[8] The Survivors

[Friend or Foe]

Ashe
Sage

Kaden
Piper
Sophia

Wizard


The remaining players in the game will meet the entrance to the temple. When putting their Emblems together, they will open the door. Expecting to see Kai, they will instead see an entire town has formed in the temple, and the cave that expands under it.

You will spend this round with 'down time', interacting with each other and the survivors of the island that Kai had moved into this temple so he could use it for his show.

You can prepare for the 'final battle.' If you want to roleplay action, you can have various attacks by Kai's guards, or even an appearance by Kai himself.

The ending update will be one of those fights, which will also result in somebody's elimination.

[Piper Juunanagou]

The gunshots were slowly starting to die down. The once deafening roar of the battalion’s energy guns was now barely more than a few pockets of grunts and whimpers amidst the disheveled remains of the mall’s food court. Near the center of the calamity, Piper found herself surrounded by a group of felled soldiers. All of the mercenaries were resting silently atop the shattered tiles and uprooted pipes that blanketed the floor of the area.

A surprised shout caught the woman’s ear and pulled her attention up toward the second floor balcony. Narrowing her eyes, Piper tightened her grip on Trisha’s dagger, but before she had a chance to so much as draw a second breath, an unconscious soldier came plummeting over the top of the broken railing. With a resounding thud, the man crashed through a thick plastic table.

“Impressive,” Piper said with a grin as she turned her attention back to the balcony where Kaden was standing victoriously. “Is that the last of them?” The medic asked as the courier vaulted over what remained of the guard rail and landed calmly next to the solider he had just bested.

“Where’s Sophia?” The courier inquired as he rose to a fully vertical stance and began to scan the food court with his glowing eyes. After a brief moment of silence, Kaden closed his eyes, and when they snapped back open, the shimmer had dissipated. “Found her,” he said proudly as he began to sprint towards a corridor on the opposing side of the food court.

“Is she alone?” Piper asked after catching up to her male companion.

“She has a few very dim sources around her, so I imagine she incapacitated anyone who tried to apprehend her,” he shot back as the twosome entered the hallway and proceeded to take a quick left turn. Upon rounding the corner, they immediately colliding with Sophia, who had been rushing back to the food court to reunite with the pair. With muffled thuds, the three of them all somehow wound up sitting on the flood with mildly dumbfounded looks on their faces.

And then the amazing happened: One of them began to laugh.

Just like that, they were all laughing. It wasn’t that they had at last lost all semblances of sanity—on the contrary—Kaden, Piper, and Sophia finally had a moment where the entire world wasn’t out to kill them. The last twenty-four hours had been filled with death, destruction, betrayal, and trauma, but at last, they could take some time to unwind. At last, they could take a break from being hunted and stalked, and for a moment, they could be normal people without a care in the world…

Or at least, they thought they could.

“Attention all employees and customers,” someone announced from the mall’s bevy of overhead speakers. The female voice was drab and slightly robotic, leading Piper to imagine it was probably a computer. “This facility will self-destruct in two minutes. All employees should report to the back staging area, and all patrons should exit via the main or side doors. Thank you for shopping with us today, and we hope you visit us again.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Piper shouted as she vaulted up off the tiled floor and to her feet. “Do either of you have a watch?” She asked as she tapped her bare wrist with her index finger.

“Sorry,” Kaden replied with a frown as the woman’s voice was replaced by a loud, booming siren that filled every nook and cranny of the empty mall. “We need to move…now!” He shouted over the wail of the siren as Piper reached down and picked up one of the heavy energy guns. With a nod, the medic began to fiddle around with the overly elaborate weapon. After a couple of tense moments, it hummed to life and she flashed her friends a satisfied smile.

“Come on,” Sophia urged as she took a handful of steps down the hallway. “There should be an exit near the end of this corridor,” she added after taking a moment to skim over the large schematic of the map hanging on the wall a few yards away.

“Then let’s get going,” Piper shot back as she broke into a sprint. Above their heads, the computerized woman chimed in with a notification that they only had ninety seconds until the mall blew sky high.

What kind of asshole programs a mall to self-destruct? The redhead thought as they trio hauled down the hallway as fast as their tired legs could carry them. As they drew closer to the hallway’s end, they found themselves staring at one of Trisha’s handy dandy super gates. With a frustrated scream, Piper gave the weapon’s trigger a violent yank and sprayed the energy-infused katchin with a couple seconds of machinegun fire.

“It’s not working!” Kaden yelled over the roar of the gun as its bullets struck the metal gate and fizzled out like dying stars. Lowering her weapon, the redhead bit down on her lower and turned the weapon upon a nearby store. With a pull of the trigger, she reduced the elaborate front of the convenience store to a giant, gaping hole.

“We’ll just go around it,” Piper replied with a frown as she lowered the heavy weapon and hopped over the debris. In the background, she heard the woman inform them that they only had less than a minute before they would burn with the mall. “Come on, come on,” the woman shouted as she ripped her way through the first wall she saw. As all the components of the unnecessarily thick wall were torn to pieces, Piper couldn’t help but listen as the robotic woman continued to loop—each time updating the group on how much time they had lost.

Stepping up beside their companion, Kaden and Sophia lifted their hands and unleashed a dazzling blast of energy that cleared away the wall. With nothing more than a faint smile, Piper and her two allies made their way through the hole and into the neighboring store. Once inside, they quickly located the exit, and with no need for the clunky weapon, the medic hurtled it through the glass door. Above their heads, the computerized voice informed them that they only had thirty seconds left to escape.

“Home free,” Kaden shouted as the trio spilled out into the main hallway and then promptly proceeded to smash through the large exit door.

As Piper and her allies emerged from the mall, they were greeted with a cool blast of air. If they had more time, they undoubtedly would have taken a moment to enjoy some air that didn’t smell like decayed flesh or burning plastic. Unfortunately, the more pressing business was that of the giant, two-story building behind them that was going to blow sky-high in less than thirty seconds.

“Hey, it’s a car!” Sophia shouted as she pointed with her index finger toward a large military truck a few yards away. As they drew closer, the medic realized it was a personnel transport vehicle and undoubtedly the means with which the soldiers had reached the mall.

“Go,” Piper demanded as she teleported next to the vehicle. Without a moment’s hesitation, she threw open the door only to find that there was no driver; however, the keys were in the ignition and the car was actually already started. “In the back…hurry!” The medic shouted as she switched the car into drive and took a glance through the side mirror. Once she’d verified that Kaden and Sophia had made it safely into the back of the truck, Piper slammed the gas down to the floor, and the vehicle bolted forward toward the nearby road.

With a thud, the vehicle smashed through the nearby railing and onto the bordering road. As Piper cranked the wheel to the left and gave the truck’s gas pedal another violent slam, the mall that was only a hundred feet or so behind them erupted upward like an active volcano. Through the small window that connected the front of the vehicle to the rear compartment, Piper saw that Kaden and Sophia were safely strapped into two of the safety harness attached to the compartment’s metal frame.

Glancing once more through her side mirror, Piper let out a sigh of relief when she saw that they had managed to get enough distance from the blast radius. With the terror of impeding doom no longer suffocating her, the woman allowed herself to relax as she turned her eyes to the road ahead of her. As she moved her eyes, however, she noticed a small slip of paper tucked into the vehicle’s ash tray.

What’s this? The woman pondered as she plucked the piece of tablet paper from the closed tray and peered at its contents. What she saw was a list of driving instructions, but instead of ending at the mall, the final destination was labeled simply ‘The Temple.’ Flipping over the paper, Piper saw a small note scribbled near the bottom. Congratulations on surviving this far, contestants. Now come and attempt to claim your prize. Signed Kai.

“Read this,” Piper shouted as she passed the note back to Kaden and then proceeded to perform a sharp u-turn. “We just got a personal invite from the man himself,” she added with a frown as she started toward the temple.

[Sage]

“SAGE!”

An explosion. Then nothing.

Knees fell quietly upon dirt, a clatter of metal on earth as her weapon fell. All was still, everything silent except her breathing, louder than gunfire. That she knew what gunfire sounded like now...

An explosion. Then nothing.

Nothing on the outside. Nothing within. Nothing anywhere. Nothing everywhere.

Ashe told her to keep shooting, but Sebastian was already dead. A dead man killed her sister. A dead man took what little shred she had left - and there was nobody to blame. Not even a corpse to accuse.

She wanted to cry but... couldn’t. Wanted to scream but couldn’t. There was no longer any point to sadness or hatred, and she’d long ago lost any reason for happiness. The events that had just occurred suddenly represented her whole life with a bitter simplicity.

An explosion. Then nothing.

Ashe was looking around. Her hands wrapped tightly around her, like she was hugging herself. Like she was cold. Sage wasn’t cold. How could you be cold in a tropical jungle right next to a desert? But Sage was never cold. Anywhere.

Her body sank, until she was sitting on her legs. Slowly, she turned her eyes to the sky, a cheery blue circle peering through the clearing in the trees made for the village. With the sun brightly shining, in the heat amid a desert island, it snowed.

It was gentle at first. A few fluffy flakes, but it picked up in intensity. Despite the cheery weather, snow fell thickly upon the jungle, and a frigid wind howled through the greenery, whipping the gentle snow into a frenzy. So Ashe really was cold.

Sage looked over at the fire, slowly lolling her head over to look at it. The flames were flaring up wildly as it fought the harsh wind and heavy snow, but it was dying. Ashe reached out, grabbed Sage’s arm. Sage violently jerked away, pointing her eyes into the distance. She was talking again.

Hands fell on her shoulders, and the blue haired girl looked up at the offending student. Not her fault. No, it was... Sage’s fault. Ashe told her to shoot again. Zena told her to shoot again. To kill Sebastian, who’d taken his own life anyway. It wouldn’t have made any difference and Zena would still be alive. But Sage was thinking selfishly again. She couldn’t get over her moral code and just put a bolt through his head, despite all the horrible things he was doing.

Zena died while Sage watched and did nothing. The realization was beginning to sink in. She might as well have turned her gun on her twin; it would have accomplished the very same thing. Her head sank. Zena had come to save her, and when she needed saving, where had Sage been?

Right there.

But instead of thinking of her sister’s welfare, she was worried about murdering a murderer. And that murderer had no qualms in taking Zena with him. Because Sage let him.

It hurt so much. That she couldn’t express her pain made it hurt worse.

Ashe was pulling her up, talking again. She handed Sage’s gun to her. The hybrid wanted to resent her. There was no more reason to talk. Nothing more to talk about. But it wasn’t her fault. Sage climbed to her feet at the behest of the pink haired girl, and didn’t bother to fight as she was led by the hand to a grey humvee nearby.

The passenger door was opened for her, and Ashe helped her inside. She had been so nice to her this whole time. The door closed. Sage looked around the interior of the vehicle, noting all the impressive displays and switches and computer screens. The driver door opened and in climbed the younger girl, who closed her door behind her, encapsulating them in the vehicle, shielding them from the weather. Shielding Ashe from the weather.

She was shaking the addict harder now. “Sage, Sage, come on, talk to me, already,” she sounded frustrated. Sage gazed at her for a moment, but then looked away, out the window. Snow was beginning to cover the greenery in a soft, white sheet. Sage loved snow. So clean. So pure. It let her remember...

Ashe was complaining about something. There was a stick caught in the transmission. Something like that. But a boyfriend taught her to drive, so it was okay. Sage didn’t understand, but she didn’t care.

The vehicle shook beneath her, and the truck lurched violently forward. Ashe apologized for some reason, and they started moving. The driver moved a lever and pressed on a pedal, and the truck lurched hard again. Ashe did this again, and the truck shook again. Sage didn’t know why she wouldn’t just leave those levers and pedals alone. The truck seemed to drive okay when she wasn’t touching them. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t bad, just uncomfortable.

She sighed, watching her breath billow out in front of her as a cloud of steam. It must have been freezing. Sage looked over at her driver, watching her shiver violently. Ashe had both hands on the wheel, hands clenched tightly to fight against the painfully uncomfortable chill. Sage just lounged in her chair. She felt bad, but she was helpless.

“What the-” Ashe suddenly exclaimed, glancing over at one of the displays, which suddenly began blinking. The flashing light was quickly replaced with some kind of GPS display, which traced out a route, complete with way-points on it. ‘Destination,’ it declared, was a place called ‘Temple - Kai.’

Kai, Sage darkly thought, not noticing her friend look over at her. She thought back to the promise she had made. I would kill... one person, the azure haired hybrid looked back at the shivering girl, who was still watching her intently. Just as she could not express anything over her sister’s death, Sage could no longer feel guilt over her promise, and no longer feel agonized over having murdered that soldier. Everything seemed so far away, despite the overwhelming sharpness of the world brought on by a lack of Valium.

Kai Demolic, she repeated. Kai Demolic has to die,

Suddenly, the truck began to sputter and shake violently, and the violence escalated until everything abruptly fell silent and smooth again. Despite this, Ashe seemed very upset. The truck came to a halt, but Sage wasn’t clear why. It stalled, the student announced. Cobwebs of frost had, by now, nearly consumed the windows, and spread all over the metal of the vehicle, inside and out.

Though neither of the girls knew it, the machine they were driving had been heavily tuned to perform in intense heat, sacrificing cold weather reliability. The extreme drop in temperature had been too much for the engine tune to compensate for.

Ashe climbed out of the truck and slammed the door, and then kicked it. Sage let herself out, but left the door open. Getting angry at the vehicle seemed... strange. Ashe was shaking like a leaf, now, but she pulled off her sweater anyway, and reached out to Sage, offering it to her.

Sage just gave her that same empty look she had since her sister was consumed by the blue light. Why did everyone think she was infirm? Was she truly that useless? The hands held that stupid sweater out to her, begging her to take it.

“I’m not cold,” she muttered.

“You have to be, it’s freezing!” Ashe protested, reaching out to place the backs of her fingers against Sage’s cheek. The pink haired girl recoiled immediately, dropping her sweater and grasping her fingers tightly. She winced sharply, causing Sage to narrow her eyes. Did she hurt her?

“I’m... sorry...”

“No, it’s okay,” Ashe replied, throwing her sweater back over herself. “We’ll just have to walk,” she grumbled, before withdrawing the GPS device from the truck. “We’ll have to deal with the cold, somehow, too.”

But I’m responsible for it, Sage wanted to say.

[Kaden]

"Read this," Piper said as she extended a piece of paper over her shoulder. "We just got a personal invite from the man himself.

"Of course we did," Kaden mumbled as he took the scrap from Piper.

His eyes swept across the driving directions, uninterested in how they were getting to their destination. Flipping the paper over, Kaden scowled at the note. The smugness... the sheer arrogance was infuriating. The note had been neatly penned and Kai's signature was elegantly scrawled across the bottom. With a frustrated sigh, Kaden extended the note to Sophia, who scanned it with similar results.

Fatigue was once again catching up to the courier. Battling for his life had almost been a blessing; it seemed that the only thing that could lift the hazy veil of fatigue were the explosions and coursing adrenaline of combat. Once they were gone, a dreary fog settled upon Kaden's mind once more. At that point, the courier wasn't sure which he actually hated more: people trying to kill him or being so tired, hungry, thirsty, and drained that he felt like dying would simply be the easiest thing to do.

Placing his elbows on his knees, Kaden buried his face in his hands and let his mind wander where ever it might, he didn't care. The courier's eyes drifted around the floor of their vehicle, eventually settling upon Sophia's legs and lingering for a moment before drifting back to himself. He frowned as he saw the flecks of blood that dotted his jeans. Trisha's blood. He could still feel the warmth of it as it splashed against his chest.

Despite the repulsiveness of it, Kaden found something comforting in the warmth of her blood. It wasn't a sadistic or barbaristic thing, but that even if only in a literal sense, there had been the warmth inside Trisha that he was looking for...

Kaden began laughing. He was losing it. Reading meaning into blood... his mind was having an even harder time functioning properly than he thought it would, but maybe that only stood to reason. With a sad smile, the courier lifted his head and found himself returning Sophia's gaze. The priestess had been considering Kaden with a tilted head.

"Are you... ok, Kaden?" Sophia asked such a simple question, but one that carried more meaning that she could ever...

