The Prison

[Sage]

It was a lot to mull over, that was for sure. The death of a child. The murder of that poor little boy, right in front of her. It wasn’t real; it was probably just another elaborate attempt by Gamer to torture her. He probably knew she believed in the sanctity of life; her mind was, after all, hooked up to his computer. Who knew what he knew? Maybe he could extract her thoughts or ideals. After Friend or Foe and Dante’s Abyss, Sage wasn’t willing to believe very much was impossible anymore.

It didn’t make it any easier to watch. The child was probably just data, or, at worst, a player who was eliminated in an elaborately cruel-to-watch fashion, but either way, nobody was actually hurt, and yet, it still hurt. Sage knew it was best to just discard the image, but it lingered behind her sight when she closed her eyes.

Magnus.

Now, she sat in a chair, with an attractive schoolgirl leaning over her shoulder, and her sister across from her, all of them listening while Juno blathered on and on and on about whatever stupid thing- dragons and spaceships. None of it really made any sense to the blue haired girl, who was far more preoccupied with a great many other things to worry about something that happened-but-didn’t-really-happen.

Wolfgang died-but-not-really right in front of her, she was trapped in a goddamn desert - inside a mansion which was mercifully air conditioned - and she still hadn’t found any Valium. It was all she could do not to start shaking and babbling incoherently as she sat and pretended to be interested in whatever it was he was talking about now.

Sage took in her surroundings, musing idly over the exquisite fabrics and adornments spread throughout the clearly expensive room, contemplating idly why she and the others were so special as to be here, while so many others were stranded in the shanty town around them. What made this little group so special? Were the people in the desert even real? If they were... how long had they been trapped here?

Her eyes flitted across the window. Angry sun and cheery sky. She turned back to Juno. Almost. What the- anxious eyes returned to the window. A masked man was staring her in the face, and, even more surprisingly, he waved at her. If it was a ‘he.’ The long hair made it difficult to tell. And then, he - or she - was gone.

“You okay, Sage?” it was Juno.

“F-fine...” the quarter saiyan replied, not taking her eyes off the glass. Despite her obvious lie, nobody saw fit to call her on it, not even Xenia, who...

Sage turned her attention to her sister, who was... dreaming? Was she sleeping on her feet? Poor Xenia, the azure haired girl thought, as she climbed to her feet. She must have been pushing herself so hard. You always work too hard.

The smaller sister closed the distance between them, and she gently tapped Xenia’s shoulder, in an effort to wake her before she did or said something silly in her sleep.

Her twin screaming at her and then punching her face, for example.

Sage let out a sharp cry of shock and pain, and collapsed onto the floor, her hands over her face. There was a blur of motion. Juno tried to shield her from Xenia, but he chose a bad time to step between the two. The diminutive healer pushed him out of her way so she could see the blonde girl. “I’m... a bully?” she asked, agony balancing obviously on her words.

“Not you...”

So much seemed to happen all at once. Juno and Xenia were fighting, or screaming, or... something. Another voice shouted at them to stop, and the sounds of a struggle broke out all around her.

“Sister!!” the little hybrid finally managed as she got to her feet, stumbling between Juno and her twin.

“Sister?” came the reply, but it sounded so... hollow. So unsure. At that, Sage began to weep.

“You’re bleeding,” Xenia’s voice softened. Juno suddenly screamed something at her, and she... she ran.

“Xenia!” Sage shrieked, and made to go after her, but Juno caught her wrist. A fiercely burning cold greeted his flesh, though, and forced him to release the girl, who sprinted out the way the blonde had gone.

Blood dribbled down her face and chin, onto her dress. She didn’t care. Xenia was in trouble. Sage raced toward the exit, and had to negotiate around two newcomers, nearly colliding with them as she ran. Both shouted things at her, but Sage didn’t take notice. Instead, she burst out of the building, and found herself suddenly and totally overwhelmed. The girl made several starts in several different directions, like she felt she needed to head in every direction at once, but, finally, bolted toward the back of the mansion.

She didn’t know why she knew Xenia would be there, but she was there. On her knees. With her head in her hands. Immediately, Sage was on her knees next to her. The azure haired girl embraced her sister, and gently rested her head against Xenia’s.

