Young Writers Society

He would have to apologize for it later, but he couldn't risk Apophis messing up his makeshift plan. So he summoned a burst of strong air from within his essence, and aimed it right at her feet - hopefully sending her flying back. If it didn't do that, it would at least knock her to the ground without anyone being able to easily tell why.

And then he just had to wait for the blow to his face. He was good at replicating human injuries. And if the guard was as strong as he had seemed like when he had knocked Maahes to the ground, his face wasn't going to be looking all that good when the guard's weapon collided with it.

It caught her off-guard and she fell with a startled hiss.

The blow landed, and Kazimir yelled: "NO!" when he saw Leo's face get smashed in. He twisted his arms around and grabbed for the foot on his face, but his back only got knee'd back into the ground.

Just one more attack. That was all he needed. One more attack from the guard, and he knew his death would seem realistic. So he tried to give them a reason for it. He tried to get back onto his feet - which, despite the immense pain he was feeling, would have been quite the easy task - but, when he was supposedly unable to, tried grabbing onto the guard's leg in what he hoped appeared to be a poor attempt at an attack.

WHACK! Another blow to Leo’s face after a quick evasion of Leo’s weak attempt to fight back.

Kazimir couldn’t help himself. He twisted around underneath the guard’s foot in a fit of blinding rage. He grabbed the guard’s leg and tore them down the floor, then went straight for the guard who’d assaulted his friend.

But he was promptly reminded of his position when the cuffs that had been secured around his wrists sent an electric shock that coursed throughout his body like a web of pain through his veins. He shook and convulsed and fell to the floor again, this time, pacified for even a brief moment. The four armed guard lifted Maahes’s limp form off the ground with a sigh, butt his eyes met Kazimir’s.

“An example,” he said lowly.

Kazimir snarled as tear sprung up in his eyes.

“F*** You!” he cried.

He was grateful that he couldn't open his eyes. He didn't want to see how heartbroken and furious Kazimir must have been as he uttered those words, and how he must have been trying his very, very best to break free from his bonds so he could get to his limp body. He wished he could somehow let him know that he wasn't really dead, but it was impossible to without risking his entire plan falling apart.

So he let himself be carried through the halls, the four-armed guard taking very little care to ensure that the limp body in his arms didn't bump into walls and corners - and, in some cases, other prisoners - while bringing him to what he assumed was the final destination. He was shocked when he smelt just how terrible this final destination was, and it was only when he recognized the smell that he realized there was no proper place for the bodies of deceased prisoners.

He was in the room where they sent things out through the trash chutes.

He hadn't ever tested if he could survive in outer space, and he honestly didn't want to test it now. So he waited until he had been placed among a large thing of garbage that was going to be sent out through the chute, let some things cover his still limp body that were brought in by more guards over the course of the indeterminable amount of time, and then took his opportunity when they were just about to send the trash out into space.

He took on the smallest guise he could think of - a fly - and buzzed right into the first empty room he could find. Which was hard, considering that most of the empty rooms had cameras in them. But when he found an empty, unused room that had no cameras, he took on a much different guise. Several moments later, a young, human guard left the room, his dark brown hair thrown up in a neat ponytail as he began to search for where his friends had been taken to.

Kazimir could feel the bruises forming all over his body as he laid on the floor of his empty metal cell in solitary. Somewhere in the cell block, Rem was sitting a cell just like his own. Apophis was in the cell beside his. But Leo was somewhere in the bowels of the ship, dead, somewhere in the trash if his body wasn't thrown into the incinerator.

Kazimir let out a pained, mournful groan.

He hadn't let the guards take him without a fight, but now that he was by himself, staring at the blank white walls of the ceiling, he was afraid. Afraid that too much time alone would kill the fight in him and that he would never escape. Afraid that the prison of hell would keep him forever, continually robbing him of his friends and the people he cared about. Afraid that he would never see his son again... because he would never see Leo... again.

Kazimir lifted his hands up to his face and covered his eyes, not wanting to give whoever was behind the cameras watching him the pleasure of seeing him cry.

Apophis slammed into the cell door, eyes glowing brilliantly as she collided with the barrier again. She knew it was futile but this entrapment was unbearable. And somewhere, deep within her, there was something else - an unshakable terror that clutched her with paralyzing strength. Fear she wasn't supposed to feel. Fear that she was completely unaccustomed to.

She'd spent too long with a human.

It took a bit of searching, but Maahes managed to finally discover where his two friends had been taken to - solitary confinement. He should have guessed that they would be brought somewhere like that; both had tried to fight back, and he had been the example. There was no need to kill another one of their prisoners when said prisoners provided the hard labor needed to run the ship.

