Kane knelt in the churned mud, he reached down and rolled over the first Grounder body. The man's skull was a ruin of shattered bone and grey matter, fragments of the heavy stone still embedded in the cavity.
Kane looked up, his gaze traveling from the gruesome wound to the boy standing a few feet away. "You did this?" he inquired, his voice echoing with a mixture of clinical curiosity and deep-seated unease.
Jason met the Chancellor's fierce gaze without flinching. He tilted his head slightly, a dark, mocking look playing on his face, "What can I say? I've always been a bit of a crack shot with a pebble. Nature's ammunition, Just ask David and Goliath."
Kane raised an eyebrow, the muscles in his jaw tightening at how casually the boy had said that. He didn't find the sarcasm charming. To him, the teenager standing before him wasn't just a survivor; he was a variable he now had to watch out for.
Jason saw the judgment in Kane's eyes and felt a flare of irritation. 'Don't worry, Marcus,' he thought coldly. 'Give it a week. By then, you'll be praying for someone who can crack skulls with rocks.' He didn't despise the man, but he found the Chancellor's rigid sense of justice laughable in a world that had no scales.
Kane stood up, eyeing Jason's toned, battle-hardened physique and his ragged clothes. He looked like a creature born of the woods and a barbarian. Nearby, Abby was fussing over the others, but Raven's eyes were locked on Jason, her body tense, waiting to see if he was going to snap.
Kane examined the other corpses with a grimace before giving Jason one final, lingering look. Jason narrowed his eyes in return. 'Touché, you stuck-up prick,' he thought.
Kane knew the boy had protected the 100, but he also saw a rebel who answered to no one. As the elected Chancellor, it was his duty to bring this "soldier" into the fold. Jason watched the micro-expressions flash across Kane's face. There was doubt, calculation, and finally, a cold resolve. Jason rolled his eyes, his fist clenching at his side. The honeymoon phase of the Ark's arrival was dying a swift and brutal death.
"I'm going," Jason said suddenly, his voice cutting through the air.
Kane turned sharply. "And where, exactly, do you think you're going?"
"To find the rest of my people," Jason snapped.
"Those are my people as well," Kane countered, stepping closer. "And I promise you, we will find them. We will do it systematically. Under protocol."
Jason scoffed, looking at Abby and then back to Kane. "Every minute we spend debating 'protocol' in this clearing is another minute they could be dying. Believe me when I tell you: the ground is much more complicated than the Ark. You don't have walls here to protect you or people to abide by by your rules. You only have enemies down here."
He turned to walk off, but Kane's voice boomed with the authority of the Council. "No."
Jason stopped, spinning around. "What?"
Behind him, Finn and Bellamy shared a worried glance. Raven's hand drifted toward her belt, and even Murphy shifted his weight, sensing the shift.
"There are rules here. Laws," Kane said, standing tall and addressing the group, though his eyes never left Jason. He stepped into Jason's personal space, his voice dropping to a low, commanding tone. "You've done well for your people, Jason. Truly. You kept them alive against impossible odds. But they are under the protection of the Ark now."
Kane straightened his shoulders, delivering the final blow. "You are not in control here anymore."
He turned his back on Jason, walking toward his guards as if the matter were settled.
Bellamy looked at Jason, his jaw set in a hard line. He knew that look in Jason's eyes.
———
Clarke had left behind. Inside the "Med Bay" which felt more like a high-end hotel suite than a hospital, the air was too clean, the food too perfect, and the smiles of the staff were too wide which was weird and it made her feel uncomfortable.
After the morning's frantic confrontation, Clarke had sought out Maya. She offered a soft apology for her behavior, her voice practiced and gentle, With a sleight of hand, she had swiped Maya's electronic key card while the girl spoke to Jasper.
Now, she was a shadow moving through the ivory corridors running to the exit. She reached the heavy electromagnetic seals of the level five exit. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she swiped the card. The light flickered from red to green.
"Clarke! Stop!"
She whirled around, the heavy door hissing open just an inch. Jasper was sprinting down the hall, his face pale, his hands outstretched in a pleading gesture.
"Jasper, get out of my way," Clarke hissed, her eyes darting to the opening door. "We're leaving. We have to find the others."
"You can't open that door!" Jasper shouted, skidding to a halt a few feet away. "Clarke, look at the sensors. The radiation out there... It's not like the Ark. One leak, one breach of the seals, and everyone in this bunker dies. You'll kill Maya. You'll kill all of them."
Clarke paused, her hand trembling on the lever. "Our people are still out there, Jasper. Bellamy, Finn... Jason." Her voice cracked at the mention of the boy who had been their shield. "If they aren't dead then they're still in that forest. And I believe Jason is still out there, and you know he won't stop fighting until he finds us. We can't just sit here eating peach cobbler while they bleed!"
"I know!" Jasper countered, his voice cracking with emotion. "But we have to be smart. President Wallace says they're looking for them. If Jason is out there, he's probably already tracking us. But if you open that door, you end it for everyone in here."
Before Clarke could argue, the sound of boots echoed off the linoleum. Maya rounded the corner, but she wasn't the kind, helpful girl from the ward. She was holding a security gun, her eyes wide with a mixture of betrayal and terror, the barrel trained directly on Clarke's chest.
"Step away from the door, Clarke," Maya commanded, her voice shaking. "Please. You don't understand what you're doing."
Jasper stepped between them, his hands raised to diffuse the standoff. "Maya, put it down! She's just scared."
