[7] vs. Sebastian

[Friend or Foe]

Ashe
Sage

Zena


"I just want to find Zena and get out of here," Sage said with a deep breath, still not entirely comfortable walking through the jungle with so many traps will left unchecked. But Ashe had found her and showed her the Emblem, so that meant that it was time to go.

Ashe wasn't in a hurry to find Zena, but she certainly didn't want anyone's death on her hands. Even so, this wasn't the time to be worrying about finding somebody in a big-ass jungle.

"Do you think maybe she's at the car?" Sage asked. Ashe didn't answer.

Then something answered for her. A loud explosion nearby, causing the sky to temporarily light up red. The two looked over, showing a flare flashing bright above them. Instinctively, Ashe started to lead Sage over to it. "Keep down," she warned, "It might be...them."

The two half-crawled their way over to find a large clearing, which proved to be a tiny village of about five huts. Right in the middle of it, surrounded by soldiers, were a cage held up above a fire. In it was a blonde. A familiar blonde.

Ze--" Sage tried to shout, but Ashe put her hand over her mouth.


















(Zena is trapped. Sebastian is in that village.)

[Sage]

“Ze-!!” Sage began to shout, but a hand clamped down over her mouth. With Ashe’s hand so close to her nose, the girl could easily smell the reek of spilled booze on her. Had she been off drinking while Frankenstein was chasing her sister? While Sage was suffering for the amusement of some nameless bastard with a clipboard?! “No, that’s not it...”

“What?” the pink haired girl inquired.

“What?” Sage echoed, unaware she had been speaking out loud.

“You said something,”

“I... I’m sorry?”

“You were saying something about-!”

“Shh!!” the hybrid sounded at her friend, who had grown louder as the short conversation went on.

“I wasn’t being that loud!” Ashe whispered angrily. Sage wanted to retort, but didn’t. She was angry; the thought of Ashe drinking had aggravated her. Sage, the hypocritical, pill-popping advocate against substance abuse.

“What do we do?” she finally questioned. There wasn’t anything else left to talk about. Not in this situation, anyway. Sage couldn’t keep her eyes off her sister, the caged girl hanging atop a raging fire. She had to do something. Her vision blurred, but she fought it away. “Damn you, Kai!” she whispered.

The name caused her to recollect the promise she made. That nameless, disinterested man, he had asked her if she would murder someone to be released. And she had said she would. She would kill Kai Demolic.

The sheer barbarity of her agreement sent a tremor through her, and she looked at her hands, at once shocked that there was no visible damage from the horrific burning that bizarre gemstone had given her, and disgusted with herself. Dirt under her fingernails, cuts and scrapes on her hands and arms.

She and Ashe looked terrible. Both of them were bruised, and bloody, and covered in dirt and sweat. Their hair disheveled and matted. Sage had lost one of her black bows, and so had one pig tail and one flowing mess of tangled, matted blue. Not that either cared terribly much about how they looked anymore.

“There’s five of them, I think,” Ashe suddenly interrupted, peering over the thick bushes she and Sage were hiding behind.

“Five what?”

“Guards,” Ashe replied. “There might be more, but I can’t see much far from the fire.”

“Oh,” Sage fell silent again for a moment, and then a thought struck her. “With guns?”

“Yeah, looks like,”

“Oh...”

“Look, Sage. I know you were really upset about the last fight we were in but-”

“I understand,” came a grave reply. Neither wanted to address the subject directly, but both already knew what the other meant. Sage withdrew her pistol for what felt like the hundredth time, and turned it over, flicking the lethality selector to ‘non-lethal.’ “I can shoot them without killing them... unless this gun... unless this gun is rigged,” she sighed. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume as much. “...What about you? Will you be okay?”

“Just do it, alright?” Ashe looked over at Sage’s shaky grip on her weapon. “...Or I could. I mean, if you-”

“No... no, I’ve already-” the girl looked over at the teen with an agonized expression. “You haven’t-”

“Okay,” came the reply. Ashe knew what she meant.

Sage leveled her aim at the nearest guard, and took a few deep breaths, which did nothing to stop her shaky breathing. “Please, please, please... don’t die,” she demanded, and then squeezed the trigger. A noticeably dimmer pulse of green light sailed across the black chasm between the bushes and the bonfire, and struck the targeted guard dead in the chest, hurling him onto his back where he lay still.

Immediately, the four others opened fire, their ki machine guns raining bolts of energy upon the girls who scrambled, the ground where they hid pelted with energy blasts. Sage took cover behind a tree and leaned out, taking a trio of shots at another guard, and missing all three times before another salvo of ki blasts forced her back into cover.

Sage wanted to just sink to her knees and disappear, but she knew she couldn’t. Zena would have broken out of that cage by now if she could, and the only thing that separated Ashe and Sage was the gun she carried, and because of that, she had to be the savior this time. She had to stay strong.

Ashe... she projected. I’m... not sure I can...

“Come on, Sage!” the pink haired student shouted over the shriek of splitting wood as the ki blasts continued to hammer away at the tree’s constitution. The girl shrank into the tree, wishing it would wrap its branches around her and hide her away from the situation. “Your sister needs you!” the voice sounded distant and far away, but Sage nodded anyway.

She twisted around the tree and fired another three-shot volley. Only one blast struck, but it hit hard. The energy blast slammed into the face of the nearest guard, and he plunged into the flames beneath Zena, but thankfully, Sage had ducked back into cover before he fell. Unconscious, he could not scream as the flames greedily consumed him.

“They’re coming!!” Ashe shrieked. Sure enough, the darkness of the tree-shrouded jungle was lit up by the crimson energy blasts of the encroaching soldiers. Again, Sage burst out from cover, but this time, three guns were already trained on her. Panicked, the girl squeezed the trigger instead of diving to cover, and managed to fell another of the mercenaries, before a ki blast grazed her leg and toppled her over.

The two remaining soldiers charged at the fallen quarter-saiyan, prepared to finish her off, but Ashe pounced on the one furthest from Sage, and slammed a rock she’d picked up into his head. He stumbled, and the somewhat buzzed girl slammed it into his head again. This time he dropped.

Ashe hurled her rock at the other mercenary, who was now dangerously close to Sage. The rock struck true, hitting him in the small of his back. He yelped in surprise and spun around, to see a pink haired girl holding a ki sub-machine gun pilfered from his comrade. He could hardly blink before a spray of ki bolts pierced his flesh, and hurled him into the underbrush, badly wounded by the deadly ki.

Ashe helped Sage to her feet, and the two carefully crept into the village. “Zena!” the smaller twin excitedly whispered to her sibling. “We did it, Zena! We’re going to get you out!”

Zena sneered in response. She would have made a biting remark, Sage was sure, but in as compromising a position as she was in, it was an unwise choice. The two girls set about to find out exactly how Zena’s cage was suspended. It was obviously a pulley system, but it looked like the crank for it was hidden in one of the huts.

The duo made their way for it, and suddenly Ashe was swept off her feet and carried up into a tree by her ankle. Sage shrieked, and trained her gun at whatever was after the pink haired girl, and then breathed a quick sigh of relief. Ashe was caught in a snare trap, suspended from her ankle.

“I’ll... I’ll get you down, Ashe. I, um, just need to-”

“Take a bath?” came a voice just as full of mirth as it was of malice. A horrid, sickly feeling washed over Sage as she slowly, stiffly turned around, having already thumbed the gun’s lethality setting back over to ‘maximum.’ Somehow she doubted it would be enough.

Sebastian - that’s what they had called him anyway - was standing only fifteen feet away from her, his menacing claws and disturbing mask like three glowing points in an otherwise dark sky. He stood in a relaxed posture, one hand on his hip and the other dangling by the outside of his thigh, his head slightly tilted. Sage couldn’t tell if it was amusement or curiosity that caused him to tilt his head like that. She wished she could break it off for what he’d done to Zena.

“Oh ho! Now, this is too much! Out of the three most useless players in this game, I get the one who’s afraid of her own shadow,” Sebastian taunted with a flamboyant giggle.

“Let me out of this cage and say that!!” Zena thundered.

