Author's Note: For once, I post two chapters in relatively quick succession. Sorry, but don't expect this to be regular: school's starting tomorrow, so I can't focus on this all that much. Regardless, I really appreciate any reviews you guys have for me; they're a huge help. And before I sign off and let you read this chapter, I'd like to thank Bladesworn for allowing me to borrow their original fanfic for this "fanfic fanfiction". Thanks! :)

P.S. Can anyone spot the allusion to Left 4 Dead 2?

"An Odd Prison Life"

[REDACTED], a.2012

017 "Bluefield"

Prison Cell in Unknown Area of: Sanctum, Elysea, Atreia

Aion { Fan Fiction } - "StorySide"

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I think I hated Jaya's new cage more than she did. There was way too much white and light in there.

It was a square prison, eight feet in length and width—enough room to walk around in circles, if need be. About 16 feet above the white stone floor sat a glass skylight. The world's sun was blazing down through it, the bright heat like a forest fire. I was sitting in the little piece of shade the skylight had left behind, opposite of the door. No handle, no hinges, no windows—just a thick piece of work involving vertical wooden beams in steel bindings, all painted white.

I sighed, putting my hand to my forehead. That landing had done a real number on Jaya and myself. At least Jaya was okay, all things considered—she was out cold from hitting her head on the stone floor, on top of her severe injury. A gash like that, she was lucky the wood didn't pierce through to her bones. "Our" new hosts had her leg wound stitched up and bandaged; meanwhile, they virtually ignored me, with Knife Wings and that other guy only giving me a glance or two.

Not that it mattered. I was used to it.

I looked down at the ground if front of my shoes, slightly to my right. As expected, Jaya was sound asleep from the little "trip". She slowly inhaled and exhaled, her head resting near the edge of the shade. She had a peaceful expression on her dark face—the kind you'd see with a dreamless sleep. Her white gauze-like bandage contrasted with her dark skin, even in the shade. She looked pretty well for an exiled woman who went through quite the aerial roller coaster ride yesterday.

A few minutes later, the sun's light eventually crawled over Jaya's eyes.

As she came to, she flexed her fingers and toes as if she were getting some feeling back into them. Right after, she rolled onto her stomach and crawled into the shade, beside me. Well…more like three feet away from me. Her leg was starting to bleed again, from the point of injury—blots of crimson along the white cloth. As soon as she was "safely" out of the unrelenting sunlight, she stopped and let out a muffled moan.

"Rise and shine, Miss Jaya," I said.

Without looking at me, she asked, "That wasn't a dream, was it?"

"I think we both know the answer to that question."

Jaya turned over and, using her hands as improvised sunglasses, looked around the room. She sighed. "…I guess we've no choice but to await our inevitable visitors."

I nodded, shifting a little, knees to my chest. "Yeah, well… Technically, yours. I wonder who they'll be? The peregrine? Swan? Knife Wings?"

Jaya turned to stare at me like I'd just spouted gibberish. "You mean, the gyrefalcon?"

"Gyrefalcon"… So that's the bird type, I thought. "Yeah, him."

Jaya's head turned down, looking at the bottom of the door. I could have sworn I had heard her growl.

I said nothing. Well, I thought, I guess there's only one way for us to find out.

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"Oh, geez…" I groaned. "That almost bore a hole in my gut."

I remember that some time ago, a friend of mine said something along the lines of, "Next time someone wants to shoot our pilot, can I get a little warnin'?" I know this isn't the same world, but the context of "peace interrupted" still applies. After all, Jaya and I—we weren't exactly expecting the door to open after thirty-four minutes, now, were we?

I recognized the two faces from earlier. One was Knife Wings—the gyrefalcon. The other was the blond man from that room we'd arrived in. With effort (and her hands still shading her eyes), Jaya sat up, pulling her injured leg beneath her. Her gaze shifted from the two males to the doorway behind them, and I could see her muscles tense, as if she were planning to bolt past them and out of the cell. But it was brief—no sooner than she entered that "fight-or-flight ready" state had she left it, as if her hopes had been dashed to pieces. Considering her leg, and the group of guards just outside the door as it closed…well, needless to say, we were stuck in there.

