Jason strode into the central square of Tondc. Octavia and Indra had left a few hours prior to him and had arrived long before he did. He moved with a fluid posture and entirely at ease. He directed his steps toward the command space where Lexa stood over a map, surrounded by her top generals.
"Well, look at this lovely gathering," Jason called out smoothly, drawing the immediate, sharp gazes of the generals. He stopped near Lexa with a lazy, amused smirk playing on his lips. "You know, word from the ridge is that the Mountain Men have officially moved us to the absolute top of their kill list. It's quite flattering, really. I've always enjoyed being a priority." He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms. "Tell me, Commander... how are the preparations coming along on your side of the woods?"
Lexa turned her head slowly as her piercing green eyes scanned his relaxed posture. There wasn't a single trace of worry, tension, or hesitation in the boy standing before her.
"My warriors are ready," Lexa stated with her voice carrying the quiet weight of absolute authority as she gestured toward the armed ranks gathering all around the village. "They wait only for the signal. What remains is for your people to hold up their end of this bargain. We require the fog to fall if we are to claim a swift victory."
Jason's smile widened with a soft, confident hum escaping his throat. "Oh, I wouldn't worry your pretty head about that, Lexa. Bellamy is currently wandering their corridors as we speak, and he's remarkably good at not dying when it matters. But that's not all. Our brilliant engineers are also finalizing a little device to completely neutralize and destabilize the Reapers. We are systematically stripping away every single toy the Mountain relies on."
Lexa stared at him for a long beat before giving a single, tight nod to her generals, dismissing them. As the men filed out of the room, she began to walk down the main path of the village, gesturing for him to accompany her. Jason fell into step beside her, his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
"I heard about the prisoners," Lexa said quietly as they passed a group of warriors applying war paint. "The one you executed in the open air, and the captain you broke and released."
Jason let out a soft chuckle as his cadence shifted into a more playful one. "Ah, the gossip in this coalition travels faster than a speeding arrow. Frankly, my dear Commander, they weren't being terribly cooperative. One had a thoroughly unappealing attitude, and the other needed a slightly violent nudge to ensure he ran all the way home to deliver our little warning."
"Indra told me you spoke to the one you executed before you stripped him of his armor," Lexa continued, her pace steady as they reached the quiet, isolated outskirts of the village, where the trees began to swallow the firelight. She stopped, turning her full, unyielding gaze toward him. "Tell me... what exactly did he tell you?"
Jason stopped as well, tilting his head with a sharp, curious glint in his eyes. He looked at her, his smirk turning thoroughly enigmatic. "And what makes you think I got anything out of him at all? Perhaps I was just indulging a sudden, dark whim."
Lexa didn't look away from the boy. Her expression remained completely unreadable, carrying a sharp, profound clarity that the frantic leaders of the Ark entirely lacked.
"Because you do not strike me as a fool who wastes his time on meaningless cruelty, Jason," Lexa said, her voice dropping into a low, absolute certainty. "The leaders of the Sky People are blind; they see your bloodstained hands and look away in horror, assuming you are merely a monster throwing a tantrum. But I see you. You kept that sniper alive in a locked room for hours before you brought him out to die. You dismantled him. So tell me... what secret did he trade to buy those extra hours of breath?"
The shadows of the treeline crept over them, swallowing the faint amber glow of the village fires. For a long, heavy moment, Jason remained completely silent. He stared into the dark expanse of the woods with an unreadable face. As she looked at him, she could see how his posture was so perfectly still he might have been a statue carved from the mountain itself.
"You know, Lexa," Jason began, his voice dropping into a quiet cadence. "I spent a great deal of time in the ark when I was a kid pondering the nature of humanity. Across every era, through every ruin, humans possess an undeniable, almost magnificent talent for destruction. Their desperate need for control, their insatiable greed, and that frantic, ugly panic they call 'survival', it always drives them to the exact same place."
He let out a soft, humorless chuckle, turning a leaf over in his fingers. "They have always had a talent for causing pain more than anything else. They excel at it."