“Oh, please. You’re too predictable. A one-on-one match with this one?” he gestured to Sage. “Entirely unworthy of my time, but fear is so much more... tantalizing... than misplaced arrogance and determination. Kai might be wasting my time, but he never said I couldn’t have fun with you three.”

Sage stifled a gasp. What does he mean by that?! she silently demanded, eliciting another chuckle from Sebastian. The girl winced; he must have heard that.

“Honestly, it would be more fun with both of you candy-colored harlots, but... well... I suppose I can find other things to do with you,” he frowned behind his mask, picking his fingernails. “I should get paid more for having to... touch you, though,” he shuddered - very briefly, but Sage saw it - at the thought.

Sebastian took a step forward, and Sage took two back, throwing furtive glances around her, teeth clenched and eyes wide with horror. Sebastian giggled again. “Nothing to say?” he threw a look over his shoulder, at the caged blond. “I’m sorry, it appears your sister might be even more predictable than you!”

“If you touch her I swear I’ll-” Zena growled.

“Watch helplessly,” Sebastian cut her off, his voice suddenly cold and dark, all at once devoid of the twisted humor he’d approached the situation with. “Now, you... ugly little runt,” he glared daggers through his mask. “Scream for me.”

With shocking speed, Sebastian closed the gap between he and Sage, kicked off the ground, and planted a heavy foot into her chest, propelling her through the air and onto her back. She hit the ground hard, winded from the blow to her front.

The girl tried to climb to her feet, and yelped as three metal claws slammed into the earth next to her face. Sebastian pulled the deadly weapon from the dirt and leaned in close. “If you want to live you’ll have to do better than that. No more handouts,” he hissed, grasping the girl by her ruined shirt and hurling her back across the center of the tiny native village.

Sage tumbled painfully across the hard-packed dirt, and fought hard to climb to her feet as Sebastian raced after her. She was only on her hands and knees when he was upon her, and he punted her in the stomach, catapulting her into the air, through the wall of one of the huts, where she crashed painfully through the bed within.

Covered in dust and shattered wood, her body screaming in pain, and Sage still fought. She couldn’t win, but Zena deserved that she at least try. And Ashe, she hadn’t forgotten about Ashe. Have to...

The overwhelming urge to sleep overwhelmed her, but she tried hard to shake it off, pushing a board off herself. She put a hand to her head and winced. Blurred vision, too. She tried to ignore the concern that she was suffering from a concussion - she had to fight, or Sebastian would kill her.

Suddenly, the wooden door exploded, consumed in a ki blast, meant more to frighten than to injure. From the smoke leapt Sebastian, his claws raised over his head. Sage had grown tiresome, and now she would die.

Green. That’s all he saw since the instant the runty hybrid pulled the trigger. The blast hit him point-blank, right in the face, and launched him back out the doorway he’d jumped through. His mask was melting, burning his flesh. He scrambled to throw it off, hurling it away angrily. He wasn’t about to let some blue haired whore ruin his perfect visage.

His eyes burned with fury as he pulled himself up to his feet, catching sight of Sage’s tired form, leaning against the ruined doorframe of the equally ruined hut. “Whore,” the word rumbled up out of his throat, his intonation intending it to be the gravest of insults. “You were going to get to die quickly,” his countenance twisted with rage.

“I don’t... want... to die,”

“That’s not what the cameras say!”

“That was... before,” Sage fought to stay conscious as she spoke. “Before Zena was...”

“Oh, is that all you think about?!” Sebastian growled, rushing the girl, who opened fire again. The underground fighting veteran gracefully evaded the blast, and then two others, with the greatest of ease, before slamming his elbow into Sage’s temple, sending her flying through another wall of the same hut she’d already crashed through once before. He leveled his palm at the building, manifesting a sphere of ki in his grasp. The addict would burn.

“AUGH!!” he groaned, the ki fizzling out immediately. Sebastian crashed to his knees, six smouldering burns on his back. Ashe glared at him, upside-down, her stolen weapon leveled at Sebastian. She frowned, the digital ammo counter said the thing had very little life left, but it was better than nothing. Awkwardly aiming the weapon at the rope that suspended her, she fired once, chewing through the rope and crashing painfully onto the earth. Red and Blue, 2-versus-1 against Sebastian. The student just prayed it would be enough.

[Sage]

With a horrible grimace, Sebastian climbed back to his feet, turning his angry, hateful glare onto the pink haired girl who lied on the dirt, looking up at him through all the filth and grime on her face with her ugly eyes sunk into her ugly face, framed by her ugly hair. The arrogant underground fighter sneered at her, at her ugliness. Cutting her up would be doing her a favor - it was almost too good for her if not for the horrific agony he could extract from her in exchange. At this, he smiled, his perfect, pearly teeth, somehow sinister.

He said nothing. Once again showcasing his immense speed, he charged Ashe, who could do little to dodge from her prone position. She fired a volley of shots, all of them going wide as Sebastian easily danced around them, moving in for the kill. And for the second time in as many minutes, he was shot in the back.

A big green sphere splashed across his shoulder blades, jarring his run into a stumble. His intended victim scrambled to her feet and drew her weapon at the recovering Sebastian, who wound up far behind his back, horribly telegraphing his moves because of the stunning blow to his back.

Too close to actually level a shot against the clawed man, Ashe, in desperation, swung her machine gun hard, catching Sebastian across the face with it and staggering him backwards, giving her the freedom to open fire on him. He began to wildly spasm, before collapsing in a heap at Ashe’s feet.

Out of the hut climbed a severely injured Sage, who swayed back and forth, leaning hard against a piece of broken wall. She was bleeding anew, and looked quite dazed, even from Ashe’s position across the village square. In her hand was her pistol, which she’d used to spare her friend a violent death.

“I think...” the cerulean haired girl mumbled, far too quiet for anyone to hear but her. She contemplated shouting, but just thinking about it hurt. Suddenly, a thought struck her. I think we got him, she projected. Ashe was about to nod in response, before a dark chuckle escaped the lips of the dead man at her feet. With a startled gasp, Ashe leapt backwards, scrambling away from Sebastian, who slowly climbed to his feet. He showed signs of fatigue, but not nearly as much as Sage, or even Ashe.

“You thought wrong,” he hissed. “You have, however, caused me to break a sweat,” he said this with the most intense disdain. “Honestly I didn’t even think I’d get my nails dirty taking care of you useless diversions. Well,” he considered. “Maybe a little blood.”

“You’re screwed up,” spat the pink haired girl, disgusted at the man’s twisted imagery.

“And you're just plain screwed,” Sebastian retorted, launching himself at Ashe. Red and green gun blasts lanced out at the acrobatic warrior, all of them pitifully missing their mark. He planted a vicious heel to the teenager’s forehead, propelling her onto the ground, only inches out of the flames behind her.

Sebastian kicked off the ground again, sailing high into the air. Instead of landing on Ashe, however, he landed on the cage over the fire behind her, and turned, his hand wrapped around the rope that suspended the cage - and Zena within it - over the flames.

“Katchin metal!” Sebastian taunted, locking eyes with Sage. He watched her expression turn from tired to apprehensive. He smirked. “Untouchable by even your sister’s incredible power!” he snorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Must take a big man to make fun of me while I’m behind bars!” retorted Zena, glaring up at her captor above her.

“Oh, please,” the brutal fighter snapped. “You fell for one of my traps, didn’t you, oh mighty strategist?” he jeered, and then pressed his claws against the rope. “What do you say, little girl? How about you stay for a little barbecue?”

“N-No!” Sage protested, making to run forward, but she stumbled, falling on hands and knees before righting herself, and then falling again to one knee. “Leave her alone!”

“Make me,” came the childish retort.

“Please!” the little hybrid insisted. “She never did anything to you!!”

“Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be in this predicament,” chided Sebastian, making a show of sawing at the rope. His actions provoked exactly the response he expected.

“St-stop it!!” Sage demanded. “I’ll-!! I’ll shoot you!”

The clawed man just kept sawing, and Sage made good on her threat. The girl opened fire, squeezing the trigger hysterically as dazzling spheres of emerald hurtled toward Sebastian, who lazily dodged about the ones too near him, and laughed as others sailed too low and crashed into the cage beneath him. Zena stumbled and fell, but Sebastian had no problem maintaining his footing atop the wildly swinging cage, which spun and bucked as the energy blasts smashed into it.

