-How We Got Here

_______________

A/N: A bit of an information dump, but it does fill in some minor gaps in the story that many of you might have been questioning. More information regarding the Neverdark Arc will come later for those wondering.

_______________

Lia awoke to the sound of muffled yelling, swords and blades clashing, and what sounded like the very walls and ground being torn to bits.

As her eyes opened back up, all she could see was a blur of outlines, people who were leaning over her, clearly in distress about something.

As her eyes cleared, and her vision returned, Lia could hear the muffled sounds of their voices, as her ears and eyes slowly adjusted back to their normal state, rather than the constant ringing she was hearing in her ears.

"...Lia…Lia….LIA!"

Snapping her body upwards in a sitting position, Lia's senses returned to her like a battering ram at full force. This caused her to become queasy with the sudden introduction of loud and deafening noises that were now constantly filling her ears and mind.

Suddenly, she felt two arms ram tightly around her, before she realized it was Rian, who seemed more than distressed but also happy that she had woken up.

The hug was quick and held no emotion other than a silent greeting to her, before he clutched her shoulders, giving her a look up and down for any more existing wounds.

"Are you alright? Do you feel any pain?"

Brushing Rian's arms away, Lia nodded her head, assuring him that she was ok.

"Yes, I'm fine, Rian."

Hearing her words, Rian sighed in relief, clutching his chest, giving Lia the idea that he was genuinely worried about her.

Glancing around them, Lia found that she was in a different place then from where she had been fighting with Alan. Assuming that was the place she fell at, Lia had thought that would have been the place she would have woken back up in.

Instead, however, Lia found they were located on top of some raised rock formation. In fact, the ground beneath them appeared cracked and broken, allowing for several large stone plates to rise from where they had been in the ground some hundred years ago, and were now raised into some kind of makeshift platform.

However, this didn't concern Lia, as she simply wrote it off as them taking cover while Cain was healing her. But what did strike her as odd was the fact that she couldn't see Cain at all.

Lia had thought, given the state she was in, Cain would have been right next to her when she woke up.

Turning to Rian, she asked calmly, but with hints of worry in her voice.

"Where's Cain? Wasn't he right here healing me?"

Confused, Rian looke bewildered at the fact that Lia knew what Cain was doing, much less the shock he felt when he realized Lia had no reaction to almost dying on the spot.

Shaking his head, Rian just concluded to himself that she was more like Cain than he had once thought.

"I don't know. He was here for a moment, but a few moments before you woke up, he just got up and told me to keep you safe."

Standing up, Lia looked out before her, passing her eyes across the entire front of the chamber from her position.

"He also said that he would be back soon, and to not let you worry."

Scoffing at Rian's words - or rather, Cain's words - Lia continued panning her eyes out over the distance, hoping to find Cain.

From her position, she could see the entire front of the chamber, door, and graves all at once. She could even see the giant queen spider that lay dead not too far away from them.

But she could not find Cain, as her vision was still somewhat clouded from having just woken up.

From behind her, she could hear Rian's worried voice as he spoke to her.

"Lia, it's best to sit back down. You just came back from the dead, you shouldn't be over exerting yourself like this so soon."

Knowing it would just lead to a more heated argument if Lia tried to refuse him, Lia quietly gave up on trying to look for Cain. While on one hand she wanted to find him soon, on the other she also knew that Rian was right, and with her queasy state she wouldn't be able to find anyone at this rate, much less help them.

Sitting down next to Rian, who took off his gauntlets, exposing his bruised and bloodied hands, Lia was left somewhat shocked.

"Your hands…"

Her voice drifted off as the sheer sight of his somewhat broken hands scared her more than she wanted to admit.

"It's fine. They normally come out like this after each battle. I tried lining the insides with wool and other cloth, but over time the blood and sweat wore down any cloth I put in there. So now, every time I fight, it's like my hands are just rattling inside a metal shell."

"That must be painful."

Though Rian assured her that he was fine, Lia had her doubts, which only increased when she saw how much Rian was struggling just with opening his hand.

