[10] End Game

[Friend or Foe]

Ashe
Piper
Sage
Sophia

Kaden
Wizard

OOC:

So I'm going to scene for you all. The reason I'm not roleplaying this is because I want you guys to completely have control here.

The final four is alone, in the volcano, right after the helicopter crashes. Kaden is not with you. Kai Demolic will confront you and you'll have to fight him, and any surviving goons he has. He has a layer of ki protecting his body at all times, along with a high level of strength and speed. However, all of this is artificial and will wear out as his stress level raises.

You'll have three roleplays each to fight him. Feel free to spread them out, and if you want to cut away from the fight, such as talk of the past game or the crash prior to this, feel free. You'll have one week.

Meanwhile, Kaden and Wizard will crash with Jackson, Rosemary, Trisha and Champ and will be in charge of finding an escape route for everybody with the helicopter destroyed. Since you guys arn't official members of the game anymore, you don't HAVE to roleplay, but I encourage it as you'll be a part of the finale in some way.

Alright, that's all. Expect me to get in at least one post for Kai Demolic (Development only, no story progression) and possibly one for the other three surviving NPCs.

Good luck.

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Piper!”

The last thing the woman recalled before she blacked out was Kaden pulling her into the helicopter as it spiraled uncontrollably toward the wall of the volcano.

A weak gasp escaped from the redhead’s trembling lips as she extended a shaking hand out in front of her bruised, beleaguered body. She had only been unconscious for a few moments, but in that time, the helicopter had been reduced to a few scattered piles of smoldering debris.

With a grunt, Piper dug her scorched fingers into the ground and attempted to liberated her lower body from beneath the crushing weight of a piece of helicopter debris. Although her body was screaming, the adrenaline and rage coursing through the woman was more than enough to spurn her forward.

“Get…of off me,” the redhead screamed as she wrenched her left foot out from beneath the twisted, broken door of the helicopter. With one of her legs free, Piper was able to liberate her other pinned appendage with a heavy kick. Turning her attention away from her lower body, the woman found herself glaring as Kai Demolic—seemingly unscathed by the crash—casually walked away from the smoldering wreckage.

In Piper’s head, she was screaming, but all she could get out was a series of incoherent murmurs as the painful reality of the situation set in…

They had almost escaped.

After all the tears, bloodshed, and broken dreams, the group of five had managed to nearly escape from the jaws of Kai Demolic’s grand scheme. But in a moment, the man himself had robbed them of their salvation and dragged them back into the fiery jaws of oblivion.

And now he there was he—sauntering away like he was the king of the world.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Piper rasped as she slowly dragged herself up off the ground and up to a standing position. With her eyes set on the retreating game master, she started forward, altogether ignorant of the injured and wounded around her.

You should help them. Piper’s subconscious chimed as the woman glanced over at the ruined helicopter. There are some people missing…

“The rescue crew,” Piper whispered as she scanned the groaning bodies littered around the broken whirlybird. “Trisha and her cronies,” she added smugly as she moved to leave. Unfortunately, as she was diverting her attention from the crash, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. Turning around, Piper narrowed her eyes as she walked toward the piece of red cloth flapping beneath a part of the helicopter’s hull.

“No…” Piper muttered as she slowly began to realize what she was staring at. The woman’s eyes widened as she broke into a spring toward the smoking piece of rubble. With a violent sweeping motion, she sent the chunk of steel and machinery rolling to the side as her other hand reached down to scoop up the familiar red jacket.

“Kaden,” the redhead whispered softly as she clenched the sleeves of the tattered jacket in her shaking hands. In an instant, Piper snapped back to the scene inside the helicopter. She saw her unconscious body and standing a few feet away was Kaden. As the helicopter’s frame buckled against the wall of the volcano, the force of the impact ejected Kaden through the open side door the helicopter.

The last thing Piper saw before the vision ended was Kaden’s jacket catching on part of the railing and being ripped away from the courier was he vanished over the earthen ledge that surrounded the inside perimeter of the volcano. With a scream, Piper’s knees buckled beneath her.

Looking up, the woman began to feverously scan her surroundings for any signs of survivors. As she’d noted earlier, Sophia, Sage, and Ashe were lying on the ground in visible pain, but there was no sign of Kaden or the ‘rescue’ crew that had attempted to rain on Kai’s grand finale.

“Please, no,” Piper muttered erratically as she hugged the jacket close to her bosom. Fresh tears were beginning to roll down the woman’s dirt-stained cheeks. “This isn’t fair,” the woman stammered as she looked up from the tattered piece of fabric and watched as Kai Demolic was greeted near the other side of the volcano by a small detachment of his hired thugs and personal soldiers.

Fresh rage began to boil within the twisted madness of the woman’s mind. In nearly three decades of living, she’d never met anyone as wholesome and loving as Kaden. Throughout the last two days, the blonde courier had saved countless lives, regardless of allegiance. He had even gone so far as to offer friendship to Kai’s wife—an incorrigible shrew of a woman who had nearly killed him on more than one occasion. The man had even sacrificed his life to save someone he had just met.

In return for his benevolence and love, what had Kaden received in return?

He got to die young.

And now, Kai Demolic was going to walk away scot-free and wash his hands clean. He was going to cash a big, fat check and retire to a nice vacation in the tropics while Piper and the other survivors cooked alive in the insatiable maw of some volcano. A frown spread across the redhead’s pale visage as she rose up from the ground and turned her eyes toward the host and his gang of armed thugs.

“No you fucking don’t,” Piper seethed as she slid what remained of Kaden’s jacket over her fatigues. With a slight limp, the woman walked over to what remained of the helicopter’s rotor blades. Although weakened both physically and mentally by the trials Kai Demolic had forced her to endure, the woman still had enough rage and adrenaline to wrench apart one of the helicopter’s bent blades. Clenching the chunk of steel between her dirty, blood hands, Piper began to make her way around the ledge of earth and rock toward the retreating game master.

“Kai Demolic!” The woman screamed as she held the long piece of metal like an oversized baseball bat. Despite the rumbling of the magma beneath them, the show’s host managed to hear Piper’s shout. With a snicker, the man crossed his arms over his chest as the air around him began to shimmer and glisten.

“Go over there and help Miss Juunanagou find some peace,” Kai barked with a smug grin as his nameless cronies holstered their weapons and began to sprint around the perimeter of the volcano toward the lumbering woman.

“What are you doing?” A voice shouted from behind Piper, prompting her to glance over her shoulder. It was an injured and winded Sophia, who was busily tended to Sage and Ashe. “I need your help!” She said weakly as a small trail of blood began to seep down from one of her nostrils.

Piper knew she should stay. She knew she should do her job and help save human lives. She knew she should help the other survivors.

But the woman also knew she had an obligation to the fallen—an obligation to bring Kai Demolic to justice.

“I’ll buy you some time,” Piper rasped as she clenched the metal rotor blade. “Take it and then show that asshole the beating of his lifetime,” she shouted as she ran forth to engage the team of soldiers coming after her.

“Sorry,” Piper screamed as she swung the heavy chunk of steel into the oncoming group of thugs. Like grass beneath the sickle, they toppled into broken heaps. A few swings later, the remainder of the small detachment was lying on the floor of the earthen ledge. As she stepped over the heaps of broken bodies, the woman discarded the helicopter blade and liberated an energy rifle from one of the bleeding soldiers.

“Thank you,” Piper muttered dryly as she clicked on the weapon and turned it upon the smiling face of Kai Demolic. Despite the onslaught of energized bullets, each and every last projectile simply struck the air in front of the man and fizzled out of existence.

“Remember the gates in the mall?” Kai chuckled suavely as he brushed the dusty and soot from his jacket. As Piper lowered the weapon, Friend or Foe’s beloved host sprinted forth—easily covering the distance between himself and the redhead in the time it took to lower her weapon. “Same concept,” he growled as she slammed the palm of his hand into Piper’s chest and sent the woman hurtling across the interior of the volcano.

[Kaden]

As it turned out, vehicles in Friend or Foe did not mix well with idealistic blond couriers. Kaden thought he had learned his lesson when the last car he had been in had turned out to be a bomb. To drive the point home, though, a helicopter needed to be crashed into the side of a volcano. Kaden wasn't sure whether to consider himself luckily or out of luck when he was thrown from the helicopter itself. That was right as Kai collided with the helicopter. That was also when things went black for Kaden.

The courier hadn't been completely sure what happened. As he fell, and the heat of the volcano washed over his body, he found himself wondering what would happen if he actually into the volcano itself. After that, all Kaden remembered was a vicious tug and a sharp pain. The next thing to reach his senses was the barking of a dog. He tried to sit up, to turn his head towards the sound, but someone was holding him down.

Opening his eyes, Kaden found his vision blurred and his head pounding. Even if he had able to discern the blurry figure before him, he wouldn't have cared who it was. A muffled voice reached his ears, but Kaden couldn't make anything out. When he tried to say something, he became sharply aware of the fact that some kind of cloth had been stuffed into his mouth. He quickly figured out why.

A sickening pop hit Kaden's ears just before the pain. His left shoulder felt as though someone has just jammed an ice pick into it. Fortunately, the pain did an effective job of sharpening his senses and the cloth in his mouth served the double purpose of giving him something to bite down on and muffling his cry of pain. Tearing the cloth from his mouth, Kaden glared up at the person standing over him.

"What the fuck did you do?" the courier demanded.

"Tch... you're welcome," was Trisha's response. "Your shoulder was dislocated. I figured you'd rather have it in the socket. Next time I'll let you take care of it yourself."

"My... shoulder?" Kaden ran a hand through his hair as he looked around.

The helicopter seemed to have crashed quite a ways off. How far had he been thrown? When a wave of heat hit his bare arms, the courier's focus shifted to his jacket... or the lack thereof. The tugging as he fell from the helicopter, and the pain just before he blacked out. It caught on something and wrenched his arm from its socket as he fell away from the 'copter.

"Uh... thanks," Kaden offered to Trisha.

"Whatever. I'm going to find Rosemary and Pride," she responded as she turned and began to talk away.

"Find who?" Kaden hopped to his feet and hurried after Trisha.

"The other people in the helicopter, genius. It would be nice if I didn't have to get a new one all by myself."

As the sound of a dog's bark reached Kaden's ear, he realized that Trisha was actually following the path the dog had taken. Why, Kaden had no clue. He couldn't even begin to guess why a dog was on that helicopter to begin with. Nonetheless, the dog proved its worth when Kaden and Trisha rounded an outcropping of rock and came upon Jackson, Rosemary, and Oliver Nash.

"Who's the kid?" came Jackson's voice.

"Champ found him," Trisha explained after a short pause. "Thought he was one of you guys."

"Hey," the courier began. "I'm--"

"Kaden," Rosemary interupted. "Another player in this game."

"Uh... yeah." Kaden cocked an eyebrow at the scarf-wearing woman. "Anyway, what's going on? Oliver just kind of disappeared from that Temple... Town... place. And I thought Trisha was... dead."

"Please..." Trisha waved a hand dismissively. "I've been shot worse than that."

"Anyway, we were trying to get you guys off of this island," Jackson answered Kaden's question. "You see how well that worked out."

"No one deserves to be in this hell," Oliver quipped. "Except that sonofabitch Kai."

"We need to find a new way out of here," Rosemary moved on.

"We need to go find everyone else. Like Piper," Kaden found himself glaring at Rosemary for no real reason. "And Sophia. And Ashe and Sage."

"Not a good idea, kid," Jackson replied. "Greg's interested in those four. He doesn't seem to care about us. We use that to secure an escape route. That's the best shot you've got at helping your lady friends."

With every fiber of his being, Kaden hated the idea of leaving Piper and Sophia on their own. He should have been with them, helping to bring Kai to justice. Isn't that what he and Piper promised they would do? Running away to look for... what? A helicopter? A boat? What good was that?

Shaking his head, Kaden brushed those thoughts from his mind. He was thinking about things the wrong way. Piper and Sophia were more than capable of looking after themselves. Hell, they were far more capable of taking down Kai than he was himself. He would just get himself hurt and then Sophia would waste energy healing him instead of the person who actually something about fighting.

Besides, when they brought down Kai, they'd need a way to transport him to the authorities, wouldn't they? The faster something like that was available, the less danger they would be in. Jackson was right. The best Kaden could do to help his friends was to find a way off that island and hurry back as quickly as possible.

"Fine," the courier finally said. "Where to, then?"

[Sage]

It was so dark. Sage could see the sky through the twisted metal above her, and just in the corner of her eye she could see fire. There was a lot of movement, but despite all of this, everything was completely quiet.

It wasn’t until she saw the redhead speaking to herself that she realized she couldn’t hear anything. Piper looked terribly upset, and Sage wanted to see what was wrong, but she couldn’t feel... anything. It was hard, even, to just tilt her head around to look, so her view was mostly limited to the sky and wreckage overhead.

Suddenly, a flurry of blurred colors appeared beside her. She could only just make out the figure, before it bent over her. Sage’s eyes met Sophia’s. Sage’s were confused and dim with fatigue, Sophia’s were heavy with concern and... something. Sage wasn’t sure.

A painful ringing screeched through the blue haired girl’s head, and she squeezed her eyes shut while clenching her teeth against the pain. “-from the wreckage,” Sophia said. Sage looked up at her, confused. The ringing subsided a little, and she realized she could hear again. The priestess’ expression soured. “Did you hear what I said?”

