steady. She aimed it at the wall to ensure her test fire wouldn't harm Boris or reflect off the metal door and potentially harm herself.

Please don't fire anything, please don't fire anything! Despite her mental pleading, pulling the trigger revealed that it was indeed a real gun. The shot kicked into her shoulder and made the loud sound revealing that it had been fired. The visual trace was the fact that there was now a hole in the wall. She lowered the gun, clutching her shoulder who's pain again got worse due to the sudden jolt, and all she could do was stare in shock.

Alice just gave me a real gun. How do I even begin to process this?! After a second's thought and silence, Jade started to head back toward the lift, pointing her newly acquired gun at the ground as to not accidentally fire and hurt someone. Especially Boris, she just couldn't live with herself if she hurt the wolf.

She stepped onto the lift, she and Boris examining the buttons together. "Hmm. . . the only level I can even think would be below this one would be Level 14. Both by process of elimination because i've been to all of the other ones, and by the fact that its button is below the rest." Boris nodded to her reasoning and pressed the button for 14. The elevator sank further down and stopped at the next level below 9.

Jade's eyes widened as a new startling fact came to her. For some reason, she could sense every presence on Level 14, even if they were mostly unfamiliar. This included Boris's presence, which she sensed the strongest. It was a familiar, calming presence. For some reason, knowing about all of these presences, even if only one of them moved, gave her the chills more than not knowing.

Jade took a deep breath and walked onto the balcony of Level 14. Approaching the railing, she looked over to see a massive ink pool below, flooding the entire lower part of the level. Before she could even make a comment about it, in her head or otherwise, a creature with a projector for its head and wires protruding from said head and connecting to various places on its back walked from one of the two doorways on Level 14.