It was a bit stressful, strolling through the halls in their shabby guard uniforms.
After all, they were wearing them over their clothes, and they all stood out quite a lot.
Thankfully, when they did run into a pair of guards dashing through the hallway, their eyes skipped over them, and he let out a sigh of relief.
As the two guards passed them by, Thalia whistled and carefully reached out, lifting a wallet off one of them.
She made it look so easy.
Astra stared at her in disbelief.
“What?” She blinked innocently when she caught him staring, and slipped out a few coins before tossing the wallet behind her.
He just shook his head.
“Relax, you don’t need to be so worried.
If it continues like this, then we’ll make it to the top in no time.” She leans an arm around his shoulder.
He shoves her off.
Why is she such a touchy person?
“Don’t jinx us!” Rubio hisses.
Damn, we’re screwed.
Despite his pessimistic thoughts, things go relatively smoothly.
They actually manage to reach the next floor, and then the one after that as well.
The guards grew more panicked as time went on, leading to them being largely ignored by the hurried guards.
You know what, they were actually doing it; maybe they could make it out with no issue.
“See!
I told you, we didn’t have anything to worry about.” Thalia grinned smugly.
“Again, would you stop saying stuff like that?
You’re going to jinx us.” Rubio glanced around warily, waiting for something to jump out.
“You superstitious or something?” She teases.
“No, I just have common sense.” He shoots back.
“Rubio’s right; superstition can take you a long way in this World,” Astra states.
“Whatever, you two are just too sensitive.
Let’s go; I can see the last staircase just ahead.” Thalia perks up and walks a little faster, forcing both Rubio and Astra to catch up.
Thalia pauses at the top of the staircase, and Astra runs smack into her.
He clutches his nose and tries to glare at her when he notices her pale face and the crowd surrounding them.
Uh, oh
“Heeeey, fellas.
What are all you fellow guards doing standing around the staircase like that?
Shouldn’t we be catching the prisoners?” Her acting is bad.
Painfully bad.
“I thought you said you were a thief?
Shouldn’t you be good at talking yourself out of situations like this?” He hisses into her ear.
“I don’t know!?
I’m usually better than this; I’m having an off day today.” She explains, blushing green.
“Ya see, we noticed that we hadn’t seen you lot for quite a while.
And ya stole my key to get through the barriers.
So, we deduced you must be diguisin’ yerselves somehow and that all we ‘ad to do was wait here.
Ya’d come crawlin’ in eventually.” Clevus, the Head Guard, grins.
“…” All three of them were silent.
“Just hand yourselves over quietly, and maybe you won’t get punished for this.” The guard who Thalia tried to flirt with earlier stepped forward, a cruel smile on her face that gave Astra shivers.
“No can do, ma’am; we want out.” Thalia winked, and Astra could see her forcibly relaxing her body.
“The hard way it is then.” She grins, pulling out her baton.
How were they going to make it out of this?
Rubio didn’t want to be in prison, obviously.
Who would actually want to be in prison in the first place?
But it didn’t matter what he wanted; he was stuck.
For a fleeting moment, he even worried that he’d never be able to get out, but he shook it away.
No, he shouldn’t think about that; he should be planning.
But of course, planning didn’t mean anything when he lacked the strength or wit to figure a way out of this damn prison.
That’s when his ticket out of here walked in.
She was confident and already spouting out plans on how to get out of there.
While they weren’t perfect, they were at least something.
Better than he had come up with.
Of course, there were a few hiccups along the way, namely getting his leg slashed open.
He could only hope it wouldn’t leave another scar.
Then there was the time he tripped; no, that’s not right, something tripped him.
He refuses to believe he’s just clumsy.
But now, looking at all these guards, his blood freezes.
Because this is it, this is the end of the road.
If he doesn’t escape here, he’ll never be able to get out, never be able to continue looking for-!
No, no, calm down, he can do this.
It’s just a mob of guards; how bad could it be?
Think positive, think positive.
“Crap!
Okay, me and Feathers over here will hold ’em off; you go figure out our way out of here.” Thalia roughly grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth.
Then, she turns back toward the guards, fists raised.
“Why do you have to rope me into this?