“I... um,” Sage panicked for a moment. She could lie and hopefully get away with it, but what if Sophia called her on it? The hybrid frowned. “...No.”

“You’re stuck under a big piece of metal. I’m going to find Kaden or Ashe to see if we can’t free you from the wreckage,” the blonde repeated.

“Oh...” the coral eyed girl replied. “Yeah, um...” she tried to look around, but failed. “What metal?”

Sophia sighed. “Just... hold on,” she ordered, and noisily trudged over the wreckage, disappearing out of Sage’s narrow line of sight. Her vision was returning; the heavy darkness of her daze was fading away.

With nothing else to do, Sage just watched the sky. There weren’t any clouds, though. That was too bad, she thought. Sage liked trying to find shapes of things in clouds. She always saw happy things in the puffy ones. The wavy clouds looked nice on their own, but Sage never saw anything in them.

It didn’t even occur to her that she should be taking the situation more seriously. The twisted game show, the fact that Kai could be less than inches away from her, the fate of her sister, none of that seemed to weigh on her. Even the fact there was some sort of helicopter part potentially crushing the life out of her hardly registered. She was more concerned that she would get very bored, and maybe lonely, if she was left stuck like this, with only an uninteresting, cloudless sky to keep her company, the view obscured by the big black silhouette of the downed aircraft.

But Sophia kept her promise. Soon, she came back, and with Ashe. Sage smiled. Ashe looked hurt, but Sage was happy to see them. They were good friends. The two girls hefted up a big chunk of metal and desperately pushed against it. There was a loud groaning sound as the metal protested, but they kept pushing anyway. It didn’t look like they were getting anywhere, though.

“...Wh-What are you waiting for?! Get out!” Sophia exclaimed. “Before we drop this thing!!”

Confused, Sage scuttled back and away, surprised by how suddenly she could move again. A thunderous bang sounded out from where she just was, and the girl, now sitting up, could see one of the landing struts where she had been. Apparently it broke off and fell on her.

“Oh... Sage... your legs...” Ashe murmured. The crystal haired hybrid narrowed her eyes at the comment, and looked down at herself, and gasped. Her legs were horribly maimed by the accident, and a streak of blood led from where she sat to where she had been under the wreckage. Sage’s expression suddenly became very serious.

“It looks like I’ve lost a lot of blood,” she calmly observed, very much to the shock of the other two girls. “...I don’t have anything to treat something so severe. I-I’m sorry, but maybe you should just-”

“Sh,” Sophia interrupted as she knelt down next to Sage. She held her hands out over the girl’s ruined legs, and carefully moved them about. The addict was about to question the ritual when suddenly, a gentle green glow wafted from Sophia’s hands down to Sage’s legs.

It didn’t hurt, but Sage couldn’t be sure if it should or not. Her legs didn’t hurt either, but she was sure she was in a state of shock. Still, there was some sense of familiarity in what Sophia was doing, and Sage couldn’t find the will to protest. She had to see what happened.

And the doctor was stunned. Her wounds literally closed themselves. She could see jagged clumps of shredded flesh pull itself together and knit itself up seamlessly. And she could feel that bizarre numbness fading away.

Soon, she could feel everything again, and suddenly wished she couldn’t. She was so tired, so hungry, and still had bruises all over her body. And yet, she instantly understood why Sophia hadn’t continued.

The priestess was sitting, now, panting heavily. Sage climbed to her feet, and looked to Ashe, then back to Sophia. She frowned, but this frown was unusual. It seemed to be one of deep concentration.

The blue haired addict knelt down like Sophia had done, and held her hands out like the blonde had done to her.

“Wh-What? Sage, no. You can’t just-” Sophia fell silent as a soft blue light crept up. The glow spread forth, cascading over the priestess, who felt an instant sensation of refreshment.

Sage, however, was much more shocked than Sophia was. “I- I can... see it!”

“See... what?” Ashe interjected, holding her arm close to herself. It was injured pretty badly.

“Everything!” Sage exclaimed. She saw blood cells spontaneously dividing in capillaries, before rushing out to breaches in the flesh. She saw a sudden, instantaneous swell in adrenaline and yet, despite it, she saw no damage to blood vessels. She watched as flesh sewed itself together at the microscopic level. She saw fractured bone seal itself as though nothing had ever happened. Everything.

The girl fell on her rear, gasping for breath. Unlike Sophia, she didn’t feel tired from the experience at all. She was... exhilarated. “I...” she looked up at Ashe. “This must have been what happened when...”

The priestess climbed to her feet, feeling much better now than she had a moment ago. She offered Sage a hand and pulled her up, and then turned to Ashe. “Well, I’d better take care of that before-”

“N-No,” the quarter saiyan interrupted. “Let me.”

“You can’t just burn your energy all over the place like that,” Sophia replied. “You need to conserve-”

“Please,” Sage pressed. “I... haven’t... been much, um... help. Here, I mean. I want to... please?”

“Fine,” the priestess sighed. “I’m going after Piper. She’s going to need as much help as we can give her.”

Sage nodded, and held her hands out at Ashe. Sure enough, the same thing happened. Her eyes saw blood swirling within her pink haired friend’s body, and her will forced Ashe’s metabolism into overdrive. It was miraculous to watch the body recover in a heartbeat what would normally take weeks. It was like... everything Sage knew about medicine... suddenly didn’t matter. And yet, she didn’t care.

“Come on, Sage!” Ashe grasped her arm and started pulling the azure haired girl along, but she broke free.

“W-Wait!” Sage returned to the helicopter, and reached in. “...What?” she muttered, withdrawing a few objects. She looked at one with surprise, and then tucked it into one of the bows in her hair. The girl turned around holding a sub-machine gun in one hand, and her pistol in the other. The pistol she held out to Ashe. “It’s kept me safe so far. I... can’t use two at once anyway.”

The pink haired girl took the pistol, while Sage fumbled for a moment with her new-found weapon until she held it comfortably. The weapon looked very much like a traditional MP5, but this one fired energy.

She and Ashe rushed ahead, seeing a bright light in the distance. It was only when Kai could clearly be made out that the severity of the situation suddenly decided to cave on in Sage from all sides. She tripped over her own feet, and crashed to the floor, eyes wide with terror. She was suddenly feverishly trembling, and sweating, but not from the heat.

“We’re... we’re... going...”

The student returned to Sage, and tried to pull her back up. “Come on, come on! Kai’s right over-”

“We’re going to die,”

“Don’t talk like that!”

“Doesn’t matter, Zena’s dead, anyway,” Sage declared. Ashe sighed; it was obvious the blue haired girl was talking to herself. “Even if we make it, what then? Nothing here, ...nothing there. Kai doesn’t matter. He already... won.”

“Sage, come on!” Ashe exclaimed. Kai was right there. This was not the proper time to flake out!

“What will I do? Where will I stay? ...I have a job, but, what if they fire me? Who will-”

Ashe slapped her. Hard. Sage was surprised at the violence, and stared accusingly at her friend. Ashe stared back, her eyes burning into the blue haired girl.

“I just... I just need... need some... pills,” the girl explained. “I need-”

“You need to wake up! We all need to work together to beat Kai, Sage! We can worry about the problems when we get to them, okay? You’re not going to be alone-”

“No, you will be there?” Sage asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “I don’t... I don’t want you or Sophia to die...” the girl looked away, ironically, back up at the boring, clear blue sky. She looked back down. “C-Can we really... fight him?”

“...I don’t know,” Ashe replied. Sage took her arm as the pink haired girl hauled her back up to her feet. “I’m scared, too.”

“I can’t...” she shook her head. “I... I don’t know what to do.”

“Well... we’ll do like you did in the fight with Sebastian. You’re getting even with Kai for your sister,” Ashe explained.

Getting even... Sage frowned. A part of her did scream out at her to kill Kai. To take his life for what he did to her and her sister. But... would she be any different from him if she took his life out of anger?

[Kaden]

Despite his decision to move with Trisha, Jackson, Rosemary, and Oliver, Kaden was still hesitant to leave his other allies. With their helicopter destroyed, the suggested course of action was to backtrack through Temple City and the room in which Kai had shown everyone their possible futures. In short order, Kaden would have no chance of helping anyone directly. It was frustrating.

"You think they'll be ok?" the courier asked no one in particular. They were already passing through Kai's 'future' room.

"Don't know," came Jackson's reply. He took up the mantle of 'leader' quite comfortably. "If this is all just a big TV show, Kai will want to draw out the end, though, right?"

"Makes sense..." the courier frowned as he spoke.

And it did, it made perfect sense It just wasn't particularly comforting. It should have been a short trip from the volcano to the temple and the city beyond, but Jackson seemed to be moving at a relatively slow pace. Kaden hadn't picked up on it, but things seemed out of place as they neared the city. Oliver, Jackson, and Trisha, all ex-soldiers, were hesitant to actually step out of the temple. Just as Jackson began to, Rosemary spoke up.

"Stop," was all she said.

Immediately, Jackson and Trisha stopped making any movement. Oliver, taking a cue from Jackson, also stopped. Kaden, however, had been too absorbed in his thoughts to pay too much attention. He only managed to take one step out of the temple before being pulled back in by the collar of his shirt.

A hail of bullets and blasts struck the steps to the temple where Kaden had just been standing. The courier stared, amazed, at the concrete that he been standing upon as it was reduced to a small crater of rubble.

"Rooftops," came Trisha's voice over the sound of gunfire. "10 and 2."

"Rosemary, you take 10, I'm at 2," Jackson called over his shoulder.

Without saying a word, Rosemary stepped up beside Jackson and the two of the siddled up to the door leading out of the temple. As soon as there was a lull in the gunfire, the two of them took a single step out the door. Jackson fired a blast of ki to the right of the door, which crashed against a nearby rooftop. To the left of the door, Rosemary flicked an arm outwards, firing small blasts from her fingertips; the blast struck the rooftop assailants squarely.

"Oliver, Trish, take point and get us out of here," Jackson barked.

Though she shot a glare in his direction, Trisha followed Jackson order and shot out of the temple, dagger in hand. Oliver, who Kaden only then realized had been the one to pull him out of harm's way, was right behind Trisha. As Kaden collected himself and stepped forward, he heard the sounds of a fight beginning to break out.

Ahead of him, the courier saw Jackson and Rosemary moving forward much more carefully. Their eyes were fixed on the rooftops and upper-floors of the city beneath the mountain. Kaden felt as completely useless as he was sure he looked. Everyone else around him was capable of such amazing things in even the tightest situations. The only thing Kaden was consistently good at was almost getting shot.

As he stepped fully out of the temple, though, Kaden could tell that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better. Even without his Sight, he could tell there were lots of... unfriendlies lurking about. He could feel them. And, naturally, they were standing between Jackson, Oliver, Rosemary, Trisha, Kaden, and where they needed to go. Things were going to get a lot worse...

[Jesper]

Her eyes snapped open.

The dark room was still dark, though her pupils had somehow adjusted by then, despite a myriad of bright lights flashing in her eyes. The healer looked around, scanning the faces of her allies as they were; either they were still experiencing their rather bleak futures, or they were done, panting while drenched in a cold sweat as they mulled over the new information in their minds. Sophia’s own mind was still racing her pulse as she tried to make sense of it all. She had obviously done what she was afraid she would do—forget the reality, or lack thereof, of the situation. To react on impulse.

To let Kai win.

It didn’t matter, though. Even if Kai wanted to mess with their minds, even if he was doing this to throw them off of their pursuit, the experience helped Sophia in more ways than even his genius could have possibly comprehended. While her friends’ visages were pasted with shocked or even confused expressions, the healer found herself almost content in her final conclusion. Not in the future that she saw, nor in the person she found herself to be therein, but in the path she now knew to avoid. She wasn’t exactly on fire with passion in her profession like she had been before, but she no longer was bound by the motions with which she followed endlessly during her tenure at the temple. She knew that she could be her own person now; she no longer needed the idea of a God to just make it through the day. Sophia found herself smiling in that recognition.

“I must admit, you almost surprise me,” Kai’s voice sounded from seemingly out of nowhere. “Almost. Are you actually happy about your hypothetical future?”

“Not at all,” Sophia’s smile weakened as she closed her eyes. “I’m actually quite sad. But that’s not me. It’s not going to be me. Futures can be erased. They can be changed.”

“Your future reflects your present,” Kai stated simply. Geniuses had a tendency to monologue ceaselessly, and even Kai had been known to give a long one every now and then. However, those five words sufficed in his message, and nothing could have hit Sophia harder. Of course her current condition was on a fast track to insanity. Sophia could feel herself drain out as if through a funnel, but what if her future was closer than she thought?

Okay, then. I’ll change my present, too. Sophia thought, opening her eyes to look up at the screen where Kai’s face had once been. And it starts with you, Kai.

*

In a fit of rage, Piper had confronted the diabolical game show host by herself.

Sophia got first row seats, so to speak, for the initial parts of the fight, one-sided as it may have been. The healer had no idea what the medic was fighting for, but she knew why—fury mixed with an overwhelming sadness were driving factors behind every action; a feeling that Sophia knew very well. She took a step forward to help out, but a sudden commotion sounding from behind her stopped her in her tracks. Sophia suddenly felt very worried about the two ladies that she had left behind.