"Heheheh," there he went again. "I've certainly been better," Kaden waved a hand across his torso, drawing attention to the vomit and sweat and blood that covered his jacket and shirt. "But yeah, I'm ok."

"Alright," Sophia eyed him suspiciously. "If you say so."

Leaning back, Kaden let his head thump lightly against the wall of their transport vehicle. He could feel the sun's wamrth radiating through the vehicle. If he had been just about anywhere else, he would have simply closed his eyes and let the wamrth blanket him as he drifted to sleep. That, however, wasn't an option right then and there.

"Hey..." Kaden's head rocked forward and tilted toward Sophia. "I'm..."

"What?" Sophia leaned forward as she watched Kaden's mouth move. The noise of their vehicle had drowned out whatever he had to say.

"Ahem," Kaden cleared his throat, but again his voice was lost against the creaking and groaning of their transport. Sophia shooke her head and raised a hand to her ear in response. "I'm sorry!" the courier all-but screamed at his ally.

Sophia recoiled backward in surprise. Piper's eyes snapped to her rearview mirror. Kaden ran a hand through his hair and pretended he wasn't blushing. Ignoring the flecks of vomit and blood that dotted his hand as he pulled it from his hair, Kaden cleared his throat once more and regarded Sophia with his eyes.

"Back there, with Trisha, I... I'm sorry about some of the things I said. When I said I would... 'stop' you two from doing anything to Trisha. I... I didn't mean it..." The courier let his voice trail off as his eyes dropped towards his feet.

"Of course you did," came Piper's voice from the front seat. "You don't really expect us to believe that you're ok with killing as long as one of us does it, do you?"

"I..." Kaden's eyes settled upon the back of Piper's head. "Well... you're right. I would have tried to stop you. But what I meant was that I wouldn't... I don't want to hurt either of you. And I feel like that's all I've done."

Inwardly, Kaden cringed at his own words. His pessimism, something he often dismissed as simply being realistic, was something he usually kept to himself. Well rested, even poorly rested, the courier would never voice his doubts and concerns so casually; unfortunately, Kaden was several steps beyond "poorly rested" at that point.

"Kaden..." Sophia reached out and set a hand on the courier's knee. "You haven't hurt us. Not even close."

"Not yet..." the courier mumbled. "But I just... I'm... I don't know how to do stuff like this. I... I don't have any idea what I'm doing out here..."

"And you think we do?" Sophia smiled at the courier.

"We're all just doing what we have to do," Piper added. "And right now we just need to focus on getting to Kai, right?"

"Yeah. That's one of the things I'm worried about," Kaden frowned. "How many people do you think are going to be after him? I... doubt I could keep everyone from killing him." Frustration filled Kaden's voice. "We started this with Szar, and it's not fair to him -- it's not fair to Kai -- if we don't finish it."

"Fair to Kai?" Sophia withdrew her hand and cocked and furrowed her brow at Kaden. "You're worried about what's fair to Kai?"

"Well, yeah." Kaden seemed almost confused at Sophia's question. "Think of the hell he's put us through. He did whatever he wanted. If we turn around and do the same thing, we're no better than he is."

Sophia leaned back and considered Kaden's words. It looked as though the priestess had something else to say, but either Kaden was misinterpreting her body-language, which was more than likely, or she held her tongue

"Before we worry about Kai, we have to worry about how we're getting to him," Piper reminded them.

"... I'm sorry about that, too."

"Kaden!" Piper barked at her companion. The two locked eyes through the rearview mirror. When the medic spoke again, her voice was surprisingly soft. "Stop blaming yourself."

"But if I had just--"

"What? Saw the trained sniper? Caught his bullet his bullet and saved Trisha? Magically known where her emblem was?" Again the medic's words were harsh, but her tone was not. "You did everything you could. We all did. If we spend what little time we have worry about what 'could' have been and what we 'should' have done, we'll go insane."

Even if the eagle emblem hadn't been destroyed in the blast that seemed to have killed Trisha, or in the blast that destroyed the mall she had been in, it was sitting beneath a pile of rubble that would take months to sift through.

Sophia nodded. "What we need to do now is figure out what to do without that emblem thing. Heh, you could probably just blast down anything in our way, huh?" the priestess asked jokingly.

Though Kaden appreciated the attempt at humor, the comment spread a frown across his face. Sophia had touched upon something that had been bothering Kaden since Kai's little game had become. He didn't dare voice such a concern, and he had only just realized it existed, but it was very present. Shaking his head, Kaden smiled at Sophia and pretended to chuckle.

An awkward silence filled the transport and Kaden had to resist the urge to apologize for setting such a somber atmosphere. He leaned his head against the wall of the vehicle and once more enjoyed the faint warmth of the sun. The courier pushed away his concerns and doubts, if only for a moment, to enjoy the warm feeling. A smile crossed his face as sleep finally claimed him.

"--den..."

The voice was faint.

"Kaden..."

The courier tried to mumble something in response, but it probably didn't come out as more than a grunt.

"Kaden!"

Finally the courier's eyes snapped open. He found himself staring at Sophia, who was shaking him by the shoulders. When he finally blinked in response to his name, the priestess stepped away from him, crouching in the back of the transport, and motioned for him to follow. Kaden slipped out of his seat and watched as Sophia hopped out of the back of the vehicle.

As Kaden hopped out behind her, he was interested to see that their car seemed to be stopped in the middle of a four-lane road in the middle of nowhere. Just about as far as Kaden could see, they were surrounded by surprisingly lush, grassy plains. The view was obscured only by the occasional tree. As Kaden rounded the transport, however, something entirely different met his eyes.

"You snore," Piper teased as Kaden approached his comrades.

"I do not," the courier responded, ingidnantly.

"Oh?" Piper turned to Sophia.

"It was pretty funny," the priestess confirmed.

"Yeah, well, I try." Kaden shot a mock glare at Piper and Sophia before turning the to obstance in front of them.

The road led straight into a tunnel -- or what should have been a tunnel -- that seemed to lead through a single mountain. Instead of a tunnel, however, Piper, Sophia, and Kaden were met by a massive slab of rock. The stone didn't match the rest of the mountain and it seemed split down the middle. On the side of the road, not far from where Piper had parked, was a small pedistal.

Sophia and Piper wandered toward the pedestal while Kaden surveyed the door. Despite his previous concerns, the courier had entertained Sophia's notion of him being able to punch a hole through whatever was in their way. Even if he could Unlock his ki again, though, he doubted he would be able to blow a hole through what amounted to a mountain-side. Giving up on that idea, Kaden joined Piper and Sophia.

The pedestal that they were standing at bore three rounded indentations. In these indentations were intricate carvings of three animals. One was obviously a snake, one looked like a dinosaur of some kind, and the other looked like a bird of prey in mid-dive. Kaden found himself glaring down at the carving as it taunted him. Letting out a frustrated breath, Kaden turned and started back towards their vehicle. The sun's rays were enough that Kaden pulled off his jacket as he approached the still-ajar back door.

Tossing in his jacket, Kaden was about to close up the car when a dull thud stayed his hand. The courier's eyes snapped to his jacket, the source of the sound. Blinking, Kaden nodded as he remembered that he had put Trisha's dagger in his jacket... the dagger that Piper still had. Tilting his head, the courier reached out and plucked up his jacket once more.

Now that he was in a position to scrutize it, it was obvious that there was something in pocket of his jacket. Reaching in, Kaden's hand withdrew a small blue orb. Kaden spent several seconds simply staring at it before he returned it to his jacket pocket. The courier was too dumbfounded to even muss his hair. Instead, he reached into his jacket one more time and withdrew the orb. There was no doubt, the stylized eagle etched inside the orb matched the one on the pedestal.

With a laughter that bordered on an insane cackle, Kaden slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked back to Piper and Sophia. Without saying a word, Kaden stepped between the two women, up to the pedestal, and set the Eagle Emblem in the appropriate indentation. The orb flashed as it settled into the stone.

"Wha..." Sophia turned to Kaden.

"... Is that?" Piper followed Sophia's example.

Kaden turned to his partners with a wide grin on his face. Maybe it was the few minutes of sleep he got, or maybe it was the tiny triumph that they thought had slipped through his fingers, or maybe it was the thought that Trisha actually had helped them. Whatever it was, Kaden felt a rush of... well... as close to euphoria as he had felt in a long time.

"Maybe things are actually starting to look up," Kaden said, trying to sound hopeful.

"Yeah," Piper replied. "I'm sure it'll be nothing but smooth sailing from here on."

Despite the medic's sarcasm, Kaden knew it was foolish to actually expect anything to get easier. While it would be nice, they were inching thier way closer to the mastermind behind all of this with every step they took. Whatever he had in store for them, it would probably be worse than anything else they had faced up to that point. They needed to be ready for it.

[Ashe]

"I'm not cold," Sage whispered quietly.

Ashe couldn't really believe what she was hearing. It had to be below freezing at this point, and yet the blue haired girl was not only showing no acknowledgment to the chill, but her flesh was even a normal color. Peeling her hand from her thinly covered chest again for a moment to thrust her hoodie jacket to Sage, she shook it anxiously. "You have to be, it’s freezing!” she exclaimed, trying to push the jacket down over Sage's head while feeling her cheek with her other hand.

She felt as if someone had snuck up on her and flicked their finger's across her ears in a frozen snow.

Snatching her arm back, she let the jacket fall to the ground to land in the snow gathering at their feet. “I’m... sorry...” was the only thing the girl's emotionless voice said. Ashe was sure that it was a sincere apology, but... The response was almost the same as if it had come from someone talking in their sleep. It was so disconnected from the world that the pink haired girl took in a sharp arctic breath and kneeled down to snatch her jacket back up. Pressing the girl after what had happened to her sister was going absolutely nowhere, and Ashe knew when to just throw in the towel and let someone get their grieving time.

But she couldn't just let Sage freeze to death just because she couldn't get past her sister's death. Ashe was honestly upset as well and felt bad for her, but the girl was refusing all forms of comfort to the point of putting her own well being at risk. Ashe had been there. She couldn't stand watching someone else do this to themselves, not from the outside looking in.

She'd have to hope that Sage would recover before the elements took her.

She pulled the jacket back over her head, unable to take the temperatures any longer herself. “No, it’s okay,” she echoed emptily for Sage's benefit. She leaned back into the frozen over vehicle for a moment to snatch the plugs loose on the GPS system that had been inside of it. “We’ll just have to walk. We’ll have to deal with the cold, somehow, too.”

The other girl gave no response, no acknowledgment, to her friend's words, so Ashe gloomily stuff the tracking system into the pocket of her jacket and reached up, pulling her hair back over her frostbitten ears before pulling the hood over her head, tightening the drawstring until her head was barely visible in the jacket.

Since Sage was being fairly terrible in the conversation department, understandably, Ashe thought back to her mp3 player longingly. Aside from giving her something to listen to other than the increasingly howling winds in the middle of a jungle, which offered neither of the pair any comfort. Though Sage's casual yet somber stroll through the snow could argue differently. Not surprisingly, Ashe had a ton of music on her system that would be appropriate for helping Sage cope with her situation, but the girl had mentioned having her own music at one point, not that Ashe had seen it.

Pushing their way through a group of stiff jungle vines that had frozen hanging down, Ashe snatched her arm back suddenly as a cold snake fell from the tree above to hit the ground before them. She drew in a sharp breath while watching it with a wary eye before realization crept over her.

This snake was dead. Frozen to death. As if to support that, a burst of activity in the distance caught her attention, bringing to sight a large jungle tiger dashing away from the pair in the snow in search of warmer climate.

In the distance they heard a rushing river pounding against the rocks as they approached. Ashe couldn't really tell with the flurries of snow blocking the view of her Eskimo style peephole, but she decided to continue to guide her counterpart through the trees in hopes of finding a bridge to cross the river with. She didn't want to imagine wading through it in this cold.

As soon as she pushed her way through the trees, however, Ashe saw that there was no bridge anywhere in sight. Not only that, but the water itself was rushing fast, too quickly for them to try to swim over. "Sage, we need to go back," she began, reaching out to catch the zoned out girl's arm.

She received no real response as the girl continued her sleep walk forward, dangerously approaching the slowing rapids. "Sage!" Ashe called out loudly, reaching forward before snatching her arm back into her pocket, unable to handle the quickly lowering temperature. "The water is too rough!," she insisted, hoping that the girl would hear her over the screams of the frozen winds.

Lost in her thoughts, the girl wasn't going to stop, Ashe realized as she stood waiting for Sage to notice on her own. Her eyes went wide as she bit down, deciding that she'd have to somehow just deal with the cold to stop her friend. Her movements seemed to slow from just how cold her muscles were, nearly locking up, and panic swept over her as she realized that she was unlikely to reach her in time. "Sage, Sage stop!" she screamed, no longer even able to hear her own voice, so lost to the hungry maw of the arctic gusts that nothing could make a sound over it.

Her eyes stung painfully as a flurry of frozen moisture changed paths, blowing directly into her viewport of her jacket and forcing her to close her eyes and wander forward blindly. "Sage!" she cried as loudly as she could, her voice nearly tearing her throat in desperation.

It was pointless. Sage hadn't heard a word she'd said for a while now, and she would be lost to the river's unforgiving anger. Ashe continued pushing her way forward against the howling blasts, no longer even sure if she was headed the right direction or not.

Cold...

That's all that Ashe could even process at this point. It was so cold. That thought began replacing her friend, blocking it out with her body's own need for survival at this point. Her companion had just lost her sister, and now Ashe was forced to come to grips with the thought that Sage herself might now be lost to the cold. Even worse, the girl was so cut off from life itself at this point that she didn't even seem to realize the wracking pains that her body was going through.

Ashe couldn't even understand how the girl had not collapsed a mile back. The blood through her body should have frozen over by now. But thankfully, that hadn't happened. Continue forward... Keep moving... Don't stop moving or your muscles will lock up faster than you can shake the frost from them.

It wasn't until the wall of ice began to clear up just enough for her to notice a solid rock wall in the distance that she realized that she had somehow passed over the river. How? Even as cold as it was, the river had not frozen over yet, and there was no natural way that it would have frozen so quickly... Her icy blue fingers withdrew a bit to allow her to look at the GPS that she had pulled from the truck. "Lost Temple..." she read on the screen, her lips moving within her jacket but expelling no air. The dot where the ruins were was directly before her, near the stone wall in the distance.

Stuffing the machine back into her jacket, she pressed forward, feeling the chill begin to subside a bit more. It was still extremely cold, but it was warming up at an unnatural rate. The snow at her feet was already turning into slush as she stomped through it at an increasing pace in hopes of getting out of the drift. Her feet guided her down the pathway until she found herself walking towards a pair of stone monolithic statues built in the appearance of sacred animal spirits.

Her breath suddenly caught in her throat as she realized that there was another truck waiting outside of the ruins. Either there were other people here, or Kai himself was waiting for her. She angrily threw down her bag and pulled back around a large tree with it, listening intently as the winds died down. Not only did she hear voices laughing in the distance, giving no sign of maliciousness, she also seemed to have a gut feeling that they were other competitors.

Even still, it was better to be safe. Her hand slipped into her back and slowly pulled a smooth dagger from it, something that she had found left behind where Sebastian had detonated himself when she went to check for the other girl. With her gone, someone would need to protect Sage, and the pink haired girl took that responsibility herself. She'd take any weapon available to give her an advantage. It had been left up to her. I'm sorry Sage... I tried. I failed you, again, she thought grimly, looking back at how she'd lost the girl so quickly.

Pushing herself back to her feet, she strode the pathway with her dagger at her side, keeping her eyes and ears open for anything that might sound like an ambush. As she approached, however, she heard a yell. "Hey! Girl!" a voice called from down the path, causing Ashe to tense up, her fist gripping the dagger tightly. She could barely see them, yet he knew she was a girl already?

Coming closer into view, she saw the figure of the man that had shot at their pursuers back in Olde Towne, nearly saving them if they hadn't been shuttled their by a completely intoxicated old man at the wheel. "You ok?" he called to her, running his fingers through his greasy hair before extending the same hand at her with a dazzling grin. "That freak snowstorm came out of nowhere. It's a good thing you are ok," he continued as she cautiously slid the dagger into her jacket pocket behind the GPS before taking his hand. "I'm Kaden, by the way. I don't think I had a chance to introduce myself before," he apologized, paying no attention to her weapon.

