Clarke would have felt cold had it not been for the warmth of her blood dripping across her flesh. The thin hospital gown she had been wearing ever since becoming prisoner to the Mountain clung to her body, it wrapped itself around her flesh as if it were the tendril fingers of the Mountain loathe to leave her be.

She stepped over the fallen, headless body of the healer, her feet careful not to slip in the blood that spilled across the floor. She ignored the fact that Anya and Marcus recoiled from her just slightly as she approached.

"We will move quickly," Clarke said as she took a moment to look around the room, perhaps to search for more weapons she could use, perhaps to memorise the horrors she had seen in some attempt to memorialise the countless lives her people had lost in such a place.

"You aren't hurt, are you?" Marcus asked.

The question surprised her, not because it was asked, but because Marcus had asked not what she was, if she was human, if she was even alive. But if she was hurt. Perhaps that gave her a little insight into the man, into who she was aligning her people with for the foreseeable future. At least until the Mountain was well and truly buried.

"No," Clarke said and she moved towards the door. "I am not injured."

Clarke paused once more, maybe to give herself time to think, perhaps to give her body enough time to still, to lessen the burning she felt as the last of the second deep wound she had inflicted upon herself closed. It even felt odd, the absence of the two blades she had kept hidden within herself for what seemed like years. They had been there in part to provide her with a means of protection should she need it, and in part to give herself something to end her own life as brutally as she could if she were ever captured, ever threatened with eternal captivity at the hands of the Mountain.

As she came to the door she took a moment to consider how much of her plan she wanted to reveal to the newcomers. She knew she would need their help, she knew they wouldn't trust her if she didn't give a little in that moment. And so Clarke turned to face them, she let her eyes turn a little softer, a little less threatening though she knew she must have looked ghastly in that very moment.

"I will need your help to succeed," Clarke began quickly, her voice soft, her eyes maybe a little pleading as she looked between both of them.

There was a momentary pause as she watched both people share a look before Marcus nodded his head and licked his lip worriedly before speaking.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"My warriors at this very moment are attacking the Mountain's source of power," Clarke said. "There is a dam."

Marcus apparently understood that much for he nodded his head once.

"The Mountain is sending their warriors to defend, or to recapture," Clarke continued.

"Where's Lexa?" Anya cut in.

Clarke let her lip quirk up at the corners at the interruption. She found herself liking the subtle brashness of this Anya and she could see why her and Lexa were close friends.

"She is being protected by my warriors," Clarke answered as she turned for the door. "They will gain control of the dam. Now come. We must move quickly."

And with that Clarke exited the room that had taken the lives of countless of her people.

Marcus Kane had experienced a lot in his life. He had experienced the ups and downs of keeping the Ark functioning up in space, he had navigated the politics, the good and the bad, of ensuring his people could survive for generations and he had been given the misfortune of being chancellor when the Ark's failing systems decided to come crashing down around them all.

But despite all of that, he had never expected to be faced with what he was faced with in that moment.

Clarke was something he couldn't quite place. The things he had learnt before, the things he had been told didn't prepare him to be faced with something that was distinctly not the same as every other living person to have ever existed.

Some animalistic part of him screamed out to run, to shy away from what could only be described as a walking corpse. But another part of him wanted to reach out, to understand, to take hold and to learn.

But all of that would need to wait.

He had been following Clarke for only a few short minutes, the time not enough for his mind to settle, for him to forget that Clarke had somehow butchered two people. Black bloodied footsteps trailed behind Clarke, too, each step Marcus took a carefully planted one that aimed to avoid slipping in her path. He wondered what made her blood black, he wondered where the wounds were on her body that had caused her to bleed as she did.

And he wondere—

Clarke came to a pause at a fork in the corridor, a hand came up to signal them to stop and stop they did. He shared a quick glance at Anya who hadn't said a word for the last few minutes, but he could tell her own mind was racing, trying to figure out what they had just welcomed upon themselves.

"There is an armoury," Clarke whispered over her shoulder. "We must gain access to it. How many of you can be trusted?"

Marcus looked once more to Anya. He trusted her judgement more than his own in that moment given the fact Anya had been the one to maintain what limited contact they had had with the outside world.

"Us two," Anya said. "Bellamy, Octavia. Raven," she added. "They were creating a distraction."

Clarke nodded her head before continue to walk forward carefully, the flickering of the Mountain's lights seemingly far more intense though Marcus knew it surely just a trick of his mind.

"They will be captured already," Clarke whispered. "The Mountain will know we are free and many are coming."

It unnerved Marcus how calm Clarke was given the situation. He could feel his own pulse racing, he could hear the blood rushing in his ears and he felt more a captive on a rollercoaster just barely holding on than any kind of willing participant to the ride.