Lia concluded that his left hand must have been broken, and his right hand was severely injured.

Catching Lia's worried glance, Rian stopped trying to open his hands, giving up at hiding his pain from her, knowing she would only nag him later on about it.

Sighing he didn't hold her gaze, and instead looked out over the chamber from where they were leaning against a rock face.

"This battle lasted longer than I would have thought. Normally my master only has me fighting to my bare minimum. Not for as long as this."

Taken aback at his words, Lia's attention focused away from Rian's injured state, and was more focused on what he had said.

"Master? Do your higher ups often make you go out on missions like these?"

"Well, not for the most part. They don't really seem to care that there was a giant spider's nest just sitting here in the cave, much less how many were losing their lives to them."

Clutching his hands, his eyes passing over the many bruises both black and blue, the blood that poured from several cuts, and the broken appearance his hands had.

"I felt so powerless when I saw all my friends coming back either as mincemeat or in body bags. It was so frustrating not being able to do anything. Eventually though, I met someone who offered to help me…"

And like that, Rian found himself telling Lia about the man he prided himself in knowing. The man who had given him life, and a new form.

The man he owed everything to, and the master who taught him to walk on his own feet.

"...He gave me these."

He gestured to his gauntlets, and brushed his hands over the intricate work of the 'steampunk' design that he had told Lia about.

The many small pipes that lined the outside. The many pieces of metal that sat on top of one another, creating a detailed and bumpy surface.

"He built these for me to fight with. To protect my friends in the mines. And it worked. Eventually, people started following after me, fighting against the spiders either out of rage, worry, or fear. Soon, I had an entire militia on my back, looking to me to lead them. We pushed the spiders back, far back into a canyon, where we fought rigorously with them for days."

Gasping, Lia thought back to the time when they were passing by that strange mound of dirt, and the carnage that appeared on the other side of it. The dozens and dozens of dead bodies that were laying on the ground rotting away, some already half there.

It was a scene she had deeply embedded into her mind.

"That was you?"

Nodding, Rian confirmed her suspicions, and continued on with his little tale.

"We held the spiders there for a long time, desperately trying to find a way to block off the exit. But those stupid higher ups denied us."

Lia could vividly feel the hatred in his words, the rage seething from his clenched teeth.

"When we tried to save lives, all they cared about was the possibility of more silver deeper into the caves. In fact, they didn't even care that so many of us had died defending ourselves, and they ordered us to continue on deeper into the caves. They actually referred to us as 'their' militia."

Scoffing at the irony of his own tale, Rian held up one of the gauntlets with his non broken hand.

"When we tried fighting, the man who made this for me offered to help, giving us tools and trinkets that would help us. And they did. But eventually, the boys and I came to a conclusion that, if we chose to go on, the higher ups would just get more and more greedy, and we would just keep losing more and more people. So, we decided that, in order to protect more people from dying, we would stop at the cavern and hold off there, rather than risking going any further."

Gesturing around them, Rian made one last ironic remark that told Lia just how desperate they really were.

"If I had known this place was here, just around the corner, I would have pushed on no matter the risk. But I was a fool and thought it would be better to stay. Eventually, however, the silver began running dry in the mines, and the higher ups were telling us to get back into battle. They actually said battle, like we were the city's military. Of course, no one cared much about us back then. Just some gang is what they called us, people who were making trouble for the hard working people of the city by pronouncing around with weapons all the time."

"Why didn't you just leave? You could have quit."

Lia's curiosity got the better of her, as she just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that Rian would continue fighting when he had the option to leave.

"Because I couldn't. If I left, who would be here to lead the people in the mines and protect them. If I left, those who didn't have that option would be forced to face them alone. And given that the spider queen could just make more, I decided that I needed to kill her, but I couldn't do it alone."

"So you hired Hunters. Mercenaries."