Ashe wrinkled her nose at the dirty laundry smell that wafted off his clothes before returning his smile. He was a bit cute, in his own way, just not the type that she normally pursued. Idiot!, she suddenly chided herself mentally. Sage has wandered off on her own, and suddenly you are thinking about boys.

"I'm Ashe," she responded, wincing a bit when she realized that she'd sounded just a bit overly excited at telling him her name. Hopefully, he didn't take it the wrong way. "I, uh, had a girl with me," she began, pulling back her hand from his and looking around behind her. "Sage. We got separated in that blizzard and I'm worried about her," she voiced sadly.

"Don't worry about it," he comforted, looking over her shoulder before pointing up the trail to the other two women that had been with him. "We'll figure something out in a bit. I'm sure she's ok. We might be better off staying here in case she comes looking for us," he considered, guiding her up the path.

She shook her head in despair. "I doubt it. Her sister, Zena, was killed by the guy we were sent after," she exhaled, biting her lip. "They were very close," she answered honestly, fumbling her hand over the Emblem in her pocket. "I couldn't get her to really talk to me after that. Understandably," she added, glancing back over her shoulder for the girl.

"Understandable," he echoed sincerely. "That's unfortunate. We'll see what we can do to help her," he promised. "By the way, this is Piper and Sophia," he introduced, pointing at each of the girls before them. They both nodded at her as she followed with her own name shyly. Glancing past them, she saw a large pedestal nearly set into a massive slab of rock near what would have been a tunnel entrance.

"Oh," she gasped, pulling the amulet from her pocket. "There's not like, some kind of trap up there or something is there?"

"Not that we know of."

"Good," she confirmed, approaching the pedestal under their careful watch.

Before her lay a large wall of carved imagery on the slab, three guardian spirits having been etched into place upon the stone. Off to one side of the stone was a massive sapphire python, coiled as if ready to strike at any intruders that entered its lair. On the opposite side of the pillar was a large reptilian creature, its teeth flashing angrily in anticipation of anyone foolish enough to awaken it. The fact that this statue was made entirely of a single block of ruby made it worth millions. Above the carved imagery of the same guardians was a jade bird, its enormous wingspan stretching out wide and fierce in an effort to warn them away.

They were beautiful, she thought, taking a deep breath. Each seemed to be solidly carved from a mass of the gemstone of their choice, sparkling in the retuning sun as it melted the glistening snow from them. There was a trio of sockets in the slab before them, each large enough to hold the Emblem that matched the guardian closest to it. She saw that a smooth round orb had already been placed into one of the slots by Kaden's group.

Withdrawing the real Snake Emblem that she'd received from Sebastian before he had... attempted to take them all with him... the girl kneeled down, unsure if she should say a form of ritual or something before setting the amulet into its proper location.

A small light spread around the amulet as it slid down into its resting place, circling the medallion until Ashe realized that there was no longer any actual separation from the symbol of the snake and the rock it had been placed into. She rose back to her feet, unsure of what to expect. Would the guardians come to life and attack them? Would they slide back and reveal a hidden stairwell? Would they simply detonate, leaving Kai to sit on his throne of bones to gleefully count his blood money knowing that no one had survived?

Sage...

Where had that girl gone? A twinge of guilt passed over her as she turned around and walked back to the trio that had been waiting, anxious to know what had happened to her friend. They were talking as she approached, but she walked right up without saying a word, hoping not to interrupt them.

A grumble from Kaden's stomach was soon echoed by her own, leaving the girl to blush and apologize before opening her bag to look inside for a scrap of something to eat. Sage, wherever you are, be strong for me. I know you can be.

[Kaden]

The only sound that filled the air was the sound of Ashe rummaging through her sack for something to eat, if the grumbling of her stomach was to be any indication. Kaden recalled that he and Piper and Sophia had been given rations when they set off to the mall -- along with a map and a compass and all kind of things that would have been useful -- but had been promptly incinerated when Kai felt it necessary to blow up their car.

Kaden's yearning for food was interrupted as Ashe's bag slipped from her fingers. With a frown, the courier watched her pick it up with shaking hands. The color in her fingers was only barely returning, and the remarkable snowstorm in the distance was good evidence of why. To his amusement, Kaden realized he wasn't frowning because he felt bad for her, or that he could sympathize, but simply because he would be so much more comfortable if he didn't care.

"Here," the courier said as he pulled his coat off his shoulders. "You picked a pretty bad outfit for walking through a blizzard."

"Wasn't really planning on it," Ashe replied. She eyed the jacket, then Kaden, for several seconds. The courier couldn't really blame her, he was basically a stranger, afterall.

"See that?" came Piper's voice. Kaden turned to see the medic addressing Sophia. "As soon as a new girl shows up..." she let her voice trail off. It was annoyingly effective.

"Kaden..." Sophia shook her head slowly. "We expected so much better."

The courier turned his head away from his allies, but waited for the blood to drain from his cheeks before turning back to Ashe. The high-schooler was looking between the three other contestants. Clearing his throat, Kaden tossed the jacket at Ashe, who caught it instinctively.

"Yeah, well..." Kaden turned towards Sophia and Piper. "I don't see either of you caught in the snow."

"Looks like we might be," Piper nodded past Kaden as she spoke.

Turning around, Kaden caught sight of the snow that Ashe had trekked through. It definitely looked like it was getting closer, but it was doing so at a fairly slow pace. There wasn't a whole lot that anyone could do about it, though, they were still stuck outside the door to Kai's temple. Either Kai would need to give them another way in, or someone would need to show up with what appeared to be the last emblem.

Kaden was about to turn back to his group when his eyes lit up with ki, seemingly of their own volition. The courier wanted to be surprised by the sudden activation of his Sight, and he wanted to figure out what had triggered it, but he was absolutely dumbstruck by the sight that was spread out before him.

Through the snow-clouds that were creeping across the landscape, the courier could see whisps of light rippling back and forth. As the snow drifted downwards, each flake seemed to shimmer with just the tiniest bit of light flickering within. The sky itself seemed to... sparkle. It was unlike anything the courier had ever seen, and more beautiful sight he could not imagine.

It wasn't until Piper approached Kaden and actually placed her hand on his shoulder that the courier was shaken from the entrancing sight. Left to his own devices, there was no telling how long Kaden would have been content to simply stand and take in the view. When finally the courier turned to face Piper, then medic waved her hand in front of his face, prompting him to blink and recoil slightly.

"You still with us?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Kaden grew suddenly uncomfortable as he realized all eyes were on him. For the moment, at least.

"You've been kinda out of it," Piper explained. "You've just been standing there. Staring at nothing."

"I..." Kaden tilted his head to the side. "How long was I just standing here?"

"Its probably been ten minutes now."

"Oh..." Kaden blinked several times as the light faded from his eyes. "I just kind of zoned out. Just tired, I guess."

Though he had lied, Kaden simply figured it would be easier to pass it off as fatigue instead of trying to explain what it looked like to watch clouds snow light. It didn't even make much sense to him. The courier turned to follow Piper back to the transport vehicle they had used -- presumably, the four women had moved to the vehicle as a measure against the creeping cold -- but stopped in his tracks when the medic's muscles visibly tensed.

Following her stare, Kaden saw what had caused her sudden alarm. Standing several yards off, at the pedestal, was an old man. Turning his head, the man's eyes traveled over Piper, then Kaden, and then moved to their vehicle. Kaden noticed his hand hovering only inches from the pedestal, something gripped tightly within. Before anyone even had a chance to speak, the man released his grip and dropped the Raptor Emblem into its rightful place.

Light flashed through the Raptor Emblem as it had with the Eagle and Snake Emblems not too long ago. This time, however, light also flashed through the three ornate animals upon the massive stone door. Despite the appearance of this old man, Piper and Kaden turned their attention to the stone as it slowly rose into the mountainside it had been carved into. Stepping out of the car, Sophia and Ashe joined everyone else in simply staring as their path was slowly cleared.

In spite of all the downright psychotic things that Kai had thrown at the contestants of his little game, Kaden never would have imagined that they would be staring into a city built beneath a mountain. On the other side of the door, buildings stretched out and people began filling the street. Those behind the door seemed just as surprised as those that had opened it.

Kaden wasn't sure who began moving first -- it might even have been him for all he could remember -- but suddenly realized that the five contestants that had gathered were pretty much moving into the town in a line. Eyes were fixed firmly upon them as they moved forward.

In the back of his mind, Kaden wondered why they hadn't simply used the transport vehicle that they found back at the mall. It probably wouldn't matter, though, given their track record with vehicles over the course of the game.

As he continued forward, Kaden was amazed at what he saw. Shops, houses, bars, restaraunts, even an overly elaborate hotel were all spread out before them. It was yet another testament to the resources that Kai had available. As far as cities went, this one was pretty small, but that didn't make it any less impressive.

"This is..." Kaden tried to think of an appropriate word.

"Impressive," someone offered.

"Yeah." Kaden couldn't keep himself from scanning the storefronts. "I mean... food, drinks, clothes. Maybe even a shower, god forbid."

"You could use one," Piper quiped.

"Y'know what," Kaden turned to Piper in mock anger. When the medic gestured towards the crusting zombie vomit on his shirt, however, he simply sighed. "Yeah... I know."

It had only taken a few minutes before the street had cleared of the curious townsfolk. The quintet of contestants was left to their own devices once more. As he eyed a clothing store only a few feet away, Kaden reached into his pocket and grinned as his hand touched upon his wallet.

"I'm going to get a change of clothes," Kaden told his companions as he took off towards the store.

The courier felt kind of wasteful discarding clothes he had picked up not too long ago. Unfortunately, Piper had been correct in confirming the courier's odor. As he stepped into the small clothing store, the cashier did a double-take. Had Kaden looked as dishelved as he felt, he would have found the reception curious.

It didn't take long for Kaden to pick out an outfit; he wasn't looking for anything original. Pants, shirt, belt, socks, shoes and even a jacket similar to his own were pulled from the shelves of the store. Dumping armful of clothing in front of the cashier -- the courier wasn't about to waste time trying everything on -- Kaden began reaching for his wallet.

"Don't worry about paying," the cashier said as Kaden extended a card forward. "It's taken care of."

"Taken care of?" Kaden repeated.

"You're Kaden, right?"

The cashier pointed towards a piece of paper that had been pinned to a bulliten board behind him. On it were six pictures, each one identified by their name. Kaden glazed over the ones he already knew, but was interested to find out Oliver's name, as well as put a face to the "Sage" that Ashe had mentioned earlier.

"Anyway, Mr. Demolic is covering any expenses for you guys," the cashier informed him.

"Riiiiight..." Kaden had to remind himself that Kai was the source of his problems, not this guy behind the counter. "Well... isn't that nice of him?" With that newfound knowledge, Kaden grabbed a package of boxers off of a rack behin him and tossed them onto the counter.

"Sure is," the cashier continued. "Had all of this built for the people who couldn't leave the island. Said there was going to be some kind of... game or something. I dunno the details."

"You don't want to," Kaden replied.

Shooting his customer an odd look, the cashier tossed Kaden's clothes in a bag and pushed it towards him. Happy to be outside the company of anyone who was pro-Kai, Kaden took the bag and quickly swept out of the store. His companions hadn't gone too far from the store. As he approached, Kaden turned his attention towards the older man.

"Oliver!" He called out. Instinctively, the man turned at the sound of his name. "Just checking," Kaden smiled. "I'm Kaden."

After exchanging a short greeting, Kaden pleasantly informed the rest of his group about Kai's "generousity" and suggested that they pick up anything they wanted. Kaden himself was more than a little excited to check out the hotel. He hoped they would offer him a room, at least long enough to shower and clean himself up.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm definitely planning on changing and getting some food. Anyone want to join me?" Kaden turned to the rest of his group.

"Join you changing?" Sophia cocked an eyebrow at the courier.

"Yeah... ok. Walked into that one." Kaden shook his head. "I meant food. Thought it might be a nice change of pace to do something that didn't involve us all being shot at." Kaden pointed to a restaraunt that was situated across the street from the hotel he was planning on visiting. "Anyway, that's where I'll be in about... 45. Anyone is welcome to join."

With a smile and a wave, Kaden took off towards the hotel, change of clothes in hand. Fortunately, Kai's hospitality extended to the hotel. Kaden didn't even have to say a word. As he approached the check-in counter, he was handed a keycard and told "his room" was on the fourth floor. In the elevator, Kaden turned the card over in his hand, amused that instead of a room number, it simply had his name printed on it.

The keycard, however, turned out to be fairly accurate. There were only six rooms on the fourth floor, and each one bore the name of a contestant on it's door. Unlocking the door to his room, Kaden edged his way in and looked around. It was far more than he expected.

The room's door opened into a living space, furnished with a couch, several chairs, and an impressive home entertainment center. To the left, the room opened into a small kitchenette, while the right directed Kaden to the bedroom. Kaden wandered through the room, stopping in the bedroom and tossing his bag on the bed.

In the master bath, Kaden stripped off his clothes and ended up simply tossing them into a nearby garbage can. Turning on the shower, Kaden stepped in almost immediately. The courier winced against the sudden cold of the water, but felt all the more relaxed as it slowly warmed up. As the water's temperature plateaued, Kaden reached out and turned it even higher. When finally he pulled his hand from the dial, the water almost burned.

Closing his eyes, the courier tried to image the water's searing touch washing away the horrors that he had seen and the atrocities he had committed. Kaden knew that, in the grand scheme of things, a single life meant next to nothing, but he also knew that it was a life that he had taken.

The moment replayed itself in his mind over and over. There was the soldier stepped around the corner. There were Kaden and Piper, in the middle of Olde Town. He had acted without thinking and struck without holding back. Cloaked behind the cerulean light of his blast, Kaden had never even seen the soldier's face. As he thought back, Kaden wasn't even sure whether it had been a man or a woman.

Dropping to his knees, Kaden buried his face in his hands, grateful to be alone for the first time in the past several days. Piper and Sophia had been invaluable companions, and without Piper's consolation, Kaden was sure he would be lying dead in Olde Town, but there were things he wouldn't have wanted anyone to see no matter how close he felt to them.

As the water beat down on him, Kaden tried to choke down the sobs as they swelled up in his throat. He wasn't even sure whether or not he was crying, though he definitely felt like it. He wasn't sure how long he sat on the floor of the shower, how long he sat wishing he could turn back time.

Kaden hated his own strength. The powers he had were good for nothing but inflicting pain and destruction. How he envied Sophia. She could actually breath life into those that suffered under the power of people like Kaden. If he couldn't keep himself in check, if he couldn't act with proper restraint, Kaden's power would do nothing but bring more pain and fill his thoughts with more faceless deaths.

When finally the courier climbed to his feet, he was out of the shower and dried off within minutes. He had taken the time to wash his body twice, and his hair more times than he bothered to count. As he stood, staring at himself in the mirror, though, he suddenly found himself, towel in hand, scrubbing furiously at the scar on his chest. Anger welled within the courier. Anger at himself for being so weak, anger at Kai for throwing him into this whole stupid game, anger at the others who had already lost for their willingness to main and kill.

Before the anger could come full circle to tears, Kaden dropped his towel and simply let his arm fall to his side. Staring, disgustedly as himself in the mirror, Kaden took in a deep breath and as he exhaled, he felt everything being slowly pushed back in his mind. A familiar detatched emptiness filled the courier's thoughts as he continued slowly, measured breathes. In only a few moments, Kaden found himself able to smile once more, though it would be a few minutes more before the disgust left his eyes.

Padding into the bedroom, Kaden made short work of changing into fresh clothes. It was as though he was wearing clean clothes for the first time since he could remember. It was amazing how refreshing the feeling of clean cloth against clean skin could feel. In minutes the courier found himself walking out the front door of the hotel. If the clock in his room was to be trusted, it had only taken him fourty-two minutes.

"Alright..." Kaden spoke to himself, "let's see what everyone's up to."

[Sage]

A whiteout. A sudden, intense flurry of snow that completely obscures the vision of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in one. Sage created one deliberately, to blind her friend as she disappeared into the freezing jungle.

