“DRAKTHAR, GET HER OUT OF HERE!” Everyone in the square hears Xander yell as he watches his best friend carry Gwendolyn out of the city to safety. He watches intently until they are out of view, believing it is the last time he will ever lay eyes upon the two of them.

Xander hears Gwendolyn’s distant screams accompanied by the shouts from the knights chasing after them.

A few minutes later, a sense of relief washes over him as they report back, “They got away”.

Just as Xander cracks a smile at the news, a fist blindsides him out of nowhere.

“What the fuck? You can switch twice now?” Godric, the one who delivered the punch, asks him.

Xander spits a bit of blood that gathered in his mouth onto the cobblestone before answering, “What? You can’t?” Godric doesn’t take his jape lying down, swiftly delivering another tight fist to the opposite side of Xander’s face.

“You can’t mess with us anymore asshole, we won,” Godric is all too keen to inform him.

Xander looks from side to side mockingly, “I’m sorry? Did you catch the others?”

Godric strikes him a third time, the marks starting to show up on Xander’s boyish face.

“Stop hitting him Godric, the king wants him unharmed,” a man with a sour-looking face steps forward.

Xander might not remember Godric, but he does remember this man as Wulfric, the only man in the upper echelon of the Purity who could handle the Scientist’s technology.

“You heard Wulfric, wouldn’t want to ruin my pretty face for the king now would you?” Xander can’t help but joke. Godric looks like he wants to punch Xander again, but he follows orders and resists the urge.

“Good job luring him here, Juliana,” Wulfric compliments her as she approaches. She doesn’t acknowledge the praise; instead, she looks directly into Xander’s eyes, disappointment written all over her face.

“Sir, about the two that got away. One was a large man from the desert with scars all over his body, the second was a tall woman with long blonde hair,” one of the knights reports to Wulfric.

“Yes, we already know of the blonde one; her name is Gwendolyn. I’ll report the rest to the king,” Wulfric notes sternly.

“You, knock him out,” Wulfric tells one of the ones that’s been holding Xander.

Before he can even begin to resist, Xander feels a blunt force to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious.

Xander’s eyes flutter open to find the same man staring coldly into his eyes, “welcome home,” Wulfric tells him. Xander looks around, inspecting his new surroundings. Behind him is a cot against a wall, while before him is a separate room in which Wulfric stands, a transparent wall separating the two of them.

On the other side of the wall is a door that locks from the outside and is out of view from within the cell.

“Hope you enjoy the hospitality,” Wulfric quips before exiting through the door Xander cannot see.

He scans everything in the other room; there is not even a loose grain of concrete or a visible speck of dust to swap with. It must have been a lot of work to set this up.

Little do they know Xander no longer needs anything to switch with at the level of mastery he has over the technology. As soon as Wulfric exists the room he warps to the other side of the glass. He spots the locked door in the corner and swaps with it. The hinges it once hung on, cracked, the door now sitting in the middle of the room.

Xander walks confidently into the next room, where he is met by a group of men adorned in their white armor, their swords all pointed at him.

“You guys look friendly, what do you guys have out here?” Xander asks sarcastically as he spots the screens monitoring his cell on the far wall.

“Seems like a little much for one runaway priest, don’t you guys think?” He asks the ten panicked men in front of him.

“Calm down, you just watched what happened, he has no tricks left. Seize him,” Wulfric calmly orders.

“One trick left actually,” Xander smirks before reversing time, putting him back in his cell right after Wulfric leaves. He quickly comes to the conclusion that there is going to be no way out for him if he has to use two abilities to even leave this set of rooms.

He sits down and ponders his options. They haven’t killed him, so that’s a plus, but their security looks like it’s going to be tight. Why do they even need so much surveillance on a prisoner like him? He can’t come to any real conclusion on that.

He looks around his room once again, finding only the cot and mat on top of it.

“Nothing really to do here,” Xander thinks out loud. He’s never been one to waste time sitting around and now they’ve forced him into it… well maybe not.

Xander, contemplates what he can do to improve, deciding to get on the floor and start doing some push-ups before moving on to a full-on workout. If they are going to make him stay here he might as well train with what he can. A few hours in, while he is jogging around the perimeter of the room, a guard enters.

“Food is going to come in through there,” he points to the side of the room. Xander watches as a tray of food appears on the floor. Instead of responding, Xander immediately turns back time. He finds himself mid jog. He continues, making sure to do everything the exact same as before, only this time he counts within his head.

