Prisoners

They were thrown into a small, underground prison cell and the door firmly locked. Berus still couldn’t move, but at least he registered how the demons slowly vanished from his sight.

“Urgh…”

Of course, the tiny prison cell was no place he wanted to be. It was made of green-grey stone, and over every surface was a coat of cold, slick water. The iron bars were rusted, and through them he could see rows and rows of similar cells that were thankfully empty. Through a tiny hole in the wall shone a little moonlight and a draft of fresh air wafted in.

“Hey! Let us out! Help!” Mikkah ran over to the door with what strength remained in her.

“I swear on Lucine, you will pay for this!”

She pounded her first against the bars, and screamed her throat raw. Berus could barely understand how much time was passing. But it was a few hours later that Mikkah had stopped, and crouched next to him. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she wiped every tear away that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Berus wanted to comfort her, but he could neither move nor speak. He felt incredibly weak, and couldn’t even lift a finger from his remaining hand. In this moment, he truly felt like a useless heap of scrap metal.

And that frustrated him. He was angry, not only at the king and his demons, but mostly at himself. Everything went wrong. Oh, how he wished for some way to turn back time and stop this madness! But he couldn’t. They were stuck in this prison cell, and they had to get out of this situation somehow. Feeling bad for they choices he made wouldn’t help him with that.

“Ki-Rai?” he asked.

His menu flickered to life, and there she was. She looked like she always did, with a grin on her lips, but she also seemed exhausted.

“You’re such an idiot! You should’ve fought back!” she hissed.

“I couldn’t.”

He wanted to say something else, but it was the truth. Maybe, if he had done things differently in the past, he would have been able to fight against Gyria. If he had trained more with Phorok, or used the right skills. Why was he a war machine if he couldn’t fight properly? Even in MYSTALE ONLINE, there were enough automatons that did well enough in the arena to be a viable option. So why did he suck so much?

It was an old frustration, a pain he hadn’t felt since his rebirth. Suddenly, he could feel the limitations of his body again, worse than ever.

And he couldn’t escape into a game like in his last life. He had nothing to distract himself with. Not only was he stuck in this literal prison cell, but his body itself felt like a prison, and as if it took delight in his suffering. Before, he had been fine, liked it even, that he didn’t have to sleep, but now he longed to just pass out. He wanted to stop thinking, to stop feeling, for just a moment. But his thoughts still raced through his body, and his soul pulsed with questions. The silence that surrounded him only became more unbearable.

Finally, he managed to turn his head. “How are you?”

She blinked, as if he had pulled her out of her thoughts. “I feel awful, of course. What do you think?”

“At least you haven’t lost your way with words.”

“I’m happy you’re not dead!” She was close to sobbing. “You didn’t move, you didn’t even make a sound. What do you think how I felt? I thought they really scrapped you.”

“Don’t worry. My soul is better at enduring this than you’d think.”

“That doesn’t make me worry any less.” She brought her legs close to her body and rested her chin on her knees. “What do we do, then? I don’t want to become a part of the Demon King’s army. And I don’t want to be forced to make new weapons. It was already bad enough what I’ve done to you.”

“That’s not true. Really, I’m thankful for what you’ve done with my body. And I’m sure that we’ll find even more good modifications for it in the future.”

She gave him a small, bitter smile. “Not if we stay in this prison cell.”

“Of course not. But that’s not the plan, right?”

“Right. We have a prophecy to fulfill, still.”

“Just don’t let them see your real ears, Miss elven priestess.”

Finally, she laughed. It was a rough laugh, and her voice was coarse, but it was real. It was as if that sound managed to reignite the hope that had threatened to escape them.

“Thank you,” she finally said. “Then let us think of something we can do.”

She leaned against him, and her voice grew quiet. “We have to find a way to lure the guard demons over here. Then we can maybe overpower them and escape from here.”

“Sounds good,” he whispered right back. “But what can we do to get them here? Screaming apparently doesn’t do anything.”

“That’s the point. I have no idea.”

For a moment they both fell silent. Berus thought what they could do. Maybe they could stage a fight? They wanted Mikkah alive, after all. But which skills would work for a proper, attention-seeking mock fight? He idly went through his skill list, while Ki-Rai watched him with dark eyes.

And then he saw it.

“Ki-Rai?” he confirmed first, before he did something stupid. “I can cancel the [Self Destruct] skill, right?”

“What?” Mikkah interjected.

“I’m not sure,” Ki-Rai said. “I think it does have a countdown built into it, but…”

“How is that supposed to help us?”

Berus shrugged at them both. “It’s probably pretty stupid, I have to admit. But you’re used to that by now, right? I hope the Self Destruct sequence will be loud, or at least flashy. And the demons should come. They don’t want to lose you, or my precious metal.”

“But that doesn’t mean we should blow you up!”

“And we won’t. I told you, I will cancel it.”

She stared at him. “How sure are you that it will work?”

“Yes, this is stupid, and not in the fun way!” Ki-Rai said. “It could mean that you blow all of us up! Me included! I don’t want that.”

“I don’t want that, either. I won’t blow us up.” He turned around to Mikkah. “I’ll stop it, and if not, they will save you before it happens.”

She stared at him. “No.”

“I think this is the best idea we have right now,” he said, and activated the skill.

Red light illuminated their little cell with slow pulses.