That was almost an hour ago. She felt bad for having abandoned her friend, especially after everything Ashe had done for her, but the cold would have killed her, and Sage couldn’t handle yet another death on her conscience. Especially not Ashe’s. She tilted her head, and frowned. Reaching up, her fingertips brushed the icy surface and gently smoothed out a slight imperfection.

The blue haired girl stepped back and paused to gaze at her handiwork. Near a mountain range, she had found a nice, secluded cliff that faced opposite the mountain, across a valley. Upon that cliff, Sage had created a life-sized replica from crystal-clear ice of her sister, in only a few minutes, accurate to the slightest detail.

The hardest part was the hair. Crafting each individual wisp had taken some focus, but the translucent, monochrome statue was perfect. The frozen Zena looked out at the mountains, wearing an expression of neutrality, only slightly tinged by despair. Sage looked at it for a long time, her eyes roving about, searching for something.

This was why Sage had come here. This was why she had abandoned Ashe. Sage’s twin deserved a memorial, and the azure haired girl had been determined to fabricate one. And it was spectacular.

The split-second of satisfaction quickly fell away to the crushing reality of her situation, but soon, even her numbness gave way to anger. The statue mocked her. Zena was dead and yet the statue stood triumphant, its unblinking eyes sparkling with sinister mirth. The simulacrum wouldn’t bring Zena back. All it did was make a mockery of who she was.

With a growl of rage, the hybrid punched the frosty statue in the forehead. With a sharp crack, a series of tiny fractures formed a spider’s web on its face. The statue looked better this way. Imperfect, like the artist who had created it. The comfort that it no longer precisely resembled her sister was irrational, and Sage knew that, but she didn’t care.

The diminutive girl turned to follow her frozen sister’s gaze, just in time to see a bright light in the distance. A dull rumble filtered through the groan of the arctic winds swirling all around her. Sage drew her gun, and started walking. Ashe was where that light was, and for once, the quarter-saiyan would protect the pink haired girl, and not the other way around.

By the time she had finally scaled down the rocky hills to where the light had been, the nearby river had completely frozen over, and deep drifts of snow blanketed the area. But the distinctive shape of the abandoned military vehicle and the enormous hole in the side of the mountain hadn’t been lost on Sage. With her gun still in her grip, and now covered in a layer of frost, she headed into the maw, and nearly tripped over her own feet when she saw what awaited her within.

“A... a city?!” she exclaimed. It wasn’t big, but it mirrored the hustle and bustle of a real population center. Sage was convinced these had to be real people, but the pessimist in her couldn’t shake the possibility that this was all an extremely elaborate ruse. The logistics of employing that many actors was impossible, but Kai had managed to form all kinds of absurd situations so far. Money and resources were not ever beyond him, it seemed.

Sage glanced over her shoulder, staring at the cliffs in the distance, where her statue was. She couldn’t see it anymore, but she knew it was there. Her cracked-face Zena statue, watching over her with an aura of sadness and fatigue.

People scattered away from the icy girl in all directions, hugging themselves against the frigid wind and snow. Sage frowned, and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, and exhaled slowly, relaxing her muscles as she did so. She repeated the process a few times, and the intensity of the snowstorm seemed to wane. The big fluffy flakes kept flitting about, but the severity of the winds had lessened considerably.

There wouldn’t be any snow if I still had my pills... she thought bitterly, heading down the sloping path into the little borough. Her coral eyes shifted back and forth, uneasily watching the townspeople whose stares burned into her as she continued her uncomfortable trek. Her increasing unease corresponded with a sudden gust of wind, but it settled after a moment, as Sage went through her breathing exercises again. She must have looked ridiculous, walking with her eyes closed, exhaling through her mouth, clad in tattered clothes in a snowstorm inside an underground city, but that’s how she looked when she collided with a man who had been looking at her - or rather, through her, at the snow all around her - the whole time.

Sage’s eyes flicked open to see, to her dismay, that she hadn’t walked into a remarkably squishy wall, but a man with horrifying, glowing eyes. Her blood ran cold and goose bumps were suddenly crawling all over her skin. The swirling snow abated a moment, as if waiting to see what would happen. The frightening glow left the blond man’s irises, but he seemed no less menacing, somehow. The hybrid was surprised to see the resemblance in his eyes to her own. She had thought that she was unique as a result of her... deficiency.

- - - -

“So... what does that mean?” the voice growled, having grown intensely impatient. The doctor took a step back, already terrified of the demeanor of the cyan haired King. He was just telling her what was happening, but he knew the phrase ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ didn’t always apply to angry nobility.

“It... it means that...” the doctor’s voice was shaky with fear. Bra had proven to be a powerful ruler, with a reputation for her quick temper. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. “Sage’s... condition is something we’ve never dealt with before. It... it doesn’t even have a name to describe it, it-” he cut himself off with a sigh. “Your Highness, I regret to inform you... that...” he swallowed hard, terrified his next words would cost him his life. “Sage, as far as we can tell, suffers from some kind of deficiency. We think it could be hereditary, but we’re not really sure-”

“Get to the point,” the irate mother’s voice hissed, a twinge of fear obviously apparent in her voice.

“We don’t quite know how, but while she possesses ki, the standard mechanisms to manipulate it... just aren’t there. It has nowhere to flow, so it’s stagnant,”

“You mean, she’ll never be able to-”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” the doctor interrupted. He knew she understood what he meant, and it was unnecessary - and dangerous - to dwell on the painful news. He shouldn’t even have been the one to deliver the news anyway; he was a doctor, not some kind of expert on the usage of ki.

Little Sage had been watching the conversation the whole time, and, admittedly, didn’t really know what her mom and the doctor were talking about, but she understood the tears in her mom’s eyes, and they made her afraid. “Mommy? What's a deficiency?” the five-year-old finally interjected, but her mother seemed even more distraught when Sage tried to talk to her. “Please don’t cry...”

- - - -

Actually, the eyes had nothing to do with her ‘deficiency.’ But she’d never seen anyone else with them and had long ago decided she had such a bizarre eye color as a result of her inability to use ki. Her logic as a child seemed so absolute.

“Sage, right?” the man whose eyes could glow suddenly inquired. His voice seemed far too amicable for him to be one of Kai’s hired killers, but she had to be suspicious - Zena would expect nothing less. Her hand tightened around her freezing gun, and she said nothing. The snow began to pick up. “You’re doing this, huh?”

The crystal haired girl still said nothing, prompting a sigh from the courier, who ran a hand through his hair. “You know,” he continued. “That’s pretty cool. How does it work? Do you just... think and it happens, or do you have to...?” his expression crinkled into one of slight frustration. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Must be pretty awesome to be able to just go ‘blah’ and then there’s snow all over the place.”

“I...” Sage began, dumbstruck by this blond person. She said nothing but he just kept talking. “You’re...” she fell silent.

“Oh!” Kaden hadn’t responded for a while because the hybrid hadn’t phrased her last word as a question, throwing the courier off somewhat. “I’m Kaden, I guess I’m one of Kai’s lucky contestants,” he added, with a heavy smattering of sarcasm. “There’s a few more of us here, too. Rough-looking pink-haired girl was looking for-”

“Ashe?” Sage interrupted. “She’s safe?”

“Uh... yeah,” came the reply. “Last I saw her, anyway. Doesn’t look like much is happening here. I guess even Kai can decide to not be a gigantic prick once in a while,” Kaden shivered suddenly, and tried to rub some warmth into his arms while retaining a casual demeanor. It didn’t work. “You’re not cold?” he inquired.

Sage didn’t say anything, she just looked away. Kaden looked her over. She was wearing a badly tattered sweater and a pair of torn blue jeans, and seemed totally at ease in the harsh temperature. He supposed the question didn’t really need an answer.

“Well, listen,” he continued. “Most of us split up to go find clothes and to shower, and stuff. That hotel,” he pointed to a building not far away. “Is set up for us, apparently. All the shops in town are free for us,” Kaden shrugged. “There’s clothing and stuff. We’re all meeting up at that restaurant in a few minutes,” he paused to gesture to another building. “I guess I can hold off a bit if you wanna grab some stuff and meet up with us.”

On the surface, Sage was excited at a chance to finally be able to wash off all the horrible filth that had accumulated on her, especially from her time in that awful sewer. But internally, she felt she would somehow betray Zena by indulging in even simple comforts after she had been killed because of Sage’s inaction.

Still, Zena only wanted what was best for her, and Sage was still determined to face Kai for the atrocities he’d committed. Fine, she projected, unaware of Kaden’s startled expression, as she had turned away. “...Okay, I’ll... try to be quick...”

And with that, she was gone.

Sage had found a women’s clothing store and, despite the clerk’s chagrin at the snow which whirled about in his shop, spent a few minutes picking out what she thought was a beautiful outfit, before she slipped into one of the changing rooms.

The blue haired girl emerged, clad in a tight-fitting, short-sleeved, dark blue kimono with a floral print in a lighter blue. She was uncomfortable with the extraordinarily high slit in the fabric, which ran all the way up to her hip, but she had to admit it made it a lot easier to move around in, despite showing off a lot of leg. She compromised by covering her legs with a pair of thigh-high, black stockings, and had found a comfortable pair of shoes to replace her ruined ones, and hastily fixed her hair into pig tails with a new pair of black bows.

The idea of a shower seemed marvelous, but she knew she couldn’t. In this state, she would freeze the taps. Sage frowned, and considered trying it anyway, despite the fact she knew it was hopeless. The plumbing would burst and people would scream at her.

Dejected, Sage walked out of the store, too preoccupied to even thank the clerk, and trudged atop the snow toward the restaurant Kaden had pointed out. On the walk over, she couldn't help but wonder... how many survivors were there left?

[Jesper]

For the first time in a very long time, Sophia found herself alone.

And again, she took Kaden’s cue to go change. The selection at the clothing store in the abandoned mall left a little something to be desired, and anything that didn’t look like it came from the 70’s, or at least looked decent, had small tears and holes in them that made the priestess apprehensive to wear them. Such was the case of the pink skirt that she had chosen for herself to replace her old one—it had a slight tear up the seam that made her blush. Actually, she had no idea what was keeping the thing together in the first place. She considered herself lucky that it didn’t fall apart in the presence of the male courier—she would never, ever live that one down.

She breathed a small sigh as she slid on the last article of clothing. It was an odd change of pace to be sure—to be slashed and hacked at all in lieu of a self-destructing mall, then suddenly…nothing. She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder as she left the changing area; just a glance behind to see if there wasn’t one of Kai’s lackeys lying in wait. She had done this several times throughout the game, and usually there wasn’t anybody there. But if, by a stroke of chance, one were to be there…Sophia smirked at the thought—he would be sorry. Closing the door behind her, she spotted someone that she never thought she would see again.

“Sage!” she called out, hoping to stop the blue-haired before she walked out the door. However, it didn’t seem as though she heard her—at least Sophia hoped that to be the case. She walked past the counter a bit as the store clerk disappeared into the depths of the back room, leaving a child there unattended. Sophia failed to even notice him for a bit as he pulled open the drawer and started fumbling around the items within. The priestess chose the exact moment when the boy pulled out a revolver and started playing around with it to look. The blood rushed out of her face as she reached out quickly to stop the child.

“No! Stop!” Sophia was lucky that she even got those words out in her haste. However, the child had already tightened his squeeze on the trigger. Sophia bumped the gun lightly as she reached out, and the barrel miraculously—no, Sophia no longer believed in miracles—luckily was moved to his shoulder. The bullet spun out and hit the poor boy, blood splattering on the counter and the wall behind him. The healer jumped over the counter as the boy started wailing in pain. She looked around for something to cover the wound with; she snapped her fingers lightly as she spotted one of the towels folded neatly on a shelf. Tearing it in strips, she covered the bullet wound and put pressure on it, trying her best to zone out his piercing screams.

The clerk ran out and shrieked in horror. “You shot him!”

Sophia looked up at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? You left a gun in an unlocked drawer in a room with a child in it. You practically asked for him to shoot himself.”

She started to panic. The priestess had healed larger wounds, even recently, but using her power too freely meant trouble if her allies were to depend on it later on. Could she risk weakening herself to heal the boy? Kaden assured her that he could “recharge” her whenever she needed it, but it was a possibility that he wouldn’t be around forever. She needed to display some sense of discipline. However, the boy’s screaming—accompanied by the clerk’s constant sobbing—swayed her into placing a hand on the child’s shoulder.

“You’ll just have to be brave for me, okay?” she smiled at him warmly, her hand glowing a dull green the wound began to heal. “Shh. You’ll be alright.”

The wound shrunk into a small scar in a short amount of time. Sophia probably could have done more to make that disappear, too, but that would be wasteful. The wound no longer posed any threat to his livelihood, and although it still probably stung, most of the pain had likely vanished based on the child’s change in mood. Sophia sighed and sat down from her kneeling position and rested against the back of the counter.

“Oh, thank you! Thank God!” the clerk’s sobbing grew worse, though the feelings behind them changed.

“Heh…” Sophia’s relieved smile disappeared. “Well, hopefully you realize the danger of—…” she stopped talking immediately upon seeing the boy grab the gun again. “You have to be kidding me!”

The clerk gasped and snatched the weapon away, smacking the boy in the back of the head with her other hand. She opened the drawer, practically threw it in there—Sophia suddenly realized where the boy got his stupidity with weapons from—and locked it swiftly. Grabbing the child by the wrist, she led him to the back room and pushed him inside. Before she followed, she turned around to look at Sophia.

“Do you work at a temple somewhere?” she asked hesitantly.

“How…how did you know?” Sophia raised an eyebrow.

“You’re wearing a cross, for one thing,” she pointed at the necklace that the priestess wore, prompting her to hide in under her shirt. “And…I don’t know. I’ve always heard of those God-fearing people healing people in the name of their savior.”

“I…I did. Once, before I came…here,” Sophia explained. “Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I have no savior, no higher calling,” the healer turned to the door and opened it, taking a step out before saying one more thing behind her shoulder. “You make your own luck, miss. I would keep that drawer locked from now on.”

She closed the door before the lady had a chance to respond. Turning around, Sophia surveyed the town. Sage had probably already trekked to the restaurant, where Kaden had offered to meet them for a peaceful meal. As she started her walk to the building herself, Sophia could only hope that it would remain that way.

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Wow,” Piper muttered as she slowly made her way down the cobblestone road. As she progressed forward, her eyes were continually scanning the myriad buildings that lined both sides of the pathways. “I wish I had enough spare money to fritter away on stupid thinks like building cities inside of mountains,” the redhead remarked to herself as she came to a stop in front of a small clothing outlet.

Shrugging her shoulders, Piper ascended the small set of stone stairs and made her way through the open doorway. As she walked into the store, she quickly realized that she had become the center of attention for the small number of people milling about in the boutique. Fortunately for the medic, she excelled at ignoring people, and with a stoic look of indifference upon her dirty, haggard features, she strolled right to the rear of the store.

“Just great,” Piper found herself mumbling as she scanned the ranks and circular stands of clothes. The vast majority of the store’s apparel consisted of grotesquely short shorts, shirt without backs or midriffs, or blouses cut so low down the chest that Piper had to wonder how anyone could ever accrue the audacity necessary to wear one in public. “Whores R’ Us,” the woman sighed as she pushed aside a row of skimpy t-shirts and pivoted to leave the store; however, when she turned around, there was an overly cheery woman staring right at her.

“May I help you?” The shop attendant asked as she flashed Piper the most unnaturally white set of teeth she had ever seen.

“I’m just browsing,” the medic mumbled as she tried to slowly make her way around the smiling woman. With each tense step that Piper took to escape, the woman tilted her head to follow her—never once losing that Cheshire grin from her face. “Thanks you, though,” Piper added tensely as she sprung forward. She managed to get two steps before she bumped into another smiling store worker.

“Was this what you were shopping for?” The second woman asked as she produced a full set of military fatigues from behind her back. The outfit was exactly the same as the one Piper was wearing, even down to the buttons and the stitching design. With a look of mild horror on her face, the medic reached out an accepted the heavy-duty hanger upon which the cheery attendant had hung the outfit.

“T-t-thank you,” Piper mumbled as she quickly began to scan the store for the changing rooms.