"How do you know where to go?" Anya's voice cut into his thoughts and once more Marcus was content to let the conversation move between the others simply because he found himself eager to take everything in, to listen, to understand more before he made a move too irreversible.

"I have been preparing for this for years," Clarke's voice answered.

And it was a simple answer, one that told Marcus there was more to it than that. Anya seemed to understand the same, just as she too seemed to understand that Clarke was not likely to provide any more explanation than tha—

Clarke came to a sudden pause at the end of another corridor. The overhead lights flickered and spat their neon light against the harsh and weathered concrete. Large yellow lettering was printed on the walls that read armoury and he found himself surprised yet again at how direct a route Clarke had made.

But what caught his attention the most was the fact that at the other end of the corridor stood five men.

Four of them he didn't really know by name, but the man standing at the front he knew.

Cage stood standing across from them, his eyes wide, surprise etched onto his face before it slowly began to morph into something between panic, hate and disgust.

It was still, quiet. The sounds of the Mount Weather environmental systems faded into the background as time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Marcus didn't know what to do in that moment. Each man in front of them held a gun in their hands and he knew they were caught in the open, exposed with no where to hide, to run, to fle—

And then all hell broke loose.

Clarke roared.

She screamed, moved, dashed, sprinted forward with such ferocity, violence and anger that she seemed a banshee, demon, something not quite human.

Blood sprayed out across the nearest wall, black smeared across concrete and painted the hall in violent beauty.

A flash of silver spat out from Clarke's hand, another followed right behind. A crack, a gunshot echoed, ricocheted and Marcus dove for cover, for the wall in the hopes it would somehow give him some kind of protection.

There was a shout of pain, Marcus blinked back in shock as that silver flash hit one of the men squarely in the chest, he watched as Clarke dove to the ground, rolled, leapt back into the air and had seemingly pulled another knife from somewhere else as her exposed torso seemed to bleed more, seemed to pour blood from a fresh woun—

A second man was hit squarely in the throat, and Clarke was closer now, almost too close for them to aim without risk of hitting one another.

But Marcus needed to do something or he'd die in the hallway as bullets flew over his head, he needed to help or he would die cowering against a wall and so he sprang to his feet, he began to race forward and so too did Anya follow his lead as they began to try to help, to try to do something to make Clarke's desperate attack succeed.

And then there was silence.

Marcus came to a skidding stop, he slipped on blood and Anya caught him by the arm before he realised what he looked upon.

Clarke stood amongst a pool of bodies. Three men lay dead with a knife embedded in a chest, a throat, an eye. A fourth lay slumped against a wall, his throat opened up as gurgled, spluttered sounds of life left his lips and Cage lay on the ground, Clarke's foot resting atop his chest as she appeared to be readying her knife to strike down on his chest.

Marcus didn't think he had the time to process just what had happened. He didn't think his eyes had been able to follow it before the violence had ended just as quickly as it had begun.

But Clarke seemed little worried, seemed at ease and content as she began to drive the knife down—

"Wait," Marcus said quickly as he stepped forward. "That's Cage Wallace," he said.

It would have almost been funny the expression that flashed across Clarke's face had she not been smeared in blood, had she not just slain four men, had she not appeared to be a living corpse.

"Who?" was the only word she uttered.

"Their leader's son," Marcus said.

Perhaps that would have swayed any other person's hand, perhaps had things not been the way they were that revelation may have saved Cage's life. It wasn't even that Marcus particularly liked Cage. But for some reason he found himself feeling as though he should at least say something in an attempt to save a man's life. Or maybe it was simply his mind trying to find a way to not be complicit with the sudden violence he so quickly found himself surrounded by.

"There are no innocents within the Mountain," was the only thing that Clarke said.

And with that She plunged her knife into Cage's ribs.

The young man's eyes widened, whatever sound he made to say came out choked, there was a sudden wheeze of air that seemed half full of pain, half full or anger and hurt and something Marcus didn't want to think about further.

Marcus watched as Clarke withdrew the knife slowly, her gaze never wavering from Cage's whose face was contorted in pain, anguish, horror and desperation. Words were forming upon his lips but the only sound to slip past was that horrid wheeze of air.

"Your lung will collapse," Clarke said quietly to the dying man. "You will begin to drown on your own blood. Some of it may build in your throat as you try to breathe," there was something close to pleasure in the way Clarke spoke. "It is fitting," Clarke continued. "That you will choke on the blood you stole from my brothers and sisters. What once sustained you will now be your death."

And then Clarke straightened, bloodied knife in hand, she wiped it clean on her sleeve and then moved to the other bodies and retrieved the other blades she had conjured out of thin air.

"They will have heard," Clarke said as she began moving to the entrance to the armoury. "We must arm ourselves and move quickly to free the others."

Clarke's mind was racing as much as her heart was. She had so many thoughts, contingencies, plans and scenarios racing through her head that she was sure it would have drowned anyone else in indecision. But she hadn't planned for years to bow down to pressure now.

