Chapter 5: In the Line of Fire

Amber lived just off campus, and so the trip for Ethan and Nikki was pretty short. They pulled into a parking spot in the parking lot next to Amber's apartment complex. Walking up to the door of Amber's apartment, both Nikki and Ethan couldn't help but notice that the door was riddled with bullet holes. Ethan said "That can't be good."

Nikki scanned the area. "Yeah I see him, sniper on top of the building over there. Can you provide me with cover?"

Ethan said "Well I'm a little rusty with the banjo and I don't know any of your songs so.."

Nikki punched Ethan in the shoulder. "No I don't need to you cover band me, provide cover from the sniper fire!"

Ethan nodded. "Oh right." Ethan pulled the trash can lids off the ground and formed a shield out of them. "OK ready, GO!"

The two of them hiding behind the trash lid shield, moved over to Amber's door and knocked. A voice from within said "There's no one home."

Nikki yelled back "It's us, open up already!"

A couple moments later, the door opened slightly and a pair of eyes looked out. "One moment, I don't have any clothes on." The door closed for another minute or so before reopening. "Come on in" Amber said. "The landlord has been lurking around across the street with a high powered rifle. So if you value your heads, you'll move in quickly."

Ethan and Nikki quickly moved inside and slammed the door behind them. Ethan tossed the trash lids to the side. "You know if you'd pay the rent on time, I doubt he'd be out there making a big fuss" Ethan commented.

"You're supposed to pay rent? Well this sure explains a lot. Though where's the fun in that?" she replied.

He didn't have a good response to that. "Good point." Ethan sat down in a chair near the center of the room. "Sorry to bother you like this but we were on our way home and had to stop in to drop off something." He dug around in his pants pocket for a minute. "It was here earlier, where did I put that damn thing?" He started digging in the back pockets and then in the pockets on his coat. "Son of a..."

Nikki after a few more minutes of watching Ethan pat himself down looking for something, removed her necklace. She then slid a key that was hanging on it off the chain and handed it to Ethan before returning the necklace to her neck. Ethan looked at the key, then handed it to Amber.

"Is this..?" Amber began to say.

"Yeah, it is, don't lose that." Ethan interrupted. "We're all counting on you."

Amber attached the key to her necklace. "Thanks, I suppose I am to take this to the volcano it was forged in and only there can it be truly be destroyed. I'll be pursued every step of the way by endless hoards of baddies and creatures I couldn't possibly defeat on my own. Therefore I'll have to patch together a ragtag band of companions that resemble more a bunch of idiots then actual allies, of which at least half of them will continuously do things to under-mind, back stab, or otherwise hinder my progress as I move towards my ultimate goal?"

Ethan frowned. "Well actually as much fun as that sounds, you're just going to use it to open a door soon."

"Oh OK" Amber responded.

Ethan added "Though that part about your companions being a bunch of idiots is probably still accurate. And yes some of them will probably hinder or undermine you every step of the way. But what are friends for?"

"So I have to ask" Nikki cut in. "If you're a gypsy, why do you live in a house?"

Amber laughed at the question. "Catch up with the times, we still live in tents, but we don't get Internet in the tents. We therefore set up our tents inside houses that can get Internet service. Though its not our style to pay for things, so most of us still don't have Internet."

Ethan said "I did not know that. I learn something new everyday. Well that's all the official business we have here. How are things going?"

"Well as you can probably imagine, I'm not too fond of the landlord out there with the big gun. But otherwise things are going pretty good. I've just about received my degree in Gypsytology at the university, I have another couple more weeks."

"Well Ethan and I should get going, what's the safest way out of here?" Nikki asked. "We'd prefer to be a little more subtle with our exit.

Amber responded "By safest, do you mean the only way you'll probably survive leaving here? That would probably be the trapdoor."

"What trapdoor?" both Nikki and Ethan asked at the same time.

Amber pointed at the floor around where Ethan and Nikki were. "The one underneath you. How convenient." She then pulled a lever in the floor which caused her toaster to explode in a cloud of smoke and burnt bread. "Lets try this again shall we?" She then pulled the lever next to the first one. She watched as the floor gave way underneath Nikki and Ethan sending them down a chute before the floor returned to its normal position. "One of these days, I'm going to get to try that on myself" she said to herself.

Moments later, Nikki and Ethan found themselves on a large pile of newspapers underneath Amber's patio. Ethan said "Damn it."

Nikki asked "What, whats wrong, that didn't hurt at all?"

"I've already read this comic section" he responded before crumpling up that newspaper and tossing it aside. Nikki rolled up a newspaper and bopped Ethan on the head. "Hey!"

The two of them snuck back up to where the car was and quickly go inside. They then sped away as fast as they could. Ethan could have swore he saw a man with a high powered rifle in his hand standing in the road but lost sight of the him moments later. He was distracted by a dull thump as the car drove over something.

"The two events couldn't possibly be related" Ethan thought to himself.