“You’d best be careful!” Sebastian taunted. “Your light show might sever the rope,” he taunted, pointing at a light burn where one of the bolts had singed the lifeline that kept Zena suspended above the flames. By now, Ashe was on her feet, but she didn’t have much of a shot from her angle and dared not move for fear of provoking the psychopath to cut the rope. Zena might have been a bitch, but it didn’t mean she deserved to die.

Sage aimed more carefully now, but her aim continued to waver as her hands shook. She growled angrily at herself as she fought to steady her hands. The girl closed her eyes; if this shot didn’t work, she might lose her sister.

With her eyes closed, Sage put a new face on Sebastian. She put the worst face, the one she despised more than any other she had ever seen upon him. On Sebastian’s face, she put the face of Sol. The man responsible for... everything. Sol, Sage reinforced, revolted by his image. Now he has your sister.

Her eyes opened. “You motherf-” she replaced the curse with a grumble, and leveled her gun at Sebastian, again. He and Zena were trading words, and both looked extremely angry. It didn’t even occur to the crystal haired girl that her sister was buying her time. She didn’t think of anything else but Sol as she opened fire.

With the dead-eye accuracy of a trained sniper, the powerful bolt of ki sailed straight into the temple of the distracted pit fighter, who tumbled over the edge of the cage and wildy grabbed onto the bottom of it, lest he fall into the flames beneath.

The cage swung back and forth violently as Sebastian fought to pull himself back, and now it was Ashe who took initiative. She raised her gun, watching for some cue. She waited for the cage to swing wildly in one direction, and when it veered about and rushed the other way, Ashe hesitated until the cage was just about to lose momentum, and then opened fire. A flurry of ki blasts whizzed harmlessly through the air, but one of them pierced straight through the rope suspending the cage, cleaving it in half.

Unrestrained, the heavy katchin prison smashed into the ground several feet from the fire, right on top of Sebastian. Ashe couldn’t believe the fortune that had just fallen on her group; the narcissistic man seemed too powerful for them.

A heavy, metallic clank sounded through the air, and without warning or reason, the top of the liberated cage popped off with a sharp bang, tossing the entire wall, framework, bars and all, onto the ground.

Zena, somewhat disoriented, took a moment before leaping out of her prison. “...Huh,” she remarked, noticing a tiny control box wired to solenoids all around the seam of the blown-off cage wall. “It looks like this thing was... rigged. I guess someone activated it when you,” she shot Ashe an undecipherable look. “...Released me.”

“Idiot!” roared Sebastian, swatting the cumbersome prison aside as though it were made of cardboard. He leapt to his feet, outraged at what had transpired. “It was on a proximity trigger. It was one of Kai’s... jokes. There was no key or anything like that. You would have been left to die if they hadn’t figured out to move the cage away from the fire,” he grinned. “You should know the rope was similarly rigged. Another two minutes or so and it would have dropped you into the flames... but I can take care of that.”

Without another word, Sebastian unleashed an enormous wave of ki with a flick of his wrist. The sheer power dumbfounded the blond hybrid, who narrowly dove out of the way as it thundered past, obliterating a hut in the distance. “This should be fun,” he hissed.

[Ashe]

"This should be fun," the man hissed, extending another arm as a ball of ki appeared to hover above it. In a near echo, the counterpart also extended, charging its own ball of energy as he grinned wickedly at the trio of girls huddled against the ground. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire," he taunted them, glancing back at the fire pit nearby. "And yet, still not in the kitchen where you belong," he screamed, thrusting both arms forward, the beam exploding from him in a wide angle.

"Zen-"

"The cage drained my ener-" the girl began, grabbing Sage to hurl her out of the way at her own expense.

The world exploded in a wave of crystalline blue, washing over the trio in a near blinding light. As their eyes began to adjust and the world began to grow observable again, Sage was nearly paralyzed in Zena's grip as the blond woman's eyes took in the sight of Ashe at the forefront of the group, a massive edged bubble of blue energy around her wrist. She had dug her heels in and braced herself to absorb the impact from the others in the group, but she had done it without knowing that this would happen.

As the wave of energy dissipated, Ashe suddenly collapsed to her knees, purging her body of the alcoholic intake from before on the ground before her as her body tried to adjust to what had just happened. The man calmly stood before them and raised a brow. "Kai said you had power, regardless of what the cameras have seen until now. Yet here you are, proving to me just how ugly you are," he laughed, gesturing at the pool of vomit beneath the now sick student.

Sage ran forward to grab Ashe and help her to her feet, but Zena snatched her back with a thrust of her arm. "No, I'm about to crush that drag queen," she growled, clenching her fists.

Her sister looked at her in shock. "You said you were drained-" she began, quickly getting silenced by Sage.

"Get out of here, Sage," she snapped, a furious display of golden energy empowering the Saiyaness as her blond hair began to rise slowly. Midway through the slow transformation, however, she faltered as she took a step, her hair slowly dropping back down around her. Her breathing grew noticeably heavier as she passed Ashe's crumpled form to approach Sebastian.

Sage timidly took advantage of the moment to grab the pained teenage girl and help her to her feet, pulling her hoody off her body to return it to Ashe. "Here, use this to wipe yourself up," she soothed, trying to wipe her mouth with it despite her nose twitching at the smell of the girl's alcohol. Ashe had heard mental outbursts earlier regarding her opinion, but the girl seemed embarrassed enough by her thoughts frequently escaping he, so Ashe never brought it up.

"I'll be ok," she mumbled, taking the hoody from her while turning her face to avoid letting the girl wipe it onto her jacket. She pushed herself to her feet and watched Zena engage with Sebastian in a close distance, using her physical confrontation skills to try to balance out her body's need to replenish its energy silos.

She reached into her bag to remove the refilled bottle of water from it, pouring some into her hand to wipe her mouth with before taking a large amount of the liquid into her mouth, swishing it around to wash away the vomitous taste in her mouth. Her finger jabbed towards the man in the distance. "We've gotta escape out of here. We don't have to stand and fight anymore," she verbally thought. "How did..." she began, looking around at the other girl. "What did Zena do? I was going to see if I could just take the entire hit and keep you guys from getting hurt, but then she used her power or something to force it away. I thought I was screwed, but it seemed to explode away from me," she laughed weakly. "That was awesome," she added, giving the timid girl a smile.

Sage slowly shook her head, finding the words for the situation. "No, Ashe..." she trailed off, not sure how to continue.

Ashe grabbed the machine gun that she'd been using and thrust her bottled water back into her bag. "No, it wasn't awesome?" she questioned before breaking out in an exhausted chuckle, rushing off to help Zena out in her confrontation.

"No, Ashe... it was... you," the other girl whispered to herself before running forward with her own gun in hand.

The blond homosexual's eyes took in the pair as they approached, each holding their gun in a deadly aim with inexperienced hands. "Don't even try it. The only thing worse than your aim is likely your driving," he taunted, whirling around suddenly to catch Zena in the middle of a pounce by the throat, continuing his spin to throw her at the couple of girls that were approaching. The blond girl, however, landed like a cat from her tumble and rose, throwing her fists up once more as the other two girls held their guns up.

"You girls and your Charlie's Angels," Sebastian said, rolling his eyes as his hand found his hip once more while his other hand gestured dismissively towards the trio. Without warning, the extend hand suddenly flushed with color and a beam of distorted energy rushed at them with the flick of his wrist.

The three girls split, dodging the beam while rolling to their feet in different directions. "Sage!" the pink haired girl called, but the other girl had already picked up on the idea herself. Zena vanished just as the rippling energy from each of the two weapons rushed towards the man, reappearing directly behind him once more, forcing him to react.

Unfortunately, he reacted by catching her leg mid-kick and twisting around, using her as a shield of the weaponry. "Ugh!" she cried out as the bullets tore into her.

Sage's mouth dropped, her hand lowering quickly before she finally decided to thrust the weapon back into her holster. "No, I can't-" she began.