“What are you doing!?” she suddenly cried out to Piper, garnering her attention. “I need your help!”

Piper acknowledged her, her face suddenly clouded by doubt. However, she eventually shook her head as she grabbed a blade from the fallen helicopter. “I’ll buy you some time. Take it and show that asshole the beating of a lifetime.”

The redheaded medic dashed towards a group of soldiers. Sophia winced as she witnessed the enraged woman slice them in half, but she remained committed to staring Kai Demolic down through the shiver that had been sent down her spine. She wanted to go back and check on Sage and Ashe, but something inside of her wouldn’t allow her to look away. As Piper battled his minions, the edges of Kai’s lips curled into a malevolent smile.

“Face to face at last, I see,” he took a step forward. “I must admit, you’re certainly…taller than I expected. No matter, I suppose. Well? Are you going to step into your role as the healer—as background noise—or are you actually going to do something with yourself?”

Sophia smiled gently. “Calm and calculated. We’ll see how long that lasts.”

“Manufactured confidence is of no consequence to me, girl,” Kai waved her off. “Fight or step aside, it makes no difference in the end.”

Just as soon as Sophia raised her fists and sank into a battle stance, the villain had lunged forward and slammed his fist into her face. The priestess slid backwards, trying desperately to keep her balance, but eventually fell backwards onto her back. Sophia and Kai looked over simultaneously at Piper as she bent over to pick up a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers. As the game master turned to face her, Sophia crawled to her feet and tried to round around the interior of the volcano to stand with Piper. Much to her chagrin, however, Kai demonstrated an impressive display of speed and strength as he darted towards the redhead, making a quip that Sophia couldn’t quite hear. Fearing the worst, Sophia ran as fast as she possibly could towards her friend.

“No!” Sophia cried out in between breaths as Kai crashed a blow to Piper’s midsection, sending her flying backwards. The priestess grunted, summoning speed from any sort of reservoir she had lying inside of her. Luckily, she caught up with the flying body and caught it before it slid anywhere dangerous.

“You caught me,” Piper’s voice was mixed with surprise and gratitude.

“Never…going to be…able to…do that again…” Sophia panted. Piper chuckled silently as the two women helped each other up. The priestess tried to steal a glance over in Kai’s direction to see what he had been up to, but her eyes widened to their dimensions as she found that he was no longer where he was standing. Looking up, she was barely able to get the words out. “Look out! Above!”

The pair jumped out of the way of Kai’s fist as it crashed down menacingly from above. They were just barely able to avoid the blow as the man’s attack crashed through the surface of the ground, sending a ripple of broken dirt outwards as he emerged from the aftermath. Sophia landed skidding on her feet, her mind racing as to how she would even keep up with such a foe. Her thoughts were forced away from the man, however, as she was met with a pair of soldiers who had scrambled to meet up with their “master.” Sophia couldn’t understand why they were still willing to fight for someone who was so obviously insane, or why they were willing to even go inside a volcano after someone like that. There was no time for such an inquiry, though, as they attacked without so much as a word.

“Not today,” Sophia whispered as she side-stepped the barrel of an energy rifle as the thug pointed it at her, knocking it aside with a downward strike and coming back up to hit the man in the nose with her elbow. Adrenaline kicked in as the man fell backwards, letting his gun go flying in the air before he landed. Clutching onto the weapon, she found the trigger and aimed it at the other soldier; she had seen Piper handle one of these on more than enough occasions to see how the thing worked. She fired, a bolt of energy piercing the man’s arm. This forced him to drop his weapon in kind as blood squirted out. Not stopping to think, Sophia dashed towards the man and kicked him square in the chest, sending him flying towards Kai as he had his back turned from her, focused on Piper.

Tensing up, the host turned around and chopped out horizontally. The fist swiped through the body with ease; the man smirked as momentum caused the two halves to fly past him. As the mist of blood cleared, all that remained was Kai Delmolic himself, caught between the two ladies as they attempted to attack him in a pincer formation.

“Holy shit,” Piper breathed, expressing the same sentiment as Sophia.

“We’ll need the others if we want to survive this,” the priestess concluded.

The redheaded medic nodded. “Let’s just hope that they’re ready.”

[Kaden]

Gunshots and explosions aside, it was eerie to travel back through the town. Unlike Olde Town, which had been empty from the beginning, Kaden could had seen the underground city when people had been buzzing about. As they passed back through, however, the only people present were those under Kai's command. Maybe they were all under Kai's command, though. Maybe things had only been set-up to look like a city. It was becoming difficult to tell.

Ahead of the courier, Trisha and Oliver continued to lead onward -- or "take point" as Jackson had called it -- and behind the courier, Rosemary and Jackson himself were supporting and watching the rooftops. Kaden, quite literally, was simply walking along inbetween everyone else. It wasn't that the courier didn't want to help, he simply wasn't sure how. Every time he thought he saw a bad guy, someone else would take them down first. Rosemary's attacks were just as accurate and even stronger than his own would be and the ex-soldiers of the group had decades of experience that made it seem like they shared Kaden's sixth sense.

With no real role to fill -- at least in a group of people who were stronger, faster, and more experienced than he was -- Kaden had time to just sort of look around. And look after Champ, though sometimes it seemed as though the dog was actually looking after him.

As they moved down the main-street, they passed the hotel in which Kaden had cleaned up and rested. They passed the restaurant where he and Ashe and Sage and Sophia and Piper had gotten some food and relaxed -- some relaxed a little more than others. Though it had been a relatively happy scene, it had segued into something less comfortable for the courier.

----

"Hey," the courier waved to his ally. "Piper!"

The medic turned towards the voice, stopping as she did. She had been about to enter the hotel's elevator and get some rest. Sophia had already taken Sage to her room, and Ashe had been pretty close behind. Fortunately for Kaden, Piper had just missed the elevator doors closing and was just waiting in the lobby.

"What's up, Kaden?" she asked as the courier approached.

"I was... y'know... wondering if you were, like, alright?" Even intoxicated, Kaden winced at his eloquence.

"Am I alright? Really?" the medic shook her head and feigned a laugh.

"I mean... obviously you're probably not alright. None of us are is my guess." The courier shrugged. "Not really. But, no, I just meant... you seemed kind of off in the restaurant is all."

"Oh?" Piper turned her attention from Kaden toward the lit elevator button. "Did someone say something?"

"What? No. I mean, well, I'm saying something now, but..." Kaden laughed as his voice trailed off. "I can be pretty perceptive is all. You just didn't seem like yourself."

"And you know how I should seem?" Piper's voice was unusually harsh.

"Probably not," Kaden replied with a sigh. "But I do know that if something's wrong it helps to have someone you can talk to about it. I just, wanted to let you know that I can be that someone." Kaden flashed a smile as Piper turned towards him. "That's all."

"I..." Piper frowned, though it didn't seem directed at Kaden. "Thanks, Kaden."


---

Instead of uncomfortable conversations, though, the hotel was now host to a swarm of bad-guys carrying uncomfortable-looking weapons. Kaden tried to estimate how many people Kai had working for him on that tiny island, but it seemed like they simply never ended. If the man could engineer a mall full of zombies, an unending horde of faithful soldiers didn't seem very far fetched.

"We're almost out," came Jackson voice from behind Kaden.

True enough, sunlight filtered into the underground city as the quintet continued fighting through the city. Unfortunately for all of them, the massive slab of stone that was the door to the city began sliding back into place. Before any of them could make it out, they once against found themselves trapped. Kaden let out a slow sigh as he watched the door settle into place.

"Well fuck..."

[Sage]

Piper was flat on her back when Sophia burst onto the scene. Kai raised a foot, poised to crush the redheaded woman’s throat with it, when a sudden, effulgent blast smashed into his chest, pushing him off-balance. He stumbled backward as the priestess rushed him, but found his footing too early for the blonde to capitalize.

He leapt up off the ground, and with grace and skill unbecoming the psychopathic television director, he cracked across her jaw with the heel of his shoe, crumpling the temple dwelling girl immediately.

Kai leapt into the air, descending with a vicious elbow, but Piper suddenly inserted herself between the two combatants, driving her knee deep into the madman’s abdomen. He crumpled around the lithe woman’s attack, and she was quick enough to throw a stiff punch to his temple, throwing him onto the floor of the volcanic crater, putting some distance between him and Sophia.

Piper helped the priestess up while Ashe and Sage finally arrived on-scene, although it still seemed that Sage was there in flesh only. She trembled, but it seemed not at any one thing, and her eyes remained vacant, staring through the battle before her.

Kai kicked up off the ground, catapulting himself at the redhead with unimaginable speed. All four girls, minus Sage, gasped at once as he faded out of the visible spectrum, only to appear again directly in front of Piper. He returned the punch to the temple she had given him, launching her precariously close to the lava flow that seemed to divide the crater, winding through the cracked earth like a slow-moving river.

The maniac turned on Sophia next, who unleashed a barrage of ki as he raced toward her. Ashe opened fire with her newly acquired weapon, pelting his side. The combined offensive sent him crashing to the earth, but he launched up over the dust.

Enraged, he unleashed a blast of ki of his own, flattening the priestess. Ashe launched another salvo of energy blasts, knocking Kai from his perch in the sky, but he failed to plummet to the ground. In mid-fall, he flipped backward, landed on his feet, and kicked off the ground, straight for the pink haired girl, who opened fire, eyes wide with fear.

“Sage!!” she desperately shrieked. “Shoot!!”

A sense of awareness suddenly flooded into Sage’s eyes, but it was too late. Kai was upon her friend, and with a violent backhand, he sent her crashing to the ground. Kai Demolic touched down, and caught the blue haired girl’s gaze with his own, flashing her a bright smile.

“How quickly they fell,” he mused, obviously quite happy with the outcome. He slowly spun around on his heel, to ensure Sophia and Piper were still down, before he completed his circle to return his focus onto Sage. “Just put the gun down. Let me get this show back under control and you might still be able to have a chance at winning my little game. It’s almost over; you’ve all been through so much. Why risk death trying to ruin it?”

He was interrupted by a bolt of energy to the back. He stumbled toward Sage, who panicked and leveled her machine gun at him. She squeezed the trigger, and gasped as a spray of red blasts of energy peppered the madman. “A...” Sage watched as the energy bolts crashed into a shield which lit up just in front of Kai’s chest. The collective force of the impacts was still enough to throw him off his feet.

Before he could even get back up, a recovered and frustrated Piper fell knees-first on top of the self-named Kai Demolic. The redhead shifted her weight so she straddled the TV producer, sitting on his chest. With both hands, she hammered punches into the skull of the man who had caused her so much grief.

To Sage, it seemed that Piper’s anger grew with every punch, like no matter what she tried to do to extract her revenge from Kai, it wasn’t enough. The hybrid knew what that must have felt like. Kai could die a hundred times or not at all. Did it make any difference now? Would she feel any better to see the life drain out of his face? She felt so... damaged. The seeming inevitability of her future weighed heavily upon her. Maybe it would be better to die here anyway, so she wouldn’t have to face what lied ahead.

Suddenly, she gasped, and staggered backward several steps. But in the future Kai conceived for her, Zena was still alive! Had she survived the explosion that consumed her and Sebastian some how? Had she... been brought back to life between now and then? No, that future was impossible. Zena was dead, and that meant it didn’t matter if Sage lived or not. The conditions for that reality couldn’t be met either way.

Sage tried to shake her head clear of the thoughts that plagued her, and returned her focus to the battlefield. She was horrified to see Piper and Sophia doing their best ragdoll impressions, while Ashe found her back against one of the walls of the crater.

No, don’t touch her! she telepathically screamed, but Kai didn’t listen. He grabbed her by the shirt and hefted her off the ground, slamming her into the wall. His free hand curled into a fist and found a home in Ashe’s gut. He punched her again and again, while Sage mentally screamed for him to stop.

Finally, she found the wherewithal to open fire on her friend’s aggressor. Peals of vibrant color streaked across the dreary crater, and crashed into Kai’s back one after the other. Sage held the trigger down, tears welling up behind her eyes as she pelted Demolic until he let Ashe drop to the ground.

For the second time, only Sage and Kai were still standing, which was more a testament to blind luck than to perseverance or fighting skill. The crazed producer turned upon her, now appearing genuinely angry. He suddenly disappeared, only to appear right in front of the crystal haired addict, just as he had done to Piper. Kai swatted the ki machine gun away from Sage, who watched helplessly as it clattered on the ground so far away.

“I asked you politely not to interfere,” Kai growled. “I was far more reasonable than I should have, apparently,” he threw a backhand to Sage’s face, much like he did to Ashe, sending her crashing to the hot, dry earth. It was obvious by now he wasn’t taking the girls with the candy-colored hair very seriously, despite the rage that seemed to boil over out of him.

“Wh-Why?!” Sage exclaimed, holding her face, which had reddened under the sting of Kai’s blow. “How could you do this to someone?!”

“I already told y-”

“’Because I can’ isn’t good enough!!” Sage shouted, surprising herself. “You killed my sister!”

“I did no such thing,” he retorted, reclaiming his composure almost instantly. “She was safely teleported off-site. Though I can’t say the same for Sebastian. He died from his wounds... I think you could probably tell me how he got them.”