Stepping into what Maya had called the armoury was just as she had been described. Mountain weapons hung from racks against the wall. Boxes full of things she half recognised lay in neat rows stacked upon table tops but her gaze snapped to a particular set of boxes whose contents she would need in only a few short moments.

"Move," Clarke snapped as she stepped towards her prize.

She sensed more than saw Marcus and Anya reach for the closest weapons they were familiar with but she ignored them as she scooped up the closest bag she could find before beginning to fill it with as many of the small round metal objects as she could carry.

"Heda," Marcus' voice cut into her thoughts. "What's your plan?" there was caution in his tone and from the way he pronounced her title she knew he must have been told it and practiced its pronunciation at least once before.

"We will take control of the Mountain," she said as she turned to him and let herself really take in the man who seemed much less like the leader of his people and more like an unsure victim to a crime he didn't quite understand. At least in that moment.

But as Clarke let herself gaze upon him for a moment more she found herself thinking the man easily swayed, perhaps because his emotions influenced his actions and decisions more than they should, perhaps because he was too easily convinced of what was right or wrong. Or maybe she simply looked at a man who had never anticipated being part of such violence.

And so she realised that she must set a foundation for what was to come in the future. Of what could usher in a peace for her people for generations to come.

"Please," Clarke said quietly as she held out the bag to him. "You must carry this for me. I will require my hands free to defend us from attack," and Clarke stepped forward slowly.

She watched as Marcus reached out just as slowly as she had held out the bag, she watched as he gripped its straps before shrugging it onto unsure shoulders and then she tried to smile a small thing that wasn't as unnerving as she was used to.

"Marcus Kane of the Sky people," Clarke continued quietly. "We do not have much more time," she looked at Anya, too. "Both of you have already helped set in motion the events that will end the suffering of my people, that will end the capture and desecration of all that we hold dear," she said. "I will need your help to end this horror that has been inflicted on my people for generations."

Marcus nodded his head in response and she glanced at Anya to find her mind already made up. She thanked Lexa for that. But still, perhaps she would need to convince Marcus completely, perhaps she would need to prove to him in all ways provable that her people had suffered for generations.

"The Mountain captures my brothers and sisters," Clarke said, her voice a little more firm now, her pace of words faster as she knew they would need to move soon. "They use our blood," she held out her hand and in a flash drew her blade across her palm. Her flesh opened, pain flashed through her mind for only a second and she watched as both Anya and Marcus recoiled before their eyes widened. "My blood is sacred," Clarke said. "It heals. The Mountain discovered this and uses those they have captured as slaves, as nothing more than farm animals to be harvested," she knew she had convinced them, but as if to twist the knife just a little more firmly into their minds she continued. "You have seen this. You have seen what they do to my people. Once we control the Mountain they will no longer suffer," she let the silence hang in the air for only a moment longer before continuing. "Now we must go. There is no time to waste."

It was quiet. Or perhaps not really quiet. Clarke could hear the distant thump of people running back and forth, she could hear the muffled sounds of people shouting as it echoed against the walls and through the Mountain. She knew some were searching for her, perhaps searching for those she had already slain. She knew, too, that at certain junctures inside the Mountains' labyrinth halls were pieces of tech high up in the ceiling that could watch her, follow her every move. But most had been where Maya had told her they would be. Some perhaps a little further away or closer than she had been told. But she knew that simply because Maya's memory was distant given the years.

Clarke held in each hand one or two of her blades. Anya and Marcus shadowed her steps quietly behind her and she tried not to linger too long, tried not to make too much noise as she continued to plod down hallways and corridors.

She knew where she was going for the most part, and the fact that they hadn't come across any others just yet told her that her warriors were delaying the Mountain Men and reapers with all their might.

She would have a lot to atone for once the fight was over, she would have a lot of forgiveness to seek in the solitude of her war tent away from the eyes of her people. But she wouldn't think about their deaths, their suffering, their sacrifice until it was over.

And so Clarke came to a slow pause at the corner of another hallway. She could hear voices now, more clearly, perhaps two, three, she wasn't entirely sure. But she knew they had come to their destination. Writing on the wall told her as much.

"Wait here," Clarke whispered to Marcus and Anya before she turned back forwards, her mind clearing and her heart beginning to steady as she forced call into her veins, into her heart, into her soul.

Clarke stepped around the corner of the corridor slowly, she let herself take in everything she saw and she memorised it, memorised the distance, the things she saw, the doors she would need to be aware of.

A handful of doors lined each side of the corridor, the flickering of the overhead lights cut into her vision with little care for her comfort. A crack or two across floor, wall or ceiling etched themselves into existence as if the Mountain's evil itself was threatening to break free.