"Sage, don't give up!" Ashe encouraged, looking for a better shot as the man used the struggling girl as a shield.

"No!" she cried, waving her hands in the air. "I can't risk hitting her, I could have killed her!"

"Sage, trust yourself!"

Zena took the decision from them, twisting around so that her leg slipped underneath his own, forcing her weight into the back of his knee and grounding him forcefully before ripping herself free, kicking him directly in the face before her arm snatched him up by his lustrous blond hair. "You son of a bitch!" she cried, pulling him up by his hair and using her weight to somehow send him spiraling through the air into a nearby hut.

She was immediately charging into followup on the job as the other two girls suddenly cried out. Glancing back over her shoulder in irritation, she was grounded to a halt as a pair of soldiers had appeared behind them with guns to their backs. She was about to teleport back behind the man holding Sage when a heeled foot swept across her cheek from behind, a furious spin like a dervish taking her down for the kill.

[Sage]

Zena crumpled beneath Sebastian’s underhanded sneak attack, and the other two girls were frozen in place, gun barrels pressed into their backs. Neither dared move, while the clawed man rolled the blond hybrid onto her back with his foot. His booted foot crashed down onto Zena’s throat, forcing a gasp from Sage, who watched helplessly as he put all the weight he could onto that foot.

“You three would be better off washing my clothes,” he taunted, flashing a wicked grin at the blue haired girl, who couldn’t take her slack-jawed stare off the horrible sight in front of her. And yet, the guard behind her made any kind of retaliation impossible. “I can’t imagine you all actually thought you had a chance. So, then, why even bother?”

Ashe! came Sage’s silent scream. What... what do I do?

The student shot the young doctor a look, but it was empty. There was no conviction or confidence, like Zena sometimes exuded, to wordlessly inform Sage of some vague plan. Ashe’s look was... hopeless.

And suddenly, Ashe pitched forward, collapsing onto the ground. Sage’s heart skipped a beat, but she could do nothing with the gun at her back, but then she saw what was really happening.

Ashe had fallen down with her arm extended - with her gun aimed at Sebastian. As soon as she hit the ground, her finger wrapped around the trigger, spraying the warrior’s legs with the ruby energy. He howled in pain, leaping up into the air.

As soon as his foot left the princess’ throat, Zena vanished, appearing behind the guards who had snuck up on her sister and her sister’s friend. A quick punch felled one, but the other, she planted a chop to his neck, shattering his vertebrae. This one had pointed his gun at Sage.

“Stay out of my way!” she rasped, her throat on fire from the damage Sebastian inflicted. Literally leaping over her sister as she threw herself at her enemy, Zena lashed out with a point-blank energy wave before laying into her stunned opponent.

Sage helped Ashe to her feet, and then returned her attention to her twin. The blond girl was moving more slowly, awkwardly than she should have. “Something’s not... right,” the Valium addict muttered. Zena didn’t give herself a chance to catch her breath; she couldn’t keep going without a break.

Sure enough, a pillar of ki slammed into her sibling, and Zena tumbled across the ground. Ashe opened fire on Sebastian, hoping to draw him away for a moment. Sage followed suit, but Sebastian rushed them, ducking under and vaulting over any of the energy blasts that came too close.

He was done playing. He lashed out with one of his claws, and caught Ashe across the chest, the cold metal of his deadly appendage cutting deep into her flesh. Blood sprayed Sebastian’s face and chest, and stained the girl’s clothing. She fell limp, toppling backward, and she crashed onto the ground beneath.

Sage shook so hard she dropped her gun, not at all focused on the murderer who stood only feet from her. Her eyes were on the girl at his feet. “Ashe!” her voice was nearly silent. “Ashe! No!”

Crack!!

Zena’s elbow smashed into Sebastian’s spine, catapulting him across the square. “Don’t just stare. Help her,” she ordered, before igniting the super saiyan flames within her. Her insistence was for Sage’s well-being, not Ashe’s. Zena didn’t care too much for most people, but she wasn’t about to let Sage watch a friend die without at least trying to do something for her.

Sebastian clashed with Zena, far enough away that Sage was as safe as she could hope to be with a psychopath trying to kill her about. She raced to Ashe’s side and fell to her knees, hurriedly checking the pink haired girl’s vitals. Not good, she decided not to say. A shame Ashe heard it anyway.

The girl checked her pockets for her medical capsule, and cringed. It wasn’t there. She checked again, she patted down her shirt and pants. Nothing. “No, no, no, no!” her head jerked about, her eyes furiously racing up and down, trying to find some kind of alternative. “Ashe, please, no!” Sage desperately tried her pockets again, but she knew she was wasting her time. Finally, she fell upon the sweater Ashe still had clenched in her grip.

The doctor took it and pressed it against her friend’s wound, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Without the proper equipment to close the gaping slashes, Ashe was going to die. She was already unconscious, at least. It didn’t make it any easier, though.

Sage leaned down, resting her head against the sweater that was now bunched up overtop of Ashe’s chest, and she wept. The first patient she would ever lose in her life, and it was going to be one of the only people on the outside that had reached out to her. One of the only people who had included her in some small way in the world outside her tiny bubble.

The fighting increased in pitch, but she didn’t notice. All she focused on was the rising, sickly sensation in her throat and the fading beat of Ashe’s heart. Maybe more soldiers would come. Let them come. They could do no more harm to Ashe, at least.

“No... Ashe, you can’t...” Sage tried to stifle herself, but it only made the sobbing more bitter. The sickly feeling gave in to something else, then, and she found herself suddenly feeling very, very tired. She closed her eyes, sinking further into the now-bloody sweater on Ashe’s chest, her hands still pressing down on it in some vain attempt to put pressure on the enormous wounds.

But then Ashe groaned. Sage jerked up, and through eyes clouded, she looked at her. And through the haze of tears, Ashe was obscured by some blue light. Sage wiped her eyes, and saw that it wasn’t Ashe in the light, but Sage. She was... glowing. She lifted one hand to examine herself, but quickly returned it to the sweater, returning pressure to the injury.

She couldn’t believe such a rudimentary technique worked, when she was absolutely positive suturing would be necessary, but she refused to question it. The blue glow persisted, and it was then that she realized Ashe was awake, and was looking at Sage with the greatest concern. ...Awake?!

“Uh, yeah?” Ashe shot back, “Sage, what’s-?”

“I don’t know,” came the reply. ‘What’s with the glow?’ Sage knew that’s what she was going to ask, and the truth was, she had no idea. But she was more concerned with the fact that the bruising and swelling on Ashe’s face had suddenly disappeared, along with the cuts and scrapes. “I don’t... I...” though she hesitated for a moment, she knew she had to check the cuts on Ashe’s chest. She lifted the sweater, dripping with blood, and set it aside to look at the gashes in the student’s chest.

There wasn’t even a scratch.

“H-How?!” Sage stumbled and fell onto her backside. The glow began to fade away, and soon had disappeared altogether. “You... There’s no way you could-” she looked at Ashe for a long time. “You should be... dead.”

“Well, I feel...” Ashe paused, putting a hand to her head, then to her side. “Really good,” her voice was apprehensive, though. Concerned about what happened. “But... what did...”

“I... I don’t know,” the azure haired girl repeated. “I don’t know, I don’t-”

“It’s okay,” the younger girl interrupted. “What matters is you... healed me. Somehow. I guess we can work out the details when we-”

“Th-this really... bothers me, Ashe. I can’t... how do I even-”

“Sage,” she interrupted again. “I don’t know what to tell you, okay? Maybe you have a gift. Right now, we have to worry about Sebastian. Remember your sister, right?” she took a deep breath. It wasn’t like Sage was the only one put off by the situation. Being told you should be dead by a doctor was hardly comforting. Really, though, she was just as shocked and mystified by whatever it was Sage had done as she was. “If we don’t focus, he’ll kill us.”

“O-Okay,” Sage nodded, halfway listening. She was checking her hands over, looking for some hidden clue as to what she had done, but there was none. “It felt... weird. Like I was being... drained.”

“Sage, please. I need you to focus,”

“Okay...” the blue haired girl sighed. Ashe was right. “What... what should we do?”

