He adjusted the heavy sword in his grip, watching her with an amused, predatory glint in his eyes. To Jason, the fire in her gaze wasn't a threat; it was a flickering candle he could snuff out with a single breath.
Anya lunged. She moved with the desperate speed of a cornered wolf, but Jason was playing a different game. As she swung, he stepped effortlessly into her blind spot, catching her across the ribs with the flat side of his blade. The smack echoed through the tunnel. She spun and struck again, only to be met with another stinging slap of steel against her shoulder.
Clarke and Octavia watched from the side, frozen. Clarke knew Anya was a legendary warrior, the leader of an army but against Jason, she looked like a novice. He was toying with her. Every move he made was a masterclass in precision and power, completely outclassing her. He moved with a mechanical complexity that was impossible to predict, parrying her strikes with insulting ease and returning blows that were meant only to humiliate.
Finally, Jason grew bored. As Anya pivoted for a final, desperate strike, Jason's hand blurred forward. He caught her mid-swing by the throat, his fingers clamping like iron bands, and hoisted her off the ground until her foot kicked uselessly in the air.
"Hey, stop!" Clarke shouted, her voice echoing desperately off the walls.
Jason didn't look away from Anya's reddening face. "And why should I stop?" He tightened his grip, watching her struggle for air.
"Please, Jason! Don't kill her!" Clarke begged.
Jason flicked his gaze toward Clarke, then back to Octavia, "Is she serious?"
Octavia crossed her arms, her expression cold. "Hey, don't ask me. If it were up to me, she'd be a rug by now."
"We might need her!" Clarke insisted, stepping closer.
"How the hell would we need her?" Jason countered, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "Unless she can lead us straight to her Supreme Commander, I don't see the use. I'm here to rescue my people, Clarke, not the ones who spent weeks trying to butcher us in our sleep."
Clarke continued to beg, her eyes pleading for mercy. Jason let out a long, frustrated sigh. With a flick of his wrist, he dropped Anya. She hit the ground in a heap, gasping for huge lungfuls of air and scrambling back toward the wall.
"I hope you're ready to take responsibility if she screws us over," Jason said, wiping his blade on his leg. "Because the rest of the people back at camp aren't going to treat her as kindly as she might hope."
He turned back to Clarke, his expression turning somber. "And to answer your question before I was rudely interrupted... the Ark is down. We're not alone anymore. The rest of our people are here, on Earth."
Clarke's eyes flew open at Jason's proclamation. She remembered the fire in the sky on the night of the battle, the massive, burning silhouette of the Ark station descending. If what Jason was saying was true, then…
"Is she..." Clarke started, her voice breaking.
"She helped us with the gear to come find you," Jason said simply, not needing the rest of the question. "Me, Bellamy, Raven, Finn... even Murphy."
Clarke nodded, tears blurring her vision. She had mourned her mother the moment the Exodus ship blew up, and now, to find out they were both standing on the same soil... it was almost too much to process.
Jason kept moving, his pace brisk and tactical. However, as they reached a jagged intersection in the tunnels, he stopped abruptly. He didn't turn around. "Why are you following us?"
Octavia and Clarke spun around, surprised to see Anya hovering in the shadows several yards back, her eyes wary and her posture hunched. Clarke opened her mouth to speak, but the words died in her throat.
A rhythmic echo of heavy, synchronized footsteps vibrated through the stone floor. A flicker of light began to wash over the damp walls from the passage behind them. They turned as one, weapons raised, expecting the grey, scarred skin of more Reapers.
Jason narrowed his eyes. "Shhh," he whispered to the group. "There's something odd about the light."
It wasn't the dancing, flickering orange of a primitive torch. It was a steady, blue-white light
Three figures rounded the corner. They wore heavy, olive-drab body coveralls and specialized helmets with breathing apparatuses that hissed with every intake of air. They carried high-tech tactical rifles with integrated lights and sights.
These weren't savages. These were soldiers.
The lights blinded the group instantly as the soldiers raised their rifles.
"Mountain Men…" Clarke breathed, her voice paralyzed by horror. She knew those uniforms. They had found her.
"Drop the weapons! Now!" one of the soldiers barked, his voice distorted through the mask's diaphragm.
Jason hissed a curse under his breath, he knew he was fast enough to disarm at least two and kill the third before they could fully react, but he wasn't alone. One stray bullet would catch Clarke or Octavia in this narrow corridor. He had no choice. He slowly lowered his blade to the ground, followed by Octavia and a reluctant Anya.
"Clarke Griffin, you're coming with us," the lead soldier spoke in perfect English.
Another soldier stepped forward, his rifle sight settled squarely on Jason's chest. "Who the hell are you?"
