"Mart… Martheel?! What are you doing here?" asked Tyel in surprise while he watched his friend going down the stairs.
"It's a long story…" said he as he landed in the middle of the group, who looked at him, confused.
"Like, we were about to go away… I guess it is a bit useless for you to have come here," pointed out Liro, but to the surprise of everyone, Martheel shook his head.
"Going away?" said he while looking awkwardly at the ground. Everyone exchanged a confused glance. "What are you even saying, Martheel?" asked Darian, confused. The man in front of him breathed heavily, and returning to a serious tone, he started to speak again.
"Right before I arrived here… I saw Ashikunz right in front of the hole."
Hearing these words, everyone gasped in surprise.
"Hey, Martheel, are you already going back home?" asked Chud, but Martheel stopped right before taking the path to go to his home and remembered the last discussion they had had with Tyel literally yesterday in this place.
'What if what I thought yesterday is actually true…' Martheel remembered clearly the words he had thought as he looked at Tyel going away. 'Tomorrow he will be more tired, too… and why is that? What am I even doing to help him?' thought he as he remained still, unable to move, wondering if he should actually go there.
"Hey man, are you doing alright?" asked Chud as he walked towards Martheel and touched his shoulder with his hand. Martheel, snapping back to reality, nodded his head. "Oh, nothing, nothing…" said Martheel as he lowered his head. Chud behind him had a confused look.
"Are you worried about what happened yesterday with Tyel?" asked Chud, remembering what they had talked about. Martheel, still looking at the ground, nodded his head.
"Yes… and I don't want to leave him alone. Maybe what he's doing is actually really hard for him…" Martheel felt Chud bumping his hand against his back. As he looked back, he noticed his friend with a warm smile.
"I'm not coming, as I'm extremely tired… but if you feel like it is the right thing to do… don't hesitate, Martheel," said Chud. "We know where the hole is located, so why not go there?" he added. Martheel, now with a happy face too, nodded his head.
"Right… thanks, Chud!" said Martheel as he immediately rushed towards the hole. Chud watched him going away and then decided to head back to his home. "I guess I'll wait to drink with them," whispered Chud as he looked at the stars and smiled with his hands in his pockets.
'I don't know what you have, Tyel… but I'm not letting you carry this weight by yourself.' Martheel was now running through the empty streets of Ardoris, while his only objective was to reach Tyel and his friends.
"Mhm… they have started," whispered another voice. Someone was looking at the small camera positioned in the Seamstress's sanctuary, it was Ashikunz, and he was currently in a small room with some monitors that monitored everything happening in the sanctuary. Ashikunz slowly turned back and started to head out of the secret laboratories.
Ashikunz went outside thanks to another exit that brought him not far from Karyuz's ruins. He was exactly where the party in another timeline had entered from the first time, so almost right in front of Ardoris.
"And now… I just need to wait." Ashikunz started to walk alone through the bushes until he reached a place that caught his attention. As he arrived there, he noticed some roots that weren't the same as everything else around, and even though the difference was small, Ashikunz remained curious at this sight.
He took something from his armor; it was one of the branches Lily had created inside the sanctuary. As he slowly walked towards these weird plants, he realized that these were exactly the same.
"Bingo," said Ashikunz, and as he kneeled down, he realized that there was a literal hole in the wall.
"I must say… this was really well hidden. If it hadn't been for me, it would have been impossible to discover this…" Ashikunz decided to return to hiding in the bushes.
"And I'll simply wait for them here… once they arrive, it will be the end for them." With that, Ashikunz sat down between the bushes and remained there for multiple hours.
Some hours had passed, and someone was coming out of the hole made by the rebels. Ashikunz, who had remained with his eyes fixed on the hole, was slightly confused. "Another rebel?" he whispered, confused. Ashikunz grabbed his spear and remained ready to attack.
"Huff… Tyel… I'm arriving…" Ashikunz was surprised, as he had never seen this person in the rebels' group. As he looked at the hole, he noticed Martheel coming out of it.
Martheel, rushing out, moved his eyes around. 'It's strange to be outsi… side…' Martheel wanted to breathe the air of the outside, of liberty, when suddenly his eyes were caught by the huge black and red armor of a creature. Martheel's body began to shake, and Ashikunz smirked under his helmet.
"Is that the name of one of the rebels?" asked Ashikunz as he returned to his feet. Martheel, who couldn't move, just took a small step back instinctively as Ashikunz took some steps towards him.
'Shit… the description matches…' Martheel remembered the description Darian and the others who had seen him had given about Ashikunz: a huge creature dressed mostly in red and black with a huge spear. Martheel gulped, as he couldn't believe whom he had just found. 'No, no… you've got to be joking me…' Martheel fell to his knees, and tears started to flow down his cheeks while the spear was right in front of his neck.
"Mhmm… what should I do with you?" Ashikunz spoke in a threatening tone. Martheel remained with his eyes fixed on the spear and simply stayed quiet.
'Maybe I can try to use him to my advantage…' Ashikunz slowly removed the spear from Martheel's neck and kneeled down in front of him.
Martheel breathed heavily as he felt Ashikunz's claws on his cheeks. "You can go… go and tell them that I'm waiting for them." Ashikunz slowly pressed his claws against Martheel's left cheek, making him bleed.