[Celena]

Before Zena even realised, a large, pale hand grasped hold of her, lifting her off the ground by her blue T-Shirt, the fabric around the neck area of the top, tearing and thus hanging loosely from around her neck. Her legs dangled above the ground as his determined, coal black eyes locked onto hers. She was conscious enough to understand that his free hand, which had formed a clenched fist, was heading towards her face. The princess did not believe she had ever felt a punch so hard before and she knew that she could not withstand another. She needed a number of physical attributes in order to defeat the behemoth, such as speed and agility, but she knew raw strength was not included.

First things first, she needed to get out of this uncomfortable situation. Swiftly, she raised her knees, pressing them against his abdomen, while she forced herself backwards.

Rip.

The T-Shirt shredded; a piece from her top within his right palm while his offensive fist caught nothing but air. With a growl, he tossed the piece of cloth into the ground.

“I’m the one who should me mad; this was a custom made T-shirt,” she frowned, taking what was left of it from her body and aggressively throwing it onto the ground in front of her, revealing a white, linen fitted vest with dry crimson stains underneath. She was fully conscious now and not only that, but she was fully focused with a look of intensity in her eyes as she entered a fighting stance, fists tightly balled.

She had a plan, but in order for it to work, she needed the pale droid to come towards her. With a ghoulish groan it lunged forward and that was when she disappeared, causing the large foe to miss its target again. She reappeared behind it and slammed her elbow hard into the back of his head, causing him to arch forwards.

That’s it? she asked herself, as her mouth went agape. She had thrown her hardest elbow at the back of his head and yet the Frankenstein had been immune by it. Had the pale creature had an ego like hers, he would have been amused by the fact that she could not harm him.

An elbow could not take him down, but she had to believe a multiple of shots would, so therefore she rushed towards him, fists cocked back. He swung his right arm clockwise while he spun to face her in a quick motion. She ducked and yelped while she jerked her head backwards from a glancing blow from his left fist, which had caused the tip of her nose to tingle.

He went on the offensive this time, throwing punch after punch towards the female, who weaved. Although each of them missed, the thrust he put behind each punch was so powerful that she could feel the breeze against her cheeks as they continuously sliced through the air of Kai Demolic’s underground, demonic playground.

Zena had discovered earlier on that her ability to fly had somehow been restricted. She was sure Kai had intentionally made it that way through the use of a gravity field, in order to prevent anyone from trying to escape from the island. It was not a clever move on Kai’s part; it was just common sense that people with flight would try to escape. Although she was unable to fly, she was still capable of levitating, so therefore, she made the most out of what she was able to do by lifting her feet off the ground, tilting backwards while she began soaring backwards. She had trouble digesting what happened next; he too took off from the ground.

“What?” she uttered, her ocean blue eyes seeming as if they were going to pop out of their sockets.

Unbelievable… he can levitate too, she thought, as he soared towards her.

A few moments after he gave chase, she realised that no matter what how long the creation planned on pursuing her, it could never catch up to her. “Sorry Frank,” she smirked arrogantly.

With a murmur, it increased its speed. The smirk on her face vanished as she realised its speed had matched hers. She could understand the android matching the speed of Sage and Ashe, but not her.

No way.

The western wall was quickly approaching behind her. She could see it from the corner of her right eye. Zena had a plan. Once she was inches away from the wall, she turned anticlockwise. Just as she predicted, the foe slammed into the wall with a loud thud, cracking the bricks, which constructed the wall, as he fell to the ground. She was sure the groan, which had escaped its mouth, was one of agony, while it had closed its eyes for a moment and then reopened them. It had finally been hurt, and to her pleasure, its head had been split open, as a little trail of blood made its way down its forehead. The marvellous creation had shown a weakness, overzealousness.

This was her moment. She could not let Kai’s creation get up. She had to put it out of commission right this moment, so that she could get back to her sister and Ashe. They needed her in order to survive. The realisation of that made her even more determined to hurry up about it. A crystal coloured aura burst to life around her while the large droid rose to one foot. “Dyaaaaurgh!” she roared, as her palms lit up with golden ki. The German originated android was a lot quicker than Zena had predicted and could have moved out the way in time to avoid what was heading its way, but instead, it took on the onslaught, which was a barrage of ki orbs she had let loose. Either it was pretty stupid or it truly believed it could overpower the orbs. This was not the time to converse energy. She was willing to expend as much amount as ki as possible in order to win. After all, who knew what was out there confronting her sister and the other girl?

Her arms continued to go back and forth as she continued her destruction, the explosion forming a dome. Just as she was about to cease firing, a figure emerged through the thickening of the lightshow. With a mighty roar, a fist rocketed forward, catching her in her temple, the force, sending her backwards, her body bouncing on the floor before coming to a halt. The hulking form of the Frankenstein stood furiously over the female. Its black blazer was shredded and burnt and crispy, just as its trousers were and it was cut in many places.

Zena was conscious enough to realise that the pale droid was standing over her because she could hear its heavy breathing, even over the sounds of the warm, flickering flames behind them. The large android picked her off the ground once again, this time wrapping its large hand around her neck while doing so. Her eyes slowly opened to view his. It did not have enough strength to lift her off the ground with one hand like before. Frank managed to raise her to the tips of her dirty, brown sneakers, which once upon a time were white. Although the princess’ aura began to fade due to the vast amount of ki, which had leaked out of her, she still had fight in her.

Looks like I won’t be ‘just behind’ you girls, she realised.

Her head lazily tilted backwards as it cocked his right fist back once more. A buzz from further down the south of the room caught its attention, causing it to pause and turn its attention towards the door, while Zena placed both of her hands around his pale wrist, struggling for air, while she squint her eyes. The female warrior was not done, as a matter of fact, the defiant girl had another plan ready to execute. It seemed the Frankenstein’s motive to destroy her had changed as it angrily faced a group of soldiers who had stormed their way into the room. The monster threw Zena down to the ground as they closed in.

“That’s enough Frank! We’ll take it from here now,” one of them said to the android, pointing his laser gun at it. Some more of Kai’s minions had their weapons aimed at the behemoth while others had their weapons aimed at Zena, who slowly rose to sit up on the ground, a hand caressing her sore neck. “Move and we’ll shoot!” another said to her.

“Tch,” she croaked with a frown. “You’re rudely interrupting.”

“Too bad,” the same man said.

The Frankenstein however, was just as disappointed. Neither it nor Zena had wanted their fight to conclude this way. Anger swelled within the droid once more as it refused to cooperate, rushing towards the leading soldier who instinctively let his gun go off. The laser rocketed forward, impaling the large android. Zena watched in disgust as it dropped to the floor, wriggling about and grunting aggressively like an animal in agony. It was just as she had told her sister Sage. Life was not fair, and that was why Zena was the way she was, cold. Being nice got you nowhere. She had grown to understand that a long time ago.

More soldiers moved onto the droid, which still continued to struggle restlessly against the pain, as it bled from its torso, while the others kept their eyes and weapons on the princess in case she tried anything stupid.

Whatever happens to me, I’ll need you to be strong, Sage.

[Ashe]

“Something’s not... right,” Sage mumbled, watching her sister fight one on one with the blond haired man behind the mask. Ashe wasted no time asking her what she meant, picking the machine gun back up and looking over it. As best as she could tell, it was low on bullets, so she'd have to make the next one count.

Moving into position, she dropped down to her knee and braced herself, waiting on the right opening. Almost on cue, Sebastian thrust a palm of ki directly into the chest of the blond girl, throwing her away from him in an explosive frenzy. Ashe took advantage of the moment by opening fire from nearly point blank range, inciting Sage to open fire with her own weapon.

Amazingly, the man was as gentle as he was gay, when it came to movements. He pulled a complete Matrix style maneuver, falling back a bit as the first volley of energy bullets passed by, twisting into a more appropriate position to lunge from. A split second passed between the pink haired girl and her opponent as his eyes narrowed in the holes of his mask, sending a chill passing over her as his hand flicked a slight bit in preparation.

She felt it before he'd even cleared the path to them, somehow.

