238 - Escape

While Lexie was still working out what to do with the information she just got, the previous guard walked up behind her and said, “What are you waiting for, idiot? Bring her!”

Lexie turned to him, then back to the woman on the ground, who had turned her gaze away to avoid looking like they’d been having a conversation.

The woman said she couldn’t leave because of her sister. But Lexie wondered if she really planned on dying here. 

Even worse, was she going to die right now? Was Lexie supposed to take her to her doom?

Would Lexie have to watch it happen to maintain her cover? Would she have to aid it?

She lowered and cupped her arms underneath the woman's shoulders and knees, lifting her princess style.

The guard gave her an odd look, but he continued down the hall with Lexie following, carrying Darina’s sister.

She wished she’d asked for a name, but that might be impossible considering everything that was happening.

They walked down the hallway and entered a darkened room that was as cold as a maselouem and as eerie as a tomb. More statues surrounded them, along with half a dozen guards who were dressed, more or less, exactly like Lexie. There were also cameras Lexie could sense in the room–meaning they were being watched–and other security protocols embedded in the walls.

Five more people, battered and bruised, knelt on the ground.

The first guard gestured for Lexie to place Darina’s sister down with them, and she did before stepping back to join the line of wardens.

The first guard didn't stand in line, however. He walked to the other side of the captives, surveying a tray with black whips, spikes, batons, knives, extraction pliers, and various torture equipment.

Lexie’s blood grew cold.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have the stomach for torture or gore. Being in the dungeon as long as she was gave her a high tolerance for such things. She could look at bloodied humans on the floor, no problem.

But the context was important.

Blood during war was understandable.

Blood from watching someone get tortured was out of the question.

You weren't like that before, though. In the dungeon, when she was a newly awakened Eldritch, she had thought about torturing the V'Sala, and she would have done it too, if it had helped the itch. She'd also killed a Fae in cold blood, for no other reason than she wanted to.

So what made this so special? What made her different from the men who were surrounding the captives? Was it because they were humans? Did she expect them to be better, more humane than Eldritch? Or was she simply more sensitive to humans in pain?

Or was it the tools that bothered her? Those torture devices brought back bad memories of the very things Mouse had used against Aiden all those years ago when he'd battered him till he bled.

It played like a loop in Lexie's mind, now making her sick.

She didn't care if she was a hypocrite. She didn't want to see that happen again.

“So,” the guard who’d ordered her here, who she guessed was the leader of this small team, said as he picked up a whip first. He considered it before putting it down and picked up a short metallic rod. “The group of you has decided to betray your Emperor by leaking information to our enemies.”

The group on the floor was quiet. One of them was damn near unconscious, bent over, only holding himself from falling over by the skin of his teeth, while blood drooled out of his mouth.

The rest weren't as bad, but they still looked battered. Busted noses, swollen eyes, one cradling his elbow to his chest like it had been broken.

One young-looking man was whispering what sounded like a prayer. None of them looked like soldiers or spies or whatever. In fact, they looked more like researchers than anything. 

“Now I have asked the first time nicely, and you have refused to tell the truth. So now I have to play the bad guy. You understand?” He palmed the metal rod and moved to the first victim at the end of the line.

“Well?” he asked, arching his brow. "Where are the dockets?"

The man was so tense that he was trembling, his body already curled in on itself. 

“There’s no dockets, sir–”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. The first guard inserted the end of the rod into his neck, and he screamed as electricity fizzled through his body, roasting him from the inside out.

When he removed it, the man flopped onto the floor, gasping for air, his body still spasming from the aftershock. 

The image had the woman next to him gasping in horror and slapping a hand over her mouth. 

“I suppose you all must think you’re so clever,” the Guard said as he moved onto her next. “Conducting forbidden research at the university under the guise of advancing our great nation. And using that to send secret messages to our friends in the East. I suppose you think of deposing the Emperor and returning that one's family to their rightful place. You think the association will protect you." He chuckled. "The only association you should be concerned about is the one that put food on your table and has a knife to your neck.” He bent, inches from her face. "Where is the docket?”