Lexa's eyes narrowed, her patience wearing thin beneath her stoic facade. "What is your point, Jason? We are on the precipice of a war. Speak clearly."
Jason looked around the woods, his eyes tracking the canopy, the ridges, and the empty sky above before fixing back on her. "My point, dear Commander, is that humans always crave ways to be the biggest, the baddest, and the most powerful creatures in the room. When their bodies fail them, they build things to give them that feeling. They build gods out of steel and fire."
He took a slow step closer, the playful glint in his eyes completely vanishing, replaced by a cold, suffocating seriousness. "The sniper I dismantled... he wasn't just a soldier. He was also a spotter. What I learned from him before he lost his mind to the pain is that we are being watched. Right now. They have thermal imaging, satellite relays, and scouts on every high ridge. They know every single piece of dirt we are moving. They know exactly what we are doing, even as we stand here."
A rare, sharp jolt of shock rippled through Lexa's expression. Her posture stiffened. "If they know that... then they know of this meeting. They know the leadership of the coalition is gathered in Tondc."
Jason nodded slowly, his smile returning like a phantom. "Precisely."
"If they are aware..." Lexa paused, her mind rapidly calculating the tactical nightmare. "Then they will try to stop this alliance. They will eliminate us all at once." She gripped the hilt of her sword, her gaze darting to the sky. "But even if they know our location, how in the hell are they going to eliminate an entire village from inside their walls? Their soldiers cannot breach our perimeter without being slaughtered."
Jason let out a long, slow sigh. His eyes drifted past Lexa's shoulder, spotting Marcus Kane as the older man walked into the village square from the northern path. Kane caught Jason's eye and offered a stiff, formal nod of acknowledgment.
Jason nodded back, his mind ticking away like a clock. 'That's four,' he thought. He turned his attention back to Lexa, intentionally dragging out the silence to let the dread settle into the air. "Which brings me to the second piece of information I extracted from our leaking friend. You see, they don't need soldiers to cross the woods, Lexa. Because deep inside that mountain, resting in a silo built by the old world... They have a bomb. A missile. A relic of the apocalypse left over from the men who burned the earth the first time."
The words hung in the freezing air between them. Lexa's breathing hitched, the absolute gravity of the threat settling over her like a physical weight.
Jason tilted his head, leaning in to whisper with a devious, chilling clarity. "If you were Cage Wallace who is their current acting president... if you were an insecure boy suddenly handed the keys to a kingdom, and you had a weapon that could wipe out your entire opposition with the push of a single button... what way would be best to take care of multiple threats all at once?"
Lexa's voice was barely a whisper, her skin turning pale beneath her war paint. "They are going to strike at us. They are going to drop the bomb on Tondc."
"Precisely what I am thinking," Jason said smoothly, straightening his jacket. He looked across the square, watching Octavia frowning at something Indra had said near the weapons rack. He looked back at Lexa, his expression entirely unbothered by the impending catastrophe. "Clarke will be here soon enough. I suggest you don't tell a single soul just yet until she arrives. The camp will panic, and panic ruins the choreography."
Lexa stared at him, her chest heaving as she tried to process his terrifying calm. "Where are you going?"
"When Clarke arrives, gather her, Kane, Indra, and Octavia in the command tent," Jason said, ignoring her question entirely as he turned on his heel. He didn't offer an explanation, a plan, or a reassurance. He simply stepped into the shadows of the outer path and vanished into the green, leaving the Commander of the Grounders alone with the terrifying sound of the ticking clock.
———
Clarke rushed past the outer perimeter guards, her boots kicking up dust as she moved into the village with haste. Her breath was short and her expression was tightly wound with an urgency she could barely contain.
As she neared the central square, a tall Grounder warrior stepped into her path, his hand resting on his blade. "The Commander wants to see you. Now."
Clarke stopped, her eyes scanning the gathered forces in the village. "Where is Jason? I need to speak with him first. It's urgent."