He gets to thirty before the same guard enters the room and tells him, “Food is going to come in through there”.

“Thanks,” Xander stops and focuses on the food. The guard leaves without another word.

Half a minute, Xander thinks to himself, that’s how long he can turn back time. He doesn’t yet know how, but that time is going to need to increase and now he has all the time in the world to figure out how to make it happen.

Xander’s days become very monotonous, waking up and working out. Eventually, he decides to put the mat on the floor so he could rip one of the legs off the cot in order to practice all the different sword techniques he’s picked up from Grayson, Sharn, and even Kali while using it.

Every time food enters the room, he turns back time, concentrating hard in the seconds before doing so. He uses the food as a marker to measure how far he went back.

In the first few days, it only seems to increase a few seconds, but after the first two weeks, it eclipses three whole minutes. Xander can only think to himself that he should have been doing this all along, his abilities sitting there like a muscle he hadn’t ever bothered to train.

The next day, while Xander is swinging around the cot leg; he gets a visitor for the first time since he’s been thrown in here. Juliana stands on the opposite side of the glass looking in on him.

Xander notices her enter but doesn’t acknowledge she is there. The moment where Juliana killed Gwendolyn before he turned back time, replays in his mind, causing the pace of his swings to quicken out of rage.

“Hey… Xander,” Juliana tries to get his attention, on the off chance he actually hasn’t noticed her.

“I’m sorry about all of this, I didn’t want it to end up like this,” she tries to apologize but is still ignored.

She continues to watch Xander refuse to acknowledge her presence; the constant movement has caused him to become covered in sweat.

The pleasant view in front of her causes Juliana’s face to turn beet red, “It looks like you have been busy in here… uh, I thought I would give you someone to talk to since you’ve been here by yourself for so long”.

Every time she talks, Xander’s anger grows more and more, knowing what this unsuspecting girl is capable of.

After a long silence, Juliana gets to what she wanted to tell him this entire time, “You know… if you had never left, none of this would have ever happened and we could have…”

Juliana stops, the sound of metal harshly colliding with the wall, ringing out across the room. The long rod that used to be the leg of the cot clatters to the ground after bouncing off of the wall to land in the center of the room.

Juliana’s eyes meet Xander’s, his fury towards her now apparent.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“You’re sorry? You’re not sorry, this is exactly what you wanted to happen!” Xander cuts her off, his voice getting louder with each word that leaves his mouth.

“Yes, I am sorry. I’m sorry that you had to leave all those years ago, but you’re the one that stole from the Scientist so…”

“You actually believe that? You are just naïve as ever, believing every little lie and following every order they give you,” Xander continues to berate her.

“Okay, maybe I don’t know what happened, but you didn’t have to leave. Whatever happened, it didn’t have to cause you to leave,” Juliana starts to stand up for herself.

“You know they tried to kill me, you were there that night!” Xander shouts, tearing the thin fabric of her delusions.

“I know, but you could have tried talking before you ran,” she notes, not actually believing that would have worked out for him.

“It doesn’t matter, all this talk of the past, it’s pointless... because I’m glad they drove me out, I’m glad my entire life was thrown away in an instant... because this new life that I have been living is better than it could have ever been over here. I’ve met many people since then, people that have become my friends, people I love,” Xander’s words bother Juliana more than he could ever know.

“You could have had that here, but you were always closed off,” Juliana pleads with him.

“I had to be like that, there is no way I could do what I had to do here if there were friends I would be betraying,” Xander thoughtlessly retorts.

“Betray us, how would you have betrayed us?” Juliana asks, confused as to what he is referring to, unaware of his initial plans to destroy the Purity from within. Xander turns away from her, not wanting to give up even any other specific information.

“Xander, what are you talking about?” Juliana tries to get him to respond. But all she gets is a view of his back as he sits facing the wall.

She finally gives up seeing the futility in her attempts to talk with him, “That’s right, you’ve ignored me your whole life, why did I think this time would be any different?” She storms out of the room.

Xander goes back to his routine, weeks of solitude become months. Being alone for such a long time causes Xander to question a lot of things, mostly stemming from his curiosity about what is occurring outside of this cell.

Despite the moments of doubt, feeling like all this effort is futile, Xander continues on. After the long months stuck inside the cell, the fruits of Xander’s labor are becoming more visible. Although he cannot get a good view of himself, he can see his outline in the transparent wall between the two rooms.

