“What are you talking about, Tize?” Jaid denied it all, even now.
“I said, let’s drop the act!” Tize whipped out his pistol and pointed it straight at her.
On instinct, Jaid replied in turn. She unsheathed her sword and was glad she did. Only a moment after she managed to get it infront of her body was the sword pelted with a round.
“That was a warning shot. There won’t be another.” There was a sizzling sound on the blade, so it had been a paralysis shot. At least Tize wasn’t trying to kill her, but she couldn’t doubt his sincerity either.
“Throw down your sword, Jaid, and come with me.”
Damn, what was she going to do? There was no salvaging this. She’d been found out. If Tize hadn’t told the generals already, he would soon. There was no way she could bribe or blackmail someone like him to keep his mouth shut. The only way to get him to keep her secret was to kill him, of that she was certain.
But what would that solve? She’d be left with a dead corpse of her comrade that she’d have to cover up somehow, and honestly, that just wasn’t a route she wanted to explore. The Central Peace wasn’t some evil organization that’d want to silence anyone who got in her way. She might have gotten such an order when she was still a knight of Guzrinn, but that life was behind her.
As much as Tize had antagonized her since they joined, he was still innocent in all this—painful as it may be to admit. He was simply protecting his home and livelihood. Jaid couldn’t fault him for that. It’d been annoying how suspicious of her he’d been since the start, though it did genuinely seem like it had been easing up. Which brought up the question of what exactly was he doing here?
The door to the barrier room didn’t have a squeak, but she certainly would have noticed if it’d opened. Had he repeated what he’d done the very first night, hiding behind the side of the door that she wouldn’t see when she came in? No, she’d scanned the entire room, she was certain of that.
Maybe he had a camera hidden in this room somewhere that alerted him? A spy would certainly have an interest in this place, so it wasn’t out of the question. It seemed he’d been watching for a while at least, enough to prove her guilt to him. Based on what he’d said, he knew more than just this incident would prove. Her background had been dug into, found out before this. So why was he only confronting her now? Maybe crossing this line had been too bold, too incriminating.
These questions were pretty unimportant at the moment, so she needed to refocus. Tize wasn’t going to back down, and the longer she waited, the more it looked like he was going to act on his threat of more shots. Should she just surrender? Maybe talking this out would be the simplest solution.
Yet for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to drop her sword. It could be her pride or her competitiveness with him, but the idea of surrendering to Tize of all people put a knot in her stomach. No, even without Tize as a factor, surrender still wasn’t an option. While torturing her for information wasn’t the first thought that came to mind of what they’d do, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility when she remembered the actions they’d taken to contain Kaizu.
Jaid needed to escape. Fortunately, she had her sword with her already, and she had left her mother’s visor back at CP headquarters. There were plenty of nice mementos she’d want to take back with her still in her room. Even with a bitter separation, they’d be nice to have from her time here, but it was a sacrifice she’d have to make. Jaid would make it out of this room and head straight out the compound. Now that she thought more about it, she could use the emergency tunnel that’d be perfect for just such a situation.
That still left the burning issue of how to get out of this room in the first place. Tize was completely blocking the door with his body. He had also pulled out his shield now which would make skirting pass him even more difficult. Should she try to bash him in the head and knock him out?
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Overpowering him with brute strength was a possibility as well, but that would probably leave him with some nasty injuries. Jaid didn’t want to resort to that, but wouldn’t feel too bad if it came to it.
Maybe she should just give him that fight he’d been pining for. He’d already told her that she was the one he wanted to fight for his ranking test. While she didn’t have the required rank, maybe that was what this was all about in the end. Could he have confronted her to force her hand? It wasn’t the craziest idea, but that didn’t feel right.
Eventually, Jaid ruled that out as well. He had told her to drop her sword. So unless that was just bait, he wasn’t playing around with his demand. She didn’t know what he’d do if she attacked him; fight her openly or honorably or make the call for backup. That’d make escape infinitely more difficult.
This brought her back to the core of it, getting out of this room as soon as possible. Just facing Tize would be the easiest this situation could get. Anyone else being alerted and involved and she could kiss escaping goodbye. A few more moments of thought later and Jaid finally had a plan.
She focused on Tize’s shoulder, the one that wasn’t blocked by his shield. Jaid would dash at him like she was attacking and then create a series of small clones to squeeze through the gap over his shoulder and escape into the hall. From there, she’d keep dashing down the tunnel and never look back. It felt cowardly, but it was the best chance for a clean escape.
Jaid blocked another shot with her sword, Tize making good on his warning. This was the underlying problem with this plan. The man knew her moves and how she fought. The moment he saw a clone, he’d start firing endlessly. Jaid would have to make it to him and over his shoulder without getting hit.
She’d seen the paralysis shots in action. They were potent as hell and even worked on Fiends. While the effect wore off much quicker on them, if a single one hit her, she was done for. Jaid would have to block as much of her body as possible with her sword and pray to Cosmos. The chances she’d get hit were minimal due to the speed of her movement, but it still made her worry.
Jaid took one final deep breath and then summoned her clones. Completely against her expectations, Tize all but stowed his pistol and shifted his shield directly in front of him, ready to block whatever came his way. Thankfully, Jaid could see the slight shimmer of the shield’s edge. There was still a gap, but much narrower. The clone she made to get around it would have to be puny.
What? Jaid blinked, confused as she stared at Tize once more. She had just been inches away from him, about to summon her smaller clones. But now she was back at the start, back at the control panel. Had she just imagined it? Imagined rushing at him? Had her planning gone too far to the point of extreme visualization.
She tried it again, but didn’t even make it nearly as close to Tize this time. Back at the panel again, she rushed through her line of clones once more. This time, though, she didn’t stop when she was back at the beginning. Clone after clone kept spawning, dashing for Tize, for the exit, but she never got any closer.
Was this all a hallucination? One of Rezin’s tricks? Was this room even real, or had she entered a chamber like the Combat Simulation that could make her see whatever they wanted?
Turns out, the answer was pretty simple. Jaid hadn’t been leaving clones behind her since that’d just leave more to hit. Each clone had been vanishing the moment the next was created, but this made her vulnerable to something, or rather someone, in particular. Phon.
The next line stayed as a line when Jaid dashed forward. There was no more chance of trying to finagle through the gap, and she’d just have to barrel right through Tize and rush out the room. As long as she had a long enough line of clones, Phon shouldn’t be able to teleport her—easily at least.
But Tize vanished from sight just as she was about to hit him, and then Jaid felt a sting in her back. She was paralyzed. Her vision flew backwards as all clones were sucked back to the original, back to the console.
Tize had been teleported right next to her and had shot her point-blank. The resulting paralysis had forced Jaid to cancel her Curse. She’d be free of its effects soon enough and could make another escape attempt once it wore off, assuming Tize didn’t keep pelting her with them.
But that chance never came when Jaid could feel some weight behind her and heard a click. She hadn’t noticed initially because of being stunned, but her sword had been taken away and her arms forced behind her back. The moment the first bit of feeling came back to them, she felt the restraints. She’d been handcuffed.
“Not very polite of you to try to quit without saying anything, Jaid.”
Phon teleported directly in front of her, and then a moment later, Fiends were surrounding Jaid on all sides. It was the usual suspects: Drim, Xard, and Kada. Seems whatever urgent business they’d been on hadn’t been so urgent after all.