“If you had to choose, would you be a bird or a fish?”

Sasha looked up from her preparations, at the inane question that left Jack.

“Is this really the time to ask about such stupid things?” she questioned before continuing to wrap her forearms, hands, and the bottom of her legs. It wasn’t the best cloth she could be using for this, but it would have to do. “Give me the other roll.”

“It’s not a stupid question,” Jack said in his defense. She just looked at him blankly, catching the bandage roll he threw at her without pause. “It’s an… thing to get our current situation off our minds.”

“Ignoring our imminent death will do neither of us any favors.”

The magical paper, or whatever they were calling it, had already sent through its warnings. They were supposed to be the ones sending out information about how it was going in the Dungeon, yet either Elijah or the princess had sent out the warning for an oncoming horde of people ready to capture them.

Through either stupidity or bad luck, their hiding spot had been found. Or it would be very soon, at least, since twenty minutes had passed without the two having lost their heads.

Need to be ready.

“I’m not ignoring it,” Jack continued when Sasha kept focusing on getting the padding right. It had to lessen the strain on her body without reducing the impact on the others by too much. Desorption would help with most of the latter, of course, but that didn’t mean the after-effects would be entirely away from her. “I am just letting our minds be occupied by something else for a few seconds. Twenty-something minutes of high alert just makes you waste adrenaline, you know? When the time comes to fight, you’re just gonna be sluggish.”

She’s already gone through the motions of stretching in preparation for a fight, and she had repeated the act every ten minutes that passed. Sasha was as ready as anybody could else in her situation, her heart pumping blood in healthy amounts to the rest of her body. She had the energy, she had the drive, and now… she just needed the enemy to point her fury at.

One which didn’t seem keen on arriving very soon.

…

Fine.

“What was the question?” Sasha asked.

“Would you rather be a bird or a fish?”

“... Bird.”

“Why?”

“Because choosing fish would be idiotic?”

“You have to give a better answer than that,” Jack explained, making her frown. “Give me some of that daring insight into why you’d prefer the life of a bird.”

Was she really doing this? It had been years since Sasha was forced into one of these games, and those times it had been with the kids who refused to leave her alone.

Not much has changed.

“A fish can swim at the surface and be caught by fishermen or it can swim deep dark in the darkness and be caught by whatever horror is further below,” Sasha said, continuing at Jack’s insistence. “A bird can fly. It can escape with its wings, can soar above the clouds, and it can be free of most dangers.”

“Still has to land at some point,” Jack pointed out.

“And fish can never truly flee either, yet they are also constricted to whatever body of water they inhabit. Birds just fly away to another.”

“Hmm… fair enough.”

…

She frowned at the silence.

“So?”

“So what?” Jack asked.

“Which do you choose? Sasha questioned.

“For somebody who wanted me to shut up a moment ago, you’re rather keen on knowing.”

“I will beat your skull in.”

“Fine, fine, I would choose a bird as well,” the man confessed. “Not for anything as deep as you, though. I’ve just never felt the need to stay in water for too long. Whenever I swam in lakes, the plants that touched my feet just creeped me out too much. Like, you know when you’re just floating in one spot and you suddenly feel something kinda slimy wrap around your ankle?”

…

“No, I don’t.”

“Shit, really? There’s no creepy fucks floating around in the lakes you come from?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Sasha replied bluntly. “I have never visited.”

“What?” Jack questioned, seeming more frightened by that concept than what they were going to be facing soon. “You’ve never been in a lake before?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s just terrible. Pools don't do swimming justice, with how fake they are.”

“I’ve never been in a pool either,” Sasha added, frowning at the man’s look of horror. “I didn’t learn to swim when I was a child. Never saw the need for it later.”

“... If we get out of this, we’re finding a place to swim.”

Would she have entertained that thought normally? No. Sasha knew that at any other point in time, she would’ve shut it down instantly. The thought of her touching wild waters, anything deeper than what she could stand in with ease, was horrifying, enough to make her shiver. Yet Sasha was not sure she would be able to live through any promises of the future anyway, so what did it matter?

“I don’t do cold,” Sasha commented. “It has to be somewhere where the water is warm.”

“That’s gonna be difficult… But why the hell not?” Jack concluded with some level of satisfaction. “We’re leaving the city if we get out of this anyway, so there’s probably some corner of this world that has that.”

“Perhaps.”

It was her refusal to leave the city, to begin with, that had forced this scenario on their heads. Did Sasha understand that her chances of returning were slim at best? Yes, but that didn’t stop some vain hope in her heart that the impossible could be realized regardless. People were waiting for her on the other side, people who depended on what she earned, people who would be forced through her own experiences if she wasn’t there to grant them a normal life.

And instead of being where she needed to be, she was here, wasting away and bringing the idiot beside her along for it. Jack could have easily lived for many years more if he had just left the city as they were advised to do. He should’ve left through the gates the second it was offered, to take the protection of distance and savor it. The man had talked so much about seeing the world, so it would’ve been in his best interest to start as soon as possible.