He then moved closer to Clarke, "You're the reason we're alive Clarke. Please don't do this."
Clarke looked at the gun, then at Jasper's pleading eyes, and finally at the sliver of the "outside" visible through the crack up top. She saw the sterile white walls and realized that for the first time since landing, she was trapped, not by Grounders or Reapers, but by the consequences of what might happen if she actually left and what might happen to her people as punishment for her actions.
'What would you do… Jason?' She thought for a second then, she looked back at Jasper and then nodded.
Slowly, she let go of the lever, "Fine," Clarke whispered, her shoulders sagging. 'For now.'
Maya lowered the gun, her chest heaving as she slumped against the wall in relief. Jasper walked over and placed a hand on Clarke's arm but the guards rushed in to apprehend her.
'Please if you're out there… come for us Jason. But in the meantime' She looked up as she was being taken away. 'I'll make sure nothing happens before you guys get here.'
————-
The march back to the crash site felt more like a funeral procession than a rescue. The Ark guards walked with their backs straight and their eyes forward, Jason scanned the dense treeline, he then shifted his weight, moving closer to Kane again. He knew he was hitting a brick wall, but he couldn't let it go.
"Chancellor, look at me," Jason rasped, his voice low but vibrating with intensity. "You aren't listening. Those canisters didn't contain smoke; they contained a sophisticated nerve agent. That's high-yield chemistry. That's not what the Grounders use. There is another player on the board. The Grounders call them the Mountain Men. They took our people, and every second we spend marching back to your 'fortress' is a second we lose their trail."
Kane didn't even glance at him. He adjusted the heavy tactical strap of his rifle, his face a mask of weary, paternal condescension. "Jason, I appreciate everything you've done to keep these children alive. You've shown remarkable leadership under... extreme stress. But 'Mountain Men'? It sounds like a ghost story told around a campfire to keep the kids from wandering."
Jason felt a surge of pure, white-hot fury. He stared at the side of Kane's head, his mind reeling. 'How the fuck is this man going to tell me what's real? He hasn't been on the ground for two hours! He hasn't seen the spears, the traps, or the way the fog turns into a death sentence.'
"It's not a story!" Jason snapped.
His fist tightened at his side and the reaction from the guards was instantaneous as he heard the Click-clack. The metallic sound of safety catches being disengaged echoed through the line as the guards nearest to him adjusted their posture, their rifles shifting toward him. They didn't see a survivor; they saw a threat that needed to be managed.
Abby shifted her gaze from Kane to Jason, her eyes softening with pity that made Jason's skin crawl. It was the look you gave a patient who was losing their grip on reality.
"Jason, you've been through an unimaginable trauma," she said, her voice dropping into a soothing register that only made him want to punch the nearest tree. "You've watched your friends vanish and a battlefield turn to ash. The mind creates monsters, ghosts to make sense of chaos it can't process. Let's get you back to the station, get some real food in you, and we can discuss your... observations... in a controlled environment."
Jason stopped dead. He looked at Abby, then at Kane, seeing the same impenetrable wall of "civilized" arrogance. They were still playing by the Ark's rules, where a gavel and a council meeting could fix a leaking oxygen scrubber. They didn't realize they were standing in a graveyard, and the ghosts were very real.
He looked back at Raven, Bellamy, and Finn. They stood a few paces behind, they knew. They had seen the blood. But as they looked at the formation of armed guards, Jason saw their shoulders sag. They were at their breaking point. When Kane gestured for the march to continue, the three of them nodded slowly, surrendering to the illusion of safety. They needed a wall between them and the dark, even if that wall was built on denial.
Jason slowed his pace, drifting back until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Bellamy. "They aren't going to listen," Bellamy whispered.
"Oh, I know," Jason replied, his eyes fixed forward.
He didn't argue further. He turned and followed the line, 'Fine,' he thought, his mind already mapping out the terrain. 'Let them play house in their crashed tin can.'
His thoughts drifted toward the logistics of the war to come. He needed to find the Mountain, but he also needed Lincoln. If the Grounder scout had survived the blast, he was the only bridge left between the Sky People and the clans. if a bridge even existed anymore. The dropship fire hadn't just killed warriors; it had desecrated the Earth and turned their brothers to ash. The Grounders wouldn't be licking their wounds; they would be screaming for blood. A massacre of that magnitude didn't lead to peace; it led to an extinction event that a few assault rifles and a Chancellor's speech couldn't stop.
The Ark thought they were the cavalry. Jason knew they were just a bigger, stationary target.
Finn and Raven moved up, matching Jason and Bellamy's pace. The four of them formed a small, tight circle of original survivors within the larger group.
"We're getting out of here," Jason said, his voice a low vibration. "Immediately. We have to find the rest."
Bellamy nodded instantly, "How?" Raven asked, cutting a sharp glance toward the guards and their high-caliber rifles. "They've got the guns, Jason. We're outnumbered and outgunned."
"We wait," Jason said, his eyes narrowing as he watched the guards' rigid, predictable movements. "The second we hit that camp, they're going to be distracted. They'll be busy setting up perimeters, unloading supplies, and patting themselves on the back. That's when the 'civilized' get sloppy. We slip out the first chance we get."
"We're almost there!" Kane announced, his voice filled with a misplaced triumph.
Through the parting branches, the shimmering, twisted hull of the Mecha Station appeared, half-buried in the earth like a fallen titan.
"Yeah," Jason muttered to himself, "Welcome to the end of the world."