“It’s…” She shook her head. “I don’t know–

The tool was embedded into her neck, and it was her turn to scream next. The man next to her jerked but kept staring at the floor. He seemed resigned to his fate and finished the last words of his prayer.

He didn't react when the guard walked over to him, nor did he answer the question. He simply closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

The electric shock sent him to the ground. He tried to hold back from screaming, molding his lips together, but it was wrenched out of him anyway. Perhaps thanks to his silence, his punishment was longer.

Lexie's fingernails had formed deep gouges in her palms.

She held her tongue and gripped her fist tighter and tighter as one by one they all went down.

She wanted to do something, but she could still feel Pvilycht working out the third security feature, using most of his power to disable it. She needed to conserve her energy and not do anything stupid until he was done and out of the dungeon.

But she couldn't keep letting this go on.

She glanced at the tool in the guard's hand and the ones on the table. They seemed relatively simple, non-magical. It would be even simpler since she'd interacted with him already.

He had finally reached the end, with Darina's sister, who stared up at him defiantly. 

"Do you have something to say, my dear?" he asked.

"Just that I regret every single moment I spent looking at your ugly face."

He smiled. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." He didn’t even bother asking her a question, as he jammed the tool in her neck. 

It didn't work. It didn’t give off the electricity that it was supposed to, not even a pulse. 

The Chief Guard drew back his tool, frowning at it. 

“What is wrong with it?” he asked, gesturing to the guard at the far end of the line.

“I’m not sure, Chief Guard. It was fully charged when I brought it in.”

"Obviously not because now it’s out of power.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. He went back to the tray and instead picked the pliers, which had sharp edges. “I suppose that gives me a chance to use this. I've always wanted to slice that pretty finger off. I can start by tugging off the fingernail."

He brought this over to Darina's sister, and she lifted a finger for him, the middle one.

His eye twitched, and he grabbed the finger with more force than necessary. Before he could cut it off, the pliers were dismantled in his grasp. 

“What the fuck?” He looked even angrier. “What’s wrong with this one, too? You.” He pointed at the same guard. "Where did you get these tools?”

‘“The armoire. The executioner gave them to me.”

"And did that old fart have to dig into his crypt for this or what? Why are they so feeble?”

"I do not know." The guard swallowed. "I can go get new ones.”

"Forget it." He went back to the table and picked up a spiked baton. He hit it three times on the table just to make sure that it was sturdy before bringing it back. He cocked his head and said, “Do you want to take advantage of the mercy that fate has given you twice and confess now?”

Darina's sister just continued to stare at him, swollen eye and all. 

“I was hoping that would be your response,” he said as he lifted the baton over his head. Lexie debated for a split second whether to do it.

The first two times the tool failed could be dismissed as flukes, but this couldn't be.

It was dangerous. She’d been activating the cards behind her back. Any second now, she could be discovered by someone simply looking behind her. Thankfully, they were all in military poses, arms behind their backs, and facing ahead. But if they even took a peek…

Not to mention the cameras around her. 

Oh well. The cameras probably already saw everything.

In for a penny, in for a pound. 

As the baton swept down toward Darina’s sister, it disintegrated about an inch from her face.  

“You bastard!” The Chief Guard immediately stormed over and grabbed the first guard, dragging him close and raging in his face. “What the hell are you trying to pull here?”

"It’s not me!” The man exclaimed. “I swear I’ve done nothing.”

“Then who is it?” he looked around wildly. "Who is doing this?" He thrust the guard away from him and stormed over to Darina, who had a tiny smirk on her lips.

“Is this your doing, Witch?”

He spat the last word out at her, and Darina's sister didn't deny it. Lexie knew 'witch' was a serious accusation in District 8. They used it to refer to anyone who used magic outside of system control. That was particularly a problem in District 8, where a lot of powerful necromancers did illegal experimentation with dark magic, and it was difficult to curb. 

“If it were me,” she said. “I would slit your throat and be done with it.”