"Doesn't matter," the third soldier grunted, his finger tightening on his trigger. "Kill the extras and bring the girl."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Jason held up his hands, his face shifting into a mask of wide-eyed, desperate pleading. It was a performance so compelling it stopped the soldier's finger. "Please! We're part of the hundred! We're from the ship! We just want safety... we stumbled into this hole trying to hide from the monsters. Please, don't shoot!"
The soldiers shared a look through their tinted visors. The one in charge lowered his muzzle slightly. "Secure them. They might be useful for the harvest. Move!"
Two soldiers moved in, roughly turning them around and cinching heavy plastic zip-ties around their wrists. One soldier kept his rifle pressed against the back of Jason's head. "No sudden movements, or I'll paint this tunnel with your brains."
Jason let out a shaky, nervous laugh that sounded perfectly genuine. "Hey, easy there. You guys are the ones with the big guns. You should worry about yourselves; I'm as harmless as a baby."
As the armored soldiers prodded them through the damp, winding corridors, Jason didn't stay quiet. He looked around with feigned awe, his eyes wide and curious. "Man, you guys really must've tried your best to survive this long down here," he remarked, his voice echoing off the stone. "High-tech gear, masks... it's like a sci-fi movie."
"Stop talking," the lead soldier barked, the mechanical diaphragm of his mask making him sound like a monster.
"Oh, my bad," Jason said with a shrug, though he didn't stop for more than a second. "I just wondered, how come you guys never thought of communicating with the Ark? We were right up there the whole time. A simple radio wave would've done it."
"Radiation," the soldier snapped. "The interference makes long-range comms impossible. Now move."
As they reached a junction, Jason's eyes caught a faint, natural glimmer. Anya was staring at a distant crack in the rock where true illumination, the warm, yellow glow of the sun was filtering into the dark. Jason's expression uplifted, but he kept his "annoying survivor" persona dialed up to distract them.
"I saw everything!" Clarke suddenly shouted, her voice trembling with a defiant rage. "I saw the cages! I know what you're doing to the Grounders!"
The lead soldier stopped and turned his visor toward her. "Which is why you're going into the harvest chamber with them. You're too dangerous to be a guest, Clarke."
Clarke went deathly pale. The image of herself hanging upside down, a tube in her neck, drained of life while her friends watched, filled her mind with absolute dread. Beside her, Anya let out a low, feral growl.
"We are not your livestock, Mountain-eater," Anya hissed, her eyes burning.
"Uhh, come again?" Jason asked, tilting his head pretending not to understand what was said, "Harvesting blood? Like... vampires?"
"They drain the life out of us to heal themselves, Jason," Octavia spat, her eyes darting between the rifles. "They're monsters."
The leader shrugged, the movement eerie in his thick suit. "It's just survival. The Earth belongs to those who can live on it. Give up, Clarke. You have nowhere left to go."
Jason let out a long, theatrical sigh. "Yeah, see, that's where you're wrong. Uhh, if it's all good with you guys, I do hope you don't mind if we take our exits from here?"
The soldier next to him growled, swinging the butt of his rifle toward Jason's head to shut him up.
It was the mistake Jason was waiting for.
In a blur of motion, Jason spun, he flowed into the soldier's space, his hands moving with and reached for his own sword, which the soldier had foolishly tucked into his own belt. Jason drew the blade in a lightning-fast arc, spinning 360 degrees and catching the second soldier across the wrists. The man's hands, still clutching his rifle, were severed instantly.
Before the lead soldier could even process the spray of blood, Jason threw the sword downward. It landed perfectly at Octavia's feet. She didn't hesitate; she used the razor-sharp edge to slice through her zip-ties, scooped up the blade, and drove it through the chest of the screaming, handless soldier.
Simultaneously, Anya exploded into motion. She lunged at the lead soldier before he could raise his weapon, her fingers clawing at his mask. She slammed him against the wall, snapping his neck with a brutal, sickening twist before he could get a shot off.
Jason grabbed the rifle from the first soldier he'd disarmed, spun, and put a single round through the chest of the remaining guard.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the hiss of the soldiers' breached oxygen tanks.
"Well," Jason said, his voice returning to its normal, cool tone. "I'm pretty sure a lot of people heard that shit. We gotta run."
He snatched a tactical flashlight from one of the fallen men, the powerful beam cutting through the gloom. "Go! Move!"
They sprinted and didn't look back as they scrambled up the rising incline toward the light. The tunnel narrowed, the air grew sweeter, and suddenly, they burst through a screen of thick vines and onto a rocky ledge.
Clarke collapsed onto the mossy ground. She lay there, her chest heaving, breathing in the sweet, fresh air of the forest. The sunlight hit her face and it felt warm, real, and glorious. Beside her, Octavia and Anya crashed down, their lungs burning from the dash.
Clarke allowed a genuine, joyful smile to break across her face. She had survived the tunnels. She had escaped the sterile prison of Mount Weather. She was finally, truly, free.