Floodlights powered by portable cells hummed, casting long, artificial shadows against the twisted metal of the Mecha Station.
Jason stood on the periphery, leaning against a charred stump, watching the Ark survivors. It was a surreal sight. Some of them were actually laughing, kneeling to touch the grass as if it were spun gold. There was hope in their eyes, a fragile, beautiful thing that Jason found almost painful to look at.
'How cute,' Jason thought, his jaw tightening as he watched a woman weep with joy while holding a handful of soil. 'Nothing a few spears to the chest or a rain of black-feathered arrows wouldn't change soon enough.'
It wasn't that he was cruel; it was that he was seeing the ghosts that hadn't arrived yet. The people of the Ark were moving with a reckless, domestic comfort. They were setting up "makeshift" tents and organizing supply lines as if they were on a weekend retreat. They had no idea that every laugh, every bright light, and every loud conversation was a beacon to the warriors currently watching from the blackness beyond the trees.
And Kane, Kane was the worst of them. He walked through the camp with a calm, practiced dignity, offering words of encouragement, looking for all the world like a king who had finally reached his throne. To ignore the council of those who had actually bled into this dirt, who had buried their friends in it, was more than just arrogance. It was a death sentence.
"They have the audacity to think I'm just 'seeing monsters,'" Jason muttered to the darkness. "Like I'm some kid who stayed up too late."
"So, what now?"
Jason didn't turn around as he heard the familiar voice. Bellamy stepped up beside him, his face still bruised and caked in the dust of the trek.
"What do you mean, 'what now'?" Jason asked.
Bellamy kept his eyes on the camp, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You've got that look in your eyes again."
Jason finally looked at him, a slight frown creasing his brow. "What look?"
"The one you get when you've already made a decision and the rest of the world just hasn't caught up yet," Bellamy said, a grim smirk touching his lips. "The look that says you don't give a damn about Kane's 'laws' or Abby's 'trauma' talk."
Jason let out a short, sharp breath through his nose. 'Did I really have a look like that?' "Where are the others?"
"Abby is with Monroe and Raven. They're trying to see if they can scavenge any tech from the station's wreck before the guards lock it down but I thinks that's just an excuse for Abby to talk to them" Bellamy reported. "Kane's got Finn in a 'debrief' which is just a fancy word for an interrogation. Miller's dad just finished with Murphy. Apparently, he didn't like Murphy's attitude."
"Who does?" Jason remarked.
"True. I'm next on the list," Bellamy said, glancing toward the Chancellor's tent. "But I wanted to see what was rattling around in that head of yours first."
Jason gestured vaguely at the bustling camp. "They're in danger, Bellamy. Look at them. They're moving like they're in a park. They think the walls of the Ark followed them down. Every second we spend here playing 'settlers' is another second our people spend out there alone. We're being domesticated."
"So?"
"So, we're leaving," Jason said with a tone of finality. Bellamy straightened his shoulders, the tension leaving his frame only to be replaced by a hard, focused energy. "That's more like it. When?"
"Soon enough," Jason said, his eyes shifting around while looking at the guards all around the new camp. "But we aren't going out there empty-handed. We need ammunition, and we're going to need supplies too if you know what I mean."
Bellamy smirked, his eyes glinting with the old defiance that had made him the leader of the 100. "Stealing from the Chancellor before the first night is over? You really are a delinquent, Jason. I'll see what I can do."
A guard approached them, his hand resting on the holster of his sidearm. "Blake? Chancellor Kane is ready for you."
Bellamy gave Jason a single, sharp nod, "Don't go anywhere without me, hotshot," he muttered before turning to follow the guard.
Jason watched him go, then turned his gaze back to the dark treeline. He wasn't waiting for permission.
———-
The pre-dawn light was a bruised purple, casting long, eerie shadows across the skeletal remains of the Mecha Station. Jason hadn't slept; he had spent the night watching the tree lines and waiting for an attack.
A guard approached him, his breath misting in the cool morning air. "The Chancellor is ready for you now."
Jason didn't offer a word. He simply pushed off the metal bulkhead he'd been leaning against and followed. He was led into a partially intact section of the Ark, where the smell of scorched wiring still lingered to him. Inside, Kane sat in a… well whatever. Bellamy was standing in the corner with an unreadable expression on his face.
Kane looked up at him and offered him a sit, "Jason. Please, sit."
Jason didn't sit. He stopped a few feet away and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes locking onto Kane's. "I'm sure you've had a busy night. Haven't you already heard enough stories from the others? I'm sure Murphy gave you an earful."
Kane chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "I've heard accounts. But I want to hear it from the person who turned these children into a militia. I want to know how a mission to determine survivability degraded into a scorched-earth war with the locals."
Jason stared at Kane intently, the silence stretching until the hum of the camp's generator seemed to fill the room. "Alright," Jason said, his voice dropping into a low, steady cadence. "You want the truth? It started the second we hit the dirt. We didn't know it then, but we had dropped right into the heart of a Grounder clan's territory. To them, we weren't explorers. We were invaders from the sky."
"We tried to survive and we made a lot of mistakes. Then there was the issue of the flares. The ones we launched to tell you the ground was safe, tge ones meant to save the three hundred people you sacrificed up there."
He saw Kane flinch almost imperceptibly at the mention of the Culling.
"Those flares didn't just light up the sky," Jason continued. "They landed. One of them hit a village, Lincoln's village and burnt it to the ground. That was the spark that lit the fuse."
Kane leaned forward, his hands steepled. "This 'Lincoln.' The others mentioned him. Tell me about him."
"He's a warrior. A scout," Jason said, and for the first time, his voice held a note of genuine respect. "He saw that we weren't just monsters. He's been the only thing standing between us and total slaughter since we got here. He's an ally."