He notices how much broader his frame has gotten since he was brought here. He looks down at each of his outstretched arms; before he would have had to flex to get any sort of muscle definition to appear, but now it’s plain to see.

He pulls up his shirt and admires all the work he’s put in to get his torso to look that way. But Xander’s biggest accomplishment isn’t his body; it’s the degree to which he has honed his unique ability.

Since he’s been here he’s improved how much time he can reverse to half an hour, sixty times longer than when he entered. A few months back, he stopped trying to improve the length and started working on choosing exact times within those thirty minutes.

One of the days after he reverses time as his meal comes through the door, he gets a visitor for the first time in months. The grey hair and scowl of Wulfric are what Xander is met with as he digs into his food.

“I have news for you,” Wulfric bluntly informs him.

“Go ahead,” Xander replies, seemingly uninterested, but actually secretly eager to hear any little thing that is happening outside.

“The archbishop has been killed in his sleep and I am his replacement,” Wulfric states with unwavering emotions.

“I guess I should congratulate you… Did you come here to let me out since we are such good friends?” Xander quips, assuming Wulfric is now the one in charge of everything.

“I don’t have that power. I follow the king's orders, especially now that the people have been informed of the former’s passing,” Wulfric rejects his proposal.

Xander smirks, “Does that mean everyone knows how the former king was killed instead of being ill for all that time?”

“You are mistaken, the king was ill. It made him an easier target for the ruffians that killed the archbishop. That night they killed both of them, forcing the new king and myself into power,” Wulfric lies to him, knowing Xander already knows the truth.

“I see, you’re pinning it on whoever killed the archbishop instead of yourselves. Smart,” Xander compliments his subterfuge.

“Yes, and the people who killed the archbishop are now being hunted by everyone within the capital, everyone was devastated to learn of the king’s passing and demands those that ended his life be brought to justice,” Wulfric continues to explain the larger plan.

“So you know who did it?” Xander asks, assuming it was Drakthar, Gwendolyn, and the others.

“No, but it hardly matters, in the eyes of the people the perpetrators of this act are the ones you sought to protect in that plaza. The beguiling leader of a group of desert scoundrels called the Silent Brotherhood and an outcast of a group of mercenaries known as the Iron Legion. Along with their assumed accomplices, they are the ones that have killed both the archbishop and the king in the eyes of the people,” Wulfric takes the slightest amount of joy he will a lot himself in revealing their plots to Xander.

Xander, who has now finished his meal, stands up and starts to approach the wall separating them.

“Good, you wouldn’t have told me any of this to me if you caught them. It means they are still out there. Thanks, Wulfric, and you best stay on guard because the second they get me out of here I’m going to rip you and the rest of your herd of sheep apart,” Xander threatens, staring Wulfric straight in his cold dead grey eyes.

“Of course you will,” Wulfric dismissively responds, turning his back to Xander and exiting the room. Despite Wulfric’s attempt to make him feel threatened, Xander feels nothing but joy from their conversation. His friends are alive and they out there, raising hell for those that are holding him here.

Some morning in the coming weeks, Xander wakes up to someone standing in the adjacent room. Sharp blue piercing eyes are peering down at him as he stands up from the mat laid upon the floor.

Without a word, Xander stands opposite him on the other side of the wall. The man with long white hair and matching beard stares down at the mere child in comparison, his arms crossed, unimpressed by the product before him. The man’s gaze is almost creating a shadow that engulfs Xander entirely.

“I take it you know who I am?” The man speaks after the two have spent ample time sizing up each other Xander nods, not intimidated in the slightest by the giant before him.

“I know you as well, Xander, former priest of the Purity. Top of our ranks, most adept at using the technology that scientist developed for us. Before that, you were in the military; taken in after the one who raised you, Commander Waltz, passed. He found you on a routine patrol of the mountains during a sacking of your village… or so that’s what the soldiers of that unit were told,” Alexandros displays his vast knowledge of Xander’s past.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Xander asks through gritted teeth.

Alexandros completely ignores the question, continuing on with his set monologue, “Even if you know me, let me formally introduce myself. I am Alexandros Hilarion Athaulf, the king of the Sacrosanct Empire”.

“I didn’t ask for you name, I asked what did you mean it wasn’t a routine patrol?” Xander spits out at him, his words trembling with curiosity and anger.