“They’re right over there,” the woman in front of the redhead chimed as she pointed one of her unsightly long, acrylic fingernails toward a row of small cubicles that lined the other side of the store. With a nod of her head, Piper quickly sprinted away from the pair of workers and made a direct bee-line toward the changing stands. As she ran, she could hear the click-clack of the women’s’ high heels behind her.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Piper muttered frantically as she slipped through the door and latched it shut behind her. With a sigh of relief, the medic plopped down onto the long, wall-mounted plastic seat that lay along the right wall of the room. In front of the woman was a larger mirror that took up the entire wall. “Do I really look like that?” The medic whispered despondently as she ran a hand through her mangled, unkempt hair.

It’s a wonder Kaden’s kept you along for this long. A voice within the woman’s subconscious remarked. You must look like an old, dilapidated crone compared to Sophia or those other girls.

“Oh shut up,” Piper said with a groan as she let her head loll back against the cool wall of the changing room. For a moment, the woman just sat there and listened to the soft sounds of breathing that filled the room. And then, suddenly, the redhead realized that something about all that soft, subtle noise wasn’t altogether right. “Wait a moment,” she muttered as she momentarily stopped breathing. For a second, there was nothing, and then Piper realized that someone was still breathing.

Rolling her head and upper body forward, the woman turned her attention to the door of the changing room. The flap-like plastic doorway was similar to one that someone would find in a bathroom, where it didn’t reach all the way to the ground. A knot began to form in the woman’s stomach as she slowly leaned forward, until she could see beneath the door. She continued to lower her head until she found herself face-to-face with both of the shop’s attendants, who were still smiling their excessive smiles.

“May we help you with anything, ma’am?” They asked in unison as the color drained from Piper’s countenance.

“Fucking fuck shit!” Piper screamed violently as she reared away from the door and slammed loudly against the back wall of the changing room. “Get me a brush and some nail paint,” the medic shouted as she tried to contain her urges to kick the door down and strangle both of the horrifyingly creepy women to death.

“Anything you would like, ma’am,” they replied as Piper listened to the clicking of their heels upon the linoleum floor grow further and further away until silence once again reigned the tiny room.

With the utmost urgency, Piper quickly shed her burned, bloodied clothing and tossed them over the top of the changing area. Once she was down to her undergarments, the medic proceeded to dress herself in the new set of fatigues. By the time the clerks returned with a brush, Piper had just finished buttoning her shirt and was swiftly lacing up her boots.

“Thank you,” the redhead said as she reached down and took the brush from the perfectly manicured hand. Even after the clerk had pulled her hand back from inside the room, Piper noted that both of them were still standing right outside the door.

I hate you, Kai Demolic. Piper assured herself mentally as she ran the brush through her unkempt head of hair. After thirty of so passes, the woman was content enough that she tossed the comb onto the sitting ledge and proceeded to tie her hair into ponytail.

“I think I’m done in here,” the medic said out loud as she smiled at her reflection. Although she still needed to shower (or at least clean her face), Piper was confident that she didn’t look quite as disheveled and grimy as she had ten minutes prior.

“Why yes…yes you are, ma’am,” the two women spoke in tandem as Piper heard a pair of soft clicks. With a frown on her face, the redhead teleported from the room just as it was ripped apart by a hail of bullets. Back outside the small cubicle, Piper materialized back into existence and grabbed both of the women by the sides’ of their heads.

“Thanks for giving me an excuse to do this,” she muttered as she smacked the two heads of the women together. A beat later, Piper relinquished her grip and let the unconscious attendants collapse into piles on the linoleum floor. “I’ll take these as well,” the medic muttered as she collected the two Uzis that were now lying on the ground. After clicking off the guns’ safeties, Piper tucked them between her belt and her pants.

“I need to shower,” the woman muttered as she turned away from the two fallen women and casually made her way through the boutique.

[Ashe]

The town was nothing short of amazing. It was like some kind of hidden secret world in a Tim Burton film, living and breathing as if entirely unaware of the events taking place outside of its own domain. The people here looked rather ordinary. Most of them even appeared to be entirely human, but Ashe had learned not to trust appearances there as fact.

It was a lot to take in, but as the absolute fatigue of their previous events washed over her, her body had no choice but to relax itself. Her surroundings were eerie, but only due to the circumstance of their hidden existence. There was nothing that openly seemed to deny the sincerity of the city. Uneasiness was beginning to affect even her everyday life, she realized, given that she was now in what appeared to be an everyday ordinary city, an environment that she should thrive in, and yet she was looking over her shoulder at ever shadow that moved in fear that the inhabitants would change to goblins in the nonexistent moonlight.

Kai had affected them all, to the core, it seemed, regardless of how much they had fought against it. Everyone who had been brought here would be forever different from the experience. They had all just been ordinary people, lacking the desire of taking another person's life, mostly denying the need to watch the shadows for predators, and just worrying about the "important" things, such as making it into the right college after graduating in order to not be seen as the family failure in the grand scheme of things.

Now survival skills had become a priority for all of them, Ashe realized as she found herself absently fondling the sync dagger within her jacket pocket. Her thoughts had already frequently flickered over the times that she'd trained with her grandfather in self defense. At this point, completing that training was looking like a fair idea, whereas before she had dismissed the thoughts from the perspective of it being something that she doubted would ever need to come into play unless she joined the military. But now, feeling so absolutely helpless, as if God himself was throwing lightning at a crowd and the only thing keeping her safe was the odds that another equally terrified human being would have their flame snuffed out by the strikes instead of her. It had been nothing more than pure luck and the odds favoring her.

There were now only six.

Far fewer than had first been brought onto the island. Ashe recalled that before, when they had first arrived at that angel statue, being told that another group of six was hunting them. And upon meeting that group, it was discovered that there was a third group beyond that hunting all of them. Lies built upon lies.

The chimes to the doors woke her up as she pushed her way through the entrance to the clothing shop. Immediately, the attendant glanced up at the girl and then at a picture of Ashe that was hanging on the wall behind her. "Looks like you'll be needing some new clothes before going back into public," the young woman suggested, leaning back in her chair to return to filing her nails.

"I don't... have any money," Ashe responded sadly, looking at herself in a nearby full body mirror. Her pink hair that she'd been so proud of was soaked in dried brown and red blood. Her own blood, she realized. Her makeup had been smeared long ago, leaving her with the effect of one of many dark gothic art images that she'd found on the internet. To help this effect, her new dress and jacket were shredded, embarrassingly revealing a bit more of her chest than she would have desired.

The seeping red tint of blood pervaded her entire skin tone from the back of her skull down to her ankles, betraying that she had been lying in a pile of her own entrails and blood for some time. She looked almost barbaric, she realized, knowing that if she had passed herself on the street in her current state with her wickedly curved new dagger, she'd probably shit herself twice and run the other way.

The attendant, on the other hand, simply shrugged and jabbed a finger towards the clothing racks. "Don't really need any, Ashe," she responded, not noting the girl's jump in posture as her name was called. "Mr. Demolic has already cleared it up with most of the town. You six are supposed to receive full VIP treatment over your stay here, as well as getting anything you buy credited to his account. I've seen some pretty odd things before, but I'm guessing that you guys must be very important to him," she mentioned, before sitting up straight. "Oh, just between us, since he's willing to pay full price for anything you guys buy, the town has coincidently increased its prices on a lot of things for entirely unrelated reasons. If you want to buy some stuff and have it shipped to your home, we can arrange that as well," she hinted, winking at Ashe.

"You mean shopping spree?"

The woman nodded. "Exactly what I would mean if I were to hope to get ahead on my sales plan a bit," she said cryptically.

Ashe didn't need to be told twice. Within fifteen minutes she was back up at the counter with four attendants helping her push multiple full carts to the checkout. This store had had some good stuff, she noticed. Jack Skeleton hoodies, some awesome hardcore shirts of styles she hadn't seen before, even some Hello Kitty underwear. The pink haired girl herself had already changed into a pair of ordinary jogging pants and a light shirt, pulling a heavier jacket from the pile to throw on over it.

"Cash or credit?" the woman joked before the other employees pushed the carts towards a back room. "Why'd you buy all that and then turn around wearing what you are, anyways?" she inquired.

The girl shrugged, glancing at herself in the mirror. She did look fairly ordinary and boring at the moment, despite the caked on remnants of battle still covering her. "That stuff's pleasure, and this stuff is business," she explained. "I think this stuff will be a bit more efficient for what we have to do. Don't really feel like being caught in another snow storm unprepared, you know?"

Nodding, the attendant pointed at a nearby map on the wall. "Hey, here's a copy of that for you," she informed her, reaching under the counter to pull out a nearly forgotten pamphlet. "There's a hotel nearby if you want to go rest a bit and clean up. Between you and me, though, there's a fairly nice hot springs style bathhouse in the west district if you want to head there. Normally that place is packed, but Mr. Demolic made specific arrangements for the best location to be kept clear for you six," she noted, wrinkling her nose in jealousy.

A nice bath sounded like a good idea, Ashe realized. "I'll keep that in mind," she mentioned, thanking the woman before heading in the direction of the bath house.

---

Steam clouded the girl in vaporous rapture as she descended into the fiery waters. It was amazing, the type of feeling that she'd unknowingly longed for since he arrival at the island. With all the snows and killing, having the chance to both warm up as well as cleanse the putrid aroma of death from her young teenage body was long awaited. She slipped down into the cloudy waters and let out a sigh of relief, the sweat leaving her pores being able to expel the disgusting toxins that had built up within her system as well as to release any bad energy that may have built up.

The waters washed over her body from the Asian inspired hotsprings, leaving her to drift into a wondrous sleep. It was the hard, cold, metallic click that awoke her. Her eyes snapped awake to notice a large squadron of soldiers standing around the pool as the coils of mist from the water moved back to reveal them.

She panicked, immediately slipping further towards the center of the waters in an attempt to climb from the other side, but only feeling a cold hard boot dig into her back as she did. Helpless, cornered, and unable to get away. That was the feelings that passed over her as she turned, looking from one faceless killer to the next while trying to cover her naked form with her arms. Her dagger and everything was with her clothing, which was no longer within her reach.

"We've located the final survivor," a soldier announced into his radio. "The other five have been executed. Shall we proceed to eliminate the sixth?" he asked in a cold and emotionless monotone.

Receiving confirmation over the radio, the surrounding soldiers leveled their guns to face down at her in unison, the red light trails from their scopes leaving her body covered in blotches of color similar to the blood before it. "Sage and the others... are dead?" she whispered. It was a shock to her, something she was finding hard to process. They couldn't be dead. Something in her gut still felt their presence nearby, as if she was able to know where they were. Sage was right here in town, her mind reasoned.

"The bitch squirmed the most as we held her down and choked the life from her. She cried her sister's name out right after your name. Right before Mr. Demolic himself slipped the blade through her ribs and cut out her heart," the faceless man informed her through harsh and venemous words.

Ashe took a deep breath, fighting down the anger and fear that was building within her. She could feel it, the very life flowing throughout each and every one of them as if she herself were connected with the tides of spiritual energy within them. Sage and the others... They were still alive, somewhere, she knew it. Her eyes flashed with rapid bursts of ki as her powers attempted to fully awaken. They were out there. "You... liar!" she growled, the vapors closing in like a curtain to hide the figures once more.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," a new voice among the crowd laughed. The man spread his arms as if bowing before an opera, taking notice as the steam created shrouds spread to accommodate his foreboding presence. He rose to his full stature before pulling tightly to adjust a glove on one of his hands. "Did you know that I saved her till the very end, after forcing her to watch as I slaughtered each of her friends one by one? Yes, she cried as I later showed her the video footage of her sister's death repeatedly," he mentioned, leaving Ashe trembling in the water.

"Kai... if you laid one hand on her, I will kill you, you sick son of a-"

"I already have!" he laughed, his face adorning the mask of those lost to insanity. "And Ashe, I wouldn't be so sure that she would approve of your words or intentions. After all," he trailed off, the smirk spreading to his ears as a number of firm arms clamped down onto her shoulders to tear her naked body from the waters while pulling her arms back to reveal her flesh to them all. He took a moment, and decided to toy with her a bit more as he put off what he was originally going to say in favor of prolonging her torment. "In this moment, while I steal your innocence from you before all of these loyal men and the millions of viewers of my show, I want you to understand... Before killing you, I am going to touch over your entire body, inside and out. I am going to rape you physically and return the damage that you have done to Sage when you raped her emotionally."

This caught the pink haired girl's attention, forcing her to stop her struggling long enough to lock him within her eyes. The veins in his neck were throbbing. It wouldn't take much to simply arc pure and unfiltered hatred his direction to remove the flow of ki that was keeping this stain of humanity alive. "What are you talking about? You try to touch me, Kai, and I will succeed in what your mother's attempted abortion failed to accomplish," she spat. Bolts of radiant blue energy was flowing throughout her veins, cackling from her glowing blue eyes down her arms to collect at her twitching fingertips.

"Ashe, don't you realize?" he gloated, turning to point as the mist spread back to reveal a large viewscreen behind them. A series of very edited events began to play for them, much to Ashe's horror. It was... the death of Zena. But somehow, he had modified it so that the scenes of her returning to check for survivors had instead showed Ashe, or a double, ruthlessly holding down a tied up Zena while placing the grenade into her mouth. As the doppelganger on the screen turned, emotionlessly, from the struggling woman, she walked away in time for the explosion to consume Sage's sister. "What a horrible, horrible girl you are. Betraying your new friend by killing her sister," he prodded, turning back to her.

"Her soul was broken at that moment, shattered... by you."

No!

No!

I would never!

"Kai, you twisted coward!" she screamed as her blue crystalline aura exploded around her. "Why?" she cried out, her young mind still not able to understand how someone could be so... inhuman. She was naive and didn't understand that some people were beyond help. She didn't believe that someone could be this far beyond redemption.

His lips curled into the most delighted grin she'd seen him display yet, as he approached her struggling form and placed a finger between her breasts, gazing hungrily at her as his finger ran down to her stomach. "For the ratings, of course," he explained with absolutely no human emotion behind it. He could have told her that his car was blue or that he was going to eat a sandwhich in the same tone. "You are quite ugly, I'm afraid, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice. Feeling your struggling form beneath me is going to significantly boost our viewer count through the roof." He stopped for a moment as his hand touched her just below her trembling naval. "I don't even need the money, obviously. But letting them see the hand that guides this ordeal involved so intimately in such a disgusting act simply for the cameras... That will bring them in. The wicked shall consume the world," he whispered into her ear, pushing past her brilliantly glowing and deadly gaze to get near her blue tinted form. He took a slow and deep breath to smell her scent before placing his hand back on her.

"When you cry out for release, like a lover would," he breathed, his disgusting breath washing over her. "I want you to scream Sage's name for the cameras."

She detonated with power, the blue energy exploding all around her before embracing her with furious energy, her figure floating over the platform as the dozen arms containing her were severed from their sockets by the irrational blades of ki arcing around her. Her arm slowly extended until it was touching the forehead of a paralyzed Kai Demolic.

"There's still hope for the world. I am sad that you couldn't see that," she whispered, no longer consciously choosing her words. By reflex, her fingers spread, the wave of energy exploding from her palm until it ruptured through everything before her, bathing them all in a blinding light.

---

Ashe bolted upright, the sweat and water flooding down her face as she quivered from her dream. "Sage, Wizard, Kaden..." she began stuttering, calling random names while looking around. There was no one within the courtyard at all. Her clothes were still lying beside her, and the only sound was the water and a nearby radio discussing another freak snowstorm rolling into the city.

That blue light...

She held her shaking fingers and looked at them, her eyes studying every water wrinkled crease and steam blushed portion of skin in hope for answers. None were given.

Her eyes looked down into the mirror of the rapidly cooling water at the image of a terrified young girl, shaking and unable to decide how to handle the situation that they had been thrust into. She had grown angry with herself, at her helplessness. She wanted to help people, to help make things better for her friends. She wanted to be more like the Ashe in her dream, stronger and more able to do something, anything...

Angrily, her fist slapped the watery reflection away before her hands reached up to slick her raver colored hair back out of her way. She grabbed a towel to wipe the water from her face before shivering a moment in the cold. It had gotten cold quite fast, she realized as she pulled her clothes on, reaching down for the heavier jacket. So fast that it had actually cooled down the baths. Had they turned them off on her?