The gyrefalcon wore a set of black leather clothing. He had swords sheathed on his hips, as well as other blades concealed over his persons (e.g. throwing knives in his boot folds). If possible, even getting a handshake from this one could leave me with a few cuts. Beside him, the blond man wore simple blue-and-purple robes. Unlike the gyrefalcon, he was unarmed in terms of weapons—not that he needed one, I figured. Especially since he was the guy responsible for the portal that brought us here.

When the door closed, the two began to discuss something between themselves, in the tongue I was unfamiliar with. About ten, twelve seconds later, the gyre suddenly turned to us, eyes cold as night, and spoke again in what I guessed was Jaya's native language—Asmoth, as I would later learn.

He said, "We wish to know your name."

Hers. Not mine; hers. Jaya's. Though he'd probably ask me later, anyway.

She let out a morbid laugh, the kind you'd from those with a death wish or something. "What does it matter to you?" she drawled. "I am a prisoner of war."

"Elyos do not treat their prisoners as slaves," replied the gyrefalcon, pausing before continuing. "House Helios holds you as a guest."

"House of the sun?" A pause. She visibly grit her teeth. "Me? A guest? You're awfully high-handed for a thief."

If Jaya was trying to piss the hell out of the gyrefalcon, she was succeeding. She was also going a little too far, laughing like that.

I could see the gyre himself quietly losing his cool—eyebrows knitting, shoulders tensing, hand going for one of his swords. The blond man put his hand on gyre's shoulder just as he touched the handle, like a silent warning.

Jaya still wasn't done, which was starting to tick me off. She began to speak to the gyre in a slurred and hasty manner, as if to make the language barrier harder than it should be. "Have I ruffled your feathers, Elyos?" Jaya hissed. "You've nothing to gain from me, and I suggest you end this game before your friend ends it for you. I am dead already. I have nothing to fear from your threats."

I thought the gyre would get angrier. So you can imagine my (mild) surprise when I saw him calm down—his anger gone in an instant.

"I suppose if I am to demand your name, it is only proper to offer my own." The gyrefalcon gave Jaya a little mock bow, his black eyes trained on her, filled with apparent despise. "Your people know me as Ourobouros Stalks-By-Night."

Jaya and I said nothing. Jaya, because she knew and would rather not have to say. I, because I hadn't a clue who this Ourobouros character was—well, only that he was an infamous figure with Jaya's former people.

With that out of the way, Jaya looked at the blond man behind Ourobouros, who managed to give her an acknowledgement less hateful—one raised eyebrow, a nod of his head. He said, "Terekai."

Before Jaya had actually left her seat, I could have sworn briefly smelling something impossible in a place like this—the faint yet unmistakable smell of smoke.

An image suddenly flashed through my mind—a memory that was not mine. The image was mostly deep-red and orange. In the center, I could see the slender silhouette of a woman—she was on fire. And the person in front of her, calm as he cast those very flames crost her form, was—

The image vanished. The prison door opened again.

Jaya didn't get a real chance to damage Terekai when six guards—mortals, apparently—rushed through the door and, with effort, ripped her away from the Sorcerer. I have to give her props for her (brief) tenacity. The way she was trying to beck back at him, clawing the air and flailing wildly—she was like a rabid, angry animal. Ourobouros merely watched her as if she were another pesky wretch. Terekai, on the other hand, was completely calm. His expression didn't look like someone who was just attacked by a woman who lost pretty much everything and was prone to lashing out. Terekai said nothing as he watched the guards plop Jaya back into her part of the shade, in the corner.

THUD!

Jaya cringed in pain, biting her lip as the red along her bandage grew—another wasted stitch. And it hurt. She pounded her fist on the white stone flooring, and I was surprised that she'd left a bloody imprint there.

The guards backed up, probably ready for another lunge at their lieges. To their disappointment, Jaya instead laid where she'd landed. I didn't know what she was doing, only that she wasn't simply just lying prone like a casualty of war (or, her case, "kidnapping"). Which she was.