“I... he was going to kill my sister and Ashe and-”

“Who was killed in that village? You? Ashe? Zena?” Kai shook his head. “You killed two men during this contest, Sage. I haven’t killed anybody.” he smiled as Sage’s expression almost immediately fell apart.

“N-No, I didn’t- Zena’s... alive?” Sage blinked at him, suddenly two beats behind the conversation. If he was telling the truth, and Zena was alive... then that meant... that meant she couldn’t afford to throw her life away. Not here!

“You can still see them, can’t you? The blood, their final, pitiful screams?”

“I didn’t want to-”

“You can still see them, can’t you?!”

Sage burst into tears, and covered her face. She could still see them. Every chance her conscience had, it showed her the men whose lives she had taken. Men who would never have a chance to reform, to make something better of themselves. She didn’t see two murderers, she saw two futures, that had been horrifically cut down.

A sudden, frigid gust of wind battered Kai, forcing him to raise a hand to shield his face as snow rode in on the chilling winds. Sage drew her knees into her chest, and buried her face as the temperature plummeted.

Suddenly, all around her, gargantuan spears of ice burst up out of the ground, and a thick sheet of ice raced out in all directions, radiating away from her. Like a supercharged glacier, the child-height sheet of ice rapidly spread, reaching it’s icy fingers all through the crater and up its walls. Soon, the entire crater, and much of the exterior of the volcano was lost beneath the thick, incredibly hard ice. Only the river of magma could not be touched, and it traveled through the glacier as though in a canyon. Huge clouds of steam rose up from the intensely hot liquid rock, while driving snow obscured the rest of the battlefield.

Kai was shivering against the cold, though he tried to hide it. Sage watched him for a moment, and then dried her eyes, before climbing to her feet. She was happy to see Ashe and the others do the same, though they didn’t seem nearly as comfortable within Sage’s snow globe as she did. She walked atop the powder-soft snow, defying gravity by not sinking into it, and bent down to pick up her gun. She turned back to face Kai, who was glaring at her while hugging himself against the extreme cold.

For Ashe and Sophia, she raised her gun. For Piper, too, even though she didn’t really know the woman, but she was here fighting with her, and that was good enough. And finally, Sage raised the gun for herself. If Kai wasn’t lying, and Zena wasn’t dead, then she had something to live for again. For these reasons, Sage found the will to pull the trigger, and managed to put three rounds into the psychopath’s forehead, sending him to the ground.

Thankfully, the other three were already on the way when Kai climbed back to his feet, angrier than ever. He unleashed a burst of ki at Sage, who took the blast in the chest, and collapsed onto the ice in agony and bewilderment at having survived the impact. Looking down at the rapidly fading ice on her chest, she suddenly clued in, and fought to find her footing, only to feel a boot slam into her back, driving her back into the ice.

Kai punted her across the crater, and she tumbled painfully through the ice and snow, before finally skidding to a halt on her back. Blood ran from her lip and her nose, and from a scrape on her arm, but she fought to climb to her feet. She was too far away to be of any concern to Kai now, and he was focusing on the others.

But Sage wasn’t going to just stand and watch while her friends endured suffering any longer. She’d retreated into herself long enough, and it... wasn’t fair to them. The azure haired girl easily ran over the ice, as though it were pavement to her, opening fire with her machine gun on the way.

Most of her shots missed, but the occasional one hit home, allowing Piper or Sophia a free shot, while Ashe supported the whole time with gunfire of her own. It seemed like they hadn’t even fazed Kai, but Sage was determined to at least try. She owed Ashe and Sophia at least that much.

She was still terrified, but somehow she was fighting through it. Step after step brought her closer to returning to the battlefield with the monster who had started all of this.

And at the back of her mind, she could still see the two men she’d killed...

[Kaden]

In the haste and commotion to actually get to the giant stone door, Kaden had never actually considered what they would do if it were actually closed. The pedestal that opened it with the Emblems was on the other side… not that they actually had the emblems any more. Thinking about the problems he was faced with didn’t really help Kaden. He decided it might be better for his own sanity if he concentrated on the things that had actually gone right.

Between the four other people with Kaden, and Champ, the small group had managed to make their way to the door without sustaining so much as an injury. To either side of the door were small stores that they had used to create a pseudo-fortified perimeter, and everyone was doing an admirable job of keeping their opponents at bay. Not that that was a particularly difficult task. They seemed more comfortable shooting from a distance and taking cover when someone so much as sneezed.

While everyone else was kicking or punching or shooting Kai’s soldiers, Kaden was taking his time to examine the door that had locked him in. There was definitely some irony in the fact that only hours ago, Kaden had been on the other side trying to get in. It was actually when they were trying to get into the temple that Kaden had been forced to come to terms with something that had been festering within him since Friend or Foe had begun.

–-

“You ok?”

Kaden looked up to Sophia approaching him. She had been examining the door and the pedestal with Piper while Kaden had been content to simply slump against the tire of their transport. With only one of the emblems in their possession, there wasn’t much that the trio could do. They were stuck outside twiddling their thumbs.

“Yeah,” Kaden smiled up at Sophia. “Just tired, I guess.”

“I know what you mean,” Sophia laughed as she took a seat next to the courier. “It’s been a long… well… how long has it been since this mess started?”

“Feels like it’s been weeks.” Kaden screwed up his face in thought. “It’s probably been about three or four days.”

“Sounds about right,” Sophia agreed.

Time slowly passed as the two sat against their vehicle. Apparently Piper had gone to look around the area, not too far though, Sophia told her ally. Normally, Kaden would have been more than willing to spark up conversation, but something that Sophia had said was stuck in his mind. As the priestess began to stand, Kaden finally sighed and spoke up.

“You’re lucky,” the courier said.

“I’m lucky?” Sophia set herself back down and tilted her head at Kaden. “How so?”

“It’s just… you can actually heal people. I’m… I just…” Kaden released a long sigh. “I’m jealous.”

“Well… it’s not like healing… makes me a saint or anything…” Sophia’s voice drifted off as she turned her eyes to a stray pebble on the ground.

“It’s better than just being able to… destroy things…”

“I don’t think you have anything to be jealous of,” Sophia said after a short pause. “Just because you can use your power to destroy things doesn’t mean you have to. You’re the one who decides how to use your strength and you’re… a good person.”

“Heh…” Kaden could help but smile at the priestess. “Thanks.”

–-

“Well…” Kaden gazed up at the massive stone door that remained in their way. “If all I can do is break stuff… I guess I should get started.”

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Is this all you’ve got?” Kai Demolic shouted above the hail of the machineguns and pistols that were trying to stall his inevitable advance toward the blue-haired woman. Each round that actually managed to strike the man seemed only to stall his movements for a brief second. As Piper lowered the energy rifle, she frowned as she watched more of her allies’ bullets slam into the man’s shield and immediately degenerate into tiny clouds of dust.

“We need something bigger,” the redhead muttered as she discarded her hijacked energy rifle into a snowdrift and set her eyes upon a massive frozen rock clinging to the snowy interior of the volcano. Quickly walking behind Sophia’s line of fire, the medic quickly plunged her hands beneath the sides of the stone and liberated it with a heavy grunt. “This might do,” Piper spoke as she clenched her hands around the sides of the frozen rock.

Turning her attention toward the game’s illustrious host, Piper took just one more moment to fix her grip on the stone, and then she was off—sprinting as fast as her legs would carry her toward the staggering Kai Demolic. Behind the redhead, she heard Sophia scream something as the healer diverted her weapon’s line of fire to avoid ripping apart her teammate. In front of Piper, Kai was too intent on reaching Sage to worry much about his backside.

…Or at least that’s what the medic had assumed until the ex-soldier suddenly spun around and sent a column of vibrant energy screaming toward her.

Unable to divert her course laterally for fear of colliding with the wall or plunging into the heart of the volcano, Piper clenched her jaw as she pushed herself and her oversized weapon up off the ground. Looking up, Kai smiled faintly as he raised his outstretched hand and readied another attack. Unfortunately for the game master, his target disappeared before he got the chance to line her up.

“Ah, yes,” Kai muttered as scanned his immediate surroundings for an indication of the woman’s whereabouts. “The teleporting one,” he added smugly as a bullet from Sage’s pistol crashed into the small of his back. Although safeguarded from most of the impact by his personal shield, even of the impact managed to pass through the shield that Kai found himself staggered.

It was in that one moment of weakness that Piper Juunanagou cashed in her commission. With a scream, the woman erupted into existence above the man and swung her massive chunk of ice and rock down onto Kai Demolic’s cranium. Upon impact, the huge stone exploded apart, releasing a thick cloud of dust and snow across the immediate vicinity that obscured Piper’s vision to the point where she had to retreat backwards a couple paces in order to regain her bearings.

“Is he down for the count?” Sophia asked as she put a hand on Piper’s shoulder and stepped up next to the woman. On the other side of the layer of fallout, Sage and Ashe were standing with their weapons aimed and readied. As the cloud quickly began to thin out, the four women found themselves all mutually mortified by the sight of a relatively unruffled Kai Demolic perched in the same spot where Piper had clogged him with the slab of ice and stone.

Friend or Foe’s lovely host wore a visible scowl upon his dusty visage. Sparks of red energy danced and skittered across the man’s body as he casually lifted his right hand and began to brush away some of the dust and snow that had accumulated on his jacket.

“Damn shielding,” Piper whispered beneath her breath as she clenched her mangled fingers into fists.

“You all disgust me,” Kai remarked as he took a moment to glance at each of the women around him. Once he had made eye contact with all the remaining competitors, he spit onto the ground in front of him. “You blame me for your trauma and sadness? If anything, I would have hoped this little game would have been a lovely excuse for some of you to look into the mirror at the demons clawing beneath the surface,” despite the context, Kai’s words lacked that suave charisma that the women remembered from earlier in the contest. The ex-soldier’s words now sounded like nothing more than the rasping threats of a corner madman. “You’re the monsters of this competition.”

“Shut up,” Piper interjected forcefully as she took a menacing step toward the scowling host. “We’ve had enough of this crap, Gregory Rogers. Just throw in the towel before things get worse for you.”

“Worse for me?” The madman laughed as furrowed his brow. “Like four angst-ridden women would really have a shot at taking me down? I’m surprised most of you could drag yourself away from your diaries, drug habits, masochism, and self-loathing long enough to take part in my wonderful little show,” Kai added as his energy shield continued to flicker and spark. “Time to take out the trash,” he scowled as he sprung forward. As the host of the show dashed forward, his left hand dragged along the ground for a few moments before wrapping around a jagged piece of stone.

All four of the women reeled back as they tried to anticipate where Kai would strike. It was Piper, however, who felt the cold chunk of stone thrust up into her side.

“Like I said,” Kai muttered as Piper’s eyes went wide and the color drained away from her already ghost-white face. “…trash,” he added as he ripped out the bloody rock and kicked Piper across the earthen ledge that surrounded the pool of molten magma below.

By the time the redhead hit the wall, Sage and Ashe had already opened fire upon the game’s illustrious mastermind. As Piper tried to lift her head up off her chest, she saw Sophia sprinting toward her. The healer was shouting—the medic could tell by her facial expression—but no words were coming out of the blonde’s mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered meekly as she slipped out of consciousness.

***

“What are you doing here?”

With a yelp, Piper shot up off the ground. Looking around, she saw that she was still in the volcano, but everything around her was a shade of gray. In front of the mild horrified woman was Kaden, who wore a broad smile on his face.

“What are you doing here?” He repeated as he took a step toward Piper.

“Am I dead?” Piper asked despondently as she stopped surveying the grayscale volcano and turned her eyes to the smiling courier. “Does this mean you’re really dead?”

“You’re unconscious,” Kaden said casually as he ran a hand through his hair. “Time to wake up, Piper Juunanagou,” he added as he took a step forward and poke his index finger into the center of the woman’s chest.

Just like that, everything went white.

***

“Kaden!” Piper screamed as she snapped back into reality. With a startling gasp, Sophia jerked away from the medic. Looking up, the redhead noticed that the healer was bleeding from her nose, and there were tiny rivulets of blood oozing their way out of her ears. “Are you okay?” Piper grunted as she laboriously pulled herself up to her feet—relying heavily on the wall behind her every step of the way.

“Yea,” Sophia muttered weakly as she wiped the blood away from her nose. “You were just…very far gone,” the healer added as she put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t think I managed to fix the wound, but you should be all right for a while…at least until we get real medical attention,” the blonde added as she turned her attention back to Kai, Ashe, and Sage.

“How long was I out?” Piper asked as she slumped back against the wall. Upon impact, something inside Kaden’s jacket managed to get jabbed into her back, prompting the medic to cringe. Looking down, the woman tried not to gag at the sight of the unhealed wound in her side. Instead, she turned her attention to her other side, where she began to search through the various pockets of Kaden’s jacket.

“I don’t know…a few minutes,” Sophia responded as she raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?” She inquired upon seeing Piper start to sift through the inside pocket of what remained of the courier’s jacket. After a few moments, the redhead produced a steel grenade the size of a large apple. “Why would Kaden have explosives?” Sophia asked as Piper began to examine the pin mechanism on the device.

