Philip had been in strange situations before, but even he had to admit this one was a top 5 contender. Marco was at the door pressing him to open, while Kali was chaining herself up at her original position.

It made no sense to him, but he was not going to complain. She had only told him to not act suspicious. Did she think him stupid?

She gave him the go ahead, and he went to open the door. Now that he had her back in chains, he just wanted to get rid of Marco ASAP.

She had clearly been smart and given up on her freedom.

“Sorry about that, I was in the shower, you caught me at a bad time.” He lied as he opened the door.

“You know, when I heard you took a slave to your quarters, I thought you were simply a pervert. But when I heard it was the instigator to their escape, I couldn’t help but start putting things together.” Marco said as he pushed Philip aside and into the room, not waiting in the least.

Philip saw another 4 people come in behind Marco. Armed, and by the looks of it, ready for a fight. Philip instantly had a bad feeling about this. How did he know? If he was about to do something someone didn’t like, he too would take two huge goons with him. If it was something the other person really wouldn’t like, then he would take four, or maybe even more, but he was smarter than most.

Marco went straight for his personal fun room and saw Kali lying there in chains. He checked the chains, nodded, satisfied before walking back out.

“You know, I never thought you would try something so risky. At first it was just a coincidence, right? You tamper with the locks to the slave prisons.” Marco said, lifting a finger.

“Later, all the slaves are freed. Then you go to the armory, take out weapons and straight up give them to the slaves.” He continued, putting up fingers as he counted while pacing back and forth.

“Also, you were seen leaving right after the sabotage of the right thruster.” He added.

“But what I don’t understand, Philip, is why? And why show up at the hangar trying to stop them?” Marco paused for effect. Stopped his pacing and turned to face Philip.

Philip couldn’t help but dread where this was going. He was twisting everything! He was actually the victim here, and this clown was going to pin it all on him.

The worst part? Right now, the truth didn’t matter. There was no one to convince, only Marco and his loyal goons. He could lay out the best arguments, his fate was sealed either way.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from needing to hear Marco’s conclusion to all this.

“And suddenly it clicked. It actually makes perfect sense.” Marco said as he started pacing again.

“You set up the whole thing, then show up to be the hero. The hero that saved everyone from the dangerous slaves, and you’d probably spin it in a way to show that I was incompetent, wouldn’t you? All a ploy to take my place.” Marco said with a dangerous glint in his eyes.

Philip almost scoffed, he wouldn’t have had to spin anything. Marco clearly was incompetent. He had everything so wrong it had started to make sense again. Twisted so far from the truth he could fit in anything he wanted in his story.

The only true thing in this fictional story was the conclusion: he did want to take his place, but he would never have come up with such a lackluster plan.

“And then you take the slave back here for what, to get rid of evidence? Plan another set up?” Marco said, voice loud and hands gesticulating wildly.

“You think I wouldn’t notice you little shit?” He yelled now.

“You think I would just let you trample all over me? That I’d roll over and die?” Philip was pretty sure that everyone on the damn ship could hear Marco yelling at this point.

“Nobody move” A whisper came from behind Marco, who was now frozen. A drip of blood could be seen rolling down his neck from a very small and new cut.

The goons, Philip, Marco, all froze as the blonde and fierce woman was taking her hostage. Marco, maybe because of the fear, was the first to react.

“Calm down lady. No need to do something you’ll regret.” Marco said, holding himself perfectly still.

“How’d you get free?!” One of the big stupid goons said. Well, Philip kinda did wonder about it, but it was a useless question right now. She had the upper hand, which was a miracle for him, if he played this right.

“I’m sorry to have to go to such length.” He started, trying to look confident, and like he had everything under control.

“Marco here has it all wrong, and I couldn’t just wait for him to just kill me because he doesn’t understand what happened, understand?” He asked the goons, who looked back and forth between him and Marco.

“So let’s lay down your weapons and walk out of here, will you? Let me chat with Marco and you’ll get him back in thirty minutes?” He said, sounding completely reasonable despite the more than strange situation.

They hesitated and he saw Kali look at him with a dark glare like he had made a mistake. What? He was saving their lives here! Couldn’t she appreciate what he was trying to do? Uhg!

“You boys will go nowhere.” Marco said.

“Philip, you better release me, or they will kill you. We’ll talk as I clearly haven’t gotten everything right, and I’m open to hearing your side of things, alright? But no need to threaten my life like this, no?” Marco said in false bravado. Suddenly he was being reasonable. Typical. Philip had been a better liar when he had been seven! Did he think him stupid?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“You all seem to forget something. I’m in control here, not Philip, nor Marco. So lay down your arms or I will kill him, even if I die with him. I’m never going back to being a slave. Understand?” Kali said the words with such vehement anger Philip knew she wasn’t bluffing, and from the looks of things, he wasn’t the only one that felt that way.

Marco got another shade paler, and his goons confidence visibly drained from their postures. They turned to him to check for confirmation, as he slowly nodded without trying to move his neck too much. Another drop of blood still spilled. Kali was not joking around.

“Kali, you’ll get us both killed, and contrary to you, I value my life!” Philip half whispered and half shouted at her.

“Let’s all calm down, boys, you can lay down your arms. We wouldn’t want this brave young lady to do something she would come to regret now, would we?” Marco said as sweat trickled down his back.

Slowly the goons moved to obey, without making any hasty movement. Only slow and deliberate ones.

“Kick them away from you.” Kali said once all the weapons were on the ground, and they all complied. The seven of them stood still for a while, as they all looked at each other. Marco and Kali close to Philipp, and the four goons close to the exit.