“A routine patrol is what the soldiers were told, but really that was a lie. A few in the know were following my order to kill every last person in that village except for you,” Alexandros elucidates him.

“Why? Why only me?” Xander questions, now realizing the man who had his parents killed is staring him straight in the eyes.

Alexandros doesn’t break eye contact when he delivers the truth, “Your name, your real one, is Alexander Augustus Athaulf, and you are my grandson”.

Shock is not what overcomes Xander in this moment; instead it’s fury, rage towards a man who would kill his own family for any reason whatsoever.

“Why? Why would you kill your own son?” Xander’s anger starts to build, prompting the question whose answer might cause it to detonate.

Alexandros looks down with a confident ever so slight smirk as he delivers his reasoning; “Your father was a foolish man who abandoned his duties, instead choosing to flee with some whore from the mountains. But once my spies told me that they had a son, I knew there was still a way to find a suitable heir. I sent out my men to have you brought to me, but that crafty commander Waltz caught on, snatching you out from under their noses. I thought you died, but that fool who put all that garbage into my son’s head was just hiding you from me. I didn’t even know my own grandson was alive until the day you showed up at the church to become a priest. I recognized you instantly, those Athaulf eyes shining purple in the sunlight. When I tried to get close to you, my fool of a brother stopped me, he knew my plans the entire time and didn’t want me to groom you to become the king like I had always planned. I knew he had to be eliminated and then I could finally take you in like I always wanted, but that idiot scientist framed you, causing the church to overreact and drive you from the empire once again. But now I have you. Finally in this moment, we can begin what should have started many years ago. Become my successor, join me in my conquest of the world and continue the legacy of our family”.

Xander’s first response is denial, there is no way he could be the grandson of a man like him.

“You are crazy, I’m not your grandson, I don’t even have purple eyes, they’re blue,” Xander refutes his claims.

“Yes you do, just as mine are blue as I stand before you, but out in the sun they turn a shade of purple that marks our superiority over others. The sign that our blood is special and that we should be the ones to rule this world. I know you have felt it, the boundless ambition to achieve things others could only dream of. It’s your destiny to lead, to have everyone bow at your feet, just as it is my destiny and the destiny of my father before me. You are my grandson, so accept it and help me take what is rightfully ours,” Alexandros offers once again.

It takes a while for Xander to respond, not because he is trying to decide whether to accept the offer or not, but because he wants to determine the way he is supposed to react to this.

“You are kidding me, right? You just admitted to being the person who caused every single bit of suffering in my life, and you want me to help you? You called the Scientist an idiot, but damn, now I’m really glad he got me ran out of here, because that’s the only good thing that’s ever happened to me. You misunderstand the meaning of family, I have one, but it is not you,” Xander declines with conviction.

“So you do not currently wish to be king?” Alexandros asks to be sure, before changing his approach.

“No I’m good, go manipulate someone else,” Xander responds flippantly.

“If you do not wish to join me I will have to kill your new family in order to make you accept me as the only family you have left,” Alexandros threatens, knowing exactly what to target.

“You are unbelievable? You clearly haven’t learned anything, your solution now is the same as it was before, don’t you realize that will only make me hate you more? It’s so idiotic it’s laughable,” Xander starts to laugh uncontrollably.

The chuckling young man in front of him does not amuse Alexandros.

“We will see if you can still laugh when that pretty blonde-haired woman you fought so hard to protect is lying dead in front of you,” these words halt Xander’s laughs immediately bringing a harsh scowl to his face.

“Not so amusing anymore is it? What about Drakthar? Your little friend from the desert. When I find him and kill him I’ll send his freshly decapitated head to you right through that hole in the side of the wall where you get your food, just so you can see the light leave his eyes,” Alexandros adds, continuing to explain the cold reality of becoming his enemy.

“That will never happen, there is not a warrior alive who can match Drakthar,” Xander pushes back, thinking Drakthar could handle whatever Alexandros sends his way.

“I beg to differ,” Alexandros states confidently.

Xander watches for the first time as the door to his room slides open and Alexandros walks through and closes it behind him. Xander had noticed how large Alexandros was, but now that he is right in front of him he realizes exactly the degree of how built he is.

Before Xander can every blink Alexandros grabs him by the throat and slams him into the floor, an outline of broken concrete appearing where his body is now embedded into his cell.

Alexandros releases his grandson, allowing him to turn to his side as he coughs up blood. Thinking his point has been made he starts to exit the room. But instead, he stops in his tracks as he hears laughter mixed in with the sounds of blood being spewed.

