It was after perhaps fifteen minutes, a horn sounded and Kane was surprised when everyone in the building practically leapt up to exit the room. He had at first, thought, this was the fog signalling acid fog, but they were still too far away from The Mountain for that.
Marcus was one of the last to exit the room and he was surprised to see the Commander sitting atop a large pier white stallion. One key difference from her appearance during her meeting with him and her appearance now was that her warpaint had been applied to her face.
Marcus looked around and it was with some horror that he noticed that there were more villagers shot than he had thought, but the image that stayed in his mind was that of a little boy who laid on the ground clutching his stomach as blood poured out from in between his fingers.
Nyko was kneeling right next to the boy and his hands were glowing a soft green. The blood flow seemed to slow before stopping, but even from this far away Kane could tell that the wound was just barely heal and would likely scar.
"We have been attacked,"said Lexa suddenly and a hush fell over the crowd,"The boy claimed to be looking for me, but all he has done was harm my people and flee. Riders, gather the armies of the 12 clans. The Mountain will fall!"
Kane was surprised by the charges air that Lexa's speech had caused and even the oldest of men looked eager to follow her into hell and back. However, before anyone could move Lexa's next words startled Kane .
"However, we first need to rid ourselves of a coward,"said Lexa and then she turned to Kane and there was a vicious snarl marring her face, "We march to Skaikru's camp. Justice will be had."
It all dawned on Kane at once. Tristan being killed specifically while others were only wounded. The attacks of the Grounders going through him. Even the sound of the gunfire.
Finn just killed them all.
That was the last thought Kane had before he felt a vicious blow to the side of the head before the world turned black.
Clarke woke up with a start and she was surprised to find herself laying in a very comfortable bed. There was a window opposite the bed and from what she could tell it was the middle of the afternoon.
Clarke turned away from the room and tried to scan the room, but apart from the bed and a closet there wasn't much else giving the room a Spartan feel reminiscent of Clarke's cell on the Ark.
Clarke tried to get out of the bed, but she was surprised to find herself wearing unfamiliar clothes once she sat with her legs over the side of the bed. The clothes were comfortable and soft and consisted of various leathers and fabrics that were all black and brown in colours.
The combat boots she had taken from the Mountain were laying next to her bed as well as a new pair of socks. Clarke pulled the socks and boots on before she stood up feeling very refreshed.
Clarke and Anya had made their way to a secluded cabin in the woods after the first two villages they had investigated turned up blank. Anya had seen how tired Clarke was and had teleported them here after no one was aware of the Commander's whereabouts.
Clarke had bathed in a nearby river before changing into clothes that Anya had provided. Clarke had ended up sleeping for far longer than she had expected, but considering she had been awake since the early hours of the day she guessed she could be excused for it.
Clarke opened the door and she walked through the room that coupled as a kitchen and lounge of sorts before finally making it outside. There was Anya practicing with her sword as if she hadn't been locked up in a small cage just 24 hours ago.
There was a deer carcass that had already been skilled and the sweet smell of roasting meat teased Clarke's nose. Anya had built a fire and Tris of all people was the one preparing the food. Clarke wasn't sure when the girl had gotten here, but she offered her a smile which the young girl gleefully returned.
Meat was something she (along with all the delinquents) had taken a strong liking to once landing on Earth. They hadn't known just how mediocre their diet on the Ark was until they had all had their first taste of what the Earth had to offer.
Anya stopped practicing once she saw Clarke and holstered her sword. The woman then began to walk towards the trees that surrounded them and Clarke was surprised to see various throwing knives littering the ground.
There was a veritable arsenal littering the clearing that the cabin was located in and Clarke decided it couldn't hurt to help Anya out a little. Wordlessly, Clarke picked up the rest of the knives that were scattered across the forest floor.
The two women eventually gathered them all and placed them near the fire where Tris was. Clarke fiddled with the last of the knives before she turned to Anya and said,"You shouldn't be practicing. You were locked in a cage for days with barely any food. You should take it easy."
Anya shook her head vehemently and said,"I need to train. Once the Commander attacks the Mountain I'll be on the frontlines with Tris and I can't afford to be weak. I need to get my revenge."
Clarke was not surprised by Anya's statement. She knew that the Grounders were kept in hellish conditions and if she were in that situation she would want to exact some revenge too.
"You think the Commander will agree to help me?"said Clarke as she turned to Anya who nodded firmly.
"Yes,"said Anya after a pause before crouching down next to Tris who had begun whispering something in her mentor's ear,"Once the Commander hears about what they do to us and that the acid fog is down she will rally her army before attacking. The Mountain has been a scourge on our people for generations and her legend will be cemented for ages after crushing the Maunon."
Clarke was confused by the by play between the two especially as Tris now looked nervous and stiff. She ignored it for the meanwhile and said,"Is that all the Commander cares about? Cementing her legacy?"