He was in her face, his smell almost intoxicating her from his proximity before the iron triad made their way jaggedly across her chest, cutting through dress and flesh as one, before making its exit on her right side. It was a sharp, icy touch that she felt to just outside of her heart, cascading the man in her crimson life force as her gun fell to her side, her mouth opening to speak.

"Die," the man spat, shoving her back away from him as her chest continued to spurt blood.

She struck the ground without complaint, falling to her side to catch Sage in her field of vision as Sebastian turned to his next prey. Sage cried out Ashe's name, but the girl was no longer one with this world, having been sent on her way as her body lay in its own blood.

---

"Not good," Ashe softly whispered as she pushed herself weakly to her feet, the words seeming to come to her from influence more than her own creation.

She felt exhausted, like every breath was a chore, every heartbeat a commitment. Turning a heavy head slowly around her, she realized that Sage and the others were nowhere around her. "Sage?" she called out in a near silence, unsure as to where they were.

Before her, the field erupted into an array of ghostly, faded imagery. A translucent figure of Sage ran to embrace what appeared to be Ashe herself while Zena reengaged the sadistic and now serious killer. Her feet shuffled as she approached Sage to tell her that she was ok, but she felt so heavy and weak. But...

Sage was crying, and the girl beneath her was certainly her somehow. The crimson that was soaking the ground around them and staining their clothing, the blood that was covering Sage's hands, was her sustenance. There was so much of it, more than the student had ever imagined.

She wanted to throw up, but that just felt impossible. The nearly transparent figures before her each fought, one for Ashe's life, the other for Sage's. "You've got to be kidding me," the girl gasped, taking in this new shock. "I'm... dead?"

There was a time in Ashe's life that she'd wanted to die. On her sixteenth birthday, she'd gone out with some friends to celebrate her birthday. Long story short, her night concluded with her crying at her home afterwards. She'd slept with the new boy at the party.

She later learned that what had happened was considered rape, but neither of the pair actually felt that way about the situation. She was sixteen, so a lot of her friends were starting to take their relationships to the next level, some even long before then. She'd lost a couple of boyfriends already for being scared to push past her boundaries. It wasn't that she had any moral objection to the idea, she was just scared. She wasn't sure if she wanted it or not.

A lot of alcohol and a majorly cute guy can go a long way at changing your feelings.

That was the night that she'd given herself away and received nothing in return. She regretted it almost immediately. There was no lie, the physical feelings that she'd experienced had been amazing, like nothing she'd ever felt before. That didn't replace the lingering guilt and remorse that had somehow taken hold of her, though. It was something that she didn't understand. Was it that she felt that she was too young? Was it that she realized that she had nothing more than a passing interest in the boy? She felt as if now they would always somehow be connected, regardless of distance, through sharing that one act of passage.

That night, as she her mascara ran down her cheek in front of her mirror, she swallowed what was left of a bottle of pills.

Fortunately, she woke with nothing more than a major headache and the feeling that she couldn't hold down anything in her stomach for weeks. Those weeks consisted of her creating other pains for herself to replace the internal agony that she was going through. Maybe it wouldn't have bothered her so much if she hadn't woken that night to find the boy had left already, never seeing him again nor hearing a word. She felt used and discarded.

After trying the traditional methods of handling her depression, she eventually woke herself from it with a fiery determination to express her anger at the situation in other ways. She asked her grandfather to begin training her in self defense techniques, hoping that she could find release through that. She had enjoyed gymnastics as a child, so this wasn't a far leap from that.

Midway through the basics and realizing that her clumsiness was doing nothing more than frustrating her, she gave up. She hadn't been physically forced to do a damn thing. She'd done it by choice. She had made a bad decision and couldn't even blame the alcohol for it. The alcohol had long left her system, but the pain and anger remained. When physical pain from blades and fighting practice dummies didn't solve her problem, she desperately looked inward.

Her friends told her that everyone regrets their first time, yet they were always so bubbly and hyper when reenacting their stories of the topic. She put it to the test, however, coaxing Justin into bed at one of the following parties for a casual romp between friends. She didn't feel better afterwards, even though he'd treated her well. Maybe she'd done it wrong? It had to be someone that she wasn't already close to; she needed to build a relationship from nothing.

Her next boyfriend was a guy she met through some other friends. He was a cool guy as well, teaching her a few new tricks on the guitar that she hadn't known during the few months that they dated. It was the longest relationship that she'd had, but when she followed through on her goal to sleep with him after deciding that he was great for it, she felt different. She was uninterested, despite knowing that she should feel otherwordly while with the guy that she had thought she loved.

One guy after another, searching for a way to understand why she regretted that one guy so much. By now, she realized that she had been so focused on blaming the problem on the first guy that she'd recreated the pain with the others. She had once been told that humans were pattern seeking life forms. This had been her pattern, paining herself through what others found as pleasure.

There had been a time in her life that she had wanted to die.

Right now, she wanted nothing more than to live.

It was funny how that worked out.

"Sage, just let me go and run. Run far from here. Just run and don't look back," the girl pleaded at the apparitions before her.

Help her.

Ashe would have normally turned quickly or jumped in shock, but the soothing crystalline voice that echoed within her likely couldn't do anything to exacerbate the situation that she was in. She turned slowly, prying her eyes from her fallen form to face the floating form before her. At first, she was confused, but briefly the image of the five jagged tear drops floating in star formation came to her mind, allowing her to identify the being before her.

"The Star's Tear."

Help her.

The whispered insistence was calm, patient, and yet encouraging at the same time. Ashe glanced back and shook her head. "I can't. There's nothing that I can do," she explained, defeated. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but I'm a bit... dead," she settled on, tasting the word bitterly in her mouth.

We are only half dead. What remains is half alive.

While it had a point, she let out a breath of artificial air. "You aren't about to start this glass being half empty or half full nonsense, are you? And what's with this 'we' stuff?"

We are one.

She remembered hearing this when Gensei had nearly completed the ritual of binding to bring the Star's Tear into her to bind with her abnormal genetic code. She hadn't yet heard from them what the reason was, but she couldn't deny what had happened. "I'm not so sure about that. You are clearly stand- uh, floating right there. And I'm most certainly right here." She argued because she wasn't sure how else to handle the situation.

Help her, Ashe. We will help her.

She looked back at the form of Sage crying against her blood soaked chest as Ashe stared into her own lifeless eyes. "How?" she asked helplessly.

Use our power to enhance her power.

"I don't... have power," she began, knowing that she wasn't entirely correct. There was no other reason that she would have been granted such a powerful relic if she couldn't do something out of the ordinary. Everyone on this island had had some form of power and assuming that her selection had been entirely a mistake was, at this point, simply naive. "I don't know how," she corrected. "I can't even fight."

We will learn together. For now, our ki has begun to seep through our muscles and bones to strengthen us. We will adapt and grow stronger in time.

"But that doesn't teach me what to do, how to control this power, I can't even hold my own in a wrestling match because I don't know what to do!" she cried out, stumbling entirely over her words in helplessness.

We will learn together, the spirit repeated, coaxing her. For now, we endure and adapt. For now, we enhance her power.

Ashe felt the strong urge to turn back to Sage and felt a strong glowing surround her and the being of light at her back. In echo, the image of Ashe and Sage both erupted into a dazzling glamour of power, slowly fading from Ashe and lingering on the blue haired girl. "Wha-" she began, feeling the breath leave her body for a moment. "Whoa."

The light seemed to expel from every cut and bruise on the pink haired girls body, erupting like beams of light from a shattered mirror. She could feel the new oxygen and blood divide and spread throughout her body as her chest sealed itself shut, binding together by the call of natural life itself. The painful bruises under her eyes faded as well, taking the cuts within her mouth with them.

Focusing on specific locations that only she knew of, she watched as a dozen scars along her arm and wrist faded from existence, taking with them many similar injuries from her life. The small fracture in her ankle from when she fell from the gymnast beam as a child... Even... As much as she knew that her physical purity had somehow been restored, what had been done could never be undone from her memories. The acts had happened, and while they were repaired, she felt as if they were simply covered up. However, she'd been given a second chance at life. She was revirginated, rejuvinated, and regenerated.

Go now. Help her.