The man's eyes flicked down to the silver tilling bands, and Lexie knew what he was thinking. How is she able to use magic with the bounds around her neck and her wrists?

But then he decided that he didn't care, and his fists would do the trick just as well as any torture device.

He hit her once square in the face, and she fell back with a little cry.

He dragged her back up by her collar and punched her again. Again and again.

“Irina!” The first man at the other end, recovering from his elcortrcution, cried out. “Please–”

“Say nothing,” she snapped before her breath was kicked out of her, followed by another blow to her solar plexus.

Lexe watched on with gritted teeth. She was trying to be patient and wait for Pvilycht to do his work. She also didn’t want to act out and strain her body even more, but she didn’t know if she had it in her to watch the soldier beat someone to death before her eyes. 

And that was clearly what he was trying to do. For some reason, he faced Irina with an anger that he didn’t have towards the other victims who could only watch in horror and plead for mercy on her behalf.

He wasn't slowing down either, not trying to get any information out of her.

Rather than calculated torture, this felt more like vengeance. Whatever his beef with her was, it was personal, and he wanted to completely eradicate her from existence.

The thuds became a resounding in Pvilycht's ear. She got nauseous. Pvilycht was now at the fourth security protocol.

Ah shit. Damn it. 

She couldn't watch this anymore.

When the Chief Guard drew back his leg to kick her again, Lexie pointed.

The leg exploded.

Blood sprayed out, and he had a moment of confusion before his scream echoed around the whole hall.

Hearing it brought Lexie a lot of satisfaction, and her Eldritch was glad to be causing trouble again.

But now she had given herself a whole host of problems.

Chaos erupted.

The guards were running to help the Chief Guard, and some were bringing out their guns to kill the prisoners, suspecting this to be their doing.

Of course, Lexie couldn’t let that happen, so she shot them with VOID bullets. 

“It's you!” Chief Guard snarled after she eliminated them, and she shrugged.

"You caught me," she said, and her little girl voice freaked him out even more.

He reached for his gun, but before he could do much, she shot him in the head.

That felt better.

Which left her with about seven dead guards, a bunch of terrified captives, and a new challenge on her hands.

Of course, now she needed to run. 

The problem was that she didn’t know where to run. She couldn’t run to the portal because then the cameras would follow her, and she would inadvertently lead them to shadow Pvilycht. Already, the statues were reanimating, their eyes glowing red. The walls were flipping over, showing weapons.

Someone must have seen what she did and activated them.

She couldn’t risk them following her back to the portal to realize what she and Pvilycht were up to. Pvilycht wasn’t done, and if they left now, the emperor might realize what they did and tighten security.

Not to mention war would break out.

So it might be better if they thought that she snuck in disguised as a guard for the sole purpose of breaking Irina out. That would be her cover, and she just needed to hide somewhere and wait it out until Pvilycht was done. Which would be soon. 

She grabbed Irina and told the others. "Follow me if you want to live.”

Then she threw up a morphable shield around them to block the bullets that rained on them, while she ran in the opposite direction of the dungeons through the other hallway.

Lexie vaguely remembered the paths from the schematics, and she weaved through it, wondering if now would be a good time to use speed or firefight.

No, the less mana she used, the better to prevent herself from burning out. 

"Let me down!" Irina, despite being beaten pretty brutally, still had the energy to struggle. "I’m not leaving them behind! And I’m not letting my sister get in trouble for something I did!”

Leaving behind?

Lexie glanced behind her, noting that no one was following her.

The group had barely moved, and luckily, they were still protected by the shield, but the animated statues were targeting them with their swords.

Damn it.

They were either too weak to run, too fearful, or simply didn't trust Lexie.

Lexie debated whether or not to ignore Irina's request and just keep running. She was tempted, but she'd gone through a lot of trouble to save their life.

It would be a shame to let them die now.

I just need to buy time, she reminded herself. It doesn't matter how.

Lexie flew back into the room and swept in front of the group right as the statue lifted its sword again.

She blasted it apart with a VOID SHOT.

She did that to her friends, too.