---

Her exit into the city streets revealed a winter wonderland, with the citizens playing happily in the snow without thought of where it had come from. A quick look to the mountain enclosed sky revealed that it wasn't a natural snow. Off in the distance, a trio of familiar figures were stomping their way through the snow towards the food areas. Kaden glanced up and recognized her, cupping his hands over his mouth to get her attention. "Hey, Ashe! We're grabbing some food. You are welcome to join us if you want," he offered from afar.

She smiled, her worries forgotten as she began heading into his direction, before she saw a timid figure shuffling quietly through the snow behind them. Her features lit up as her walk turned into a jog. "Sage!" The girl declined a response, continuing to trudge through the snow as if still lost to her depression. "Alright, screw this," Ashe growled, kneeling down into the snow. Her hands slid around as Kaden and the other two women watched her, gathering the snow up into her freezing hands before packing it together into a large ball. Rising back to her feet, she decided to give Sage a fair chance. "Sage, incoming!" she screamed, launching the frozen projectile towards the girl.

It was so unfair, she realized, as the girl was launched from her feet to land squarely on her rear. Ashe nearly felt bad as the girl just kind of laid there before rolling over and pushing herself to her feet. As she got up, her expression was one of confusion rather than depression, having been jerked out of her mood by the sudden attack. "Ashe?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Catch!"

Ashe thrust a large cluster of snow that she'd scooped up with her jacket, taking the girl once more to the ground before she laughed and reached down to pull her back to her feet. Sage's response was to snatch Ashe down by her outstretched hand and to cram a mound of snow into the pink haired girl's face in retaliation.

In the distance, Piper stared at the pair and rolled her eyes. "I guess they would rather confront Kai on an empty stomach," she expelled in frustration.

"Tch," Kaden breathed from behind her. "Nothing wrong with releasing some tension," he reasoned. He waited until she turned back to him to chide him before he hit her with a double barrel snowball attack of his own.

The priestess's laughter taunted Piper behind her veil as she sputtered and wiped at the snow. Piper dropped to the ground, angrily scooping up her own ball of whiteness as Kaden ducked around a corner for cover. Sophia found herself to be the resulting target of Piper's frustration.

It was what they had all needed. They had been so tense and edgy for so long that this short term of snowball fighting was exactly the type of release that they had been desiring. Some fun and friendly competition, about as relaxed and enjoyable as it could get. Most of them didn't even know each other, yet it had the same appeal of spending time with your greatest of friends.

It was a great way to take their mind off the coming rounds.

[Jesper]

“So…here’s a good one,” Sophia mentioned as an aside as she began to roll up another large mound of snow to place on top of the base of the snowman that they had just built. “If you could have one other person to be in this game with you, who would it be?”

“Jack Bauer,” Kaden answered without hesitation as he packed in snow.

Sophia stopped and looked up at the courier. “Jack Bauer’s not a real person.”

“So? He’s a badass, fictional or not,” he shrugged and helped the priestess lift the ball of snow. “You’d have to think that if we had Jack Bauer on our side, this would have been over days ago.”

“Okay, so funny story,” Ashe spoke up as she came back from the store. “They didn’t have carrots. Or coal. Or a top hat.”

Sophia clicked her tongue. “Okay. So what did they have?”

“Well, I found this pipe for the nose,” she pulled a lead pipe out of her pocket. It was horribly misshapen as it was, not like a pipe looks like a nose anyway. Sophia shrugged and took it anyway—maybe an odd-looking nose would somehow be endearing. Ashe went on. “I also got these buttons off of a shirt. It was free, anyway, so I didn’t think the cashier would mind. I also got this hat.”

The pink-haired girl brushed off a trucker hat and presented it to the priestess. It was something that she imagined Ashe pulling off of a homeless person after he had dozed off, or something equally depressing. It was old, it had what Sophia assumed was a grease stain, and it looked as though it was about to fall apart. The “Budweiser” logo that was printed across the face of the cap made it absolutely perfect in every way for a snowman.

“There,” the courier said from behind her. Turning around, Sophia couldn’t help but smile—the snowman was complete, ready for the finishing touches to be placed upon its visage. Ashe took the buttons and placed them where the eyes would have been as Sophia gently placed the hat on top of its snowy head. Kaden took the pipe that the healer had handed to him and jammed it in the middle of its face, almost causing it to crumble as the metal poked through to the other side.

“Oh, shit. Whoops,” the courier chuckled nervously as he smoothed over the cracks in the snow. The trio each took calculated steps backwards in unison as they inspected their creation. They all nodded in slight satisfaction.

“Pretty cool,” Ashe commented.

“Yeah, but it’s…”

“…missing something,” Sophia finished Kaden’s sentence, as they all had become accustomed to doing. The priestess shook her head and took another step backwards, turning around only to bump into the soft-spoken Sage.

“Um…uh…” she stuttered, holding out a wooden stick and two pieces of black cloth. “I…f-figured that it might need…arms. And maybe some eyebrows…”

“Thanks Sage,” the healer smiled brightly. “They’re perfect.”

Taking the stick, she broke it in half and handed the two pieces to Kaden. “Put them on the sides.”

“I know where arms go, Sophia,” he replied with mock indignance.

The three shared a small laugh as the blonde woman put on the eyebrows, pointing them upward to give it a sort of innocent look. Kaden, however, merely made a “tsk” sound and altered them so that the inside ends pointed down.

“Snow Bauer means business,” he smirked.

“Are we ever going to eat?” Piper had snuck into the crowd beside Sage and motioned for the blue haired girl to keep quiet, though she likely didn’t need to. The end result was what the medic was looking for—all three jumped slightly and turned around as quickly as they could. Upon seeing the snowman as they turned, Piper couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, I see.” She stepped towards the snowman and gently placed an uzi on top of one of the arms; just far enough so that it was possible for their imaginations to perceive that Snow Bauer was actually holding the gun without it actually falling off, misfiring, and killing everyone. Piper clapped her hands. “There. I thought it needed a personal touch.”

The red-haired medic turned around and started to look with the rest of the group. It was nice to be able to share what was in all likelihood their last peaceful moment together doing something so innocent. In a game in which the point was to test their psychological limits by placing the contestants into situations where they would have to make life or death decisions on a regular basis, Snow Bauer stood as a symbol to Sophia, although everyone else probably only saw a pile of dressed-up snow. It stood for the one shred of innocence that she had somehow left intact. All her beliefs, all her struggles—everything was inside that lump of snow.

“So…about that food,” Kaden spoke up after a moment of semi-awkward silence.

“Yeah, I’m pretty hungry,” Ashe nodded, motioning for the rest of them to follow her into the restaurant. As the group in its entirety turned around to walk away, a commotion sounded from behind them. The hairs on the back of Sophia’s neck stood up; had the guards chosen the absolute worst time to show up? The healer turned around to see not Snow Bauer, but a masked gunman standing on top of what was now just a pile of shapeless snow. Sophia was too stunned to cry.

“Found you, you little shits,” the guard grunted.

“We’ve been here the entire time,” Kaden shrugged. “Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be?”

“Shut up!” he cocked his gun.

“How…how could…” Sophia forced out words as she clenched a fist.

“Sophia…” Kaden breathed, noticing her reaction.

“I…I know,” the healer sighed deeply and nodded.

“Good,” the courier grinned and formed a ball of ki as Ashe ran to Sage to check on her, confident in her allies’ ability to handle the situation. He threw it, which confused the ex-priestess somewhat until she found that he didn’t throw it at the guard, but rather around him. Before he even had time to react, the small explosion knocked the guard off-balance. That gave Sophia and Piper just enough time to make a dash at him and get into close range. The medic got there first and knocked the gun out of the masked man’s hands, leaving him practically defenseless in his haze. Realizing this, Sophia grabbed the man by his shoulder and gave him a swift kick to the back of his leg, knocking him down to his knees. Piper clutched onto his shoulder and squeezed until she heard a snap.

“Okay…okay…” Sophia said in between the man’s screams. “Take this opportunity and run. Go home.”

“But…but…it’s an island…”

“Just go!” Sophia and Piper roared in unison. The man screamed and ran away, through the gates of the temple and out of their sight. A shot sounded in the distance, likely one of Kai’s snipers taking care of a loose end, though none of them could be sure.

“We should just learn to expect things like this,” Ashe shook her head. “I hate surprises.”

“No kidding,” Sophia sighed. “So…what do we do now?”

The rumbling of Kaden’s stomach was all the answer she needed.

[Kaden]

"Are you all toge--"

As the quintet of contestants walked through the front door of the restaurant, recognition dawned upon their hostess. As Sage, the last person to enter the restaurant, let the door close behind her, everyone was pleased to notice that the snowstorm she had been projected was down to only a few flakes; it seemed to have died down as everyone goofed around outside. As everyone adjusted to the relative warmth of the building, Kaden gestured towards his companions with a wave of his arm.

"I believe you were expecting us," the courier smiled at the hostess.

"... indeed," the woman responded. For a hostess, Kaden imagined she could have been a little more approachable.

Grabbing five menus, the woman led her patrons through the restaurant. Most of them noticed that the entire place had actually been emptied out. Kaden wasn't entirely sure what to make of the gesture. To someone trained to be aware of dangerous situations, they might have been suspicious of traps or ambushes. Kaden just thought it was cool to have the place to themselves.

"Here you are," the hostess stopped in front of a round table and began setting down the menus.

"You guys have a patio, right?" Kaden asked the question more out of politeness than anything else. They passed the patio on their way in.

"Would you prefer to be seated outside?" the hostess asked as she began picking the menus back up.

"No!"
"No!"
"No!"

Kaden almost jumped as three of his female companions answered in unison. Blinking, the courier turned to the rest of his group, none of which looked thrilled about the idea of going back out into the snow.

"It's freezing out there," Ashe replied to the courier's dumbfounded gaze.

"I just thought... it would be... pretty. Y'know... with the snow..." Kaden's eyes scanned over his companions, but he was definitely alone. "... alright. Inside it is."

Standing behind one of the chairs, Kaden waited for his female companions to seat themselves before sitting down. To his left was Sophia, then Sage, then Ashe, and Piper closed the proverbial circle on Kaden's right. While everyone else picked up their menus, Kaden reclined in his chairs and folded his arms behind his head. His eyes darted about the table, watching his companions as they scanned the restaurant's offerings.

"Can I get you all started with something to drink?"

Kaden inclined his head to see a waitress standing between himself and Sophia. Having time to actually relax, Kaden found himself amusingly aware of the fact that he hadn't heard her approach. Under normal circumstances, such a thought probably wouldn't have ever crossed the courier's mind.

"Ladies first," Kaden said as he nodded across the table to Ashe; she was, by his estimation, the youngest girl at the table. When the waitress came back around to Kaden, the courier simply sighed. "I don't know what, but I'd definitely like something with alcohol in it." Instead of picking up the menu, Kaden gestured at the waitress. "What do you like?"

"Well..." the woman brought her pen up to her chin as she thought.

"Just surprise me," Kaden said with a wave of his hand. "I'm not picky."

Jotting down the drink orders, the waitress told them she would be back shortly and left, leaving everyone else at the table to either twiddle their proverbial thumbs or go back over the menu. As he looked around at his four female companions, Kaden couldn't help but wonder...

"Does anyone know what happened to that old guy? Oliver?"

"I was actually going to ask if you had... seen him," Sophia replied.

"Oh." Having grasped Sophia's meaning, Kaden ran a hand through his now-clean hair. "I hadn't thought about that." Kaden shrugged. "I might try after we eat. It probably works better on a full stomach anyway."

As the waitress returned with their drinks, small talk started to spring up between Ashe and Sage, which quickly spread to Sophia and Piper as well. Kaden was content to simply lean back and enjoy the company of anyone not trying to kill him. Shortly, though, his attention moved on to the glass that was set in front of him and the white liquid within. Reaching out, the courier took a sip.

"So what did you end up with?" Piper asked.

"Well... there's definitely rum. And coconut." Kaden took another sip. "Piña colada, I'm thinking."

Before leaving, the waitress took everyone's order and left them to their drinks and continued small talk. Kaden was amazed at how normal everything seemed. It wasn't like they were in any less danger or that Kai couldn't get to them where they were, but it didn't seem to matter. Of particular interest to Kaden were the way Piper and Sophia conducted themselves.

The first time Kaden had had any interaction with Piper had been back as Kai's mansion, at that wasn't really the best place to get a feel for someone. After that it had been one psychotic situation after another. Even in the case of Sophia, Kaden had met her the day after her temple had been attacked, half the people she knew had been killed, and her entire way of life had been thrown into chaos. Needless to say she probably hadn't been going through her usual motions.

"Maybe you ladies can help me out with something," Kaden began during a lull in the conversation. "You think we're lucky to have made it this far?"

"Well we're not dead," Ashe responded. Her tone of voice, though, gave the impression of general pondering rather than actually answering.

"But we're also still here," Piper countered, a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"Both good points..." Kaden mused. "So much for that I guess. Ok, how about this. A toast," Kaden picked up his glass and raised it. "To finding Kai and kicking that son of a bitch's ass."

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Cheers,” Piper muttered as she tipped her glass toward the center of the table. As the majority of her party downed their beverages, the medic simply placed hers back on the table and turned her attention down toward the empty space that lie in front of her. Although she hadn’t been hungry by any means, the woman had nevertheless figured it best to spend some time with the other contestants. After all, there was no telling when the next time any of them would ever see one another.

“Not thirsty?” Sophia asked after placing her glass down onto the cloth-covered table. With a shrug of her shoulders, Piper slowly began to run her index finger along the rim of the elegant glass. The healer, correctly interpreting the awkward silence to stand for some form of internal strife, frowned softly as she continued to look at the redhead. “Are you okay, Piper?” She asked as she reached a hand across the table toward the silent medic.

“I can’t drink alcohol,” the redhead shot back as she pulled her outstretched hand away from Sophia. “It doesn’t mix well with my medication,” Piper added as she placed her hands on her thighs and looked across the table at Kaden. The blonde was staring at her with a slightly flummoxed look on his face, but before he had a chance to remark, the redhead pushed her chair away from the table. “Excuse me, I just need to go to the bathroom,” she spoke quietly as she stood up and hastily departed from the table.

Although Piper didn’t have the slightest clue where the bathroom was in the restaurant, she made sure to walk with enough confidence that she didn’t instill any second thoughts in the minds of the others. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was show any signs of weakness or uneasiness, because there was no telling how deep Kai’s subterfuge went.

“Crazy talk,” the woman whispered to herself as she entered a small hallway. To her left and right, the corridor extended in both directions before curving off in the same direction. With a frown, Piper looked around for some sort of sign to point her toward the restroom, but the only things that hung on the wall were strange floral decorations and paintings of foreign places that she didn’t recognize. “Damn it,” the woman seethed as her eyes continued to dart between the two ends of the side hallway.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A voice spoke from behind Piper as a cold hand fell upon her shoulder. Instantly recalling her little incident at the boutique, the redhead was quick to spin around to confront her aggressor. In a single, violent motion, she batted away the man’s arm and then grabbed his exposed throat with the same hand. With just a wee bit of pressure, the man collapsed to his knees and began to weakly pry at Piper’s unyielding grip.

Pay attention, now! As the voice resounded within the woman’s head, she suddenly realized that her ‘attacker’ was nothing more than a frail, orange-haired teenager in a waiter’s outfit. With a look of dread on her face, Piper relinquished her grip and slowly started to back away from the gagging adolescent.

“I’m sorry,” Piper stammered as she quickly made up her mind and darted down the hallway to her left. When she reached the turn at the end of the corridor, she disappeared around it and was rather relieved when she found herself staring at a door labeled ‘Women’s Restroom.’ Stepping inside, the redhead walked over to the nearest stall and slammed the door shut behind her.

Although she didn’t have to use the toilet, she nevertheless took a seat. Placing her elbows on her thighs, she cupped her palms and used them to prop up her head as she stared at the plastic door. All around the woman, the walls of the stall were covered with various pictures and crude sayings that had been chiseled into the plastic with pens or other sharp objects. Most were random remarks about men, although some were rather nihilistic in nature.