Alexandros turns his head to see Xander cackling, blood covering his teeth all the way down to his chin.

Seeing he once again has Alexandros’s attention Xander starts to explain what he finds so funny, “I wonder how strong you really are. Let me ask you a question, what do you know about the Black Sun Empire?”

“You... what do you know about that?” Alexandros asks, not understanding how that empire is related to how strong Alexandros is.

“I know because I’ve fought against them,” Xander starts to explain, slowly peeling himself up from the floor.

“Fought against them? But how? They are not set to exist for another two years… You aren’t from the future are you?” Alexandros demands to know.

Xander explains what he means, “There is something about that future actually. You see the Black Sun Empire controls most of the Sacrosanct Empire’s territory, only the island settlement remains. I visited that settlement and found the same archbishop that died a few weeks ago in charge. So Alexandros, tell me again, about how strong of a warrior are you if two years from now you aren’t even alive?”

For the first time in their conversation, Alexandros’s unwavering expression changes, “It would seem I have underestimated you boy; I hope your friends have as strong a will as you if they wish to survive”. With that last warning, Alexandros leaves the cell.

Once the door is closed Xander wipes the blood from his face onto the sleeve of his shirt at his shoulder.

Once his face is clear, he punches the floor, causing some of the rubble created from his pummeling to jump into the air as he lets out, “DAMMIT!”

From outside, Alexandros and Wulfric watch his outburst.

“Break him, once there is nothing left I will make my offer once again,” Alexandros gives the order.

“Of course your majesty,” Wulfric nods as Alexandros leaves down the hall flanked by knights in white armor.

After a week of taking it easy, waiting for his injuries to heal, Xander gets back to his training, more intensified after coming face to face with exactly what he is up against. But he doesn’t have much time before four men enter the cell, sliding open the glass door and approaching, clubs in hand.

Xander warps past them, heading towards the door to the outside. It’s locked like always, he decides it’s worth it so he switches himself with the door and immediately starts to dart to the right in order to get away from the goon squad that surely was sent there to kill him after he refused Alexandros’s offer.

He collides with a couple of knights knocking them straight to the floor, the extra strength coming from the adrenaline coursing through his body. But there are too many and he is quickly stopped by a wall of soldiers. Xander barely has time to think before he is clubbed from behind and knocked unconscious.

The next time Xander awakens, he is strapped to a table.

“Look who decided to wake up,” one of the men comments as he notices Xander’s eyes open.

“Get it ready,” he calls out to another. Xander tries to look at what he is talking about, but his head is strapped down so all he can see is the ceiling.

The second man hands the first a knife that was held in the fire, it’s blade glowing red from the heat. The knife is pressed flat against Xander’s skin just above the right side of his pelvic bone. He starts to wince, not knowing what was coming. Once he gets used to the searing pain, he lets the twisted expression leave his face not wanting them to think they are getting to him.

“Tough guy aye? I’ve broken tougher,” the man notes as he digs the still searing knife into Xander’s skin. Blood pours from the wound for a mere second before the knife seals the wound it just created.

“Interesting how it works like that,” the man chuckles knowing Xander can’t see what they are doing below.

He digs the knife in one more time, this time driving it as deep as he can into an area right underneath Xander’s kidney; where he knows it won’t kill him. The pain at this moment is so intense that Xander can’t help but recoil as he hears the sizzling of his insides against the heat of the blade.

In this moment of utter agony, Xander desperately seeks refuge from the pain, and for a second he doesn’t feel the concentrated temperature of the blade. He realizes he doesn’t hear his skin sizzling either. He warps himself out of the table and finds that everyone and everything is frozen around him.

“What the fuck?” Xander questions out loud for a second before quickly grabbing the knife that used to be inside of him, just as time resumes. Without a second thought, he uses it to slice through the man’s throat, blood pours from the man’s neck as he collapses to the floor.

All of his men back up in fear, they try and run only to find out they are still locked inside just like Xander. Xander spots one of the clubs they used to wield in the corner, grabs it, and smashes one of them across the temple, killing him instantly.

Finally, the door opens, the others falling over each other fleeing the cell for their lives. Xander goes back towards the mat and sinks down onto it, trying to come to grips with the pain he still feels from those jabs. He looks down at the misshapen skin where the man inserted the knife.