Damnit!” Astra curses, but he lowers himself into a defensive position anyway.
“Get them!” One of the guards calls out, and then it’s chaos.
Thalia leaps forward and punches a guard; Rubio ducks down as they go flying over his head and into the bars of a cell, denting them slightly.
He scrambles across the ground, dodging kicking feet, batons, and hands as they reach for him.
A breeze almost knocks his hat off, and he stares up to see Astra’s talons flying around, tossing the guards encircling him away.
When he finally slips out of the chaos, he’s met with three guards blocking his path, batons raised.
“Please back off, I don’t want to hurt you.” He says nervously, putting his hands up in a calming gesture.
“Neither do we, so why don’t you just stay put and we’ll bring you back to your cell?” The middle guard steps forward, moving slowly, like he’s some kind of wild animal.
His hand goes to his pocket, unconsciously thumbing the item that usually rests there.
It was a small copper coin.
Plain and bland in design, a bit faded in fact from years of brushing against it to calm down.
The guards took it when he arrived here, but they weren’t paying much attention, so he was able to swipe it back.
He brings it out of his pocket now, studying the coin as he flips it into the air.
It twirls in place and drops.
As he caught it, the coin glows and extends into a long, heavy rapier.
The handle was red and gold with an odd trigger-like handle.
Rubio grasped it uncertainly in his hand.
He didn’t like using the weapon much, and he wasn’t very practiced with it, but it would have to do.
The guards stared at the weapon, their eyes widening in fear.
“Should we really fight him?
I mean he’s…” The guard in the back cuts herself off, glancing sharply at him.
“They didn’t say he was much trouble when they brought him, but who knows if he was just faking being pathetic.
Keep your guard up.” The other one hisses back.
The guard in the middle takes a battle-ready position, ignoring his talking colleagues.
Rubio didn’t want to fight.
He was truly awful at it, but everyone expected him to be at the very least a decent fighter, if not one of the best the World’s ever seen.
His reputation gives him some benefits.
Like the fear most people have at his name, letting him pass through without a fight.
But more often than not, it led to scars.
Still, he held the rapier outstretched.
The first guard ran toward him; he dodged clumsily to the left, almost tripping over his own feet.
His right foot kicked out, trying to regain balance, and ended up in front of the guard.
He tripped over it, going face-first into the ground.
Without waiting for him to recover, Rubio smacks him over the head with the rapier, and the guard goes limp.
The other two freeze when he looks at them, but gather their courage and jump toward him at the same time.
He’s barely able to block their strikes, his hand shaking at the weight of the rapier and their blows.
One of the guards tries to sneak around his side; he elbows where he thinks she is and is lucky enough to hit.
He waves the rapier around in a circle, hitting her in the stomach, and she goes collapsing to the ground, groaning as her arms curl around her middle.
While he’s distracted by that, the last guard hits him in the back with her baton.
His rapier clatters to the floor, and he follows it soon after.
He flips around, but the guard already has him in a chokehold.
“Ghh…hk!” Spit dribbles down his mouth as his hands scrabble on her arm.
He can hear her counting, whispering it to herself as his vision goes spotty.
He reaches for the rapier, but she kicks it away.
Logically, he knows that she’s just going to choke him til he passes out.
He’ll wake up back in his cell, or maybe solitary confinement.
Maybe he’ll have a bruise for a few days or a sore throat, but besides that, he’ll be fine.
But for some reason, he’s convinced he’s going to die.
He continues to kick, scratch, grab at anything that could help him.
His hand closes around the boot of the guard he hit in the stomach.
He rips it off and smacks the guard who’s choking him in the face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times, and she lets go.
He crawls away, breath heaving, blinking the spots out of his eyes.
Grabbing his rapier, he smacks her in the face with it.
Her head cracks to the side, and she passes out, but she’s not dead, thankfully.
He’d feel a bit bad.
She was just doing her job, after all.
Patting himself down to clear off the dust, he glanced back at the chaos behind him.
Thalia and Astra were still going strong, but there seemed to be an endless stream of guards.
He didn’t know how much longer they were going to last.
“Hey!
There’s one over here!”
Crap!