“‘God is dead’,” Piper read aloud as she rolled her eyes. “Clichéd if you ask me,” she sighed as she lifted her head up and let her hands flop down onto her upper legs.

Then again…what has the old Greater God done for you? A voice within her mind inquired as the woman tilted her head. Other than, y’know, throwing you two and a half decades into the past and allowing a bunch of vengeful ghosts to maul and torment you.

“That’s enough,” Piper spoke as she ran her right hand across the top of her hair. It was at that moment that the woman noticed that her left hand was shaking rather noticeably. A frown spread across the medic’s face as she clasped her other hand around the trembling appendage. “Shit,” she whispered as she tried to put enough pressure onto her hand that it stopped moving, but despite her best efforts, her limb continued to shake. This wasn’t the first time that the woman had experienced muscle spasms, and because of that, she had a pretty good idea why they were starting.

With a frown, Piper turned her attention to the bare spot on the side of her waist where her side pack had once been. Back in Olde Town, the medic had nearly had a breakdown right before the showdown that had left the old village in shambles. To gather the strength she had needed to emerge intact from that skirmish, the woman had essentially overdosed herself on her medication. Unfortunately for Piper Juunanagou, her dosage was beginning to wear off, and with it, she was slowly starting to come crashing down from her adrenaline-infused high.

Well this certainly explains the paranoia.

The thought caused another knot to begin forming within the woman’s stomach. Without her cocktail, she didn’t have the slightest clue how long she could hold it together. If her history before her journey into the past was proof enough, the answer was a rather grim one.

“Hold it together, Piper,” the woman mumbled as she started to rock back and forth atop of the toilet. “You made it this far…now it’s time to seal the deal and bring that madman to justice,” she added as her left eye began to twitch intermittently.

Now who’s to say that the real madman isn’t someone in your group? Maybe Kai’s just a red herring and one of those other contestants actually is some sort of heinous criminal? Piper’s subconscious remarked as the woman shot up off the toilet seat. With a scream, she kicked the plastic door with enough force to split it in two across the center. Stumbling out of the stall, the medic lurched forward until she found herself staring at her reflection.

“Come on now,” she whispered urgently amidst gasps of air. “I can hold it together,” she assured herself as her breathing slowly started to return to normal. A few seconds later, the woman’s tiny episode drew to a close and she found herself staring at someone who looked relatively intact and altogether.

See? That was easy.

“Yea,” Piper whispered in response to her own thoughts as she turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on her face. “Everything is just peachy keen,” she added sarcastically as she ran a damp hand across her hair. Once the woman was certain she looked relatively normal, she calmly made her way out of the bathroom and back to the table. When she returned, she saw that the group’s food had all arrived, and everybody was already digging into their rather delicious-looking entrees.

“Did’ja fall in?” Kaden said jokingly from the other end of the table as Piper sat down and picked up her knife and fork.

“Nope,” Piper shot back with fabricated confidence as she started to cut into her chicken breast. From the other end of the table, Kaden arched an eyebrow as he watched the woman’s hands tremble as she tried to cut through the meat.

[Ashe]

Piper quickly excused herself and stiffly headed off in a random direction in search of the bathroom. Watching her alternate between a nauseated shuffle and a stiff soldier's march, Ashe turned back to the other three tablemates with a grin. "Dude, she's going to be in there for a while," she announced, sipping on her tea quickly. The glass was nearly empty already, leaving the girl to casually turn around and look over her shoulder for the waitress that had passed by.

"You know, Ashe, until you ordered your drink, I had never heard of tea from Long Island before," Sophia mused, watching as the girl turned back to quickly drain the glass down till there was just a bit of ice left in the cup. "Is it anything like green tea or oolong tea?" she asked sincerely.

The girl gave her best innocent smile from years of practiced underage drinking when confronted by an adult. "It's great," she answered, stirring her straw around absently in the cup while waiting for a refill. "Much better than those other kinds." Glancing back in the direction that Piper had gone, Ashe rapped her knuckles on the table quickly to get everyone's attention before sliding her own chair back. "On that note, I'll be right back," she announced, quickly walking away from the table herself.

It was not the bathroom that she was headed for, however, as anyone who watched her walk the complete opposite of Piper would have surmised. She casually slid up to the bar counter and on instinct began to scope out for the perfect guy to entice into buying her a drink for those times when she had no ID. Thankfully, the bartender came over and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, you are one of those game show kids, right?" the older man grunted, comparing her with an image posted on the nearby wall.

"Uh, yeah," she replied suspiciously.

He slapped his palms down on the table and gave her a wide grin. "I knew it. You just made me thirty bucks, girl. My buddy over there didn't believe me when I said that you were that Rose girl," he laughed, leaving her to writhe uneasily at the misidentification. Before she could correct him, he jabbed a finger at the bar. "Full bar and all, so just call me over when you are ready to order something and I'll get ya taken care of in a jiffy. Mr. Demolic said it would be on the house and to fix you kids up real good."

Ashe pondered his meaning of the sentence before taking it at face value. "Sweet! Alright, so..." she trailed off, staring at his selection. "Ever made a Flaming Jesus before?" she asked, recalling her conversation with Sebastian before and hoping that this man had the right ingredients.

"Nope, what's in it?"

Thinking back in her head, she listed off the mixture. "Vodka, overproof rum, some lime juice and grenadine," she answered, tapping her fingers on the bar with each note. He had already been shaking his head no, however, halfway through her comment. "No, no, come on!" she cried, slamming her fist down in mock anger. "Ugh, man, you guys suck," she laughed, holding her head in her palms. "It's the rum, isn't it? It's always the freakin' rum," she whined, leaning back.

"We can try it with ordinary rum if you'd prefer," he apologized.

"Nah, this stuff is too awesome for that."

He shrugged, giving her a look. "Well, I mean a shot's a shot. What's so special about this one?" he asked.

She snorted embarrassingly from her nose in laughter as she corrected him. "This shot is like riding a pony, which probably doesn't sound awesome, except that in this case the pony is three hundred feet tall and covered in chainsaws, and to get on the pony you have to take an elevator with sixteen live cougars. Naked," she added, judging his reaction.

"Well, that does sound different," he agreed, not entirely sure how to take this other than to laugh. "So got any other ideas?"

"Alien Orgasm?" she asked in a hopeful manner. Staring at his dumbfounded expression, she chuckled again. "Man, you are tough. Throw me together a glass of Midori, malibu, and some pineapple juice and we'll call it even," she instructed.

"That's an Alien Secretion, not an Alien Orgasm," he corrected, turning around the computer monitor that he'd pulled the recipe up on. "The orgasm version is made kinda like a rattlesnake with blue curacao in it."

Her mouth watered. "For real? I'm going to have to hold that one over Becca's head when I get back, she's been wrong this entire time," she said, passing the blame for her teenage knowledge. "Totally make me one of those."

It was only about ten minutes later that she was stumbling her way back to the tables with only the slightest of warm tingling feelings passing through her system. She had cut herself off after drinking that one, in favor of not feeling horrible during whatever was to come. Even still, she had gotten a round for the entire table.

"Ashe?" Sage asked as she emptied her hands suddenly on the table. "Your food is getting cold," she said quietly while eyeing the girls gifts. "And what's that?" she asked, pointing.

The pink haired girl looked down at her food and then at Sage with a raised eyebrow. "That steak is only going to get cold on me if it manages to escape out of here alive," she threatened, pushing her finger into the steak to test how well it was cooked. "Well, given that it's still somewhat bleeding, we'll let that one slide."

"How'd you order it, anyway?" Sophia asked.

"Medium rare," she answered quickly before handing everyone a drink and placing one in front of Piper's place at the table. Kaden looked up from his food and gave her an odd look before holding up a finger with an attempt at swallowing his way to a comment. She cut him off at the pass by reaching over and pulling on it, catching him off guard mid-swallow. "You're welcome," she commented. "But if your stomach problems make their way over here to interfere with my food, I won't be as helpful," she added.

The priestess took a moment to look down at the drinks before her and then back at the girl. "Ashe, are you drunk?" she asked immediately, her face entirely serious.

The girl's hands came up defensively, having tried to ward them off with subtle misdirection and failing. "Hey, officer, I've only had one drink!" A moment after, she was still being stared at. "Two," she corrected meekly. Nudging her hands forward at the other drinks, she cleared her throat. "So anyways, I was thinking that we could raise a toast to bringing down Kai Demolic and kicking his butt and all that fun stuff," she mumbled, looking to Kaden for support.

"Didn't we totally do that earlier?" he asked, not catching on.

"Uh, yeah, we did," she followed. "But earlier I only had my tea and you were drinking the good stuff," she continued. "I totally didn't time this for while Piper was gone either," she finished.

"Right," Sophia spoke, somewhat amused by the girl's strong defense of the situation.

Sage looked down into her cup and then back up at Ashe. "I'm not sure if I want any of it," she said apologetically.

"I got you apple juice, to be fair," the pink haired girl comforted, sliding over one of the wine glasses before her filled with plum wine. What the girl didn't know wouldn't hurt her, she assumed, and Sage really needed something to take the edge off. Something that wasn't from a pill. Sliding an identical cup over to Sophia, she pushed it through the healer's warding hands. "Its plum wine," she answered honestly. "I figure that you said you worked for a temple or something and turn water to wine so there you go," she rambled.

"It's not exactly like that," Sophia halfheartedly remarked, accepting the glass uncomfortably.

"And for Kaden..." Ashe trailed off, giving him a look.

He was a bit red in the face, unsure of what to make of the situation. "I can't wait," he commented from behind his napkin as he wiped his mouth to buy himself some time. "What's that?" he asked as she slid a glass over to him, looking it over with curiosity. She slid a pink frizzy drink over to Piper's spot without answering him.

"I got her a Shirley Temple. Some grenadine mixed with Sprite," she explained for anyone who wasn't studying their glass with the oddest of looks. Reaching down, she picked up her own glass and held it up, a slightly green and blue drink that was a clone of Kaden's own drink. He studied her drink a moment as she cleared her throat, swirling her straw around with her other hand. It took a glance back at his own drink, still in its cleanly layered pretty colors, before stirring it up similar to the girl's.

Raising his own glass, he motioned for all to join in. "To great food?" he mused, before adding the final lines. "And to kicking Kai's ass!" Pausing a moment before everyone took a drink, he tacked on the most final line of the toast. "Also to fantastic company," he smiled, nodding at the group.

Everyone pulled back their drink and tried it. Sage immediately coughed as she grabbed for her napkin to wipe the liquid from her mouth. Noticing everyone's stares, she addressed them meekly. "I think this apply juice was made with sour apples."

I'm going to Hell, Ashe thought, somewhat amused at the situation. Even still, Sage put in an effort to finish off the drink, despite Sophia's forehead wrinkling in Ashe's direction as she pieced it together in her head.

Kaden was stifling a laugh as well, but simply commented on his drink. "This is fantastic! What's in it? I taste some pineapple juice for sure."

The student beamed at him. "I love pineapple juice," she threw in casually. Holding up one fist in the air, she made a hardcore gesture. "Pineapples rock! Anyway, it's basically a Mai Tai with some melon liquor in it in place of some of the rum. Nowhere near as strong tasting, but every bit as good."

He nodded, throwing a bite of food into his mouth before chasing it with some more of the drink. "Yeah, we don't really want to get trashed before whatever happens, well, happens."

"...I do," Ashe mumbled under her breath grimly, pushing the thoughts from her head. Glancing over at Sage, she almost felt bad. "How's it going?" she asked, testing the waters.

The girl smiled back at her. "I think it was just the first few sips. It definitely tastes a lot better now."

I am so going to Hell.

The red haired woman had finally arrived at the table, sliding into her chair as if pained before poking at her food. Kaden said it before Ashe could swallow her food to get the words out. “Did’ja fall in?” Ashe wanted to kick him under the table for beating her to it. Next time, she might not be so polite. Her eye twitched for a moment in thought, however. Maybe it was just that strong tingling that she was feeling talking for her. It definitely took the edge off, though.

Piper glanced up at him and quickly forced out a "Nope" before weakly picking up her fork and knife to cut through her chicken. Kaden was watching her carefully, but Ashe blew it off and savored her steak.

The shyer girl slid her drink forward and smiled, thanking her host for the apple juice before returning to picking at her dinner. "No problem," Ashe began, quickly taking the glass captive before Piper could inspect it. "If you want some more, just let me know," she added, so as to be a considerate host.

Kaden's chuckle nearly gave it away, leaving Piper to look up from her food gloomily. "What's so funny?" she asked, having missed the situation.

The blond haired guy tried to wave her off with his hand while placing some more food into his mouth, but she pressed him until he leaned up to see Ashe's piercing eyes staring directly at him in warning. "We uh..." he began, prying his eyes from hers before continuing on despite her optic threat. She wasn't wearing a pair of ruby sunglasses, he reasoned, looking for the words to tell the red haired medic. He leaned over closer to Piper to at least not have his words heard by the more innocent company, when suddenly Sophia sharply cried out.

"OW!" she yelped, withdrawing her leg from under the table to rub it before snatching up the tablecloth to suspiciously eye the fellowship's legs. "That wasn't funny, Kaden!" she suddenly accused, pointing a finger directly at him.

He pulled back from Piper to defend himself from her wrath. "Whoa, now..." he began.

Meanwhile, under the table, Ashe's feet unlocked themselves from their most inconspicuous position around her chair legs. Crap! she cursed mentally. How did I miss him?

[Sage]

Sage found herself faced with a fairly bland salad and an equally uninspired tomato soup, and was surprised to find herself looking at the other dishes at the table longingly. Steaks and chicken and... she sighed. She had to set an example, she reasoned. Proper diet was essential, but Ashe’s steak looked a lot more appealing than her salad did. Where was Ashe, anyway?

As if on cue, she plunked a fistful of glasses onto the table. A long discussion ensued, but Sage couldn’t help but tune it out. She was staring at her wine glass, visibly disappointed. Not at Ashe’s gesture, but at herself. Sage didn’t drink. She had no moral qualms about it, she just didn’t get it. It burned her throat and tasted awful.

“I’m not sure I want any of it,” she managed, wincing at her own words. She wanted to apologize, but she already felt too horrible to talk.

“I got you apple juice, to be fair,” Ashe replied, sliding the glass closer to her, with an oddly humored look. Sage eyed the beverage again, looking at it more closely, and shrugged. Ashe wouldn’t lie to her.

Suddenly, everyone was raising their glasses. Sage feebly chimed in, out-of-time with everyone else, and in her rush, took more of a gulp than a sip, and suddenly found herself coughing. She cleaned her mouth with a napkin and groaned. “I think this apple juice was made with sour apples.”

Sage took a few tentative sips at the drink, trying her best not to be rude, but couldn’t get over the fact that it seemed... off. It tasted too strong, too sharp. But... it was growing on her. “How’s it going?” Ashe suddenly interjected.

“I think it was just the first few sips. It definitely tastes better now,” she replied with a meek smile. The pink haired girl’s expression shifted, and again, Sage couldn’t really place it. Everyone seemed be sharing knowing glances except for her. Did she tune out during a joke?

“Thanks, Ashe. It was good,” she managed, setting the now-empty glass in front of her. Oddly enough, the student snatched the glass away, but it didn’t really bother Sage, just confused her.

“No problem,” was the reply. “If you want some more, just let me know.”

At this Kaden began to laugh. The red-headed lady - Kaden said her name was Piper - spoke up, as if saying what Sage was thinking. “What’s so funny?”

The azure haired girl wanted to know, too.

But instead of answering everybody, Kaden leaned in to whisper to Piper. What did I miss?! Sage growled internally. Are they trying to hide something from me?!

Suddenly, Sophia shrieked in pain, causing Sage to nearly jump out of her chair. Apparently Kaden had kicked her as a joke. The hybrid agreed with the priestess’ protest - that wasn’t funny. Maybe he didn’t mean to kick so hard.

She looked back at her food, and sighed at it. “Hey, Ashe,” she managed.

“Yeah?”

“Where did you get that juice? I want another glass,” she replied. Suddenly, Kaden pounded his hand on the table and looked away. What an odd person he was.

“Uh... yeah, I can get you another-” Ashe seemed somewhat flustered - probably at the blond man’s bizarre outburst.