She also continued around the rest of the room, destroying the weapons that were targeting them and the cameras around them as well.

She then used air to weave the group together into one unit, encased them in a forcefield, and began running with them floating in an orb above her.

“Who are you?” Irina demanded wide-eyed. “Which branch of the family are you from? I’ve never seen anyone with such powers before.”

“I’m not really in the right state of mind to answer so many questions,” Lexie told her as she continued to point and blast the traps that had been set on the way for them. The floor gave way at some point, but she just used fire to shoot forward and land on the next available piece of ground.

"Unbelievable," Irina exclaimed. "A Firebringer?"

“No. Do you know a way out of here?”

"No. And there will be more guards coming."

"How many?"

"Maybe more than a hundred. Some undead. Do you have enough strength to kill all of them?"

That was the thing. Lexie didn’t know. If it was just to protect herself, she would just make herself invisible and hide somewhere, but she had this entire group with her and now...

"Over here," she heard someone scream, and she jumped, taking the opposite path. But they were following her, and this felt like a dead end.

She also felt Pvilycht drawing from her, and whatever he was doing was taking a lot more magic and straining her abilities.

She couldn't keep this up for much longer. Between protecting herself, Pvilycht's mission, and the portal, something had to give.

She was approaching her limit, and the last thing she wanted to do was become incapacitated in a place ike this. No doubt he would be locked in some kind of chamber and tortured if it happened. Or even worse, her father would come in after her, and he’d be screwed too.

No, she needed to find her way out before that.

She needed to save herself more.

As she approached the dead end, she made a quick decision.

And let the portal collapse. 

***

“You think Lexie doesn’t want to be friends with us again?” Cara asked as she swung her legs onto the bench, nearly kicking Tate in the process. She murmured a breathless apology, which Tate waved off. She was sweaty from her workout, but Lane didn't seem to mind her leaning her sweaty body against him.

"Why would you think that?" he asked.

"Because she doesn't answer my calls, and she hasn't been to the dojo."

"She's not been put back on the system yet, and she came yesterday."

"Yeah, when I wasn't here," Cara said it with such indignation as she took it as a personal offense. "Obviously, she's avoiding me."

"I don't think so. She's probably just busy. Right, Tate?"

"Right," Tate said. "She'll be here on Saturday."

Cara grunted with disbelief, and she said. "Tate, we're going again after Boris and Conrad are done. And you're going to use that disappearing move again."

Tate smirked. At least to him, Cara often made statements rather than asked questions.

"Sure I–" Tate cut off when he felt a familiar frequency in his head, along with an old, cruel voice.

"Hello, old friend."

He bolted to his feet, startling Cara and Lane.

"What's wrong?" Lane asked.

"I just remembered that I um...am supposed to do something. I have to go."

"But what about our sparring?"

"Tomorrow," he said as he grabbed his bag and got out of there. The last thing he wanted was for Ael to cause trouble in front of his friends.

"What do you want?" Tate muttered as he hurried out and closed the door behind him.

"Oh come now. You're not still upset with me, are you?"

"How did you find me?" he started heading towards the train, feeling his heart racing.

"You mean your body? Or this new form you've taken. Both were fairly simple."

"Okay, so what do you want?"

"Can't I just stop by to say hi? I see you've managed to delay your demise for a few more months. How nice. And you seem to have given up trying to stop it entirely."

"There is no way to stop it," Tate said.

"Really? Is that what the Archmage told you?"

"It's the truth. And I've made my peace with it."

"You mean that you've made yourself accept it, accept failure. "

It stung, but he nodded. "Yes."

"That's not in your nature, Tate."

"It is now. So leave me alone."

Tate thought it worked. Ael's didn't say anything as Tate boarded the train, which was good because he didn't want more people to see him talking to himself.

Ael also didn't say anything for the entirety of the ride.

But as Tate approached his home again–when did he start thinking of this cottage in Laktetown as home–Ael's voice spoke up again.

"There's a funny thing about desire," he said. "It's a very resilient thing. You think you have escaped it, overcome it. But its battle has only just begun."