Damnit, move!

This wasn't the worst Daniel had experienced. The first fight with a shade-hybrid had left the boy much more injured than this, but those wounds were still carried. Every blow he had experienced up until this point hadn't entirely healed; he had bruises and fractures in various areas of his body. While he had fought the shade-hybrid with a bit more vitality, he couldn't manage it when his body was already weakened from a spree of blows. But still . . . this wasn't the worst he had since coming to this world. His foot was starting to heal up apparently, too--but not without the same agony as what initially ruined it.

I've had worse. I can . . . And then he heard Zera's cry of pain.

The glass below him may have been cracking, ready to give at a sudden push, but Daniel's body wasn't in complete ruins, and Zera's pain prompted his will to move. In spite of the cracking glass, Daniel, still laying flat like a broken rag-doll, pulled the blade from where it was lodged. It was a sudden push, one barely willed by his conscious mind. It was only after he had pushed himself up and was mobile--almost in the same movement--that Daniel started to realize what he was doing. At that point, though, the boy didn't make any attempt to stop himself. The glass may have started to break and shatter underneath of him, but the boy was determined to do at least this: he was running towards the man's side, heading in a perpendicular line towards him.

Unless the man--Martin--had moved, he'd feel Daniel's blade sliding through his body, in one side and out through the other. It would be a manner to pierce both of his kidneys in a single blow.

The glass wouldn't take Daniel's movement. On attempting to get up, the necessary placing of all his weight on one foot would send it shooting straight down through the glass to hang above the circle on the lower floor. The broken glass was mostly clean in the downward direction, scratching his clothing without any real piercing. The rest of him would remain on the same floor as Zera and Martin, but an attempt to pull his leg back up would result in it practically being severed by tight, jagged sections...

Luckily for Daniel, Martin was within arm's reach. He was close enough that a running start would have required Daniel to run away, first. The blow, watched from the corner of Martin's, wouldn't connect with his kidneys, as Daniel hoped. He would make a tiny movement forward, misgauging his space slightly as a particularly pained gasp from Zera caught his attention. The blade would pierce his hip and back slightly, drawing a painful stream of blood down his formerly immaculate coat. His wrist would be placed solidly against the blade to prevent it from being swung or spun to dig deeper into his body, a metal guard below his coat providing him this option safely. Whatever else Daniel had accomplished, he had broken Martin's concentration...

"I was Martin, yes. During my life back in Xexoria, I never had the chance to accomplish anything but training for this day... Now, I'm doing great work, and you two are trying to stop me, or escape, or whatever you two want. Even if you managed to kill me, you'd never survive... You can't even escape. You have to be in the circle to be transported, and you have to be at the control center up here to activate it... I can guarantee you won't find a third person to operate the machine here... You can't win..."

Martin would place his foot on Zera's chest as she struggled to regain her breath, kicking her backwards onto the floor and focusing on Daniel. As he snapped his fingers once more, Daniel's head would be overcome with a truly horrible headache. The pain would be all-consuming, and actions would be all but impossible. Even maintaining vision would become an issue. Worse, the level of the pain was so great, it could only really be a precursor to death if nothing changed...

It was fortunate that they were in such physical proximity. Daniel didn't have to move too much to attack, which was especially beneficial, as he was currently stuck with one leg dangling over a break in the glass floor. The floor may have been ornate, but it certainly wasn't useful at all.

There was an option, and for a moment, it seemed like Daniel's only one. It was based entirely upon the blade. Martin was not holding onto it; in fact, he only had his wrist and metal armor about his wrist blocking the blade from moving into him any further. Daniel could have easily pulled his blade back away from Martin's wrist and stabbed it into him, but once the pain hit the boy, he began to lose the ability to think correctly. At least, he lost the ability to think sanely. Stabbing Martin now would be the merciful thing to do, and while Daniel was a perfectly sane boy, people under duress often became much more cruel than they would be otherwise. Similarly, people experiencing extreme physical pain were much, much stronger than they were otherwise . . .

His fingers . . . when he snaps . . .

Daniel continued to hold onto the chakram-blade with his left hand, but his right shot out in a flash. In a fit of agony, he sought to squeeze onto something--anything--to abate the pain, much like hospital patients biting onto something during an amputation. There would be no warning, and with their bodies so close by, Daniel would have all the closeness he needed to swipe his right hand out in a flash and grab Martin's other hand just where the wrist met his hand. The boy wasn't physically powerful by any means, but all the tension and pain was going to be let out through this medium; it was a natural response to extreme pain, and as blood began to run from the boy's nostrils, he'd gain the strength to break Martin's wrist and hand in just seconds.