But he didn’t.

He stayed.

It wasn’t outright loyalty or friendship making the man stay by her side. Sasha recognized it as more Jack latching onto somebody who could relate to him. The only trait they truly shared was their world of origin, yet that was enough for him to stay by her side as much as she allowed.

So when she hadn’t shot down the idea of him staying in the city with her, and refusing to flee from the danger there was, he had stayed.

“I need you to know something,” Sasha finally got out when the silence became too much. Jack looked up at her in response, but he said nothing. “I think you’re an idiot.”

“... That’s hurtful?” Jack replied, one brow raised in confusion. “Was already pretty confident about you thinking that, but you didn’t need to point it out.”

“You’re an idiot, you shouldn’t be here, but you are and I can’t fix that,” Sasha continued. She felt a pressure in her eyes but forced it back down. Now wasn’t the time for tears. “I… Thank you for staying here. You’re an idiot for doing it, but thank you for being here with me.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“This is getting awfully sentimental,” came the response from the man. “Do you really think that our chances are that awful?”

“Shut it.”

“I’m just saying!” Jack continued, ignoring her order without pause. “That has to be the first… semi-compliment you’ve given me. Almost enough to bring a tear from my eyes, if I’m being honest”

A second later, it turned out he was. The tear was wiped away instantly to not ruin his eyesight, of course, but that it was there at all meant more to Sasha than she was comfortable with.

They both paused when the ceiling above them shook, a few pieces of blue moss falling to the ground.

Pulses raced high, she stood at the ready, but nothing came of it just yet. The fact that things were happening on the floor above, however, meant that their time was starting to end.

She looked on as Jack rechecked his pistol for a third time. The magazine fit in snugly, the bullets had no abnormal shapes, and the safety was still turned off as it had been a few minutes before.

Sasha had to admit that it did look like an actual gun now when compared to the earlier iteration. A day and a half had allowed much work to be done, and Jack had gone from being a frustrated mess to being an excited idiot with a fully functioning self-made Makarov by his side. Other than the bullets being slightly larger, and having slightly more power than the original, it functioned about as well as the pistol it was meant to copy.

And while all of that had been ongoing, what had she been doing? Not much of anything. Training her body, trying to increase the speed at which she pulled on the Core, and… resting her eyes while letting time fly by. Nothing special.

Through the stone, she heard the subtle sound of a tree being torn apart by the steps of many. Far away still, yet there weren’t many minutes left.

Time to die, I suppose.

“Jack,” Sasha said, standing from her seat at the same time as the man. “You have five minutes to live. What do you want to do?”

“Agree that we don’t mention it if either of us starts crying?”

“Be more creative.”

“Then… let me finally hear what you did before all of this?” Jack tried, getting a glance shot his way. “What? You shared the fact that you can’t swim. I thought you were in the mood for it.”

…

She supposed it wouldn’t matter now. Not like the man knowing was going to change their fates.

“I grew up homeless in one of the bigger cities,” Sasha recounted in a more quiet voice, still listening to the sound of trees being ripped from their roots as people marched. “No money to my name, no family to call my own. Started stealing from others to survive, killed when it was necessary, but it allowed me to push off starvation for another week.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Quiet,” she ordered, not wanting it to go unfinished. “I stole from the wrong person when I was fifteen. Failed to kill them when they wanted revenge, but they liked the way I threw a punch. Decided to put me into an arena cage and get a chance at redemption.”

“I take it you won that fight?”

“With ease, to the point where they refused to let me go after,” Sasha confirmed. She’d known at the time she wasn’t going to be released either way but that didn’t matter anymore. “They gave me a place to live, money to buy whatever I wanted, and the only requirement was to enter that ring every few days and win a fight. It was dangerous but so was the option of being in the streets.”

So many she knew disappeared during the winters. Sasha had feared becoming one of them each year.

“I spent most of what I earned from it, however,” she continued when it seemed Jack finally heeded her warning about keeping quiet. Maybe it was because he could hear the destruction outside as well now. “Not for myself but for others like me still out on the streets. I’ve funneled… I don’t know how much it is anymore, but it’s years worth of winnings into homes for them to live, homes where they can be safe, homes away from crime so they can grow up and enter the normal world without going through what I did.”

Sasha had always known she wouldn’t last in that ring forever. She knew they’d started growing bored of her, once she became older and began to lose a fight now and then. It’s why she had put in enough money to have the homes last for months or even a year or two without her help.

But she wasn’t dead yet. She still had more fights in her. She could still give the others another push before they would be forced out into the cold again. She just had to get back.

I’m never going back.

Jack hugged her with his free hand. It took her a few seconds to accept it, responding to it in kind. Sasha was the reason he was here now, the reason they would both die instead of just being her. Sasha's insistence to try and force the impossible was what would cause the death of the first person to truly support her.

“I know I was the one that asked that we didn’t mention it, but—”

“Shut up.”

“Shutting up.”