Once more, figures stood at the far end of the hallway. Three of them stood near a door whose interior was lit with that same harsh white light that made her eyes narrow. Each one held a weapon, one that spat steel at her people with little care for the noise and the pain it caused. One of them, a man, had his back to her, the armour he wore making him a harder target to kill across the distance and Clarke knew she would need to close in, remove their advantage and kill them before they could gather their thoughts.

And then it happened fast.

The second figure looked past the first as she stepped out from the corner, she saw their eyes widen and their mouth begin to form words.

Clarke began to move, she began to run, to leap forward as fast as her legs could take her.

Get reinforcements

She felt more than heard the words form upon the lips of her enemies as she grew nearer and nearer. She sensed more than saw two of them begin to run away, begin to pull back further down the corridor, around the corner, perhaps to gather more of their ilk, perhaps to seek shelter from her wrath.

More sounds, yells, shouts echoed in her ears. Gunfire roared around her and she felt something slam into her, she felt it break bone, break through muscle, tear ligament and sinew apart and she roared out in pain as the impact hit her shoulder, spun her around, made her see stars, made her mind go white.

But Clarke used the impact, used the momentum. She span with the blow, hit the wall, rolled forward, slipped beneath another roar of metal that spat at her and she flung her knife forward.

It flashed through the air and hit whoever was firing at her with such intensity that their head snapped back with a sickening crunch before their body fell to the ground.

Here

Clarke barely gave the second voice a thought as she continued to sprint forward, as she continued to run.

Here!

It was more panicked now, more scared. More terrified. Clarke relished it. She embraced it. But most of all she loved it.

It's her! It's fucking—

Clarke dove beneath the swing of a rifle, the metal it shot at her expended. She slammed her fist up as hard as she could and she felt the chatter of teeth crashing together, she heard the strangled sound of pain and she knew from the splutter that came next that the person had bit their tongue clean off.

Blood spilled spat against her face as she leapt onto their chest, drew her knife back only far enough to give her the force to puncture thick cloth and then she drove it forward. It slammed into a beating heart, split their body in two and she spat out in anger as she rolled with the impact, let the body hit the ground beneath her as she felt another stinging burning searing bite of metal tear into her side. But Clarke moved, instinct had long since taken hold and she duck, she dove, raced forward and crashed herself into one last person. It was a barely there scramble of limbs, her fist struck out once, twice, thrice before she felt the satisfying crunch, a shoulder popped out of its socket and gave her the time to twist the arm out of her way before she wrapped her forearm around a wheezing neck and wrenched as hard as she could.

The sound, the agony, the sickening tear break that came next would have made most heave as she felt the person's neck give under her onslaught. The body in her grasp twitched, spasmed as their person's brain tried and failed to tell its limbs to respond, to do something to fight back but all it could do was fall to the ground as she released it. Clarke spent only a second looking down at the person at her feet to register they were no longer a threat. Pain etched itself into a face that was twisted so far around that skin had torn, that fingers twitched, that the last thing they would see was their blood pooling out from their ears and she didn't care if that person had a family, had a loved one, a child, a friend, a father or a mother.

They would all die in time.

One last body lay just a few paces away from her, one of her blades embedded in their forehead. She didn't even remember throwing the blade, didn't even remember if they had been the first or the last person she had killed, it seemed to have all bled into one violent moment of her life.

Clarke walked forward slowly but each step she took didn't come as cleaning as it should and so she looked down at her side, at where something felt a little odd and she frowned.

The gown she was wearing as soaked in blood, black and red. It was torn where she thought she must have been struck, the opening enough for her eyes to peer at her broken flesh.

She could see a rib, perhaps two that had been forced just slightly out of place. Clarke grit her teeth as the burning began to come, began to settle into every fibre of her body as bone slowly reformed, as muscle slowly began to heal, slowly began to stitch itself together without care for the pain it caused.

This time it hurt a little more than usual, perhaps because of the violence of her actions, perhaps because her body seemed to sense the end was near. Clarke reached into her wound, she could feel one of her ribs not quite forming the way it should and she ignored the pain as her fingers dug into her blood, into her flesh, into her own body in search of what was causing her discomfort.

It took her only a moment longer before her fingers felt the sharp, burning bite of a metal fragment that had lodged itself within her. She flinched, her lips twisted up at the ends into a barely there snarl as she slowly pulled it free and then she dropped it onto the floor with a disgust that had become part of her very being.

Clarke straightened, she took in a steadying breath and paused mid-step as she turned to confront the person she could see peering at her through the window of a locked door.

The first person was a woman she didn't recognise, the second, another woman was also unfamiliar. But she recognised Bellamy despite the bruising and swelling that was still present across his face. And perhaps another familiar person in this cursed mountain couldn't hurt.

And so Clarke smiled something she didn't think was kind before she spoke.

"Hello."