"He left a while ago," the warrior replied flatly, his unyielding gaze boring into hers. "This cannot wait. The Commander requires your presence immediately."
Clarke bit her lip as a heavy knot of dread tightened in her stomach. She gave a single, tense nod. "Fine. Lead the way."
She followed the warrior through the bustling camp to the large command room. The moment she stepped through the door, she stopped. The atmosphere inside was suffocatingly tense. Gathered around the central war table were Kane, Indra, Lexa, and Octavia. They were all standing in absolute, loaded silence, clearly waiting for her or… Jason?
Octavia immediately got up from her seat and walked over to her. "Clarke, you made it." But the moment she caught sight of the rigid, pale expression on Clarke's face, Octavia's brow furrowed. "What's wrong?"
Clarke forced her expression to go blank, shaking her head. "Nothing."
Octavia narrowed her eyes, clearly not believing her for a second, but she let it slide for the moment. "Is Bellamy ready? Did he get the acid fog down?"
Clarke shook her head subtly. "He's working on it." She looked past Octavia at the rest of the room, her voice rising with a defensive edge. "What's going on here? Why is everyone gathered like this?"
"We're discussing the best strategy to use moving forward," Kane spoke up, his brows were furrowed with deep anxiety. "Lexa brought us in here to discuss alternative options if the acid fog can't be brought down in time."
Clarke's heart did a violent flip. Alternative options? She stared at Lexa with her mind racing at the new development. She opened her mouth to speak, to demand what Jason had told the Commander, but Lexa cut her off before she could utter a word.
"Clarke of the Sky People has honored us with her presence," Lexa stated calmly, her green eyes fixed on Clarke with a sharp, hidden intensity that no one else in the room seemed to notice.
Clarke forced herself to take a breath, stepping up to the edge of the map. "I'm sorry I'm late, Commander."
"You made good time," Kane noted, though he still looked incredibly uneasy. He glanced between Lexa and Clarke, gesturing toward the table. "I assume you have updates, but... what alternatives do we actually have if the fog remains a barrier? We can't just march an army into a chemical wall."
Lexa said absolutely nothing. She merely stood perfectly rigid, her hands clasped behind her back, watching Clarke with a calculated stillness that made the hair on the back of Clarke's neck stand up.
The silence stretched too long, confusing Kane. He shifted his weight, clearing his throat before looking back at Clarke. "Are the kids at Mount Weather still okay?"
"For now," Clarke managed to say, her voice tight.
She couldn't do this with an audience. She could feel the crushing weight of whatever Lexa was keeping under wraps, and she needed the truth without Kane or Octavia panicking the entire camp. Clarke turned her gaze away from Kane, looking directly at Indra, then Octavia, before finally locking eyes with the Commander.
"Can we talk in private?"
Immediately after she said that, the door to the room of the command space parted with a sudden, violent snap. Jason strode back into the room, but he wasn't alone. Slung carelessly over his right shoulder was a massive, dead-weight shape, wrapped tightly from head to toe in heavy, coarse clothing that completely obscured whatever or whoever was inside.
"Oh, marvelous," Jason said with his voice sounding suspiciously bright and entirely innocent as he adjusted his posture. "You're all here. Saves me the trouble of a second performance."
With a dull, heavy thud, he dumped the wrapped bundle onto the corner of the tactical table, knocking over a couple of wooden army markers. Lexa moved instantly, stepping up to stand directly beside him, her hand resting flat against her belt as her green eyes locked onto his face.
Jason leaned his palms against the edge of the map, looking around the circle of tense faces. "Now, before I begin, I must insist that everyone keep their collective panic strictly to a minimum. I know we're all under a bit of stress, but it turns out the neighbors inside that mountain have a rather spectacular flare for dramatics." He clicked his tongue as a lazy and his usual dark smirk played on his lips. "You see, I was doing a bit of light reading on old-world military tactics, and it made me realize... what goes tick-tick-boom and can turn this entire lovely village into a very neat, very permanent crater in about three seconds flat?"