Anya shook her head and said,"No, Lexa is much more than that. She cares for her people above everything. Her needs and wants are put to the side in everything. It was why when Nia–"
!*
Whatever Anya was going to say was cut off by a rain of bullets that came from the forest. Clarke had already raised a psionic dome to protect them and the bullets ricocheted off of the purple dome.
The rain continued until the sound of clicking noises filtered out from the tree line. Immediately, Anya disappeared in a burst of smoke with her knife in hand and not even a second later a scream was heard from within the brush.
Clarke's eyes shifted to a pale yellow with a large vertical slit. Immediately, she could see various heat signatures in the woods surrounding them. There was one that kept flitting around that she guessed was Anya as she hassled a group of five Maunon.
There were about five left and Clarke turned to Tris (whose face was a myriad of reds, blues and oranges) and said,"Stay here."
The girl didn't even have a chance to protest when Clarke stomped on the ground and four walls of rock 20 feet high formed around the girl making what was essentially a cage.
Clarke trained her eyes on the woods and the Mountain Men were to her eyes a vibrant reddish orange against the blue and purple forestry. Clarke twirled the knife in her hand before dropping her dome and throwing her knife at one of the five remaining Maunon.
Clarke had activated two powers from the time of curing Maya and they were both handy. The first gave her impeccable aim which was what she had used to cut Emerson's knife with the ice knife she had thrown and the second allowed her to manifest any threats of any animal.
It was how she had managed both to fly away from the Mountain and survive falling from the sky before tracking Anya down so quickly. A golden eagle had been the mold she had taken after an animal that had excellent vision typical of eagles, but was also an extremely swift flier.
Now, Clarke was using the infrared vision typical of snakes, in particular the pit viper. Clarke aimed her hands at two separate men in the woods before deactivation her infrared vision and she shot two bolts of lightning at them.
Her aim struck true and and twin screams were heard from the woods. Clarke ran at full speed at one of the last two and she was surprised to see a guard from the Mountain, but he wasn't wearing the typical hazmat suit of the Maunon.
In fact, he wasn't wearing anything at all. Clarke snatched the gun out of his hand before snapping the muzzle in half. The man looked panicked and he dropped to his knees before raising his hands slowly. His partner had taken off in some direction and Clarke knew that Anya was probably in pursuit of the straggler.
"How did you find us?"said Clarke as she looked at the guard from the Mountain. The man remained silent, but he still appeared quite scared.
"If you want to live,"growled Clarke as annoyance bubbled up inside her,"You'll tell me how you found us and how you're breathing this air."
The man stayed quiet until he felt a constricting sensation all around him. He let out a Yelp of surprise as purple energy lifted him off the ground and it felt as though his entire body was being squashed.
"Last chance."
The man began to cry and said,"Please, I have children and a husband – a family! They're all waiting for me to get back. Please don't kill me!"
Clarke was unmoved and she raised her hand with all her fingers splayed before slowly clenching her hand. The effect was instantaneous as the man let out a bone chilling scream as the pressure on his body became too much.
"I'll talk. I'll talk!"screamed the man in sheer pain and Clarke decreased the pressure drastically.
The man sighed in relief and even as tears fell from his eyes he began to speak,"It was Dante and Lorelei. They said that they had a way to cure us and it was through bone marrow transplants. They've told all of us already, but I got one first since I was made leader of this patrol after Whitman died."
"Whose bone marrow?"said Clarke and the man again hesitated before saying,"The Ark children. The ones we kept prisoner. Lorelei drilled them for bone marrow."
Clarke closed her eyes and began to breathe in and out slowly in order to calm down, but the anger she felt at being attacked was boiling underneath her skin.
Clarke eventually stilled and opened her eyes. The man looked pitiful with tears streaming down his face and the beginnings of mucus dripping from his nose.
"You drilled them?"said Clarke icily as she stared at the man,"Why? Why is your life more valuable than theirs? Did you know you would be killing children before the operation?"
The man had no answer and he just began to murmur quietly. Clarke growled in frustration and the next question dropped from her mouth like poison.
"Did you care?"
The silence served as Clarke's answer. She raised her hand and again the pressure was increased just ever so slightly on the man. The man turned hysterical and he began to plead Clarke earnestly,"Please let me go! I just wanted to come back to the surface. I just wanted to not feel like a prisoner anymore. I wanted our people to live up here again. It's so beautiful...I just wanted that for my own people. Isn't that what we deserve?"
The words struck a chord within Clarke as she could understand perfectly how a lifetime of living in a box could make people desperate. People were willing to do crazy things to live.
Kidnap and bleed hundreds of people until their death. Brainwash people into being drug addicted cannibals. Suffocate hundreds of people in their sleep. Form a rebellion and steal an escape pod to Earth. Train your children to fight as soon as they can walk.