“I didn’t mean to hit you...”

“I know. It’s okay,” Sage answered. She closed her eyes and hugged her sister tighter. The two sat in silence on the pristine grass. Neither made any attempt to move or speak for a while, until Sage finally spoke. “What happened, Xenia? What’s bothering you?”

At that, the blonde lifted Sage’s arm off her and scooted away. Her face and eyes were full of pain and confusion. Sage watched her intently, wanting so badly to help her through whatever it was she was going through.

“I- just- leave me alone!” Xenia exclaimed, before suddenly deconstructing into hundreds of little black orbs and racing away. Sage gasped at the sight, and watched until the dazzling lights vanished. That was one of her dad’s techniques. The girl sank into the grass. Xenia wasn’t going to be found again if she didn’t want to be.

Sage sighed and hugged herself. Blood spattered on her arms. She rolled her eyes and reached into one of her hair ribbons and withdrew a capsule. With a click of the button, she idly tossed the device onto the grass, where it exploded, revealing her medical kit.

She opened it, and withdrew a small, steel canister with a spray nozzle on it. Saiyan technology. Well, it was probably stolen from elsewhere, but it was from Vegeta-Sei. And, Sage tried not to remind herself. From the future.

Rejuvenation spray. It was essentially a field medic’s ultimate weapon - essentially a limited version of a fixed rejuvenation tank. Very hard to come by. Especially since it hadn’t yet been invented. But, Sage decided, she didn’t exactly need tools to heal people anymore, and her reality wasn’t real, anyway, so she would be wasting nothing.

She sprayed herself in the nose, and instantly recoiled, dropping the canister and cringing uncontrollably. Once the sharp, stinging sensation passed, the girl hesitantly touched her nose, and, when she was satisfied that no new blood was coming away from it, she moved forward, onto her hands and knees, and began rummaging through her med kit for some gauze to clean off the blood, when she was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Sage nearly jumped from her spot on the grass. She looked up, catching a pair of steely blue eyes half-smiling, half-glaring at her. “A-Ander?”

“You’re covered in blood,” was the less-than-cheery reply. “What happened?”

“I, um, I was j-just- it’s- n-nothing! Nothing happened. I fell,” the girl stammered, while silently cursing herself. Even she knew that was a horrible excuse.

“Oh, yeah?” the dark haired boy raised an eyebrow and nodded, one hand on his elbow and the other on his chin.

“Um... yeah.”

“You know what?”

“What?” Sage inquired as she withdrew a handful of gauze. It’d work fine to wipe off the blood.

“You’re a horrible liar.”

Sage looked up at him in an attempt to look offended, but instead looked as she was - caught in a lie. She frowned, and cast her eyes to the ground. She was an idiot to think he believed that for even a second.

“I...” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Who was that girl?”

“Huh?” a pair of coral eyes suddenly flicked back up to his face.

“The girl you were chasing, when you ran past us.”

“That was you??”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

Sage sighed again. “That was... Xenia.”

“Who’s that?”

“...My sister,” the girl let her shoulders sag, and then, suddenly, she tensed up. “I have to go find her!”

“Hold on,” Ander’s hand clapped onto her shoulder as she tried to get to her feet, and pulled her back down. “You’re covered in blood,” he insisted. “Here,” the desert dweller reached out and took the gauze from where Sage had dropped it, and gingerly dabbed the crimson fluid away from her nose and face. He hesitated at her dress; the blood was on her chest, and it probably wasn’t going to come out anyway.

Sage blushed. “Th-Thank you,” she managed, before quietly packing her med kit back up, and restoring it to its capsule. She slid the tiny container back under her ribbon, and cautiously rubbed her nose, just to be sure she wasn’t suddenly bleeding again. “I-If you meet Xenia, and she’s mean to you... please don’t be upset. It’s just her way; she’s really a very good person.”

“Uh huh,” Ander conceded, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to stare off into space. She was trembling. She didn’t normally do that. “So, what happened? Who hit you?”

“I... um... it was... Magnus,” Sage managed. “He... he attacked us,” the girl’s voice suddenly became very somber. “He killed the little boy. Wolfgang,” it was a horrible thing, to use the child’s death as a way of evading Ander’s question, but he wasn’t making it easy for her.