"My client wishes to plead guilty," Bart said.
"What?" I said. "We didn't discuss that! We haven't discussed anything!"
"Bartholomew, or Bart, would you kindly confer with your client what it is that he has chosen to plead?" Tim said.
Bart leaned over to me and talked quietly, so I had to scrunch down to hear him due to our height difference. "If you plead guilty, he'll give you a lighter sentence. I know this judge. You want a lighter sentence. Trust me."
"What kind of sentences are we talking here? And how much lighter is lighter?" I whispered.
"1 year of imprisonment vs 1 hour of imprisonment," he said.
"Oh. I think I'll take the 1 hour please and thank you," I said.
"That's what I thought," he said.
My lawyer, Bart, stood up and said, "My client has confirmed that he wants to plead guilty."
Tim looked over his tiny glasses at me and said, "That is a wise choice, young man. I thought we were going to have to bring out the Veracity Verification Device, or 'Truth Machine' as you surface dwellers call it. It forces a person to speak the truth and only the truth, so help them God."
"But seeing as we didn't have to do that, and you made this process much easier on everyone, including yourself, I will grant you a lighter sentence. The standard punishment for your crimes is one year in the molten core, but given your guilty plea and cooperation, I hereby reduce your sentence to one hour of imprisonment in the molten core of the earth." He banged his gavel. "This trial is concluded. Bailiff, ready the cage so that we may deliver the sentence forthwith."
"Yes, your honor," Jon said. Jon walked over to the wall and pressed a button. The wall began to slide up and hot air came wafting out.
"Wait, what? In the molten core of the earth?" I said, shocked at what I just heard. They were going to drop me into the molten core of the earth! Fuck! I wanted out. I needed to get out.
Without thinking, I bolted out of my chair and began running down the aisle to the courtroom door. Suddenly, my feet snapped together, and I fell forward onto the ground. Since I couldn't pull my hands or feet apart, I began to inch worm my way towards the door.
Jolts of electricity shot through my body, causing me to involuntarily spasm and convulse on the ground. Apparently, I wasn't immune to the effects of electricity. Jon grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the open wall. He was surprisingly strong for someone so small. As he dragged me, I noticed Azrael's sword laying on the table made out of some form of metal that wasn't being scorched by the sword's flames.
They pulled me onto a metal grating that hung out over a deep but small chasm. I looked down and saw molten lava far below. I felt heat coming from the right and looked over. There was a metal tube issuing a steady pour of molten lava into a cage. The cage was a tall rectangle with thin criss crossing bars kind of like a deep fryer tray. Its function was very similar to a deep fryer tray, if you think about it. The cage seemed to be filtering the lava through its bars, but I couldn't imagine what could survive the lava long enough to make it down here.
Tim stood by me, still in his judge's robes. "I can understand the fear that strikes a person deep within their soul when they hear they'll be spending time in the molten core, so I will look past the further crime that you just committed and deliver the original sentence."
"Now, before we begin, I would like to explain a few things. This method of punishment was devised when we realized all surface dwellers were immune to any form of physical damage. This was the only method that we could create to allow surface dwellers to experience the suffering they deliver onto others, like how you delivered suffering onto Jon through your criminally negligent handling of a dangerous artifact."
"Now, all the metal you see here is made of a composite alloy that cannot be melted by magma. That cage you see there is where you'll be spending your hour. That stream of magma you see pouring from the tube is filtered by the cage. It does this to catch any magical or non magical artifacts that survive the trip down, so that they don't enter the molten core and can be returned to the surface dwellers when they come down to retrieve them."
"It's unfortunate that the artifact you dropped did not enter the underground magma flows and end up harmlessly caught in the cage. If that had happened, you wouldn't need to be punished, but what actually occurred is what actually occurred. So punish you, we must. Now, Jonathan, or Jon, if you would so kindly detach the tube from the cage, close the tube, and cover up the hole in the cage, we will be able to begin."
This couldn't be happening, I thought. I did the right thing, didn't I? So why must I suffer like this? This was far worse than what I imagined the punishment could be.
Jon did as judge Tim asked and then opened the door of the cage. He grabbed me by the arm, led me into the cage, then closed and locked the door behind me. The grating below the cage dropped open. I was now floating out over empty space. Jon put his hand on the lever to lower me down. Lucifer stood behind the gathered mole people, watching. He didn't offer any words, and he didn't have any expression on his face either.
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"Do you have any words you would like to say before we lower you in?" Tim asked.
I thought hard. There had to be a way out of this, and then it came to me. My karmic rebalancing. Maybe it could give me something, anything, to get out of this mess. The scale was tilted down by bad karma, so whatever I got would be good. The question was, would it be good enough?
I pressed the mental button, and the scales rebalanced. Suddenly, from behind the mole people and Lucifer, a familiar voice rang out. "Stop! Stop this right now! I can't take it any longer! I'm the one at fault! I take responsibility for crippling Jon! Free Dave!"
Everyone looked behind them, confused. There was no one there. Then the voice came again. "Stop this right now! I'm responsible! Do you hear me? I am responsible!" The sword flashed orange as Lilith's voice spoke through it.
"What the hell?" Tim said.