Indra stepped forward, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword so tightly her knuckles cracked. "Spit it out, Sky-demon. What is this? What is going on?"
"We are standing in the crosshairs of a live missile, Indra," Jason said smoothly, the playful edge in his voice sharpening into something deadly serious. "The Mountain Men have a silo. And from what my short-lived sniper friend implied before he melted, Cage Wallace is currently calibrating the coordinates to wipe Tondc off the face of the earth."
"A missile?!" Kane shouted, his face instantly draining of color as he took a frantic step toward the table. "That's impossible! A ballistic strike would destroy the entire valley, the radiation—"
"They don't care about the radiation, Marcus!" Octavia cut him off, her voice rising with a raw, defensive fury. "They're already getting immune to everything else inside their little bunker with them stealing the very marrow from our friends! They want us gone!"
Indra's face contorted into a mask of pure rage as her voice boomed through the tent. "They would slaughter our families from behind their stone walls without the decency to face us themselves? Cowards! We will march on the mountain tonight and rip their throats out before they can touch their fires!"
"We can't march into a chemical fog, Indra!" Kane yelled back, the room dissolving into a powder keg of shouting.
Amidst the sudden explosion of outrage, Jason didn't blink. He kept his eyes locked firmly on Clarke, who had remained completely, hauntingly silent at the back of the room. He tilted his head, his smirk widening just a fraction.
"And from the looks of it... I'm right, aren't I, Clarke?" Jason asked quietly, his voice cutting through the noise.
The room fell dead silent. Everyone turned to look at Clarke. Clarke closed her eyes for a brief second, her chest heaving as she finally nodded. "Yes. He's right." She stepped up to the table, her hands were trembling as she admitted to it. "When Bellamy radioed in from the mountain... he overheard a conversation from the command center. Cage told Emerson that they are going to use a missile on Tondc to break the coalition before we can even reach the doors."
Jason let out a long, slow sigh, rolling his eyes as he leaned back against the table. "Well, damn. I was actually genuinely hoping I was wrong about that one. It's so exhausting being right all the time. It really takes the novelty out of the apocalypse."
"That's not all, Jason," Clarke said, her voice dropping into a tense, terrified whisper as she stared directly at him. "Emerson made it back to the mountain. He delivered the warning, but he also told Cage exactly what you did to his man. He told him that you are the most dangerous thing in this camp. He said as long as you are breathing, the Sky People have a weapon they can't predict."
Kane's brow furrowed as the grim understanding settled into his eyes. "They recognized him as a significant tactical threat. If they eliminate the strongest piece on our board, they break our morale."
"They also want to cripple the minds of my warriors," Lexa agreed with a flat and cold voice. "To see the strongest of the Sky Crew fall before the blow even lands... It is a classic strategy."
"They're not just going to rely on the bomb to take you out, Jason," Clarke pressed, her eyes wide with urgency. "Emerson knows how you fight now. Bellamy said Cage is already deploying an advanced strike team to the ridges surrounding Tondc. They're sending snipers specifically tasked to hunt you down before the strike."
Octavia let out a short, dismissive scoff, resting her hand on her sword. "Let them send them. Our scouts know these woods better than any bunker-dweller with a scope. We'll take care of them before they can even set up their nests."
"It's not just a standard patrol, Octavia," Clarke interrupted fiercely, her voice cracking. "Emerson took a full vanguard. They're deploying at least ten snipers. All overlapping fields of fire. All looking for one target."
Jason paused. The lazy smirk completely vanished from his face. He blinked, staring at Clarke for a long, silent beat as the math of ten high-caliber rifles trained on his head settled into his brain.
"Ten?" Jason muttered, his voice dropping into a dry, deeply annoyed register as he let out a sharp, bitter curse. "Well, isn't that just absolutely spectacular. Ten snipers. I mean, honestly, I knew I was charming, but a ten-man firing squad feels entirely like over-compensation. Did Carl really have to be such a sensitive little crybaby about his wrist?"
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