---

Her eyes opened to the sight of the cerulean haired girl holding her head close to Ashe's chest, her tears having dried against her cheeks as she was lost to the melancholy feels of failure. The student felt bad, watching her, for what she must be feeling.

Ashe hadn't realized that Sage was looking at her now, until the thought suddenly invaded her mind and called her name. The girl was surprised to see her alive and awake, completely renewed.

“Uh, yeah?” she mumbled, wary of if she should explain what she had seen happen. Leaving it for a later time she simply asked, “Sage, what’s-?”

"I don't know," the girl replied, confused. "“I don’t... I...” she mumbled, unsure of herself as she pulled at Ashe's clothing to look her body over for damage, her mind unable to grasp at what had happened.

Ashe was simply going to jokingly ask her "What's for dinner?" but something told her that the girl didn't need any other confusions thrown her way at the time. The girl pulled Ashe's jacket back off and threw it to the side, returning to pull her clothes in every direction without shame.

“H-How?!” she demanded, rolling Ashe over to run thrust her fingers into the destroyed cloth covering her back, feeling over the baby soft skin that had replaced the wounds. “You... There’s no way you could-” she fumbled, watching the final injuries fade before her eyes. “You should be... dead.”

Deciding to give the girl time to understand the situation, Ashe pushed herself up slightly, running her own hands through her blood soaked hair with a groan before popping various stiff joints. "Well, I feel... really good," she settled on, not wanting to go into details. “But... what did...” she began, trying to figure out what Sage had felt during the transfer. She couldn't really figure out how to word it, though, without freaking the poor girl out more.

“I... I don’t know,” she repeated on the edge of a breakdown. “I don’t know, I don’t-”

Topic for another time, Ashe supposed. “It’s okay,” the young girl interrupted. “What matters is you... healed me. Somehow. I guess we can work out the details when we-” The girl continued babbling in spite of Ashe's words until Ashe snapped loudly to try to shock her out of her... shock. “Sage,” she interrupted again. “I don’t know what to tell you, okay? Maybe you have a gift. Right now, we have to worry about Sebastian. Remember your sister, right?” The other girl always seemed to use her sister as a mental crutch, and right now, that's what they needed to focus on. "If we don't focus, he'll kill us."

She nodded slowly, only halfway taking the girls words in as she continued to mumble to herself almost incoherently. “Sage, please. I need you to focus,” she groaned, needing them to move on before they had a repeat experience with Zena.

The girl took a few deep breaths, running her mind through mental breathing techniques before meeting her eyes. “Okay... What... what should we do?”

[Celena]

Zena did not have to worry about any traps because she had been safely escorted out of Kai’s underground, demonic playground by the hosts hired gunmen, taken back up a level to the jungle. The royal saiyaness had been brought back to the tiny village, which her sister had wandered off into, the same village that contained five huts.

“What about the Frankenstein?” she asked the captain of the gunmen as they stopped their journey at the hut in the middle of the other four.

“He’ll be brought back to Kai Demolic of course.”

“Dead or alive?” she asked, caressing the neck collar, which had been placed around her neck.

“Why do you care? Weren’t you two destroying one another?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to answer a question with a question?” she schooled the older person.

“I don’t know why Kai won’t let me just shoot you down right now.”

“The many mysteries of life,” she replied gazing at each of the five structures made from straw. “The little you can do is explain why we’re just standing here idly by.”

“Kai doesn’t pay me enough,” he mumbled quietly and then raised his voice saying, “we’re waiting for our lieutenant, Sebastian.”

“Oh happy days,” she said quietly with a smirk. If Sebastian was inside the hut in front of them, then that meant the emblem was close by too.

After a couple more minutes later, a man in tight blue jeans finally emerged from the hut. She had seen this man before on top of a cliff with the rest of Kai’s remaining demons. “Ah, there you are,” the man wearing a white mask said to Zena, flicking his luscious blonde hair to his right hand side. “How do you like the neck collar Kai Demolic designed?”

“Impressive,” Zena replied sincerely.

“I can only assume you know what it’s for because had you not, you wouldn’t be standing her right now; you’d have teleported away.”

She was wearing a neck collar in order to prevent her from using her combat teleportation ability. She would not have expected anything less from the genius, the creator of FoF himself.

With a click from his fingers, the muddy ground near the group opened up. A metal bar revealed first, followed by a thick robe wrapped around the thick bar. A large cage then revealed, causing the young woman to immediately realise her fate. When she saw a bunch of logs arise from the ground, she grew tense. She directed a cold gaze at the homosexual, while he replied with a smirk, long hand on his hip, while he slanted his lanky body.

“Just shoot me,” she said, gazing at the cage, “because I’m not getting in there.”

“Aw, is it not luxurious enough for a princess’ standards?”

Rather than retort with dialogue, she thrust her elbow backwards, catching the guard behind in his nose, causing blood to splurge onto her elbow before he fell to the ground.

“Get, that, bitch!” Sebastian snapped and then showed his true colours as a coward by sprinting back into the centre hut.

Knowing she could not be killed…yet, instead of blasting her in the back with metal bullets, a soldier from behind, rotated his weapon around and thrust it against her back. She collapsed face first onto the dry mud with a low cry of pain. Out rushed Sebastian from the hut again, this time with a set of three steel claws attached to his right hand. “Oh good, you’re down, because I didn’t want to have to use these,” he said gazing at her, as she groaned, fingers in the dirt while she tried to find the strength to lift her exhausted and wounded body from the mud, but to no avail. “I don’t care what you like and don’t like, Zena.” He turned his attention to the soldiers in front of him. “Put her into the cage,” he added, using the fingers on his free hand to slowly stroke each metal claw.

The underling who had got his face smashed in and the other who had struck her from behind, picked her up by each arm, dragging her and her spaghetti legs across the mud and towards the cage. “Geez, you’re all useless. Look at the two of you, struggling to put a tiny girl into a cage,” Sebastian complained with disgust.

“She’s in,” one of them stated, slamming the lid shut in frustration. Most of them did not like the homosexual’s attitude and what was worse was the fact that they had to pretend to respect him.

“I’ll still refer the both of you to Kai and make sure neither of you get paid for your services.” His free hand struggled to crawl into the tight, left pocket of his jeans, but he eventually pulled out a packet of matches. His eyes then trailed to each armed underling, stopping at a brunette. Not the female, he thought. His eyes then moved again and then stopped at a long haired man. “Get it right this time,” he said throwing the box of matches towards him.

The raven haired man knew what had to be done and knew that Sebastian did not stand for incompetence. Besides, he wanted his salary from Kai Demolic. He swiftly reached for a match. Another, he thought, reaching for a second match. He then struck them at the same time and gently placed them on a log and watched as a premature flame formed a fire underneath the caged girl. Zena grunted from the heat she could feel underneath, at the same time clutching onto the strong metal bars of the cage, a little shred of arrogance within hoping she was strong enough to bend the bars.

“The cage is made from Katchin metal,” Sebastian sniggered, pressing the red button on a small remote control, which rested in his hands. “The strongest-”

metal in the world, Zena finished in her mind over the familiar sound of flickering flames. The higher the cage went into the air, the less heat she could feel from the flames.

As humiliating as it was to be a caged animal, she had experienced worse. After all, she had been drugged, tied up, gagged and shackled to a group of strangers.

Sebastian uttered words from below, but she had become subconscious to them, due to the rage created from humiliation, swirling within. She was saiyan princess, heir to the Vegeta-sei throne and therefore, tolerating this amount of bullshit was not an option; she simply could not stand for this. Sage, Ashe, nobody was on her mind other than Kai Demolic and his demons.

Slow and painful deaths, she kept assuring herself while trapped in the cage. Despite her unfitting situation, she was able to gain a pleasurable sensation from the fantasies of her murderous desires. Kai and his demons would all die slowly in agony before her. She would show no remorse. Words like remorse and mercy were for the weak hearted.

[Ashe]

It took Ashe a moment to think before she reached into her pocket, withdrawing the Emblem and pressing it into her palm. "Here's what Sebastian was carrying that we came for. I need you to take it and... and just hide. Don't shoot, don't run, just hide. We have to make sure that they don't get it back, and I don't care if something happens to your sister or myself, this is more important than us."