“I…have no idea,” Piper asked as she turned her attention to the fight unfolding several yards away. “But we might as well put it to use,” she muttered as vanished in a swirl of lights. The redhead rematerialized a few feet away from her two allies and the mastermind of the competition. “Hey!” She shouted as she popped the pin out of the explosive and tossed it at the man’s feet. “Fuck you, Kai!”

Almost immediately, Sage and Ashe dove to the wayside, but as Kai Demolic tried to escape the blast radius, Piper teleported and quickly intercepted him. As the redhead phased back into existence, she caught the game’s host with a knee right to the groin. Kai stumbled backwards just as the grenade opened up in a massive flash of light and heat, but as Piper raised her hands to her face in preparation for the impact, she quickly realized that something wasn’t right.

“Wow,” the voice of Kai prompted the woman to lower her hands. With a faint frown, Piper rapidly deduced that she shouldn’t have thought Kaden to be someone who lugged around a high-power explosive. Instead of blasting Kai and herself to pieces, the grenade had instead encapsulated them in a translucent blue dome. “Was this your master plan? To trap me inside her so I can watch you slowly bleed to death?” The mastermind of Friend or Foe laughed as he touched the wall of the barrier. Instantly, the man was zapped with enough energy to cause him to immediately pull his hand back.

“Wonderful,” Kai chuckled as Piper backed herself up until she was nearly at the wall of the dome. “Is this were you and I debate over the ethics of the competition, and then you try desperately to plead with me to turn over a new leaf?” The slowly unwinding madman asked as he began to laugh.

“I guess not,” Piper rasped as she drew Trisha’s dagger from beneath the jacket. As the medic clenched the weapon, the steel of its blade began to hum and glow a vibrant shade of green. “This is where you get to pay the piper!”

[Kaden]

“So,” Kaden summed up, “I’m going to blow a hole through that door.”

Using a store at the end of the city’s main street, Kaden had taken cover with Trisha and Oliver. Both ex-solider’s looked at Kaden with varying degrees of skepticism. Really, the courier couldn’t blame them. He was easily the least intimidating person there. Jackson and Oliver were both much bigger than the courier and even Rosemary and Trisha had that “don’t mess with me” aura about them.

“You?” Oliver cocked an eyebrow at Kaden. “You’re just going to punch a hole through the middle of that thing?”

“Not the middle,” Kaden shrugged as he spoke. “But that’s the basic idea, yeah.”

It was a daunting task, of that there was no mistake, but Kaden had to do something to pull his weight. Opening a door, admittedly, was not nearly as impressive as fighting off armed minions, but… one step at a time. Or so the courier told himself.

Closing his eyes, Kaden took several deep breaths. Extending his sixth sense was something he had had difficulty with in the past; it preferred to work whenever it wanted, not when Kaden asked it to. Fortunately, Kaden had found something of a work-around for that particular problem. Even through his own eyelids, the courier could See the faint wisps of light that drifted through the ground.

Tracing the flow of the light below him, the courier following the faint flow towards the stone door that blocked his path. Taking in a deep breath, Kaden expelled a small wave of ki. He watched as the wave of energy followed through the ground he was standing upon and up to the massive stone door. Almost immediately, his senses locked onto that small burst of his own energy and “followed’ it as it traveled through his surroundings.

In the courier’s mind, he could see the door. He could make out the elaborate indentations and ostentatious jeweled animals that adorned the front of the door. Kaden was actually glad that Kai had made the decision to “dress up” the slab of stone. It wouldn’t be a lot of help, admittedly, but it had definitely made some parts of the structure weaker than others. As the image of the door turned in his mind, Kaden began stepping forward with the intention of beginning his task. Another yank of his collar, however, made short work of that.

“You insane?” came Trisha’s voice.

“What?” Before turning to face the woman, Kaden opened his eyes and snapped a hand forward. A small bolt of ki crashed harmlessly against the stone door, leaving only a small burn mark. “I already told you. We need to get through that door. I was… y’know… going to do that.”

“You were just going to walk into a gun fight?” Oliver said.

“What? Those guys are still out there?” Kaden leaned his head around the corner of the store. Sure enough, there were plenty of guys milling about with guns. Kaden sighed. “Well… I’ll need a little bit of time…”

“We’ll just ask them to stop shooting as us, then,” Trisha replied, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“I’ll get them to back off, you keep me safe.” Having already set his mind to something, Kaden was growing annoyed that he couldn’t actually do it. “Sound like a deal?”

Without actually waiting for a reply, the courier took in a deep breath and turned his focus inward. With a great deal of concentration, Kaden used his energy to peel back the seal on his chest. Through these openings, his energy flowed outward, coursing freely through his body for the second time since Friend or Foe had begun.

As wisps of cerulean energy wafted off of him, Kaden tried to step back out into the main street. Another volley of fire halted his progress. Swearing, the courier turned towards his attacks and waved both of his forward. From either hand, a Salvo of ki blasts rocketed outward, striking all along main street and forcing Kai’s soldiers into hiding. For the moment, at least.

Spinning in place, Kaden turned his attention to the massive stone door. Taking in a deep breath, the courier thrust his hands forward, expelling a massive wave of energy. The singe mark that he had made earlier was quickly enveloped as Kaden’s blast struck.

To Kaden, the force of the impact seemed thunderous. He was certainly aware of the stores of power within him, but he had never employed them to their potential. Even then, though, it felt like Kaden had more within him than he’d ever need. His face set in determination, the courier cried out as he thrust his hands further forward, pushing the energy out.

Though it was hard to see anything beyond the glow of his own energy, Kaden could feel the stone give in. He could feel his energy push on through to the other side, so to speak. As his beam of ki finally crashed through the stone door, Kaden grunted in effort as he began to slowly pull his hands apart, as though he were trying to physically open the door.

Stone crumbled to the floor as Kaden’s arms dropped to his side. The mist-like aura of the courier continued to float off his body, but his task was pretty much complete. The courier had actually surprised himself; the task had taken a little less effort than he had anticipated. Nonetheless, there was still a lot to do. As Jackson, Trisha, Rosemary, and Oliver darted through the opening in the door, Kaden hurried after them

[Jesper]

Sophia watched in awe as Piper faced the diabolic mastermind fearlessly, despite her rather extensive injuries. As the two faced each other through the crackling blue shield of energy, the priestess found herself taking a step backward even though she had been reassured that Kai wouldn’t be able to get past the barrier as long as it stood. Tension built up to almost suffocating levels as everyone stood in tow, fighting off the rather optimistic feeling of victory by readying themselves for whatever could happen next. The redheaded medic listened to the madman talk, drawing a dagger ever-so-slowly from her belt. The healer couldn’t decipher many of the words that were thrown back and forth in her haze, but she caught the last few. “This is where you get to pay the piper!”

“Ohhhh, I get it,” Kai lifted a hand to mask a snicker. “That’s your name. Very clever.”

Piper winced a bit, though not enough for everyone to catch it, and raised the tip of the dagger at her target. The two locked eyes as the energy of the barrier began to crackle and eventually fade out. Kai dug the heel of his left boot into the frozen dirt beneath him as he prepared for another round of combat, his eyes darting to-and-fro at each individual facing him. Eventually, they landed on Piper, who was nearest to him and therefore his biggest danger, and smiled. The hairs on the back of Sophia’s hair stood up as he suddenly dashed towards not Piper, but to the priestess instead. The frightened blonde gasped and raised two wrists to block an incoming hook, but his sudden onslaught proved to be too much for her as they beat her backward.

“Is this the weakest link I see?” he mused as a stray jab broke through her defenses and caught her in the nose. “Fade to the background where you belong, little girl.”

He swung downward again and pounded on the top of her head. Colors swirled and her vision doubled as she sank to her knees, the barrage of attacks still raining down upon her. Sophia slowly lowered her arms, unable to even lift them anymore; Kai noticed this and swung his leg back, sending it forth with as much force and malice that his words had carried throughout the game. Sophia went limp as her body flew backwards, skidding along the frozen terrain. On the brink of unconsciousness, the healer could hear the screams of Ashe and Sage, and could barely make out the rushed footsteps of Piper. Kai gritted his teeth as he made his own trek towards the fallen Sophia, “Can we have a few moments alone, please?” he shouted as he charged an orb of ki and slammed it down, pushing back the other three.

“This was a much needed lesson, Sophia. Too bad you probably won’t live long enough to make use of it,” the game show host clicked his tongue and grabbed her by the throat. Lifting her up, he extended his arm outward, almost as if he was showcasing a prize for his three adversaries as the smoke began to clear. “Why persist? What are you waiting for? Are you still waiting for something to come along to save you?” He looked at Sophia, “Your God perhaps?” he then directed his glance to Sage, who was holding up her gun with shaky hands. “Or your sister?” He glanced over at Ashe and Piper before he closed his eyes and laughed. “Do you even know? The sad fact, my friends, is that nobody is coming to save you. Life and death, pain and suffering; it all means absolutely nothing through the scope of power.”

Nobody gave an immediate answer. Perhaps they were searching for an answer to give him, or maybe they were too pissed off to even say anything to the madman. Regardless, when the time came, only the gurgled words of the healer cracked through the stifling silence. “Don’t you…ever get tired?”

Desperation has a funny way of leading to breakthroughs in trying situations. Sophia didn’t know the fullest extent of her abilities, and when she had been on the run from a wide variety of dangers, she hardly had the time to think about the changes that had been occurring inside of her. Kai had been chiding Sage about the deaths that she had caused, but perhaps it should have been the priestess that he directed his words to. Desperation, above all else, had led her to snuff out the lives of at least three complete strangers, and each death weighed heavily on her conscience. Every time she closed her eyes, she thought back to the man whose death she couldn’t explain.

She…drained him. Somehow, the man’s energy had pulsed from the core of his being to the very fingertips of the Sophia. She had been pushing that memory aside since it happened, and in effect, the consequences that came along with it. Reaching out a shaky arm, she latched onto the back of his neck with as much strength as she could muster. The layer of ki that surrounded the host burned her skin, but at the same time, she noticed the very same rushing feeling that she had tried so hard to forget. Kai gasped and stumbled forward, his grip on Sophia’s neck loosening but not relenting fully. Suddenly, Sophia felt a warmness fill her body and, although the amount of energy she had regained was minimal at best, she could see clearly and felt as though she could continue to be of some use to her friends.

Noticing his lapse in concentration, Piper rushed in, dagger in-hand. She lunged forward and slashed at his torso, his shield buzzing as it absorbed some of the damage. The force, however, pushed him backwards far enough that Sophia was no longer in his reach. Rubbing her neck gingerly, she staggered back in between Sage and Ashe, who had opened fire on the madman once more. It was still mostly ineffective, but for once, they had him on the defensive.

“Don’t you get tired?” Sophia’s voice returned to her as he straightened his stance out once again. “Never thinking of consequence, never believing in anything but yourself. Can’t you feel the weight of burden crushing you?”

“If this little speech of yours is to sway me…”

“I don’t care if you change or not,” Sophia went on, shrugging off his comment. “But I do pity you.”

“Silence!” Kai Demolic roared, his ki shield flaring a bit as he spoke. “You’ll see soon enough why only the competent survive. If anybody has the ability to kill me, it certainly isn’t any of you.”

“Then no more talking. One way or another, we’re finishing this,” Sophia dropped into a fighting stance, nodding to her allies as they did the same. “I’ll never forgive you, but maybe God will.”

[Kaden]

The breeze against Kaden’s skin was the most refreshing thing he had felt in a long while. After making their way through the stone door, the group Kaden had been with found the transport that the courier had used to get to the temple in the first place. While the vehicle hadn’t actually sustained much damage, Kaden was shocked when it actually ran; he simply assumed it had blown up or been retrieved by Kai or… something.

“That was quite the… display,” came Oliver’s voice. He seemed to be regarding the courier with… suspicion

“Hmmm?” Kaden turned his head towards the older man and gave a shrug. “Was it? I couldn’t really see anything. I’m just glad it worked.” The courier had never been good at taking a compliment.

According to Trisha, Kai’s mansion – the most likely place to find a working transport – wasn’t actually very far away from the temple. Not much time had actually passed since the quintet had fled the volcano, but Kaden lamented every second that passed. Kai didn’t seem like the right guy to mess with, and leaving him alone with four girls…

“I don’t like it,” the courier suddenly said aloud. He hadn’t realized he said anything until Oliver’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Don’t like what?”

“What? I… leaving them there. I’m… not happy about it.”

“We get it, kid,” came Jackson’s voice from the front passenger’s seat. “But we gotta do what we gotta do.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it…” the courier mumbled under his breath. “How much longer till we’re there?” Kaden asked their driver.

“Why? You think asking will make this heap go any faster?” came Trisha’s reply. She mumbled something else to herself then turned her head towards her passengers in the back. “Five minutes or so.”

Crossing his arms, Kaden reclined in his seat and sighed. According to Rosemary and Jackson, Kai basically had his own private army. At least at the start of his show he did. Between those who had simply been killed and those who had decided the money wasn’t worth it, though, there shouldn’t have been many opponents left. Unfortunately, those that did remain would probably be at the mansion. Jackson told them that it doubled as a kind of stronghold for Kai, which also explained why they were likely to find a working transport there.

So they would be running into an otherwise empty mansion full of gun-toting soldiers loyal to a psychopathic genius. That certainly seemed to be par for the course.

