Once more, Alex was broken from his cultivation by Fisk's tap to the shoulder.

"They're coming," the man said.

He watched as Scarface approached the cell. The grin on the man's face set Alex on edge.

"Thank you all for your efforts over the past several days. The company deeply appreciates the profits you represent," he paused and glanced around the huddled masses in the cage, before his eyes settled on Alex. "Some of you have been more well behaved than others. Normally we would reward such behavior, however we are in difficult times and your services will no longer be required."

He reached into his robes and pulled out a black sphere with silver spikes. Immediately everyone in the cage except Alex scrambled backwards, desperate to get away from the object.

Scarface continued talking, ignoring the reactions of his captive audience.

"We don't have a pension plan, so you'll unfortunately be left to fend for yourselves. Enjoy this parting gift," he said before tossing the orb into the cage. A burst of white light shot from his hands shortly after, and the cage was enveloped in a white shield of light.

"Grenade!" Fisk shouted. Alex cursed and threw himself over his new friend. Time to test his regenerative abilities.

A concussive blast loaded with shrapnel tore into his body. Pain wracked Alex's body as the shrapnel ripped it apart. The world was consumed in fire, metal, and gore.

---

After the explosion subsided, the cage was a smoldering wreck filled with smoking bodies. Fisk shifted his body and groaned as pain lanced up his legs.

He grit his teeth and shoved the poor kid's blackened corpse off of himself. He'd probably never know what possessed Alex to use his own body as a shield, but he was eternally grateful. He had a daughter to save after all.

Fisk looked outside the cage, and noted that the slavers appeared to have moved on. Probably to kill more slaves, he thought darkly. He hadn't been sure why, but the slavers had been more and more on edge as time went by. He had figured a purge was coming, he just hadn't expected it to be so violent. The poor kid never even had a chance to fight back.

Speaking of, he looked back at Alex's body. It was in surprisingly better condition than the rest of the bodies in the cage.

"You were one tough bastard," Fisk said as a form of farewell and eulogy, "Focus, man. You don't know how much time you have."

If all went well, the slavers would assume he died with the rest of the group, and he'd get a chance to leave. First things first he needed to try and get out of the cage and remove his collar. Once he had access to his magic again, he was confident in his ability to escape.

If things didn't go well, they'd come back to check everyone was dead. Or to clean up the bodies. Or collapse the mines to remove the evidence.

Fisk cursed. He hadn't thought of that possibility before. He might really be screwed here. With a great deal of effort, Fisk sat up and took inventory of his body. His lower legs were an absolute mess. Shrapnel had ripped apart his feet and shins. Walking was definitely off the table until he could get the collar off.

Speaking of which, Fisk reached up to see if shrapnel had hit that. Smooth unblemished metal. Damn, bad luck again.

Next step, trying to get out of the cage. Fisk dragged himself over to the door of the cage. The metal was warped and twisted, but the lock was largely untouched. He cursed again. Was he doomed to starve down here or have tons of rock crush his body when the slavers blew the mine?

No, he'd survived too much to let a bunch of backwater, ignorant slavers be the end of him. Fisk began to work his way around the cage, inspecting every square inch of it. If there was a way out he'd find it. Roc Imperial Marines never quit.

---

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Hours later, Fisk was still exploring the cage when he heard footsteps. Silently cursing his luck, he dragged himself over to the nearest body and pulled it over himself. He did his best not to think about the blood and viscera that now coated his body, but to instead focus on keeping an eye on the cage door.

The footsteps came closer, and soon were accompanied by voices.

"-are the odds anyone survived the explosion? This is a waste of time," a nasally voice whined.

"You can take that up with Dross," replied a deeper voice, "I, personally, value my life though. You remember what he did to poor Mel last month? That was over a command to clean, not closing up potential loose ends."

The footsteps came even closer and Fisk slowed his breathing. This was his chance. He just needed them to get closer.

He watched as two of the slavers approached and unlocked the cage.. The sound of metal sliding against metal was followed by the cage door creaking open. The two men stepped inside.

"Start in the back, I'll start in the front, " the deeper voice stated. Now that they were closer, Fisk was able to make out more details of the two men in the dim lighting.

Both were of average height and build, with their facial features covered by black filtration masks. They both wore simple rust red clothes. The one with the deeper voice appeared to be holding an ECD rifle, and the nasally voiced one held a pistol in his right hand.

"It stinks," complained the nasally one.

"It will get worse the longer you take," deep voice replied. He then pointed his rifle at the nearest body and discharged a shot of light into its head. "Lets just get this over with."

Fisk, positioned towards the middle of the cage, waited for the right opportunity to attack.

---

Alex blinked slowly. Once more his entire body was awash in pain. He needed to stop getting himself caught up in explosions, they really hurt. Plus healing was so damn itchy!

At least this time his eyes were functional. He looked around and was surprised to see the lights were still on. How did the explosion not hit those? He lightly shook his head, not the time for that. First check on Fisk.

Movement caught his eyes, and Alex watched in surprise as a slaver dressed in red shot a corpse in the head with a rifle.

That can't be good, he thought to himself. A quick inventory of his body told him moving would be a struggle, but possible. He began to mentally prepare himself for more pain as the slaver approached. When the man was less than five feet from him, Alex jerked into motion.

As his body lazily replied to his command to get up, the rifle wielding man began to turn towards Alex. The next moment felt like slow motion to him. His legs stutter stepped towards the slaver, arms stretched out to catch the man in a tackle. The rifle raised up towards him, a shot blasted out, tearing through the lower left side of his stomach just as he ran into the man.

The two went down in a tangle of limbs. Alex thought he might have heard another voice, but was too quickly entangled in a fight for his life.

The slaver, now on his back, reached toward his belt and pulled out a knife. Alex reactively grabbed the hand with the knife and shoved it against the ground as hard as he could. Bones broke in both men's hands as they impacted the ground.

The slaver screamed in pain. Alex yelled in pain. Another ECD shot rang out, impacting the cage and raining molten metal down on the pair.

Alex didn't notice, too busy using his other hand to grab the slavers head and slam it into the ground. The man's head cracked like a ripe watermelon hitting the pavement.

Alex whirled around, mind catching up to the presence of a second slaver. He looked just in time to see Fisk rip a pistol from the slavers hand and put a slug of energy into their head.

"Hey," Alex called out. Fisk looked over at him, eyes still wild from his fight. "You ok?"

"We need to get moving," the man replied, seemingly ignoring Alex's question. "Do you know how to use that?"

Fisk nodded his head towards the slaver's rifle. Alex nodded slowly in response.

"I've got a rough idea, but I think I'll be more useful with my fists."

Fisk nodded in response, "Fair enough. Any chance you can do something about the collars?"

Alex paused. He hadn't even considered that as an option.

"Do they not have some sort of self-destruct mechanism if we tamper with them? I don't think I'd survive my head blowing off."

Fisk shook his head, "Too expensive to do that. These just restrict magic use."

"Cool," Alex replied, then he reached up and ripped his collar in half effortlessly. He stared at the two pieces in his hands, shocked by what he had done. "What the hell?"

"Focus," Fisk told him, "Get my collar next."

Alex nodded and tried to stand up, but quickly collapsed from the pain. His legs were still healing and he'd just been shot in the side.

"Mind coming over here?" He asked, "I'm going to need some time before this all heals."

Fisk grumbled and started to crawl towards Alex. Seeing that his companion wasn't in much better shape, Alex started crawling as well.

They met in the middle of the cage and Alex quickly ripped the man's collar apart. Fisk sighed heavily once it was removed.

"Much better," he replied, "Now we can really fight back."