The boy spoke in-between agonized gasps, "I'd say . . . that I'll break you . . . piece by piece . . . 'til you agree to help us, but . . . after what . . . you've done to Zera . . . I don't know . . ."

Even under duress and pain, there were few beings in the world with the finger strength to break a hand or wrist single handed. Daniel wouldn't be able to break Martin's hand, but after a moment of gripping and tweaking, he would be rewarded by the snapping of the third joint in each of Martin's index and middle fingers. Gritting his teeth, Martin's foot would flash onto Daniel's sword wielding shoulder, pressing the arm to the ground, sliding down to rest on his wrist, pinning both wrist and sword to the ground. His leg speed was impressive, and after only a moment of waiting, Martin would place all his weight on that foot, lifting his other and smashing his heel into Daniel's face while his leg kept him trapped on the floor.

"Believe me, if I want to do more to your girl here, I'll do it. No matter how much you annoy me..."

Up the stairs, the sound of the door slamming open could be heard. Quite a few pairs of feet would begin to approach, probably the shade-people from outside, by the sound of it. This left them with extremely few options... Zera, however, was determined to act. She didn't want revenge. She wanted to go home. Or, alternatively, she wanted Daniel to go home. From the sounds of it, both of them couldn't go... As Martin devoted his attention to stomping at Daniel's face a few times for fun, she would grab his unoccupied hand. Rather than breaking it, however, she would press it to the pedestal, eliciting a loud yell from Martin. Immediately, his body would shake painfully as it was drained by the crystals, which Zera would move to make sure every one was activated. Then, it would go limp, falling to the ground, still breathing but hardly aware of what was going on. The crystals around the room would all glow, a glowing rune appearing in the center of the pedestal. It had to be the way to move the machine...

"Daniel, are you okay?"

Zera didn't offer him a hand to remove his leg, her body language almost defensive, as if she was planning something she knew he wouldn't approve of...

Some hero I am . . .

Everything was a blur. Daniel didn't know if he'd been beaten up all that bad in school or not, but something in his gut told him that he hadn't. All he saw was white eventually; not even feeling the pain, though his body still reacted to it. Every blow the boy took only tightened his grip on Martin's wrist. There was likely to be more than just a broken joint--every kick that the boy took increased the overall pain he was experiencing, dramatically increasing the strength in his grip. Even if he succeeded in breaking Martin's hand (probably in more than one place), Daniel wouldn't know. It was inconsequential by the time that Zera surprised the man and took him down. At that moment, Martin was as much of a threat as Daniel was an asset.

Once he heard Martin's scream of pain, Daniel absentmindedly let go. His arm limply fell to the ground, becoming as motionless as the rest of his body. He lay upon the side of his face, blankly staring ahead with one eye swollen and the other bleeding. His lip was busted open and nose broken; seemed his cheekbone was, too. The damage left a trickle of blood upon the glass, with Daniel completely silent for some time, even after Zera's question. He couldn't even bring himself to hold onto the hilt of his blade again, either; at one point in the beating, he had actually let go of it.

After that long silence, Daniel finally replied, ". . . I'm all roight . . ."

It was an outright lie, and a pretty obvious one at that. Considering how he lay motionless--sans breathing--and the blood that was trickling down upon the glass, the boy was far from all right. Daniel couldn't move without feeling pain. An earlier conclusion was that he had experienced worse; that conclusion was now defunct. That had been the single worst beating he had received in his entire life. As it was tacked on to preexisting injuries and pains, Daniel was finding it very difficult to move at the moment, let alone pull himself out of the awkward position he was in.

"We'll just take all three of them down." Yeah, right . . . I always sucked at dreaming, didn't I?

Zera bent down, still struggling with the pain involved in breathing, and gently gripped Daniel's hand. It had been a difficult trip, and now, it still wasn't going to have a happy ending... The footsteps of the shades on the floor above could be heard, and Daniel's sentiment, while optimistic, was currently unlikely to occur. There was only really one option. She didn't know if the shades were going to kill her or what may happen to her, but how much worse could it be than the life of hiding she'd had?

"Daniel, thanks for everything. I've got a favor to ask, though. I'd like you to send a message to my family when you get back: Nikola Emil, or Sofia, Constantine or Danyr Shariph, in Old Xexoria. It's for my daughter, Zahra... Tell her that mommy is sorry she couldn't be there for her, and she should try to make daddy and grandma proud..."