"That's right. The man who made this stuff for us, my master, he bought us time by bringing his own business into this. To be honest, we didn't' really mind. He was making a hell of a lot of money, and paid off the company enough to make them believe we were still mining silver while they were reaping the profits. He also made sure to reward us handsomely for our struggles. It happened to be enough for a Hunter to come along. Which is why I was so defensive when you were talking to one of my men. I had thought that, at the time, you were someone the higher ups sent to investigate us."

"Ah.."

Thinking about it all now, it made sense.

The bounty on the spiders, the lack of information on the mines, and even Rian's initial attitude to her was all well within expectations when she put her mind to it.

Snapping her from her thoughts, Lia heard Rian's quiet and meek voice from her side.

"I…I'm sorry about all that by the way."

Chuckling to herself, Lia was surprised that Rian had a meek side to him given that he really was a war titan.

"Don't apologize. You had a good reason. Plus, if I was in the same position as you, I probably would have done the same thing."

Sighing, Rian turned her words over in his mind and concluded one undeniable fact about Lia.

'She really is a great person. I wonder what she'll be doing after this?'

The thought of her eventually leaving made him somewhat sad. In many ways, he had grown attached to Lia and Lukali, and treated them as friends.

"By the way, what was that you said earlier? About your masters business."

Snapping him from his thoughts, Rian turned to Lia who seemed confused, almost as if she couldn't connect the dots of the silver mine and the man's mysterious business.

Knowing the true greed of people better than anyone, Lia found it hard to believe that someone would willingly give up money, and such a large amount of money, out of the kindness of their goodwill.

Seeing Lia's conflicted feelings regarding the matter, Rian just shook his head, knowing full well that it was well within expectations.

"When we leave to go meet him, you can ask him yourself. After all, he is the person that put up the notice in the first place."

"Oh…well then, I suppose I should thank him first off."

Laughing with her, Rian found a warm feeling rising within his chest.

'A friend. I never thought I would have one.'

Interrupting his thoughts, the sound of ratting gear snapping him back to reality.

Sitting down nearby, Kal looked exhausted, but more annoyed than anything. Casing a casual side glance at Rian and Lia, he nodded before laying down on his back and resting his head against his arms.

Clearly the fatigue was getting to him.

Not missing any chances, Lia stood up quickly, grilling Kal for questions.

"Kal?"

Raising a hand in some halfhearted wave, Kal barely gave her another notion of attention to her words, and merely focused on trying to catch some shut eye.

"Where's Cain? I know you know so don't-"

Before she could finish with her warning and question, Kal once again raised his hand pointing off into the distance without looking anywhere.

"What….?"

As her words drifted off, Lia and Rain stared in shock next to each other, both surprised and in fear at what they could see.

Cain, who was not too far off from their position, was zooming this way and that around an unsuspecting victim.

Alan.

With each pass by, Cain landed a nasty punch to any part of his body that he could, leaving small miniature shock waves to sound out with each attack that landed.

Eventually, after a few more dozen passed by at a speed he could not track, Alan found himself being flung against a wall, as his eyes passed over Cain, who now stood in the spot he once did. His arm outstretched in the air as if that was all it took to send Alan flying dozens of feet in the air, smashing against a wall.

But Alan was somewhat immune to this attack now, as his back and ribs had become numb to the pain, which, to him, didn't seem like a good thing.

Disappearing from his spot, Alan had only a few seconds to throw himself to the side, as Cain reappeared where he had once been, his fist embedded into stone.

A large shock wave blasted out, sending Alan back several more feet, and causing the wall to crack in so many ways and directions that Alan wondered if the entire wall would collapse on top of him.

Slowly turning his head, and brushing off the dust that had gotten onto his clothes, Cain's eyes bore daggers into Alan's soul. His expression, emotionless and cold.

And what came next, from his mouth was even colder.

"Now then Alan. Shall we get down to it?"

Gulping down a mouthful of saliva, Alan stared back, his eyes wide with fear as he meekly asked.

"Ge-Get down to what?"

Smiling his sinister smile, mixed with the cold and emotionless appearance he portrayed, caused those who were watching to lock up, their bodies refusing to move.

"Your death."