The sounds of destruction had gotten close now, the walls and ceiling shaking as all plant matter was forced out of the rock and earth. More moss and whatever else sat on the ceiling rained down on them, but neither of them faltered.

Jack had his sights on the entrance and Sasha was ready to confront whoever would try to come inside.

They were ready.

There was a moment of silence before a shout came from outside. They didn’t understand the words, the blockade muffling it, but they could both see what came after.

Along with the sound of matter being ripped apart, the wall in front of the entrance was torn off. Light streamed into the cave instantly, the ton of branches being flung off before she could blink.

One idiot tried to enter immediately, wearing golden armor while wielding a short sword. Maybe a good weapon to have, but a half-exposed face was their doom.

Jack’s aim came true, the first bullet officially leaving the pistol. If not for them both being prepared for the sound, they would’ve winced. Instead, they both watched as the armored man fell to the ground, clutching at his head while gurgling. It’d gotten him just above the mouth, going through the head and hitting some part of the brain. A vital one at that, since the sound stopped a few seconds later and they were left with a corpse blocking most of the entrance.

“Fine tricks, I’ll admit,” an old voice from outside spoke. “If you both come out now, neither of you will suffer.”

They’re scared to enter.

“How about you come in and I shoot you instead?” Jack shouted back. Both waited for a response, yet the only words heard were orders to the soldiers to close their helmets properly and go where the first had failed. “Shit.”

One with a shield and axe came next. Jack shot again in response, but the shield took the first hit and made it bounce away into the wall. Another reached higher, going for the helmet, but it bounced off as well.

My turn.

The second they got closer, going into the slight curve required to enter the tunnel, Sasha revealed herself. Grabbing the axe at the top before the warrior could move to strike her down with it, she put one hand on the shield and focused her Core.

Push.

A chunk of the kinetic energy saved up after days of practice was released. A hundred kicks worth of force instantly entered the surface, and the arm that held it broke as they were pushed back.

The metal pushed both the first and second to the ground, their turned heads revealing a weakness that Jack instantly used. Two bullets were all it took for the second and third soldier to fall.

“Where does the Prince find such useless people?” the voice from before shouted. With the words came an outburst of energy as well, the blue and purple Aura from the brothel reappearing. “'Never leave idiots to do the important work' is the lesson you have all taught me today.”

Purple tendrils wrapped around the bodies of the dead and pulled them away from the entrance. Sasha could hear as they were thrown, along the thuds as each hit the ground seconds later. It disgusted her, yet those thoughts were forced to vanish when she and Jack both saw the new attacker in the flesh.

They did not wear armor but instead a purple robe.

The Royal Mage they’d been warned about.

Jack shot before the bearded man could open his mouth, round after round flying at the Mage. With no armor to protect, Sasha hoped the hot metal proved lethal, but it wasn’t so. Where every round could’ve landed, a blue barrier appeared to take the hit instead.

“And I wondered why the void pulled two humans to be used for the final ritual,” Rubeus muttered without a care in the world, as Jack’s current magazine ran empty. The reaction to it was instant, Jack taking a step back and fishing out the other from his belt. “You both seemed so weak, so fragile, yet this… you would have both been monsters in your own right.”

“Fuck you,” Jack spat, firing another bullet before a purple tendril shot forward and grabbed the man. “You— Agh.”

She heard something break. Sasha didn’t dwell on it, grabbing the tendril and forcing it to shatter with a blast of kinetic energy. It worked, the man was freed, but another dozen shot out to get her instead.

No.

No matter how much it hurt, no matter how much the Core inside complained about the magnitude, a blast of heat shot out from her hands. Even when behind it, she felt like she’d stepped into an oven.

And in front of her, it was worse. The heat reached the Mage the same instant the tendril reached her. They grabbed her limbs, trying to crush them but stopping when the Royal Mage shouted in pain.

“You wretch,” Rubeus cursed, stopping Sasha from repeating the act. She felt a grin reach her face when he saw how the old man was burnt.

Underestimating them had allowed them a chance.

Another set of kinetic blasts freed her a second time, but the cry of pain from Jack distracted her for too long to do anything with her freedom. She saw as the man was thrown at the wall, how he didn’t move after that point, and Sasha felt her blood run cold.

A tendril went for her head, but instinct allowed her to absorb it. The action seemed to throw the Royal Mage off, which allowed her to fall against the rock wall.

An idea.

Better you die with us.

Her hand was on the stone, her Core ready to unleash everything that had been saved up in one go, yet that never came to be. In the blink of an eye, her body had been surrounded by the purple energy, trapping her in a translucent prison that disconnected her from the rock.

“No more playing around,” she heard the Royal Mage mutter. Sasha glared at him, as she worked to escape the endlessly repairing prison. “Get in here and do your job.”

Another set of purple robes stepped inside, a woman this time. They were given a glare as well, as the prison began to fracture, but it didn’t matter. When she heard the soft words come from the other Royal Mage, Sasha’s body relaxed and she fell into darkness before she could do anything about it.