He had found the two in neighboring cells, but it was Kazimir's cell that he approached first. He was the one who was closest to the entrance of the cell block, and he was the one who Maahes needed to see most. He walked past the guards, giving them a slight nod of his head when they gave him one, and walked straight up to the cell.

He peeked in through the small slit in the doorway.

Kazimir was laying with his back on the floor, and with bruises beginning to surface on every bare inch of his body. Maahes' gaze lingered on the hands covering his face. Almost immediately, Maahes felt a pang of guilt. Kazimir was trying to hide that he was crying. He would have been doing quite the good job at it if it wasn't for the way his body shook ever so slightly with his tears - Maahes had become good at picking up on human body language after trying to pretend to be one for so long.

He turned one of the nearby guards. He had paid close attention to how the guards interacted in other parts of the prison, and knew exactly what he had to do to successfully break Apophis and Kazimir out. The guards didn't each carry their own set of keys - the ones stationed in the area had them, and the guards who needed to transport prisoners needed to get the keys from them if they wished to get them out of their cells.

It was time to rely on the personality he had concocted for his Scarlet Lord persona.

"I need those two-" He gestured behind him at Apophis and Kazimir's cells. "-to come with me."

The guard furrowed her brow. "I don't remember hearing anything about-"

"It was a new order," he interrupted.

The guard fell silent.

"I've been told to take them to the torture chamber," he oh-so-casually said, keeping his gaze steely and on his supposed fellow guard. There really was a torture chamber on this ship; he had seen it when he was on his way here, and had frequently heard other guards refer to it. "Solitary, apparently, isn't enough to properly drive the lesson home."

She started to dig through her pockets for her keys, though the keys weren't actually physical keys. They were a little device that transmitted a specific signal that could only unlock the doors in the cell block it was made for. While she was doing that, Maahes went to grab two pairs of cuffs from the table behind her - another thing he had seen the guards do.

She walked over to Kazimir's door first. "Good luck with them," she said, waiting for him to return with the cuffs before she unlocked the door. "They're a nasty pair - I heard they tried attacking Ex and Tare, and that this one right here did the majority of the attacking."

Kazimir stifled his crying when he heard the familiar sound of the cell door opening; the quiet release of air as the metal was pulled back into the wall. He quickly rubbed his face and eyes, trying not to look like he'd been crying his eyes out, but he knew his face was probably still red. As he got to his feet, he could feel a heated anger rose in his chest and he clenched his bruised and bloody fists at his side.

How dare they come visit him again so soon. His upper lip flinched when the guard entered the doorway, and he threw up a both hands, giving him the finger.

"F*** off!" he shouted.

Maahes didn't give Kazimir a verbal or physical response. He couldn't muster the strength to harm his friend - something that most of the guards would have likely done if they were the ones transporting Kazimir - so he had to settle with the next best thing: apathy. He just silently cuffed Kazimir, grabbed onto his arm and led him out of his cell with a rough tug.

The female guard mouthed the words "I'm sorry" at Maahes, then went to unlock Apophis' cell. Maahes wordlessly handed Kazimir off to the female guard as he went to get Apophis out of her cell.

Apophis, naturally, didn't recognize Maahes in his new form, and she had a bit more fight in her than Kazimir did. After all, she wasn't injured like her ally. When she heard them coming she went completely silent and slipped over to the wall nearest the door so that when it opened she'd be on the side of the guard.

The moment Maahes opened the cell she struck with that supernatural speed so similar to that of a snake's. She tackled him and her teeth elongated as she did so in preparation to bite.

Apophis may have had the element of surprise in addition to her supernatural speed, but Maahes had thousands upon thousands of years of experience on his side. She did manage to tackle him; that would have been impossible to avoid. But he managed to slip out from underneath her just before he would have been bitten, hopped back to his feet and promptly cuffed her arms together behind her.

She jerked away but wasn't fast enough. Being bound didn't deter her much, however, even if it did prevent her from being as physically capable of fighting. She struggled against him and tried to turn around to bite him.

Rolling his eyes at the attempt as he briefly glanced over in the direction of the guard, Maahes hoisted Apophis up to her feet and put enough distance between the part of her arm that he was grabbing onto and himself to prevent her from biting him.

Pulling Apophis along with him - he was much stronger than he appeared - he walked over to the guard holding onto Kazimir. The two sets of cuffs suddenly became linked together; he admittedly had been unaware that they could do that, but it would make keeping both them under control until he could explain who he was much easier.

"Good luck with bringing them to torture," the guard said with a nod of her head in his direction. "I don't envy you."

Oh, come on! If they hadn't already been furious at being transported so soon after he had been killed, they were going to be absolutely livid now that they had heard the supposed reason that they were being brought out of their cells.

He returned the guard's nod with a much more solemn one of his own, then started to lead the two out of the cell block.