Sage was already backing up and stuttering again. "No... No- I- I can't, no-"

Ashe fended off her concerns by closing the girl's hand around the medallion and pushing it into Sage's pocket. "Don't argue with me on this. I'll make sure your sister is ok."

"But what if something ha-"

"Nothing will happen to her. Sage, all of those other people are counting on you. We need this Emblem to get back to them so that they can get off this island."

The blue haired girl was trembling, watching her sister as she and Sebastian exchanged blows. "Is this... because I'm too scared to be of any help?" she managed.

Ashe answered her honestly, shaking her head and placing her hand on the girl's shoulder. "No. I'm not asking this of you because you are afraid. We are all afraid, including your sister. I'm asking this of you because you are brave. You are the only person I would trust with this. You can do this, Sage, I know it." She threw her arms around the girl in a quick hug, waiting for a responding squeeze before pushing back away from her. "Now go!" she whispered, grabbing her bag and darting off into the brush without seeing if Sage followed the request.

Reaching a hand into her bag, she pulled out a heavy and ugly looking dress that she'd found mixed up within her clothing when she picked the bundle up from the floor after her poker game. What bothered her was that outside of Kai's demons, she hadn't seen a single female in the soldier groups. She had shuddered when she made that realization and stuffed it into her bag, having already gotten too far away from the base before she'd noticed it while getting dressed.

"Ugh..." she complained, turning it over in her hands. "This thing feels like it's made of leather... maybe even wet dog. Smells kinda like wet dog," she mused, holding it up in disgust.

Looking down at the ground nearby, she formulated a plan. She had heard water trickling nearby. It wasn't a far line of thought to assume that some type of water was also nearby. That meant mud. Zena would have to hold her own until Ashe got back.

Reaching the riverbed, she turned her nose up at the smell that emanated from the water's edge. This must be where that sewer lets out, she thought to herself. That's even better then, I guess.

She kneeled, holding the discarded clothing up before throwing it down into the mud, slamming her foot down on top of it to force it to absorb some of the dirty sewage water. "Karma sucks, doesn't it?" she laughed, thinking of how the blood and claws had destroyed some of her favorite clothing. She had hoped to surprise her sister Terra with them, but now she had a story for them whenever she got back. If she got back.

---

Zena's fist rippled through the air, meeting nothing but empty sky as the masked man leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding her punch before his feet connected with the upper base of a tree, immediately firing back down towards her with his claws outstretched like a cat pouncing. She took advantage of the moment to throw a small orb of ki upwards towards him, watching it get swatted away but forcing his fall from an attacking stance to a neutral one. He hit the ground next to her, throwing his legs out to knock her back from her feet.

They both sprung to their feet at the same time, catching each other's gaze a brief moment before Zena gave a surprised look directly over the man's shoulder. He whirled, slashing his claws to eviscerate anyone behind him, but instead his blades slapped up against a heavy leather dress. The heavy material clung to the knives, twisting around his hands while mud rained down onto the man's face and hair, covering his eyes and leaving his mouth full of sewage mud.

The blond Saiyan took advantage of the distraction by planting her fist directly into the center of his nose, shattering it and sending him flying back into a tree. The man was screaming incoherently, spitting mud from his mouth while trying to wipe his eyes clear with the still muddy and soaked dress. "You fugly... bitch!" he screamed through various spitting. "Whore!" he added, obviously quite unhappy with the situation.

Wiping her mud stained hands onto her blood stained dress, the pink haired girl held up her machine gun and pulled the trigger as Zena ran across the clearing. "Empty!" she growled when nothing happened. Her eyes scanned the nearest soldiers' bodies and she tossed the gun to the side, scrounging until a small knife was in her hands. It would have to do.

Her eyes caught the man weakly defending himself from Zena's onslaught as best as he could with the weighted clothing tying his hands and blades together, while simultaneously dulling any attempts at slashing with his blades. She'd gotten extremely lucky with the way he decided to slash at the clothing when she threw it. She'd only wanted to have it land on his face and piss him off, but to have him bound and muddy and pissed off, that was worth everything.

Zena leapt into the air, throwing her foot towards the man's mask and knocking him back, the mud still caked between his mask and face to block his vision. "Bitch!" he cried out again, tripping over his own feet and landing backwards. He still wasn't sure who was assisting Zena in her fight against him, or even how many, but that didn't matter. Not when he suddenly found a knife directly against his throat.

He swallowed, still unable to see, when Ashe spoke. She was being watched carefully by the blond Saiyan as her voice took a deadly tone. "Sebastian, sweetie," she began, her voice dripping with venom. "I want you to-"

"You stupid, inferior, fucking-"

The knife pressed harder, cutting off his windpipe. His hands came up in an attempt to slash her, but Zena slammed her leg down onto his arm with a sickening crack, looking around to make sure there were no other soldiers nearby. "Do it," she hissed after a moment.

Ashe shook her head. Her intention wasn't to kill him. She would do it if he left her only the choice of him or her, but if there was a way around it, she'd prefer to take it. She slowly slid his mask over his head until the strap popped against it, leaving his hair crushed into the dirt by her foot to hold him in place. His freshly opened eyes glared directly at her, leaving her to rub her foot harder to grind more dirt into it. He tried to spit, missing her and leaving a trail of drool down the side of her face as she placed her other foot onto his throat, removing the knife before pressing it against his cheek. "Sebastian, I'm fairly sure that you'd rather die than let us leave this island with the Emblem. In fact, I'm sure that you'll likely die by Kai's hand if we do leave this island with the Emblem. So I guess the question that I'm asking is..."

She kneeled down, removing her foot from his throat and pressing the bladed to nearly the breaking point of his cheek. "Do you wish to die beautifully, or do you wish to live scarred?"

Her words trailed a cold truth to him, echoing the same words he'd spoken to all of his victims in the past as he either killed them or scarred them for life simply for not admitting their inferiority to him.

[Friend or Foe]

It was more then Sebastian could bare. His body wasn't responding because of the unexpectedly tough fight he had just fought. Also, the idea of feeling cold, sharp steel on his neck or cheek wasn't very appealing. When faced with the idea of being scarred or killed, he did what any professional coward would do.

He surrendered.

"Wait!" He shouted, "Hold on! I'll give you the Emblem! Just...don't cut me..."

Ashe stopped pushing down on the knife, but it stayed in position against his pale cheek. She watched his hand carefully, examining it as the Emblem came out of his pocket. He quickly rolled the orb in the grass, away from them.

"See?" He said, "Now you can leave."

She was hesitant to release him, knowing what he was capable of. Her eyes shifted to Zena, who nodded, in a defensive position. Sage was near by, kneeling but had her hand on her pistol. Ashe stood up, releasing his knife.

Sebastian was as predictable as he was gay. "Now, candy slut," he growled, "I'll make you bleed!"

His foot moved faster then before, as if he had just unlocked a more powerful ability of speed. His ankle connected with the back of Ashe's knee, sending her to the ground on her kneecaps, and then face-to-foot with the other leg of the homosexual blonde. She was throw backwards, socked right in the nose.

Zena had already throw a high kick that came down to the ground, but Sebastian rolled up in a mid-air spin, landing on his feet. The blonde hybrid threw a rounded swing, but the quick-witted fighter caught her wrist and yanked her onto her back before bringing his clawed hand upwards. "I've wasted enough time with you, brat!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

They weren't direct hits, but every shot of ki energy that came out of the barrel of Sage's pistol connected with Sebastian's torso and shoulders. Finally, the last shot hit his neck, spraying blood backwards and causing the top of his spine to visibly crack.

He fell to his knees. One hand yanked an orb out of his pocket. It was black and blue, and with a squeeze of his dying hand, started to glow.

Time stood still. Ashe screamed for Sage to shoot again. Sage was frozen in fear at the idea of what she had just done. Zena, however, knew what was about to happen. She knew it was a grenade of some kind, but had no idea what it was capable of.

She turned her body and let out a single word. "SAGE!"

The blue explosion swallowed her and the fresh corpse of Sebastian up.






















(Zena is eliminated, teleported far away. Sebastian is dead. Ashe wins a Sync Weapon.)