[Sage]

Sophia and Kai exchanged fierce words, Kai’s fiercer than Sophia’s. So it came as a shock when Kai pivoted on his heel and lunged at Sage, suddenly ignoring the priestess altogether. She cried out, fear obvious in her voice, and opened fire on the encroaching game show host. Her shots went wide, and only one blast managed to strike him, hitting him in the shoulder.

The madman shrugged it off and plowed a fist into Sage’s jaw, sending her face first into a snow drift. Ashe opened fire, trying to draw him away from the azure haired girl, and caught Kai twice in the back and once in the back of the head. Red flashes of energy flickered around the man as he spun around, glaring wildly at the youth.

Kai extended a hand, ready to strike Ashe down with a torrent of energy, when Piper teleported to his side, just far enough away to deliver a brutal side kick to his neck. Gregory staggered aside, and the redheaded medic followed up with a heavy right hook.

The director was faking, though, and his hand snapped up to catch her wrist. She wore an expression of shock, and Kai flashed her a grin, before sharply twisting her arm and driving his free elbow onto her own. Piper cried out in pain, but was cut short as Kai threw a series of savage punches into her face, not letting go of her arm, followed by a pair of knees to her gut. A sharp uppercut forced Piper to stand back upright, opening her to a kick to the chest, that hurled her through the air.

He whirled around, his limbs blurring into the background, and lunged at Ashe, who’d frozen momentarily, mortified by the savagery with which he had dispatched Piper. His one-two combo ragdolled the pink haired girl, leaving only Sophia to face off against the shockingly powerful Kai Demolic.

Surprisingly, it was Sage that weakly forced her way up out of the snow first. Sophia was close enough to lend a hand, hurriedly taking hold of her upper arm to hoist her up, her eyes on Kai all the while.

“We’re not... we’re not going to make it, are we?” the blue haired girl whispered, her eyes wide and unfocused, staring straight through Sophia. The priestess didn’t reply, interrupted by the sight of Piper teleporting into the air just above Kai, where she delivered a painful snap kick to the side of his head, hurling him off his feet.

“...I don’t know, Sage,” the blonde finally answered honestly. She turned to watch as the man responsible for their being here climbed to his feet. The red field around him was sparking more angrily now, flaring up more often than before. Piper’s rock must have really done some damage. “But...” Sophia glanced over her shoulder at the blue haired girl. “What good is it to just wait for him to kill us?”

Sage nodded, casting her eyes down to her feet. She nodded again, her eyes nervously tracing lines in the snow as she thought. Her breath came out in little white puffs, short, tentative. Finally, she looked back up, and Sophia was leading off to rush back into the fray.

“Sophia!” Sage exclaimed. “Wait!!”

The temple dweller turned around, her expression clearly indicating that she wasn’t comfortable wasting any more time. The Valium-addicted hybrid reached into one of the black bows in her hair and retrieved what looked like a seed. “You... you can use ki, right?” it was a question Sage already knew the answer to.

“Yes,”

“I need you to scoop up some snow, and melt it,”

“What?” Sophia retorted. “Sage, Kai’s-”

“Please?” the crystal haired girl interrupted. The priestess frowned in frustration, but did as Sage asked. She bent down and gathered snow into her hands, and stood back up, holding the snow out to the blue haired girl, who plopped the nondescript seed on top of the frozen water. “Okay, melt it.”

Sophia complied, channeling just a tiny amount of her energy into her palms, turning the snow into water. The seed sank to the bottom, and for several moments, nothing happened. The blonde arched an eyebrow at Sage.

“Drop it,” the quarter saiyan instructed. After a moment, she looked up at Sophia. “Drop it!”

The priestess let the water and the seed plummet from her hands, to land onto the snow at her feet. The water almost immediately re-froze, and Sophia wiped her hands on her clothes lest ice form on her palms.

“So, what-” Sophia cut herself off as the tiny seed began to... struggle... at her feet. It rocked back and forth, and suddenly, the top cracked. It was then that the healer realized the seed was growing, and at an alarming rate. Soon, it was nearly the size of a watermelon when the crack split wide, and out from it emerged a shrieking, gibbering, monster.

Sophia gasped and took several steps backward, away from the hideous green creature that had just sprouted from the seed. “Wh-What... what is that?!”

Sage glanced over at Sophia, surprised at her fright. It hadn’t really occurred to her that people who’d never been to Vegeta-Sei might not know what one of these little monstrosities was. “...It’s a, um, well, they’re called ‘saibamen.’ I don’t... really know what it means, but they’re... they’re kind of like... uh, soldiers... that you can grow. My sister and I had one as a pet once...”

“A pet?” Sophia seemed fairly disgusted.

“Well, they’re... easy to care for, and, um-”

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t mean to react like that,” the priestess apologized, still eyeing the noisy, clawed monstrosity suspiciously. “So they can fight?”

“Yes...” Sage looked into the saibaman’s empty, crimson eyes. She moved her gaze to Kai Demolic, and pointed at him, and the saibaman followed her gaze. “That...” she paused. “That is Kai Demolic. ...He wants to hurt us.”

With a blood-curdling scream, the freakish, green warrior sprinted like an Olympic athlete straight for Kai, without any regard to self-preservation or strategy. Kai was busy with Piper and Ashe, and so was completely unprepared for the little monster who jumped on his back and started viciously clawing at the back and sides of his head.

Demolic howled with anger and pain, thrashing about until he finally caught one of the saibaman’s arms. With a mighty roar, he hurled the green fighting machine into one of the many spears of ice that jutted out of the landscape, shattering it beneath the saibaman’s impact.

He couldn’t capitalize, however, as bolts rained down upon him from Sage and Ashe’s weaponry. A pair of larger ki blasts crashed into his side, courtesy of Sophia, and suddenly another barrage of gunfire rained down upon him from Piper’s freshly recovered weapon.

Kai found himself pinned down, hammered on from three sides and unable to retaliate as the four women converged upon him. They got too close, however, and with a roar, Demolic unleashed a powerful dome of energy, sweeping all of his attackers off their feet.

The deadly television producer leapt to his feet just in time to face off with Piper, who’d gotten in close once again. The two traded blows, and the other girls hesitated, unwilling to risk shooting the redhead by mistake.

It must have been hard for Piper, Sage suddenly realized. To know that she was the only one left who could put up a decent fight. Sophia was decent with her energy attacks, but all Ashe and Sage could offer was the weaponry the azure haired girl had collected during their stay on the island.

And then, suddenly, everything took a drastic turn for the worse. Piper threw a punch and missed, overextending her swing. Kai slid up behind her, wrapping an arm around her throat. He grabbed his wrist with his free hand, and using all of his strength, he choked her. He pulled her back so hard, Piper’s feet left the ground, and Kai’s eyes danced with psychotic determination as he released a roar that sounded out as little more than a low rumble, intent on squeezing the life out of the redheaded medic.

“Piper! No!!” Sophia exclaimed, breaking into a sprint. Ashe fired a few shots, missing mostly, but tagging Kai in the leg once. It was like he didn’t even feel it, and just kept choking his victim out. Sage raised her gun, but couldn’t find the will to squeeze the trigger. With Piper struggling as hard as she was, she kept getting in the way. Sage clenched her teeth as the anxiety welled up within her, which only served to make her tremble, making her aim even worse.

The priestess leapt into the air and threw a kick, but was literally shot down as Kai reached out and unleashed a vibrant wave of color at her, consuming her in the searing energy. Sophia crashed into the ground, unmoving.

Ashe and Sage were statues, unable to move while Kai returned his attention on restricting Piper’s airway. The blue haired girl didn’t know this person, but this person had risked her life over and over again trying to stop Kai.

But...

Sage could do nothing. She eased her grip on her weapon, letting it slip through her fingers. It hit the snow with a dull thump, and Sage nearly died when she saw Piper’s pleading, green eyes burning into her. Unable to cope with the hurt those eyes instilled in her, Sage forcefully looked away, and laid her eyes on one of the many icy spikes that reached out to the sky.

She blinked for a moment, and then held her hand out to the frigid spear. It had worked in Kai’s version of her future, hadn’t it? Sage narrowed her eyes and leaned into the massive icicle, as though she were trying to push it. And suddenly, with a series of mighty cracks and a loud bang!, the frozen stalagmite had became a floating weapon.

The azure haired girl spun on her heel, raising her hand over her head. The spike floated up over her, rotating until its point was aimed straight for Kai’s face. It was still horrifically close to Piper, but Sage felt strangely confident. She threw her arm down, as though signaling the start of a race, and her frozen weapon catapulted toward Demolic with amazing speed.

The madman looked up just in time to drop his victim and throw his arms up in a defensive ‘x,’ catching the razor sharp point of the frosty missile. His shield sizzled and sparked as Sage drove the spike further toward him, raising both hands out toward the projectile. Kai was forced to a knee, and his arms were being pushed further and further back toward his face, but with a furious burst of strength, Kai hurled the spear up and away, sending it tumbling into the ground behind him.

He glared up at Sage, poised to attack, until he suddenly realized that four more, smaller versions of the same weapon floated menacingly above the hybrid. He growled with fury. “I did this!!” he screamed. “It’s been seven years since you’ve been able to use your abilities! I did this!!”

“You did this,” Sage agreed, thrusting her palms out toward Kai. The four icy javelins sailed toward him, whistling through the air like arrows. Demolic smashed two out of the air in time, but the other two proved too quick. One smashed into his shoulder, and the other into his gut, barely repelled by his ever-present shielding.

Piper, Sage, Sophia, and Ashe stood together, tall against the maniacal Gregory Rogers. Some afraid, some angry, all of them just wanting to go home.

They were four angst-ridden women, just like Demolic said. They were the least likely survivors in the entire competition, driven by fear and despair, hopelessly strung along the whole time.

...Kai didn't stand a chance.

[Kaden]

There was no doubt in Kaden’s mind, Kai’s mansion was just creepy. The first time he had been in, the courier had been more concerned with staying out of sight, and where the guards had been. When it was virtually empty, though, everything seemed different. Every footstep echoed throughout the halls and corridors of the giant building. It didn’t really seem to bother anyone but the courier, though. If it did, they were good at hiding it.

As the quintet made their way through the mansion, Kaden found more than a couple of things odd. There were ornate pedestals that held nothing, and large empty patches on the walls that bore the signs of paintings or pictures. Not a bad idea, the courier mused. If the owner of the mansion was distracted by his little game show, and he had been a soldier running away, why not help himself to a painting or two?

According to Jackson, they had a few options for escape vehicles. On the roof were a number of helipads. The garage housed vehicles of all shapes and sizes, some intended for personal use and some intended for para-military use. The mansion itself was situated on the edge of Kai’s island and though the backyard ended in a sharp drop, Kai had built a small marina on the water. The discussion was about which vehicle would be the best for extraction.

“Why don’t we just take all three routes?” Kaden found himself asking.

“That means we have to split up,” Rosemary answered. “You saw the way Kai dealt with the helicopter. Do you think we’d be able to stop him if we were split up?”

“Well, yeah,” Kaden agreed, “but he can only go after one at a time, right?”

“So you want someone to be a distraction?” Trisha scoffed. “Are you volunteering?”

“Am I… what?” Kaden hadn’t actually thought out the question, he had simply asked it. “I mean… sure. I don’t really mind,” the courier shrugged.

And he really didn’t. The thought that he could still be of use to the girls left in the volcano was… well it was something. It would, at least, let the courier feel like he had an actual purpose. Running around with Kai’s bodyguards had a way of making the courier feel less useful than he knew he could be.

“Fine with me,” Jackson nodded. “Can you fly a ‘copter?”

“No… I probably would be able to handle a boat, either,” Kaden shrugged. “But I pretty much drive for a living. I can handle a car pretty well.”

With a nod, Jackson informed the group that he would head to the roof to prep the helicopter for Trisha. Oliver and Rosemary were to take the boat, and Trisha herself was going to direct Kaden to the garage. The courier was actually pleased with the arrangement. There was something else he wanted to do in the mansion.

“Trisha,” Kaden started once everyone had split up. “I need your help with something.”

[Ashe]

Her body was wracked with pain. Her pink hair had fallen gloomily over her eyes. Her skin was bruised.

None of this bothered her, strangely. Before this tournament, Ashelia Branford would have been horrified at this situation, running for her life and cowering in the hope that someone would save her. So much had changed within her from then till now. She was an entirely different person.

Wait…

No. She was a stronger person. But her greatest strength came to her from who she was, not who she would have become. In Kai’s alternate future, she’d become a horrible woman. She had been the female parallel of Kai Demolic himself, forsaking her compassion and love for the world in favor of monetary accumulation as well as status and power. She’d… created a new tournament in homage to this horrible event and her first and final act for the launch of this tournament was to sacrifice her own daughter in the name of television.

That’s how it had seemed, anyway.

Part of Ashe believed that she had done what she did as an act of mercy for her daughter. She had already tread her path so deeply that there was no going back for her, no road to redemption, but her daughter had had an entire lifetime to learn from her mistakes. Instead, Ashe had watched her younger daughter, Celestial “Celes” Rain Branford, grow to become a beautiful and warm, loving woman that gave back to the world more than she took from it. She, under Kaden’s guidance, had become everything that Ashe once was.