“Well, I could-”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll get one for you,” the pink haired girl insisted. Sage couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. She was capable of getting her own drink, she just didn’t know where to go. So she watched Ashe. If she saw where she went, she could get her own drink next time.

Oddly enough, she stopped at the bar, speaking with the bartender for a while. Suddenly, the man erupted into laughter, and poured a pair of drinks. One was Sage’s apple juice - she could tell from here - and the other was some kind of fluorescent pink slushy... thing with an umbrella in it.

Ashe returned to the table, sliding the juice to Sage as she plopped into her chair and began drinking from her bizarrely colored beverage. The hybrid happily drank from her glass - the juice tasted a lot more appetizing than her soup did - and finished it almost immediately, trying hard to stifle the coughs. It was strong. She set the glass down with a light clink, and started picking at her salad.

She should have been starving, but she couldn’t eat. Just poke, poke, poke, with the fork. Push the greens around a little, maybe pick one up here and there. Chew on it for much longer than necessary. The others were talking again, that was good. She was glad people were having a good time in spite of her, but sorry she felt that she couldn’t join in.

“-then one of those stupid things puked on me!” Kaden exclaimed, his expression contorting into one of disgust.

“Yeah, imagine how ugly someone has to be for a zombie to throw up in disgust,” Piper chided half-heartedly.

“You-” the blond set his jaw, but shook his head.. “That was an... interesting mall, to say the least.”

“If you can call being chased around by a giant zombie monster ‘interesting,’” Sophia retorted. “I, for one, was pretty happy to get out of there. The smell was-”

“You weren’t stuck in a sewer,” Ashe retorted. “Don’t you complain to us about smell!” she gestured to herself and Sage, suddenly noticing the girl’s empty wine glass with an arched eyebrow.

“Did you have to contend with scorpions?” Piper shot back, throwing a confident look at Kaden. Giant mutant scorpions - that was a hell of a trump card.

“Actually...” Sophia replied with a nod, “Yeah.”

Sage, too, nodded, but found herself shocked that suddenly everyone was regaling each other with the horrors they had witnessed, and laughing in their efforts to one-up the other. It was absurd! People were being killed in this game! The girl’s fingernails found themselves digging into the table, but she said nothing. There had been too much death for there to be so much laughter.

“It’s hot,” Sage complained, wiping the sweat from her forehead, totally oblivious to the effects of the alcohol. She was beginning to feel a little odd. Things were getting fuzzy, but in a way different from the Valium. Her head felt heavy, but... strangely good. It all concerned her, though, because she didn’t know why. The bothersome heat remained. “I need another drink.”

“Sage, maybe you-” Sophia began.

“Nah, let her go; it’s good for her,” Ashe interrupted, prompting an icy glare from the priestess. Sage hoped they weren’t angry with one another - Ashe and Sophia were such good people. The diminutive girl made her way to the bar, and waited patiently until the bartender noticed her silently waiting for her.

“Oh! Hey, kid. ‘Nother ‘apple juice?’” he asked with a smirk. Unbeknownst to Sage, he was in on the joke. She nodded, and he poured her a glass from a dark bottle - an odd choice for juice. Deciding it must have just been for atmosphere, she thanked the bartender and downed the drink in a heartbeat, asking for another. The man just laughed and refilled Sage’s glass. The girl thanked him again and returned to the table. That weird, uncomfortable sensation that went with drinking this stuff was starting to feel really good.

Sage sat down in the middle of another conversation. It seemed they were discussing music. “-and their best stuff was when they were still playing without a label. Once they got signed they sort of sold out but they’re still pretty epic,” Ashe explained.

“...I don’t think I’ve heard of them,” Sophia responded, seemingly uninterested.

“You didn’t exactly have a jukebox back at the temple,” Kaden retorted with a grin. Sage was happy to just watch the conversation play out. She was feeling dizzy, and suddenly didn’t think she’d be comfortable on her feet. Her head was swimming, but she kept drinking.

[Jesper]

“Wow, I’m full,” Piper commented as she opened the door to leave.

“Tell me about it,” Kaden yawned with a slight stretch as he exited the restaurant with the rest of his group. “I feel like I just gave birth to an alien.”

He laughed nervously as he turned his head to look at Sophia, who had a confused look on her face. “You know…alien…coming out of stomach…God, we have to show you some movies when we get out of this.”

The healer smiled at him, though the possibility of her not surviving this game was still painfully present in the back of her mind. She supposed, however, that it was intentional on the part of the courier to assume that everyone present would survive the rest of the game. After all, it helped knowing that all of these people, her new friends as it were, would be there to help her through this. The thought of any one of them dying pained her more than the prospect of her own death did. An audible hiccup averted Sophia’s thoughts and caused the healer to turn around and meet her gaze.

“I’m awfully hot,” the blue haired girl blurted out. “No, I’m cold.”

“…which are you? Hot or cold?” Piper tilted her head a bit, her voice sounding with mild impatience.

“Hot. Definitely cold,” her speech was slower than usual, which was saying something. “I know! I’ll go back inside and get ‘nother apple juice.”

“No!” the rest of the group shouted simultaneously as the healer promptly grabbed the hybrid by the wrist and swung her back around. When she had suddenly realized the full extent of what had happened, Sophia shot a stern look at Ashe, who quickly looked away and began to whistle innocently.

“Hm…we should probably get you to a hotel, then,” Kaden scratched his head.

“Why?” Sophia turned Sage’s head towards the courier after she shot the question at her. Shaking her head, she repeated the question to Kaden.

“’cause…uh…” the courier sighed, noticeably sorry that he spoke up. “Too much apple juice can make people tired.”

“Really? I’ve never felt tired before…” she put a finger to her chin in thought.

“Have you ever had that much before?” Sophia asked.

“Pretty!”

Sage spun around and walked towards a building with bright lights, much to the chagrin of her comrades. Sophia slapped her forehead lightly and shook her head, motioning for her friends to go back to the hotel while she collected the tipsy girl who had unwittingly walked into a casino. As the group split ways, Sophia could only hope that Sage hadn’t already caused any measurable amount of damage just by walking inside. Hearing the girl’s screams over the beeping and buzzing sounds from the outside didn’t do much to quell her fears, and she ran inside.

The lights inside were bright; the sounds were ear-piercing, and Sophia was the sober. She would have only had to imagine how Sage would react if she weren’t doing so right in front of her—quite loudly, at that. They weren’t screams in fear like the healer had initially feared, however; more like elated screams of joy as she took everything in. This was probably the first time that Sage had even been inside a casino, unlike Sophia, who fell into the cliché of religious figureheads often visiting gambling establishments. The ex-priestess had been overwhelmed the first time she entered a casino such as this; the alcohol content inside of her blood stream probably just amplified those feelings.

The blue haired giggled as she ran to a slot machine, staring at it until Sophia took a spot beside her. Frowning, she pointed at the lever curiously, practically asking “Is this the one?” with her eyes.

Sophia sighed. “Yeah, you pull that, but you need to put money in it first.”

Sage had already pulled it before the healer had even finished her sentence, and to Sophia’s surprise, the slots starting rolling. The hybrid merely looked on with audible fascination, her somewhat dilated pupils trying to follow the pictures as they passed. Finally, the images started to slow down until they stopped with a “BAR,” a seven, and a plum. Sage chuckled and clapped her hands briefly before reaching up to tug on the lever again. However, it didn’t move. The blue haired girl groaned. “Aww. Why aren’t the pictures going?”

“I told you, these things need money,” Sophia suddenly felt like a parent. “Maybe the last person to use this machine left money in it. I have a feeling that the first try was on Kai, though.”

She looked up at the camera as she mentioned Kai, grimacing as she imagined that psychopath watching their every movement. Shaking her head, she looked back down to tell Sage that they had to leave, but the girl was bent over collecting something. Glancing past her friend, the man at the machine adjacent from theirs had won a sizeable amount of quarters to the point that they began to spill over onto the floor. As he was on a knee with his back turned to them collecting his winnings, Sage had bent over and grabbed a handful of them without his noticing.

“H-hey! You can’t do that!” Sophia protested, lowering her voice as she explained. “That’s…that’s stealing.”

“But he looks so happy,” she stole a glance at the man, who was still cheering about his victory. Before Sophia could point out the fallacy of that statement, Sage slid a quarter into the slot and pulled the lever, giggling giddily as the images flew past once more. To the great surprise of Sophia, who had lost more than her fair share of money to these things, the pictures stopped on all seven’s. A buzzer sounded and quarters shot out of the slot, spilling out onto the floor like the machine next to them.

“Ahh!” Sage screamed, jumping up and hiding behind Sophia. “It’s firing at me! Hel-l-p!”

“It’s okay, Sage,” the healer laughed. “It’s giving you money. It’s a nice slot machine.”

“N-no, I don’t like this place anymore!” she shook her head furiously and took a step backwards, crashing into a hostess who was carrying two glasses of champagne. The alcohol spilled onto the hybrid’s shirt as she turned around, drenching her and directing the attention of every man inside the building towards her. Sage merely chuckled. “Hey, more juice! Thanks! Oh, but I got it on my kimono…oh well, I can get it out by pouring more juice,” she grabbed the other glass and dumped its contents onto herself, garnering a cheer from the men around them.

The blood drained from Sophia’s face as she realized that a group of men began drawing nearer to the pair of girls. One man grinned and put a hand on Sage’s shoulder—his breath showed Sophia pretty quickly that he was in the same boat as her friend. He began to laugh. “Hey, babe. Want to see this awesome room in the back? It has plenty more ‘juice’ there.”

“More juice? Okay!” she happily agreed, shifting her weight to begin moving with the man.

“No!” she forcibly separated the two, desperately trying to get Sage away from them. “Look, she’s obviously drunk. Just let me get her out of here.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to have a good time, lady,” he brushed her hand off of his shoulder and put his around Sage, who had resorted to flicking around poker chips on the table next to them in her obliviousness. “Why don’t you just back off?”

“C-come on, Sage,” Sophia sighed, trying to think of a way to get her to come along of her own free will. “They…they have juice at the hotel.”

“Okay…”

“I don’t think you understood me,” the man cracked his knuckle. “I don’t care if you’re one of those game show contestants. Don’t even care that you’re a woman.”

Sophia clenched a fist and turned around, decking him right across the face. The drunken man gasped and stumbled backwards and onto his backside. One of his friends, obviously wasted as well, frowned at his downed comrade and turned to another member of his entourage. “Hey, did that girl just punch Oscar?”

“I don’t know,” the other shook his head. “I was too busy checking out that hostess.”

“Hey, back off, man! She’s mine!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!”

The two immediately started fighting. Sophia took the opportunity, however, to escape from the casino before any of them could notice. A bar fight was the last thing she wanted, and from the looks of it, Sage was starting to get tired. Chuckling a bit, the healer grabbed the girl by the arm and led her to the hotel, where the rest of the group had already met.

“There you two are,” Ashe smirked. “I was wondering what kind of mischief you happened to get yourselves into. Did you like the casino, Sage?”

“I…I don’t want to talk about,” the blue haired girl looked at the ground, suddenly less optimistic. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Yeah…apple juice’ll do that,” Kaden commented. “Better get her to a bed. Our rooms are already set up.”

“I’ll do it,” Sophia volunteered. “Already tracked her down. I might as well go all the way.”

Sage immediately plopped down on the bed when they entered the room. “Hey, uh…Sophia?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you…think we’ll be okay?”

Sophia turned her gaze back to the outside. “I really don’t know how to answer that. Kai seems like the kind of guy who saves his best tricks for last. It could literally be anything. But we’ve made it out okay so far, right?”

She turned back to look at Sage, who had already passed out into a peaceful sleep. Sophia smiled. “Yeah…rest, kiddo. You’ll probably need it.”

[Kappa]

Following the directions that Jackson had given him, Wizard trekked through the forested road to the mountain. The wheels of the jeep whipped up sand and leaves as it spun around sharp corners, laughing at the fact that once upon a time these roads might’ve had speed limits. Oliver was determined as ever to find the ‘x’ on his map … he had to find Kai, and unlock the truths about Friend or Foe.

The old man was whistling a timeless gem from the war when he let out a—“Gaw’dammit!”—followed by the howling of his tires as they came to an abrupt stop, not ten feet from the mountainside entrance which seemed to materialize out of nowhere. There, about a foot from his bumper was a glowing podium and not far from that: the open gates to the underground city. It seemed the others had gotten there first.

He jogged into the cavernous world, trying to make up for lost time, when he heard a very familiar noise from behind him. “Bark! Bark!”

The old man’s eyes lit up with awe and he turned around to find none other than Champ, the dog. “Ye got t’be kidding me, boy. How the Hell—,” but it was of no use. There was no explaining the miraculous survival of the quintessential quadruped, and it sufficed to say that it just did. He lightly whapped the dog on the head, and flashed a genuine show of happiness; one that had not existed since she was alive. Oliver chuckled, and waved the dog to follow as he made his way deeper into the city.

The underground metropolis was oddly comfortable and the people there were totally clueless as to what was happening on the surface (inspiring a myriad of new questions, but he would have to address them later). All these citizens knew was that they were to service the surviving six; which appeared to be Sage, Ashe, Kaden, Piper, Sophia, and himself. The Wizard was surprised by the rag-tag group and impressed that the compound of misfits had gotten as far as they did. Having taken a protective role over Sage earlier in the game, it would not be a stretch to say he was proud.

---

Oliver’s first stop was, to no one’s surprise, the bar. He stepped in and absorbed a pint of lager within a minute of sitting down; and was bound to put himself in the barrel if only to give him a decent night’s rest. Memories of rosemary’s game still haunted him, and he felt it best to black them out for now.

And so, he took another swig. And another. One more, until…

“Mr. Nash?”

A voice, from behind him. There was a creek from the bar-stool as the Wizard turned around…

“You.”

There he was … the epitome of the former detective’s unending enigmas: Kai Demolic.

[Friend or Foe]

Oliver Nash wasn't really a violent man. Sure, he could fight, and probably kill, 90% of the population on Earth. If he wanted to be, he could probably be a very efficient killing machine with the kind of training and intelligence he already had over a good fifty years of living. However, despite all of that, the man who was called the Wizard didn't really have a history of unnecessary violence and never looked to his fists for the first answer he could find.

But Kai Demolic was right there, with dark skin and large, slightly plump body. The first thing Mr. Nash could think about, the only thing in his mind...was inflicting physical pain.

When Wizard kicked the stool in the air towards the mastermind, it seemed to move in slow motion. He could see the hand of Kai shift upwards only about an inch or so, then flicked aggressively, causing the stool to shift it's direction in mid-air, soaring above several of the tavern's patrons and connecting with the wall.

By the time Kai looked back at Oliver Nash, expecting to see him standing in shock, he had already lost track of the quick detective. Oliver was next to him, having juked sideways in preparation for a giant roundhouse kick. Once it hit Kai, the Wizard realized that something was protecting his opponent from physical contact, as a flash of yellow light caused his kick to bounce backwards, sending him off of his feet.

Wizard looked up as Kai Demolic stormed forward two feet, just enough to grab his grey-haired target by the collar of his torn shirt and yanked him forward, slamming him into an empty table, then against the bar where he released his target. Nash turned around, clearly outmatched. "What are you-" but he was cut off with a punch.

"You've been a good sport thus far, Mr. Nash," The villain explained, curling his hand around the ex-cop's throat and raising him up in the air. By now, the only people left in the bar were drunks who just watched in silence. "You've helped keep me on my toes, without a doubt, but I'm afraid you've worn out your welcome. For me to accomplish my dreams...for me to finish this story that is still unraveling...you must exit, stage right."

Oliver Nash had never felt so helpless in his life. He was taller and more muscular then the dark-skinned villain who held up so easy. He kicked and struggled, but all he could do was mumble and cough, doing his best to wiggle free a breath from Kai's grip around his neck.

A flash of blue emitted from Kai's hand. Wizard recognized the light...he was being teleported out of here! Just like that! This was it? No big fight? Just get your ass kicked and leave? Oliver Nash had worked too hard, done too much, to go out like this!

But there was nothing he could do. The light swallowed him whole.

All he could hear was barking.


















(Wizard is gone. Sage wins...anything she wants from the shop list, that has been given as a reward already.)