"What are you waiting for?" Ashikunz, noticing that Martheel wasn't moving, gave him a kick to his stomach, making his body crash against a tree. "Go and warn your friends… that their enemy is going to end their lives soon," he said, almost bursting into a loud laugh. Martheel, still with his body shaking, nodded his head. "A-Alright!" With that, he immediately ran away, and Ashikunz returned to his secret spot, which wasn't secret anymore.
'Was it the right choice?' thought Ashikunz, but without hesitation, he nodded his head. 'It's not that I'm going to fail… the other hole has been closed…' Ashikunz was referring to the other hole they had left for the group to take to go and save Catripple. 'Still, why the hell did they never go through that… I really believe there's someone who is a traitor.'
'But with this other plan… I've made it all by myself, like the others, and no one knows it… not Zrelekai, Corvinus, or that stupid girl… it cannot fail.' With that, Ashikunz burst into a loud laugh.
"And this summarizes almost everything that happened…" said Martheel. As he finished telling the story, the group remained on their feet, extremely shocked, and some of them couldn't even believe what had happened.
"So our entrance wasn't safe at all… how was he even able to find that?!" shouted Lily, who was one of the most shocked. "It hadn't happened in all these days, and it happens now? Only when we're stuck inside this place?!" she shouted. The others looked down, trying to find an explanation.
"Maybe he found one of your branches?" proposed Darian. Lily looked at him, confused.
"Think about it… when we escaped, you created some roots to help us, but you never retrieved them, right?" asked Darian. Lily's eyes opened wide in shock.
"You're right… he found them from that time…" whispered Lily, as she finally understood how Ashikunz had been able to find her roots.
"And so…? Is it over for us?" asked Syrmax. "We can't go out anymore, or Ashikunz will find us… and we only have that entrance," he added. Everyone else began to think too, but nothing came to their minds.
'That hole has been closed…' Tyel remembered hearing some guards talking about that hole that had randomly appeared in the wall being closed. 'And it was the hole we took right before getting brutally murdered by Ashikunz…' As Tyel remembered that moment, his body shook in fear.
'No… I can't allow myself to feel scared. During that time, I didn't even know about my power…' Tyel looked at his hands and broke the silence in the room.
"There's actually another exit we can take," said Tyel. Everyone looked at him, confused.
"What are you talking about, Tyel?" asked Darian.
"I've told you, there is another entrance… do you remember the first time I told you I discovered my power?" asked Tyel. Everyone else, except Martheel, as he wasn't there yet, nodded their heads.
"Don't tell me…" said Syrmax as he opened his eyes wide. Tyel nodded his head.
"Exactly, but to go there… we have to pass through the secret laboratories," he said, looking over at Vane and Orechin, who exchanged an amused look before coughing.
"Oh, right… then I guess our choice was the right one!" said Vane with his hands folded and with a face saying, "I told you!"
"We can finally save Catripple…" Orechin, who couldn't believe his ears, fell to his knees with a happy face.
"What are we waiting for?!" shouted he. Everyone else now could only agree with Vane and Orechin's original plan.
"Yeah… this is our only choice now. We aren't allowed to slack off," said Tyel as he began to lead the way. Orechin returned to his feet and walked next to Vane, while the others walked behind.
"Hey… don't we need to pay attention? As you've said, this is the place where the Seamstress lives…" whispered Martheel as he gulped in fear.
"Used to live… she's now dead," said Liro in a reassuring tone.
"So you've finally discovered who was inside her body?" asked Martheel. "Was there really a child?"
Tyel, in the front, nodded his head. "Exactly…" he said, before getting interrupted by Vane.
"And we couldn't save her… we believe that Zrelekai had put a bomb inside her costume, and if she was about to go away and free herself, it would explode." Vane angrily smashed his fist against the yellow walls around him.
"And soon, if we find that Zrelekai… I'm really going to kick his ass," added Vane.
"We should be close… that entrance I saw in a future must be around here." The group kept walking for multiple minutes until they reached the Seamstress's small pink room. But where the hall to enter through that poster, which brought them directly to the secret laboratories, should have been, there were only debris now, as the roof had collapsed after the multiple fights.
"Damn… can we really pass through there?" said Darian as he tried to look through the countless debris, but it was impossible; even moving them would be extremely hard.
"I guess we can only go through that other route…" pointed out Tyel as he looked at the other path, realizing they had to take the one which they had never entered, but was now the only path left.
"Hey, Tyel… you said that there was a path that would bring us directly to the prison, right? Can't we just take that and escape from there?" asked Martheel, but Tyel shook his head.
"Nah… they would find us almost immediately. It is too high a risk to take," pointed out Tyel. As he looked back, he realized that Vane was inside the Seamstress's room all by himself.
"Don't worry, Vane… we will get revenge for her," said Liro as he touched Vane's shoulder.
Vane, who currently had a small plushie in his hands that had never taken life, nodded his head.
This plushie had the shape of a unicorn, and as he looked at it, Vane couldn't help but smile. "We saw her playing with that plushie…" pointed out Darian, remembering that some hours ago when they had arrived to bait her, the Seamstress was playing with a lot of plushies that soon rushed towards them, except for this one.
"Maybe it was her favorite?" asked Vane as he left the plushie on the bed, and small tears fell from his eyes.