With that out of the way, Ourobouros began to speak with the guards. In a minute's time, the gyrefalcon walked out from the group of soldiers and knelt down in front of Jaya. He reached behind him and pulled out a familiar piece of jewlery. The jade coraline with the dual kestrals.

Jaya's eyes widened.

Oh, dear.

He brought it in front of Jaya, dangling like a shiny string of diamonds. In a desperate attempt to reunite herself with it, her hand flew towards it. She got two inches away from her jade necklace before Ourobouros yanked it back, up high—a good-enough distance out of her reach capacity.

(As for me, I wondered how that piece of jewlery had made the crazy kidnapping trip intact. But that's just getting off the point.)

They stared at each other, hating each other. Jaya snarled at him. Ourobouros said nothing. This continued for about…five, six seconds before the gyrefalcon finally spoke.

"The price is a name."

Jaya didn't answer. Not at first. As she tried to work her voice through the emotion of hatred that tied it down, Ourobouros broke his pause with a shrug and slowly began to draw the necklace back to the pocket he pulled it from. Realizing, Jaya grabbed the man's other wrist, claws leaving light marks in the leather as a wordless, yet clear, warning.

A brief silence. Then…

"…Jaya," she answered. I couldn't see her eyes. But I could tell that her hatred was no longer reserved solely for the Elyos—she'd given up a bargaining chip to Ourobouros, and she hated herself for it.

Ourobouros stared at her. Then he exhaled—either a silent "huh" or "hah", or just a snort—firmly pulled his wrist out of her grip, and poured the jade necklace into her other, awaiting hand. With that, he stood up, turned away, and muttered something in his native tongue. And here's the thing: this time, I somehow understood exactly what he said.

"Hate me and live."

I didn't know why, exactly, but something in my memory told me to keep what I had just interpreted to myself. After all, if Jaya didn't understand it now, she likely would later.

Then the gyrefalcon turned to me. "And your name…?" he muttered.

Jaya looked at me, her jade coraline clutched to her chest. I looked back at her briefly, before looking up at the visitor, looking him in the eye.

I simply said, "Bluefield."

The man paused before nodding and walking away. Terekai gave us both interested glances, before he and the gyrefalcon left the room, guards in tow. The door swung closed behind them, and we were, once again, alone.

Before she chose to ignore me to stare at the necklace in her hand, Jaya was sitting up, staring at me in some degree of disbelief—like I'd just changed into a very stupid animal mascot costume. I found her staring at me rather…uncomfortable. "What?" I finally asked.

"How…" She was trying to figure out what to say. "How can you give your name out to them like that? Have you no pride? No honor?"

I sighed. Honor and pride, huh? "Not a lot," I replied, putting my right hand to my left knee. At the time, I wondered how many time I would have to explain this to other people. Other Ones. "Actually, whether or not I give someone here my name makes zero difference."

"Why?"

I turned to look her in the eye. "Because 'people' like me—Zeroes—we 'don't exist' in the worlds we travel to. Sure, I'm here, and I'm 'human' enough to be considered as a person, but it doesn't matter—I do not count as part of this world's population." I closed my eyes, then reopened them, brow furrowing. "To put it bluntly, it's like taking any number and adding zero to its value: you get the same number."

Jaya sat there for a second before nodding slowly. Then she looked as through she'd realized something.

"In the cage, you introduced youself as 'Zero Seventeen Bluefield'. Are there…more of you…?"

I could hear a trace of fear in her voice. But I simply sighed, lowering my head. This again, I thought.

"Well…not anymore. Right now, I'm…all that's left." I looked at her, with sadness beginning to plague me again on the inside. Maybe it was showing through my face, or my body language. But I continued. "And, like you with your 'Raum', I lost two Zeroes—two people—very close to me."

I thought to no one: There. I said it. Happy now?

Understanding dawned across Jaya's face once again. "But…why do you continue to live…?"

I leveled my head and looked at her again. "Because I made a promise to them before they died. A promise I still intend to keep."