The weapons were in the middle as they didn’t really kick them far. Philip noticed Kali glaring at him in the deafening and tense silence.

“Pick up the weapons maybe? I thought you valued your life.” She said sarcastically at him. Hmpf. The gal of the girl, but he supposed he would heed her words for now. He wasn’t really in any position not to.

Slowly he bent down and picked up all four rifles. He put on one bandelier and put the three others in a corner of the room. Again, Kali glared at him like he was an idiot.

“Put one close to me maybe?” Philip did not like her tone, but again, if she suddenly went ballistic, he was in for a rough time too, so he complied, and took up position slightly behind her, with a clear view of the idiotic goons.

The silence was tense, and Philip didn’t know what she was going to do now. He looked at the goons and then to her. She was signing furiously behind her back to him, but he had no idea what any of it meant.

Just as he was about to voice his question about how she wanted to proceed, Marco opened his mouth to speak, only for blood and silence to come out and his gurgled last words. The scalpel was deep within his neck, and the light of life soon winked away from his eyes.

******************************

Kali could barely believe what had happened.

That idiot Philip had almost made a most stupid mistake. He had tried to send the goons away. What did he think would happen? They would all just leave and stop being a problem?

Like they wouldn’t alert half the ship and come back with more people.

Gah, no but as stupid as he was, he was still usefull.

As he lay one of the weapons close to her against a wall, she started signing her plan to him. Sadly she had to keep the four other goons in check, and they didn’t have much time.

She was afraid that at any point they would understand that they only had one way out of this mess, and that was to have them all dead. There was no other outcome where they would survive.

If they let them live and made a deal, they had no way to enforce the deal, and it meant they would die anyway.

But luckily, the goons hadn’t figured that out yet, and were still thinking they could save their captain.

Just as she finished signing her plan to Philip, Marco was about to speak, but she was too afraid he understood what she planned. So she plunged the scalped deep into his throat, let him fall like a sack of potatoes, and grabbed the rifle.

She shot as soon as she had it in hand. The first goon went down as they were caught off guard, but the others soon dove out of the way.

Philip had apparently been caught as much off guard and only started shooting now. Well, better late than never, she thought.

Coming out of cover almost all at the same time, the three remaining goons charged them. She sprayed metal bullets at them, and cursed as the one she had targeted used an evasive skill, completely dodging her hail of bullets.

Instead of trying to hit him, she simply swung the weapon wider to spray at the other guy, who wasn’t prepared as he was looking at Philip.

Several bullets went through him, blood spurting everywhere. The deadly wounds splashing red liquid everywhere before the first one tackled her to the ground.

Two versus two now. At least they had a chance, she thought as she grappled with her opponent.

To the left, she saw Philip struggling beneath the other one, completely at his mercy and running out of air.

Herself? With [Greater Strength] she quickly reversed their position and started trying to choke the muscular man twice her weight, which apparently was a mistake.

The man threw himself backwards in order to slam both of them into the ground, with her as a cushion. Maybe grappling wasn’t the best idea.

She tried to let go and avoid the blow, but she was ultimately too slow. Her breath left her lungs as they impacted the ground, but instead of grappling him again, she pushed him away, first a little with her hands, just enough to get her legs in, then propelled the man through the room with her enhanced strength.

Quickly getting up as the brute slowly tried to recover from flying across the room, she picked up a chair that she broke on his back. She was left having a broken piece of wood in each hand. Not letting the brute get up, she plunged one of them in the still dazed grunt’s back, and quickly ran over to where Philip was clearly suffocating. His face was not a natural color right now.

Plunging the other makeshift and somewhat pointy stick in the man's head from behind let brainmatter and blood pour out the other side, where her stick had come out, covering Philip in all of its gross glory.

The man in question visibly heaved at the event, both trying to breath in after almost suffocating, but threatening to throw up at the gruesome sight.

After a few seconds of trying to breathe, Philip finally stood up and looked at her with fear in his eyes, but clearly tried to hide it as he spoke.

“So, am I the next one on your murder list, or what is your plan now?” He asked, clearly shaken by what had happened.

Before she could respond however, a loud noise could be heard from every speaker in the ship.

“Is this thing on?” Marco’s voice could be heard.

“Ahem, hello, I’m just making this stupid recording just in case. I don't think it’ll matter, but whatever. If you hear this message, it means I died when confronting Philip about the sabotage and everything that happened. So he is clearly working with the enemy, bla bla, you get it. There, happy now?” Marco clearly said to someone else, cutting the message short.

Well, that just meant Philip was just as much of an outcast as her. Looking down at the dead Marco, she had a thought to thank the bastard, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She kinda hoped his next life would be shit.

“Well, it seems we are now in the same boat, as the saying goes. Got any good ideas to get us out of here oh hero of mine?” She finished sarcastically. She knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to antagonize him but she couldn’t care less right now. Not like she expected to live after her first failed attempt anyway.

“Well, with both your brawn and my brain, I think it would be ridiculous that we not manage to get out of here.” He said as he smirked at her.

His brain, she almost snorted at that, but kept it in. He had knowledge of the ship and could probably be useful.

“So, mister big brain, what’s our plan?” She asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, only mildly failing.

“Well, first off, I think we should get out of here, after that? I have something in mind I’m sure you’ll agree with.” He said, clearly happy about himself as he said it.

[Level up! → Breaker of Chains Level 15]

[New Skill! → Break Limit]

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all. From the feeling she got, it seemed she could overcome her physical limits for a short time before getting some sort of backlash. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but sadly, she could shake the feeling it would come in handy soon.