Everything that Ashley Rose wasn’t.

No, Ashe knew deep down that she had sacrificed her oldest not for the show as it had seemed, but as a way of tying up loose ends. Ashley Rose had been too far gone down the path that Ashe herself had taken, and despite her alternate future’s attempt at leading her to love while still maintaining her fierce discipline, she had remained vigilant and cold, refusing love of any that would offer it to her. Whatever Ashe had become in this future, she had prevented the world from seeing Ashley Rose become far worse.

What Kai had taught her was that she couldn’t guarantee what a path in life could bring to her. She couldn’t follow her heart entirely and hope for happiness to just work itself out, as her life with Kaden had proven that there was more to it than that. She’d still treated their relationship as a child would, placing all the blame onto herself in some situations while in other situations blaming everything else for their failures. Looking back, it was interesting to note just how much money she had spent drowning her pain at the bars to complete the cycle of self loathing that she had entered over lack of money.

Inversely, she had found that betraying her heart, pushing away everyone that cared for her and anyone that might have loved her, in favor of showing them a strong and business oriented woman out to achieve her goals with no tolerance for failure, would lead to a great deal of what most would consider success… But would she be happy? She would even be willing to sacrifice her own happiness for her family’s, but in this future, she had destroyed her lover’s chance at happiness, had even corrupted her oldest daughter to be unable to see warmth… And yet her youngest daughter, who most closely resembled the true Ashelia Branford, had sought out the love and compassion of the world while keeping herself strong in the face of opposition.

“Thank you,” she whispered, catching the attention of the three woman to her sides. Her arm slowly lowered, bringing the ki pistol that Sage had bestowed upon her to her hip.

The game show host’s cold eyes locked onto her own, yet he said nothing. Observant as always, he watched for the fourth flower in the bouquet while wondering if it too would bloom.

Celes was what Ashe wanted to be. Celes was the daughter that she wanted to have. Celes was the symbolic future for which she fought.

Curiously, without Kai’s vision, the high school student would never have lived through the experiences that she faced in that cruel twisted persona she had taken. She would never have come to know Kaden in a way that affected her soul to the depths of her heart. He was a great guy, and she knew that. Before that vision, he had simply been a great guy, nothing more. He’d been someone she had met situationally and would never have really come to know on any greater level.

Now she knew what they could have become. Even greater, however, his vision gave her the ability to avoid that loss altogether if she so chose. But then, it was better to have loved and lost, she supposed.

No, she didn’t believe everything that he had shown her of her future, she argued. The man had proven himself to be a great many things, but omniscient or oracle had not been one of those things. It was a series of imagery and experiences that Ashe had lived out as if they were real. She had learned a great many things.

But this was still her life, and she would need to live to know for certain what she wanted with her life. There were people counting on her, here and at home. Her sister Terra was waiting, hoping to hear all about her life back on Earth while showing her the ropes on Kajin Rala. Her best friend Becca would insist on being filled in on all the details before attempting to drive the pain away from her with constant exposure to zombie movies. Her other friend Claire would be worried for her, in tears at the things that Ashe had gone through on this island.

There was her grandfather that was not all related, Gensei, who had been her guardian her entire life. What had become of him? When the robots had shot the two with darts and had taken her, what had they done with him back on Earth? Had he informed her parents of her fate? Were they worried for their daughter’s safety, possibly losing their jobs while trying to find her? Sage would likely be devastated if her new friend were to fall on the island, especially after losing her own sister to the same madman that had brought them all great misery.

She tightened her fist around her weapon in resolve, the smile strangely crossing her face. She had everything to live for. She would not leave them to suffer her funeral. But more importantly, the three woman standing alongside her would also not fall. Together, the four of them were going to bring the end of this tournament.

“You wanted your finale, Mr. Rogers,” she finally spoke, breaking the silence with his absolutely mundane name. Her right hand held tightly onto the pistol at her side. Her other hand, however, rose out slightly from her waist to point at him while she watched him, the entire group spellbound. Sparks of energy had begun gathering around her fingertips, dancing like wisps in the moonlight from cuticle to cuticle before flowing their way down her arm.

His eyes had never broken her own, but he was staring into a set of deep eyes that were glowing a fierce blue. It was something that she would later realize that she and Kaden shared, despite having no relevant similarities to their ancestry. The Star’s Tear buried deep within her breast was burning now, an enveloping yearning as it cried for release. Ki lanced from her eyes in rapid and erratic flashes, echoing the strong arcs of energy that were washing down her left arm.

“Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it,” she warned.

The man finally smiled, his red energy field tightening around him as he watched the foursome before him. “And finally, the fourth rose has bloomed,” he replied coolly. His arms spread at his sides as if to bring their awareness to their surroundings. “Do you not appreciate what my show has brought forth from each of you?”

Sage answered by summoning a shard of razor ice beneath the man’s feet, showing no sign of disappointment as he nimbly hopped back out of the way before continuing. “You could almost say that I created you!” he taunted.

“You are no God!” Sophia snapped, firing off a quick blast of simple Ki energy his way. His trained hand simply swatted it away.

“I have allowed each of you to combat your own demons and come to the realization of who you really are, all before a live televised audience!” he proudly proclaimed.

The red haired medic vanished before him, attempting to remove his head with a swift kick from above as she screamed in fury. He was no longer where she expected him to be even as she reappeared, his retreating form continuing to harass them with his words. “I have even shown each of you how easily you can fall, while equally showing you why it is that you fight even now,” he finished, his accusing finger moving across the four recollecting women.

A raging blue aura was burning around the relic imbued woman with pink hair as her hair blew wildly from the torrential energy that had overtaken her system. Despite this, she calmly gazed at him through brilliant luminescent irises. “I doubt any of us would contest that claim,” she replied sadly. “Kai Demolic, you have indeed shown us just how far an ordinary man can fall. Your arrogance and pride were your downfall,” she judged.

He seethed at this, bringing up his fist in challenge to her. “I am not at my end. And I have never been ordinary.”

Her pink hair whipped from side to side as blue pulses blasted through each strand. “None of us have ever been, judging by what you have shown us. Yet, in a world where everyone is unique, much like the snowflake, we find that our differences bring us together in the end, giving us the ability to bind together into the strongest arctic snowstorm, so pure and uniform, despite every particle being entirely unique to itself.” She looked over at the icily calm doctor at her side and smiled warmly, giving her an approving nod.

Kai took her in for a moment and then haughtily burst into laughter. After a moment of not luring any of them in by his false drop of security, he smirked boastfully. “Oh please. Is this the type of poetry that you write in your little online journal before cutting your wrist? Keep it up and I might consider it myself,” he taunted, hoping to hit a soft spot.

The girl smiled back at him before the energy coursing through the left side of her body finally flowed into her right side, collecting around the pistol in her right hand. “Even now, in your final moments, you still believe yourself to have won.” She pursed her lips for a moment as she strangely cocked her head to the side, beginning to see the gorgeous display of the lights flowing from specific locations of his body to other points. She recalled that they were known as chakra points, according to the books at her shop. It was an amusing sight, at the least. “The sad truth is that you are powerful enough that you stand a great chance at taking down one of us. Of that, we have no illusions,” she gave a sorrowful side glance at the feminine collection. “Savor that one victory, Kai, because I highly doubt you can overcome all of us fighting together. United.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to start with you!” he raged, suddenly bursting forward.

[Ashe]

As the raving man cleared the distance between the group, he moved at a speed that would surprise the other three, leaving them unable to intervene. Yet to Ashe, her mind had slowed down in contemplation, recalling how Rose had stared at her in terror before escaping through the overhead window. She had run from her situation, much like Ashe had her entire life, much like Ashe would likely do again one day. Regardless of actual genetics, they were wall, as the saying went, only human.

Rose had down what was completely natural for a scared eighteen year old girl to do. Ashe hadn’t understood entirely at the time, but she could lay no blame at the girl’s feet. The fact that the girl could fly and explode massive detonations from her bare hands, while knowing how to fight hand to hand and being as reckless as she was… and yet deep down, she was still a young, adolescent woman that broke and ran when her fear had overcome her. None of them were better than that.

They hadn’t survived to this point in the game by being any better or any more special than anyone else who had been forcefully brought into this competition. Kai was not the type of man that would risk his show’s finale on the survival of four specific individuals making it to the end. Kaden had been quite powerful on his own, and yet he had fallen in the wreck they had suffered. Oliver Nash had been claimed by that very same crash landing.

Ashe had met a great many interesting people despite the circumstances of their meeting. A few, she had never gotten the chance to grow to familiar terms with, like the saiyans Kokukashin or Dimitri, but she knew inside that even the two of them had just as much of a chance to be where they were today and to stand as they stood. What amazing spectacle would they have brought forth for this grand finale? Kai had strangely chosen to have them killed or removed before anyone would ever know.

It was with their faces in her mind that her sparking right fist collided with the host’s shielded face, overwhelming his defense through his attempt at a preemptive strike and sending him reeling back to the ground to look up at them. “You…” he coughed, climbing back to his feet without deciding quite what it was that he wanted to follow up with.

All of them burst into action at once, seeking to overwhelm Kai with their strengths all burning around them. The ground had grown slippery to them all as Sage dropped to the floor, pressing both hands down to watch a wave of frost move forward along the ice before suddenly bursting forth into an icy nail. Their adversary had managed to throw himself back in a timely fashion before Piper came at him from his side, landing one thunderous fist into his ribs only to watch as his defensive aura flashed beneath her blow.

He turned to grab her when Sophia threw a punch from a distance, a bolt of golden energy clearing the space between them to strike him in his lower leg and buying the crimson haired medic a moment to continue. Her leg twirled, seeking to complete its decapitation attempt from before, but his arm crashed into it, derailing her attempt. Ashe left the pistol lying on the ground at her feet before she ran forward, somehow seeing as Kai gathered energy into his palm. They were like ants to him, worth nothing, but even ants could mass together to bring down a larger foe.

Kazuya had fought alongside Oliver Nash for a collection of scared and timid girls that she hadn’t even known. She had put her own trained skills to the test, slashing and cutting her way through goblins and mercenaries, paving the path for the very terrified little girls that now stood strongly before the man who had brought them all here. To lose now, at this moment, would be a slap in the face for any who had sacrificed themselves for the weaker individuals lagging behind the rest of the group.

One of those individuals was a curiously quiet boy who called himself Tempo. He hadn’t attempted to make friends with any of them, nor had he seemed entirely interested in the fighting. That hadn’t stopped him from doing what was necessary to defend himself and the others, however, and the look of honest appreciation that crossed his eyes when Ashe had helped to pull him up to the sewer exit’s slippery edge hadn’t gone unnoticed. The boy had simply been one of the many of them that had been thrust into this snuff film, his own life possibly forfeit. What would he have brought to the table, had he been standing here today?

It was with these images crafted firmly within her mind that her arm thrust forward, a bolt of solid and relentless energy blossoming forth to strike the ground below Kai, sending him into the air to land painfully upon the shattered ice. Her arms lowered as the energy ripping through them shredded away the sleeves to her new clothing, leaving the girl to approach him with bare arms that were surrounded by spiritual force. “Kai, you will answer for your crimes.”

He rose to his feet, gathering a stream of energy within his own palm before throwing it haphazardly into the direction of the group of girls. “Do not think that you can judge me,” he roared. Unexpectedly, a large block of ice rose up from the ground to block the ball of Ki, exploding in a shower of frozen shards under the pressure.

The cyan haired girl, normally timid and shy, held both of her arms in the air, mentally commanding the razor thin blades of frost to blow forward, every tiny bit cutting into his flesh despite the shield, leaving him with dozens of small and very painful slices across his body. He screamed, but Sage seemed to be unable to hear him nor did she seem as if she cared at this point. This man had taken her sister from her.

Zena, a princess of Vegeta, had attempted to fight Sebastian in single combat despite knowing that she could not win even with her ascended saiyan form. Her pride had not allowed her to admit to her sister that she wanted Ashe to rush her away and keep her safe, to somehow find a way off of this island and to prevent further danger from coming to her sibling. She had stood strong and defiant, even as the blond haired man had pulled out the grenade that had taken both of them from the island.

It was with this image in her eyes that Sage cried out, a howling blast of arctic winds emerging from her voice to blow their opponent from his feet. Kai was forced to the hard ice by the pressure of the biting cold, finding it harder for him to rise to his fighting stance as Piper’s leg finally found its home target, sending him sailing through the air as she launched him towards an imaginary field goal.

He twisted in the air, finding his will to land on his feet with catlike reflexes. Sophia had already come to his side, a quick burst of energy catching him in the ribs as his aura flashed just a bit later than it normally would have. “Its sad that even now you can’t admit your crimes in hope that you can be forgiven,” she chided somberly.

The man spat at the ground before looking up at her. A wicked grin crossed his face before he found his words. “I’d like to thank you all for making my finale every bit as interesting as I had hoped it would be!” he roared, rising up from the ground with an arm trailing behind him, slamming it into the priestess’s gut and lifting her, spinning a full circle as his fist burned crimson. She cried out in pain as she landed, finding Piper immediately at her side to help her back up.

Sophia painfully held her stomach muscles before looking at the other three pleadingly. “I don’t think he can be reasoned with,” she concluded.