"He stabbed Finn, did he not?" Kane countered, his voice rising with a note of challenge. "He took one of our own captive and used a poison blade."
"Because I attacked him first!" Bellamy interjected from the corner, his voice sharp. "He was protecting himself."
Kane raised a hand, a silent command for Bellamy to shut up. Bellamy's jaw tightened, his eyes flashing with fire, but he reluctantly fell silent.
Kane turned his focus back to Jason. "Go on. An ally who stabs our people and sets meetings accordingly to Bellamy. So tell me about this 'peace talk' you and Clarke attempted."
Jason's expression went cold, the memory of the bridge and the archers in the trees flashing through his mind. "Lincoln set a meeting with a unit leader. Anya. We went there looking for a way to share the land." He stepped closer to Kane, "But you can't have a meeting when one side views the other as a virus. It didn't go as expected"
———
Jason had just finished recounting all that had lead to the slaughter they called a battle a few days ago and how it all went bad and terrible without them being able to do anything about it. Then the makeshift door slid open.
Abby stepped in, flanked by Mr. Miller. Her eyes darted between Jason's hard expression and Bellamy's defensive stance in the corner.
"We have to stop this for now, Marcus," Abby said, her voice strained. "We have more coming in from the perimeter, and we need to consult on the station's remaining power grid."
Kane stood, adjusting his jacket. He looked at Jason, his eyes searching for a weakness he couldn't find. "I asked Bellamy this, and now I'm asking you. Why didn't you go back into the dropship to retrieve more ammunition before the final push? We found barrels of usable rounds in the wreckage."
Jason didn't blink. "We didn't know the barrels were usable. We were busy trying to prevent a hundred kids from being slaughtered. Our intel was limited, and our time was zero. You want to armchair-quarterback a war you weren't here for? Be my guest."
Kane's looked at him for a while before sighing, "We aren't done. Stay here. I'll be back."
He gestured to Abby and Mr. Miller. As they filtered out, two armed guards stepped into the room, their rifles held at low-ready.
For a moment, the room was silent. Jason moved from the edge he leaned on, he looked at Bellamy, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
"I need to pee," Jason said suddenly.
The guard on the left stepped forward, raising a hand. "Sit down, kid. You wait for the Chancellor."
"Nature doesn't wait for Chancellors," Jason said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low register. He took a step forward.
"I said sit—"
The guard never finished the sentence. In a blur of movement, Jason moved. He didn't strike to kill; he moved with the speed of a super soldier. He grabbed the barrel of the guard's rifle, wrenching it upward while his other hand delivered a sharp, pinpoint strike to the man's carotid artery.
As the first guard slumped, Jason spun. The second guard tried to raise his weapon, but Jason was already inside his guard. He swept the man's legs and caught him before he hit the floor, he punched the side of the guards head.
Silence returned to the room. Two guards lay unconscious on the floor.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Bellamy muttered, exhaling a breath he'd been holding.
"Just help me strip them," Jason said, already unbuckling the guards' tactical vests. "We need the sidearms and the vests."
They immediately moved carefully through the back, "You think we can make it past the perimeter?" Bellamy asked, checking the magazine of a stolen pistol.
"We definitely need to Bellamy and yes, we just need to avoid all the guards."
As they rounded the corner of the Mecha Station's remains, they saw Kane and Abby standing by a medical tent fifty yards away. Jason froze, Abby looked up. Her eyes locked onto Jason's. He waited for the shout, for the guards to swarm. Instead, Abby looked at the forest, then back at Jason. She gave a single, slow nod, a silent blessing and turned her back, walking into the tent with Kane.
"What the hell was that?" Bellamy whispered.
"That," Jason said, stunned, "was a mother who wants her daughter back."
Ten minutes later, they melted into the thick treeline. Waiting for them in a small hollow were Raven, Finn, and Murphy.
Murphy looked surprisingly well-armed. He held out an assault rifle toward Bellamy. "Courtesy of Miller's dad," Murphy said with a lopsided grin. "The old man wants his son back. He knows Kane is too busy playing 'Chancellor' to actually do it."
"Abby talked to us," Raven added, her face set in a grim line. "She said she had to play along with Kane to keep him calm, but she believes you, Jason. She knows Clarke is out there. She's giving us a head start."
"Finally, some common sense," Jason grunted.
Suddenly, Jason's head snapped to the left. His pupils dilated, his super-soldier senses screaming. "Down! Now!"
The group hit the dirt, "Grounders?" Raven whispered, her hand trembling on her gun.
"I don't know," Jason hissed.
BOOM.
A gunshot echoed from the direction of the Ark camp, followed by muffled shouts.
"Shit, what the fuck was that?" Finn hissed.
Jason didn't answer. He saw a flash of movement in the brush, a shadow that didn't move like a Grounder but he couldn't see the face properly, he threw the knife he'd gotten from one of the guard without using excessive force. A high-pitched scream of agony tore through the trees.
"What now?" Bellamy asked, jumping to his feet.
They rushed to the spot where Jason had thrown the blade. The brush was trampled. On the ground was a streak of bright, oxygenated blood. Jason knelt, touching the red stain.
"Someone was watching us," Jason said, his voice cold as ice. "It doesn't look like it was a Grounder. The blood is too clean."
"The Mountain Men you mentioned?" Finn breathed.
"Yeah," Jason said, standing up and looking into the forest. "My throw hit one, and the other must have taken damage from the shot we heard. They're bleeding, fast, but they're hurt."
He looked at the trail of blood snaking deeper into the woods, "We follow the trail and track them back to the Mountain or wherever the hell out people are being held."