Jon was so surprised that he pulled the lever all the way down. The cage just dropped. No, slowly lowering or nothing. I looked below as the molten core got closer and closer until the cage splashed into it. This was scarier than anything I had ever experienced. I felt the magma burn away my clothes and start to fill the cage. I felt it creep up my legs, up my torso, to my chest. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Then I was fully submerged.
It was hotter than I expected. I expected it to be hot, but I also expected my invincibility to protect me from it. It protected me from being burned alive, but it didn't prevent me from feeling the heat. It was truly unbearable. Imagine the hottest spa tub or jacuzzi and multiply it by 100. I felt like I was melting. The worst was definitely the heat, but the second worst was the sensory deprivation. I couldn't see, hear, smell, taste, or really feel anything on my skin except unimaginable heat.
There was no way I would last a year down here. I'd lose my mind. I'd be a babbling mess after they brought me back up. I didn't know if I could even last an hour down here. This was awful. I had to hope that Lilith would convince them to pull me back up soon. I just had to last until they pulled me back up. I kept telling myself that. Any second now they would pull me back up and I'd been fine.
Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes began to feel like hours. I was boiling alive. Then, I felt a tug on the chain. The cage began to pull back up. I could feel it because the cage was putting more pressure on my feet. I could feel my feet! That was oddly comforting. Being able to feel anything except the heat was like seeing an old friend after a long time. I didn't feel as cut off and alone.
Once again, seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. The cage seemed to be pulled forever. I wondered if I would ever make it out of here. Maybe they were reeling in a mile of chain or something. After my mind had truly melted and I couldn't think straight anymore, the cage was lifted out of the magma. I was suddenly cold from the heat going away so quickly. I curled up into a ball at the bottom of the cage, trying to warm myself up and stop shivering.
After actual real minutes that felt like minutes, I was pulled up through the hole in the grating and the grating was closed. Jon pulled the cage door open and pulled me out, naked and afraid.
"Does anyone have clothes I could wear? I feel naked," I said.
"You are naked," Tim said.
"I know. I don't want to be," I said.
Lucifer snapped his fingers, and clothes appeared in his hands. They were the same clothes I had been wearing. I don't mean they looked the same. I mean, they were the same. The knees on the jeans were worn and frayed in all the same places, and my shirt even had the barely noticeable hole in the side.
As I put the clothes on, I asked Tim, "How long was I down there for?"
"About 10 minutes. Why?" he said.
"It felt like hours," I said. "It felt like my skin was burning off."
"I am truly sorry about that. Once the sword confessed to the crime of crippling Jon, we tried to reel you back in right away, but so much chain had been released that it simply took that long," Tim said.
"To hear you describe it like that, I'm not sure the punishment fits the crime. Maybe we should construct a smaller punishment, like community service, for criminal negligence, and leave the molten core for the truly heinous crimes like murder and other such things," Tim said.
Once I was finished dressing myself, I asked Tim, "May I take the sword now?"
"You may take the sword indeed, but while you were down there, our engineers finished constructing a sheath for the artifact, so that it doesn't find its way down here again. Be careful with it is what I am communicating to you," Tim said.
"We realized we couldn't punish the sword, despite it confessing to being at fault, so remanding it to your custody seemed like the next best thing."
"Understood, and thank you," I said. I walked over to the table that had the sword on it. It had a dark grey metal sheath with a belt attached. I wrapped the belt around my waist and cinched it tight.
I walked past Lucifer and out of the courtroom. I followed the path back to the lift that then took me back up to the elevator. I got in the elevator and was about to press the button to go back up when Lucifer walked in. I stepped out of the elevator.
"What?" Lucifer said. "You're not upset about me blaming you for Jon's accident, are you?"
"Yes, I am, but it's more than that. I've realized I can't trust you, and if I can't trust you, then you're a liability to me. Lilith and I will stop the bank heist ourselves," I said, patting the sword at my side.
"Hey! Don't jostle me!" Lilith said.
"Sorry," I said.
"I can't leave you alone. You might find a way to kill yourself and win the bet," Lucifer said.
"You should've thought about that before you dropped me into the center of the earth," I said. I was serious. And I was furious at him. But beyond that, beyond the fact I couldn't trust him, I didn't like him. Not anymore. He disappointed me. And it's hard to disappoint me. You really have to try, and he did. He tried and succeeded. He was lucky I didn't just kill him.
"Come on, Dave. I was just kidding. What's the occasional betrayal between friends? It couldn't have been that bad," he said.
"Why don't you hop in the cage? Give it a whirl?" I said my grip on the sword hilt tightening.
"Ow, ow, ow! Don't squeeze so hard!" Lilith said.
"Sorry," I said.
"Dave! Come on! We have a world to save!" Lucifer said.
"You're wrong. I have a world to save. You can fuck off for all I care," I said, and walked onto the lift to take me back down to the mole town.
"Dave. Come on. You're not going to abandon me, are you?
"You really should have thought about your actions. Now you have to pay the consequences," I said. I pressed a button and the lift started lowering.
"Don't abandon me! Not like father did!" Lucifer cried, as he fell to his knees.
"Goodbye, Lucifer," I said, before I dropped out of sight.
"No!" Lucifer cried, slamming his fists down on the metal grating. The platform and the lift shook from the impact.