Tears welling up in her eyes as she thought once more of all the time she'd missed in her life, Zera would squeeze Daniel's hand affectionately, releasing it as the door into the room slammed open. Standing up straight with a certain urgency, she would slam her heel into the glass near Daniel's body. His leg still trapped and his body likely exhausted by the beating he'd endured, there was little he could do as the cracks in the glass expanded, and began to seriously fracture. Zera imagined he was the sort of person who wouldn't willingly have accepted the trip through the portal...

"Have a good life, too..."

The first shade men would run down the steps, as all the glass under Daniel shattered, dropping him to the floor below. As soon as he entered the proximity of the circle, he would see an overlay of stone on all the material around him once, the glass especially becoming halfway between clear and opaque. Zera, turning, would press her hand to the center of the pedestal, just moments before the shade men tackled her onto more solid glass, where she would watch Daniel, hoping to anyone listening or watching that Martin's device worked...

It would. Just a few brief moments after the pedestal was triggered, everything around Daniel would become extremely white and devoid of detail, and he would get the sensation of falling, faster and faster downwards, until the speed seemed to be so great that he'd be ripped apart by sheer motion... Until all at once, it would stop. Daniel was in a similar room to the one he'd just left, but the new room was fully stone, a less decorated twin of the tower he'd just left. Zera, Martin and the shades were all gone, and the room was empty, lit only by reflected sunlight down the stairs from a hole in the room above. The floor around him would be littered with glass pieces and his sword, but there was no mechanism to return to Oblivion...

The woman had his attention the very second she put her hand upon Daniel's. She wasn't trying to help him up--she would have grabbed his hand if she was doing that. Granted, Daniel wasn't the type to expect help from anyone, but Zera's physical action had confused him . . . just as much as her words.

". . . oi . . . whot's with the . . ."

. . . message?

Then she let go of his hand. Daniel could hear the door open, but it paled in comparison to Zera hitting her foot upon the glass, and what she said next to Daniel: have a good life, too. Daniel's eyes widened as the shock of what was happening hit him. She was going to save him--she was going to save him at the cost of herself. That wasn't what Daniel wanted; this message wasn't what he asked for. It wasn't what he promised.

"Zera . . . whot are you . . .?!"

The sound of the glass shattering broke his concentration, but the boy didn't scream. He only watched Zera as he fell, falling several feet before landing upon his leg. The sound of his knee dislodging and ankle shattering didn't even reach the boy's ears. The pain even failed to affect him. Daniel blinked once when he hit the ground, not noticing the glass shards jabbing into his body, just arcing his neck so he could watch Zera for that one last second he was going to be in Oblivion. He felt partially betrayed, but the feeling was subdued by absolute regret. Had he not been so injured, this wouldn't have happened. It wouldn't be Zera sending Daniel back to their world, it would be Daniel tricking Zera into standing in the circle at just the right time. It had been a slowly developing plan, one constrained by physical combat, but absolutely heartfelt. If only he wasn't so beat up--if only he had been stronger . . .

Oblivion could fade away, but the feelings could not. Daniel was stunned, still not feeling all the damages he had retained from the last ten minutes. All he could do was look up. Zera wasn't there. The last image he had of her now was the young woman being pinned down by shade-hybrids.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she stayed and Daniel left. Zera had a life; she had family and friends that cared about her. She had a daughter! Daniel had nothing. He had parents that didn't know he existed, and probably hadn't noticed that he was gone from home this long. He had a cousin that leeched off of him, using Daniel to take the fall for him each time he got into trouble. He had a school filled with kids who didn't notice him walking in the halls . . . they only saw him when he was taking the heat for Joe. That was it. In his world, Daniel felt like a barely tangible existence . . . but Zera was the center of another person's world. Most likely more than one person, in fact. Why did she have to stay back there?

"Zera . . . damnit . . ." Daniel's eyes finally fell to the stone on which he lay. Daniel heaved his breaths, hands clenching into fists as he struggled to come to the most painful conclusions of his life. "Why did you . . .?! That wasn't how it was supposed to be! I'm not supposed to be here!! Goddamnit . . . Zera . . . ZERA~!!"

After leaving the tower through a hole in roughly the same place as the door they'd entered through, Daniel would be back in Ulster, in an abandoned tower that greatly resembled the one he'd just left. A field of boulders in front of the tower resembled the one they'd passed through in Oblivion, though none of the groups or formations was immediately recognizable. No one would follow from the tower, at least within any reasonable amount of time...