Ashe’s head slowly moved from left to right. “Doesn’t look like it,” she agreed. “What he doesn’t realize, however, is that Hell hath no fury…”

“…like that of a woman scorned,” Piper finished, closing the gap between the four.

Their host rolled his eyes. “Drop the cliché quotes. You’ll make the ratings drop.”

Each of the four took a place around Kai, one at each coordinate, as if a coven of witches gathering a circle. Ashe’s arms moved gracefully through the air before her, leaving her to nearly lose her focus as her brightly glowing sockets watched the playful wisps of light that followed her arms and the tiny chakra trails that she had never before been able to see. It was unknown to her if she would remember any of these events afterwards, or how she had done some of the things that this moment had called for, but it was apparently to Kai that she was feeding on the power of the Star’s Tear at this point.

She hadn’t yet fully unlocked her own true power, but she was definitely drawing on what she would need to kick Kai’s ass.

[Kaden]

“… Why?”

Trisha was understandably skeptical. For most of this game, she and Kaden had been shooting at each other, running each other off of roads, trying to blow each other up, and simply putting that aside in a matter of minutes wasn’t the simplest of tasks. Kaden would have preferred to simply ignore the woman rather than risk antagonizing her, but he actually did need her help.

“Remember the first time I was in here? I was with Piper and Szar…?”

“You were?” Trisha crossed her arms across her chest and considered the courier’s words. The two of them had stopped in the middle of a hallway, presumably on the way to the garage.

“When this whole game first started.”

“Oh!” Trisha grinned at the courier as recognition dawned upon her. “You jumped out the window, right?”

“I… yeah.” Clearing his throat, Kaden moved on. “Szar, the alien guy, was looking for something on a computer. He said he found something and managed to put it onto a disk.”

“Okay,” Trisha examined her nails as Kaden spoke.

“But you kind of… knocked him out and grabbed him into the dessert.” The courier frowned as he remembered how easily Trisha had first dispatched Piper and Szar. “He didn’t have the disk on him when I found you all, though. I… need to find it while we’re here.”

“And you think I might know where it is?”

“I figure you’d have a better idea than I would.”

“Fine.” Trisha shrugged. “You wanna waste your time, go ahead. I’ll show you where that office was.”

The trip to the office was a rather short one. The courier couldn’t help but be suspicious that the two of them didn’t encounter any opposition as they made their way through the mansion. He wanted to believe that his previously poor karma was paying off, but that seemed a little too optimistic. Coming to a stop, Trisha pushed open a door and motioned for Kaden to enter.

“So what was on this disk?” the ex-soldier asked.

“I’m not really sure,” Kaden replied as he started sifting through the lone desk in the office. “Szar was looking for some evidence that he could use to arrest… err… Gregory. He thought he found something.”

“And you’re going to… what? Take the evidence to the cops?”

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, yet,” Kaden paused his search as he answered. His eyes were fixed firmly on the nothing in his hands. “But I promised Piper we would bring Kai to justice.”

“Bring him to justice? You think he’ll just roll over and be arrested, kiddo? Even if he couldn’t figure a way out of it, and he could, he’d die before going to jail.” Trisha waved a hand at their posh surroundings and scoffed. “You think he’s going to give up a life like this ?”

“Well what do you expect me to do?” Kaden slammed a fist on the desk in front of him and glared up at Trisha. “We have rules and laws we have to live by. When people just ignore them, and do whatever the hell they want, we get bullshit like this.” Kaden gestured at their surroundings. “If Kai gets off easy, then… he gets off easy, but I’m not going to just ignore the rules everyone else has to live by. I’m not going to sink to his level.”

Trisha rolled her eyes at Kaden and resumed examining her nails. The courier’s search didn’t take much longer. There had been only a single disk in desk. Unfortunately, it bore no markings of any kind; Kaden thought it was the same color as the one Szar had… but that didn’t mean a whole lot. After sliding the disk into his pants pocket, Kaden marched out the door and waited for Trisha to show him where there garage was located.

“Here it is,” Trisha said simply. It had taken only a moment to arrive. “The keys should all be in the ignition. That side of the garage usually had the bigger rigs.”

Kaden followed a nod from Trisha towards the far end of the garage. Sure enough, it was lined with trucks and jeeps and SUVs and other vehicles that fell somewhere inbetween all of those. The courier would definitely have his pick.

“Alright,” Trisha said as she turned away from the courier. “I’ve got a copter to fly. Good luck.”

“Yeah,” Kaden couldn’t help but smile at Trisha’s back. If ever the courier needed luck in this ridiculous game, it was now. They all did. “You too.”

[Piper Juunanagou]

Once again, the four women stood united—their tired, weary eyes locked upon the grinning visage of Kai Demolic. Friend or Foe’s host stood at the center of the four women, his eyes slowly moving between each of the remaining competitors. Despite his scuffs and the gradually fragmentation of his energy shield, the maniac stood no worse for wear, unlike the four battered females slowly closing in on him.

“You’re determination amuses me,” the madman remarked snidely as he lifted his eyes to the sky. “Wonderful day,” he snickered as the ground around his feet began to shake.

What the hell is he talking about? Piper mused as she looked up toward the cloudy skies that hung over the mouth of the volcano.

Turning her attention back to Kai, the medic watched silently as the ground suddenly buckled beneath him. Deep scars fissured out from the madman’s position, forcing the four women to retreat as the earthen ledge beneath them threatened to fall apart. As Piper turned and ran, she took a fleeting moment to glance over her shoulder and managed to watch as a glowing, burning Kai literally exploded up off the collapsing shelf of dirt and stone.

“Fuck!” Piper screamed upon realizing that Kai’s little show had started a chain reaction that was vying to bring down the entire platform. “Move up to the next ledge,” she boomed as she pointed up to another circular ledge a few yards above their current location. Although unaware of whether or not anyone had heard her, Piper nevertheless wasted on time in teleporting herself up to the relative safety of higher ground. As the woman vanished, the ledge that had been beneath her boots a split-second earlier collapsed into the sea of magma looming at the core of the volcano.

With a thud, Piper rematerialized in midair and came crashing down onto the ground. Quickly, the woman scrambled back up to her feet and began to scan around for signs of her fellow combatants. A sigh of relief escaped the medic’s chapped lips once she saw that her three impromptu allies were all scaling their way up to safety. Unfortunately for all of them, they didn’t have longer than a second or two to collect themselves before they were reminded of the fun situation at hand.

“Burn in hell!” Kai’s voice pulled all four sets of eyes toward the northernmost section of the volcano. Perched near the edge of the ledge, Kai stood amidst a swirling vortex of crimson ki. Both the madman’s arms were ablaze with so much swirling energy that they were twitching intermittently. As the four survivors watched in horror, their host pointed both his arms down toward the softly churning pool of magma and sent a pair of energy blasts roaring down toward the stomach of the dormant volcano.

Gather up! Piper screamed telepathically to each of the three women as she watched the energy blast hit the pool of magma and vanish beneath the thick, vicious coagulation of rock, ash, and gas. A beat later, the entire volcano began to tremble, and by the time the three women had reunited, the magma was already starting to churn and rumble.

“We’re running out of time,” Sage commented as Piper eye’s remained frozen on the slowly swelling pool of magma. The blue-haired woman was right—it wouldn’t take a whole lot of time before the volcano blew sky high, and when that time arrived, Kai Demolic would be the least of their worries.

“We need to hit hard and hit fast,” Sophia remarked as she placed a hand on Piper’s shoulder and softly pulled the redhead away from the edge of the earthen platform. “You with us, Piper?” The healer asked upon seeing the mortified look on her teammate’s face.

“Yea…yea,” the medic stammered as she turned her attention to Kai Demolic. The madman was now leaning against the interior of the volcano, his chest heaving madly as he tried to gather his breath. “Let’s get that fucker before he can catch his breath,” she growled as she clenched Trisha’s dagger between her bruised fingers.

“Time to end this,” Ashe added as the quartet of battered, bloodied women began to charge around the ledge. As they drew closer to their target, Kai rocketed away from the wall with enough force that it buckled inward. With a heavy frown, the man clenched his teeth and winced slightly as his hands and forearms began to glow. Crimson sparks of energy began to skitter across the rest of the madman’s body as the energy around his arms grew increasingly more intense.

“Come on!” Kai bellowed as the four women came to a grinding halt a few yards from him. “I’m not going to be brought down by a bunch of brooding whores,” he added as he kicked up off the ground and came blazing toward the foursome.

“Break!” Piper screamed as the group broke apart to avoid the oncoming onslaught.

As Kai’s fist crashed harmlessly through the ground, Ashe and Sophia spun around and unleashed a pair of energy blasts that slammed their host into the wall. Unfortunately for the madman, his attempts to regain a vertical position were impeded by the massive wave of ice and snow that slammed into him a few moments after he struck the wall. With no method of ranged combat, Piper could do little but cheer on her allies as they continued to pelt the fallen Kai with ice and energy.

“Whores!” Kai’s enraged voice rang loudly as the madman leapt up into the air and landed a few feet from Piper. “Have a nice swim,” he growled as he smacked the redhead in the face with a ki-infused palm. The impact was more than enough to send the woman hurtling off the ledge and down toward the swelling pool of lava.

“Piper!” Sophia screamed as she sent a blast of ki drilling to the back of Kai’s head.

“You want to join your friend?” The maniac shouted as he spun around to face the healer.

“Hey asshole,” Piper defiant voice elicited a deep growl from the madman as he turned to deal with the medic. As Kai spun around, the bloodied redhead let out a violent scream and she stabbed Trisha’s dagger into his side. The tip of the energized blade met some resistance, but after a split-second of vying with the man’s weakened shield, the dagger plunged through his skin. The smug scowl on the face of Friend or Foe’s host eroded as he violently and frantically shoved the medic to the floor.

“Well now you know how it fucking feels,” Piper said emotionlessly as Kai wrenched the ensanguined blade from his side and sent it hurtling at the fallen woman. Dematerializing, the redhead was gone for only a fleeting moment before she popped back into sight above the blood-stained weapon.

“Time’s running out,” Sage rasped as the ground around the cyan-haired woman began to freeze over.

“Wound doesn’t look good,” Sophia growled coldly as the visibly infuriated Kai clenched his knife wound.

“Game’s over,” Ashe added as she lifted her pistol and lined it up with the man’s head.

“It’s not too late to turn yourself in,” Piper spoke as she reached out a hand toward Kai Demolic. Silence reigned inside the volcano for only a brief moment before the wounded man standing between the four ragged women began to laugh hysterically.

“This is nothing, you vain cunt,” Kai rasped as he moved his hand away from his bleeding wound and clenched his glowing hands.

In the background, a geyser of lava erupted up from the core of the volcano, causing all five warriors within the splash radius to scatter. As Piper moved to dodge the splashes of lava, she fell onto her knees and managed to catch herself right before she slid off the ledge. Looking downward, her eyes widened as she realized the lava was only a few stories below the mouth of the volcano.

Whether through bloodshed or fire, Kai Demolic was going to have his grand finale.

It was only a matter of time before Friend or Foe 3 drew to a close. There was only one question that lingered unanswered: At what cost?

[Kaden]

Despite having been there only minutes prior, Kaden was glad that the vehicle he chose came equipped with a GPS device. More specifically, he was glad that it already knew where he wanted to go. There were only so many locations on the island, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that Kai had equipped all his cars with such information. Good help, after all, was hard to come by.

The car – if it could even be called such a thing – was the biggest, heaviest, meanest thing that the courier could find in Kai’s garage. It looked like it could take well more than its fair share of punishment and had enough room to transport at least six other people. If anything was going to be able to make it back to the volcano, Kaden was driving it.

Sadly, the courier was certain that it would take more than a big car to get the job done. He was confident enough about his driving skills – as confident as a twenty-one year old courier could be, at least – but had never been in a situation like the one he was in. Not even close. People would be shooting at him… there could be injuries… and Kai was still a psychopath with neigh-unlimited resources.

Getting back to the volcano would mean driving through the temple city once more. Surprisingly, that prospect was more worrisome than anything else the courier would be up against. He was alone in a strange vehicle and in a few minutes would be crashing back through a city filled with enemy soldiers. Maybe not “filled,” but Kaden was pretty sure there were a fair number of them left.

The realization that he was actually alone was something that Kaden hadn’t really had to deal with during the course of Kai’s gameshow. He had started out with the other hunters, and from there had traveled with a variety of other allies. Through all of it, Piper had been a constant that the courier would have welcomed.

As Kaden eyed the empty passenger’s seat, a mountain loomed into view. At the end of the road, where there should have been a tunnel, the stone door stood. Even from a distance, Kaden had to admit that his handiwork was pretty impressive. Initially, the courier had planned on having to get out of the car and open the hole further, but it looked like that wouldn’t be necessary. He had done it right the first time.

Though he lamented the fact that he would be testing his vehicles defensive capabilities against people that actually wanted to hurt him, Kaden slammed his foot on the gas. The pseudo-tank shook as it cruised towards the ruined stone door. Kaden himself simply kept his eyes straight ahead. There would be only one shot at helping anyone. As his car powered into the mountain, Kaden pushed his fears to the back of his mind.

In the next few minutes either Kaden would have helped bring everyone to safety or he’d have died trying.