When One Door Closes.

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Aaargh
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Jade ran down the corridor, the patches of darknes giving her cause to worry. Dimmly lit she could handle, just not darkness. Darkness was bad. The enormous ravaging beast was rampaging down the corridor after them.

All Jade wanted to do was curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and analyse where it went wrong. Prehaps even with a tub of ice-cream. She thought back over the people she'd met and thought about Cass. Cass would raise an eyebrow, say "I told you so" and then offer some consolation. Jade decided that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to follow in the woman's footsteps in her besotted attitude towards the man she loved, that way madness lay. So, she did was she was best at. Locked it into a deep box and burried it in the back of her mind with all the other stuff she didn't like to think about.

The beast roared bringing her thoughts back to the chase. She'd fallen behind on her shorter legs. The others were up ahead and had broken through into a room, looking for the way forwards.

"Look, there has to be a door here somewhere!"Jacky moaned. Everyone felt slightly more unhappy and worried as the bards mood dropped.

"Artie, can't you paint us an exit?" Jay asked, thinking on his feet like he was good at.

"No can do. Treguard has blocked all of my attempts to bypass the levels before. He wouldn't let us now" Artie said, frowning. Jade tumbled into the room, tripping over Plisken skirt and falling on her face.

"Today is not going well." She huffed as her life bar depleated by a few points.

"Up ya get." Alex said, offering her a hand. She rejected the hurt part of her mind that wanted to stubbornly get to her feet on ehr own and accepted.

"Thanks." She mumbled.

"Ya Welcome." He grumped. Solvay's odd fixed expression pinned to his features. Maybe he had a point after all, they were so different, she smiled at him. Friends is fine with her. She'd settle for being the best thing he never had.

"You know. I'll always be the best thing you never had Mr Solvay." She winked at him and turned to face the corridor the ravening beast was coming down. She slammed the hilt of her scythe down on the floor and bellowed down the passage. "COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!" Alex, still under the impression that she was a squishy Jade stepped forward to try and pull her out of the way, just as her power kicked in.

He whipped his hand away as the waves of cold rolled off her in thick breathy steam. Hert blade dripping ice crystals.

"What?" She turned and asked Alex, her voice a cold and deadly rasping whisper in the avatar form.

"Ah... I thought you couldn't..." He said, backing off to form a defensive line with the others.

"I was stuck in a bog." Grenth/Jade stated simply. Now he understood the slightly hurt look she gave him. "No harm don..." The beast arrested her speach as it barrelled into the room and charged over her into the other dwarfers.

"Jacky, please can you play something rousing? A song to help us kill this thing?" Jay said, brandishing the cross at it with ittle to no effect at all.

"I don't know how!" He said, getting out the guitar.

"Just play something you young fool." Plisken said, hauling his skirts out of the way of a flash of teeth and claws. "No offence." He nodded to Alex.

"None taken." The Fool said, dancing backwards out of a tail whip.

"I said." Jade/Grenth growled and set herself, shoulder squared. "Come and have a go at me! Not them." She swung the scythe, cutting most of the beasts tail off.

Jacky began to play something.

"Filigree, apogee, epogee..." He began to chant.

The beast turned and pounced at Jade/Grenth. It's huge bulk bearing down through the air.

"Pedigree!" Jacky said, the chords stopping, the song apparently ended.

The beast finished it's leap and landed on Jade/Grenth with a small fluffly thump. The little white rabbit looked very confused and hopped off her.

"An odd choice." Jade/Grenth hissed, an amused tone to the deathly voice. Her spell ran out as the door to the next level appeared. The Dwarfers breathed a sigh of relief and began to file through. Jade clasped Alex's hand before he could go through and tiptoes up to whisper in his ear so the others didn't hear.

"I'm sorry for anything I said that hurt you and if that affected your thoughts about this. I didn't mean it, I was drunk and hurt. You are right though. We are too different and think about love too differently. That said, you're stuck with me alright? You can't get rid of me that easilly. I'm still a friend, I always will be, and I'm still here to listen and to talk to when you want to. I guess even when you dont want to as well. I'll not give up on you, even if you do ok? That wont change, that's part of my job too, not just as a friend. " She kissed him on the chin, much as things had begun all those months ago, and walked through the door.

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