Good thing that started working when it did, Xander thinks to himself about his ability to warp within his field of view, having tried it immediately when he woke up on the table. Although that other thing was new, what exactly was that? Xander starts to ponder while he is trying to get over the pain of his previous encounter.

The next day, Xander tries to replicate the feeling that caused everything to freeze, this time when his meals show up he would try to make everything stop just as it is being slid through the opening.

The first few days are unsuccessful, but finally, on the fifth, it stops. Xander smirks at his newfound ability to freeze time for what he gauges is probably ten or so seconds.

Another week goes by, but no new people come in to torture him, the previous effort being such a failure that no man wants the job. The next time the door opens Xander is against the wall, fully expecting some sort of repeat of his previous experience. Instead, he sees a tall woman with brown hair looking down at him.

“You’re new,” Xander comments once he sees her. He starts to get confused as the woman starts to cry.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” Xander starts to try and calm her down, not meaning to make her feel that way.

The woman slides the door open before removing a ring on her left hand. It is then that Xander realizes who it is; he gets to his feet and starts to rush towards Gwendolyn, tears starting to fill his own eyes.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” He hears her say as they embrace. Xander backs up, putting his hand on her face, checking if she is actually real and not one of the many dreams he has had of her while in this cell.

Once he confirms for himself that it really is Gwendolyn he tells her, “I won’t. I’ve missed you so much. I’ll never leave you again”. Gwendolyn pushes forward, not able to hold herself back from finally kissing him.

“You, you have muscles now,” Gwendolyn notes as she gets a better look at him once they part.

“Yeah, I’ve been training a lot since they stuck me here, I can do a lot of new things,” Xander scratches the back of his head as he starts to blush.

“That’s wonderful,” Gwendolyn wipes the tears from her eyes in order to get a better look at him. Xander notices a glint on her finger and notices the ring he gave her on that day around it.

“So, about what I asked you when I was captured… uh, what is your answer?” Xander asks, wanting her response. He holds his breath waiting for her to respond. He watches as her face turns from confusion to realization.

Instead of some heartfelt answer, he sees an angry face looking back at him.

“What a terrible way of proposing, doing it when you knew you were going to be captured,” she scolds him.

Xander is taken off guard by all of this, he rapidly tries to explain, “I thought I might never see you again. I thought I would show you how much you meant to me before they killed me. I thought I was as good as dead”.

A soft, “yes”, interrupts Xander’s babbling defense of his actions.

“What did you say?” Xander asks, having not heard her over himself.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” Gwendolyn tells him again with a cheerful smile.

Xander hugs her once again, “You don’t know how happy that makes me. First you saved me and now this… I’ve never been so lucky in my entire life”.

“Speaking of, why don’t we get you out of here,” Gwendolyn gets them back on focus.

The two of them exit the cell to see Kayde, Drakthar, and Kali watching on the monitors from outside. They turn around to see Xander how he is now, changed by all his time in the cell.

Drakthar grabs him by the arm and pulls him in for a hug, “It is good to see you again. I see you’ve become a man now”.

“I think I already was, but I think I know what you mean. It’s good to see you too, thanks for keeping her safe,” Xander tells him.

They back up and Drakthar declares what he has been meaning to since Xander was taken, “I want to fight you. Not now, but when this is all over”.

“I didn’t know I was on your list of people to challenge. Sure, I guess we can fight, but not to the death okay?” Xander agrees, under that stipulation.

“No promises,” Drakthar’s response causes everyone around them to laugh, except Gwendolyn; she starts to shudder at the idea.

“It’s good to see you,” Kayde is the next one to hug Xander.

“Yeah, glad to see all of you guys are okay… wait, where is Fore?” Xander asks, realizing that statement might not be true.

“He’s fine, back at the lab we are hiding out at, don’t worry about it, you’ll see it soon enough,” Kayde sets him at ease.

“Xander,” Kali nods towards him.

“Kali,” Xander nods back.

“Fine, screw it,” Kali pulls him in for a hug as well.

“I missed you too I guess, I didn’t think you would hold up that well being stuck in a cell for all that time,” she comments, noticing how he doesn’t seem too shaken.

“It had its moments,” Xander admits, thinking back on his conversation with Alexandros and encounter with the torturers.

“Yeah, great, okay now let’s get the hell out of here before someone comes to lock us all up,” Kayde suggests, starting to head down the tunnel. They escape silently into the safety of the woods, covered by the shroud of night.