Burn 100 people to death.
The truth was none of the people on Earth deserved the Earth. No one deserved it anymore than the other, but in the end that was not what mattered. Morality would not ensure survival on Earth anymore. It hadn't for the past centuries. There was only one thing that would allow them to survive.
Power.
Clarke began to clench her hand into a fist once again and the man let out a groan of pain before saying,"You said you were going to let me go! Please don't kill me...I'm just trying to save my people."
"I know and I'm sorry,"said Clarke solemnly before she added,"But that's what I'm trying to do too. I don't want to do this...but I have to."
Clarke immediately balled her hand up and her nails dug deep into her palm. A loud scream echoed out from the man and blood sprayed onto Clarke's face. Clarke let her hand drop to her side and she didn't even try to wipe her face as she felt the warm droplets of blood begin to cool and congeal on her face.
Clarke surveyed the damage she had done and it sickened her somewhat that she didn't even know the names of the four men she had killed. There wasn't time for that, however and Clarke turned her back on the corpses before running. Ack to where she had left Tris.
The rock prison still stood string and Clarke stamped down on the ground which caused the four walls to descend into the ground. Tris seemed surprised by the sudden movement of the walls and she nearly attacked Clarke before she saw who it was.
"Where is Anya?"questioned the girl and Clarke shrugged before pointing in the direction she came from,"One of the Maunon ran away. Anya went after him. She will be fine. She's strong."
That was something Clarke was certain about. The common foot soldiers of the Maunon were definitely not a match for Anya especially not in one on one situation.
"You should have let me fight,"said Tris with a petulant expression on her face, "I'm strong too."
Clarke smiled and ruffled the girl's hair and said,"I know, but Anya would have killed me if you got hurt. She gets pretty scary when angry."
Tris laughed at Clarke's joke and Clarke felt her own smile grow. Clarke had another reason for keeping Tris at the cabin of course and it had nothing to do with Anya.
Tris had probably been in more fights than Clarke had and even though she spoke with a maturity beyond her age at times – it was hard for Clarke to see her as anything, but a kid.
She knew Tris was dangerous and she also knew that the girl could have probably killed Clarke with her bare hands if Clarke didn't have any powers, but that wasn't the point.
The point was that when she looked at Clarke and saw her gangly limbs and young face it was hard to reconcile that with a fully fledged – or at least almost fully fledged – killer. The girl deserved at least a few more moments of peace and innocence.
Clarke was sure moments like that were far and in between for the Grounders and if she could prevent the girl from losing more of her innocence then at least she had done something right.
The girl in question turned to Clarke and said,"We need to burn the Maunon. Even they do not deserve to be left to rot."
Clarke turned to the girl in surprise and said,"You do not bury your dead?"
Tris recoiled at the question and said,"No. If we bury them their spirit is trapped within their corpse and they can never find peace. To the Trikru, the greatest insult one can ever commit is to bury their enemy's body and leave it to rot. Others clans believe differently, but all of the clans believe in allowing the spirit of the dead to move on."
It was times like these that made Tris appear far more mature than she appeared. The calmness and equanimity the girl spoke of death with was more saddening than surprising to Clarke. It reminded her that to Tris death was just another aspect of her life.
The girl may have looked like a child and have the the voice, but she was not a child in even the loosest of terms. The ground clearly had a way of maturing it's people quickly.
"Do we need to build a pyre for them?"said Clarke as she gestured towards the woods, but she was surprised when the girl shook her head.
"We only build pyres for our own people. We do not wish to imprison theirs souls, but it would be a disservice to our fallen clan members if we treated our enemies with the same reverence as them,"said Tris as she looked to the setting sun in the sky.
Clarke nodded and said,"I'll go take care of the bodies. You should wait here for Anya to come back. I'm sure she'll be back soon. "
The girl nodded in acceptance of the idea and Clarke rose to her feet before going off in the direction of Anya's skirmish with the Mount Weather guards. There was five of them and they all had suits on showing that the man Clarke had killed was speaking the truth about the bone marrow procedure.
Clarke made sure to detach the oxygen tanks as well the radios and tone generators the Mountain Men. Some even had shock batons that Clarke realise was commandeered from the stash the delinquents had after looting the Exodus ship.
Once all the devices in total were far away enough Clarke began to gather all the bodies to one central spot. A quick flick of the wrist and the bodies were in a rectangular hole in the ground.
Clarke stepped to the very edge of the hole before pointing her hands at the corpses before twin balls of fire burst into life on her hands. Clarke raised the temperature of the flames to their absolute maximum before she let loose with two blasts of fire.
Sweat dripped down from her brow, but Clarke was otherwise unaffected by the heat. The flames didn't spread to the other parts of the forest thanks to the hole in the ground and so Clarke was able to focus on her task entirely.