Chapter 10 Back To The Grounders

"They are early," Clarke said, confused, looking at the exodus ship that was coming down to the ground.

Violet was sure that there was a mutiny on the Ark, and one group came down, but she didn't know who, and she didn't care as they all died in the crash landing. The only thing that Violet cared about right now was how she would explain this to Anya.

Violet was glad that she had warned Anya that more of her people would be coming to the ground, so at least they wouldn't get the wrong idea or anything.

Clarke let out a laugh as the camp watched the ship get closer to the ground.

"Guess you get to see your mom sooner than you thought," Raven said as she walked up to us, looking at the ship coming down to the ground.

"No, something is wrong," Clarke said as the happiness evaporated of her and fear took its place.

"What?" Raven asked disbelievingly.

"It's coming in too fast, and they should have let the parachutes out by now," Clarke said in a trembling voice.

"Not to mention that it was meant to land near us, and it's far off course, and we lost contact with the Ark around midday", Violet added, looking at the Exodus ship that now was covered in fire from the air friction.

Violet wondered what Sky crew would be like if they all lived. Still, given that they stole a ship and didn't seem to care that they were dooming thousands of others left on the ARK to death, Violet didn't think that they would make Sky crew a better place and a war between them and the grounders may happen even sooner than it did in the show.

The ship disappeared over one of the mountains before an earth-shaking boom erupted, and a massive fireball lit up the sky.

"Nooo", Clarke cried out, seeing the giant fireball where the ship crashed.

"Clarke, you don't know your mum was even on the ship. It could just be a faulty ship. I am sure your mum would have told you if she was coming down today you spoke to her less than 24 hours ago," Violet said, trying to comfort Clarke as she knew from the show that Abby was around to at least season 4, maybe even 5.

"Ya, your right", Clarke said shakily.

"Raven can you see if we can get back in touch with the ARK," Violet asked.

"I can try, but it seems to be a problem on their side", Reven replied.

Violet picked Clarke up and walked her back to her tent. "We will look in the morning. Maybe the black box has some more information," Violet told Clarke as she laid her down on the bed, and Clarke slowly cried herself to sleep.

Violet wasn't sure what to do other than let her fall to sleep. There was no way to assure Clarke that her mother was still alive, and Violet didn't even know if she was still alive. She had made changes with her being there, so Violet just knew the general idea of how things would go.

Violet thought about what to do about the grounders and the mountain, which may make a move at any time. Violet knew they didn't have a good enough relationship with the grounders and could move closer to one of their villages. She decided to wait and see if the mountain wouldn't attack them with no war between the 100 and the grounders. Maybe they wouldn't make a move.

The whole thing hurt Violet's head. She had no way of planning the future when there are so many things that affect how things would turn out.

The night passed slowly, with many of the people in the camp feeling down after seeing the ship explode. Some of them wanted to check it out immediately. Thankfully, that was shot down, and everyone would go and check the crash site. Violet wasn't sure what they were looking for. The size of the explosion made it clear that no one would have lived.

The morning sun was a relief for Violet, and she was thankful that she was a hybrid vampire to her eyes. She could see the light shimmer of light that reflected of her. Violet knew that today was going to be a long day.

Violet left the tent and started to get stuff ready for the walk to the crashed ship while waiting for Clarke and Charlotte to wake up. Looking around the camp, Violet could see many of the other people getting supplies, with the mood being as low as it was last night. Clarke and Charlotte came out of the tent fifteen minutes later, which was lucky as most of the camp wanted to start moving to the crashed ship.

"Morning", Violet said, handing Clarke a bag of food and water.

"Morning, is everyone ready to go?" Clarke asked, not wanting to waste a single minute.

"Yes, I think most wanted to go in the middle of the night but was talked out of it," Violet said as she handed another bag to Charlotte, who had her bow slung on her back.

"What are we doing today?" Charlotte asked.

"Today, we are going to the crashed ship with everyone else, and when we get back, we will head to the meet, Anya. They are no doubt confused about the ship, and I don't want them to think it was an attack," Violet explained to Charlotte as we followed the group that had set off to the Exodus ship.

"Okay, I doubt we will get to hunt anything on the way there or back, though", Charlotte grumbled to herself.

"Maybe not, but when we meet Anya, you can meet some of the seconds. While you may not know how to use a sword, you are very good with a bow," Violet said to the shocked Charlotte.

"Do you know how to use a sword?" Charlotte asked.

"Err, no, not really but im fast and strong enough that I doubt anyone could beat me in a sword fight," Violet said.

The walk to the ship was quiet and solum. It took over an hour for the group to get to the crash site. It was far worse than what the show made. It looked like there were parts of the ship everywhere with a fire still burning. Charred remains of people were scattered around, and some none burned body parts on the outer edge.

Violet grabbed Charlotte's shoulder in a comforting way and gave her a strained smile as the rest of the group stood shocked at the sight.

"Come on," Violet said, walking forward.

The rest of the group slowly followed while covering their mouths and noses from the smell of burning flesh and rocket fuel. Charlotte grabbed Violet's hand as they walked through the wreckage. Violet had hoped there would be things that they could salvage, but other than scrap metal, there was nothing of value intact. Thankfully the crash hadn't set a forest fire, or Violet was sure they would be at war with the grounders.

"Clarke shouldn't be out here," Finn said.

"Where should she be sitting in camp doing nothing?" Violet asked sarcastically.

"Violets right, her mom was on the ship," Raven said as she looked under some scrap.

"Everyone knew that anyone on the ship was dead when it crashed. We are looking for answers, so help me find the black box," Raven said as she looked under more wreckage.

"Stay sharp", Bellamy shouted. Violet had forgotten about him and hadn't told them about meeting the grounders. Violet decided she would do so after the next meeting and handing over the metal to them as of the moment the relationship between the two groups was up in the air till the 100 could show that they had something of worth to the grounders.

Violet knew even after trading the metal, there would have to be a lot more meetings with Anya, and hopefully, Lexa before something formal and recognised by both parties would be laid out. But that was something she would dump on the rest of the Ark when they got to the ground, which Violet guessed would be in a week time. At best, it didn't seem like it would be that long in the show. In fact, if Violet had to guess, the Ark should come to the ground in about three days.

Then both she and Charlotte would be free to go where ever they wanted. Violet wanted to head to the lighthouse and Becca's bunker as soon as possible not only did she hope to find Nightblood for Charlotte, but any of Becca's other tech would be a massive find as well. There is also the Anomaly stone in the 2nd dawn bunker that Violet would love to get a look at.

There was also the chance of mind drives and mind drive readers being in Becca's lighthouse, and with them, it could be possible to talk to Becca inside the flame. Violet had so much to do and not a lot of time to do it. The nuclear reactors around the world were decaying and would only last at best for two years before most of the life on earth would die again.

So although Violet planned on killing everyone in the mountain, she didn't want the mountain to blow up as it did in the show as it could house maybe another four to five hundred people, which was a lot.

Violet didn't bother looking around. She already knew that the mountain was responsible for the ship's crash as they were afraid it landing on the mountain would make the bunker they are living in collapse or be damaged and let radiation in.

"CLARKE, STOP!" Raven shouted seeing looking at some pinkish liquid. Violet guessed it must be some form of rocket fuel as it was dripping out of the engine.

Raven dip a rock in it before shouting, "Fire in the hole!"

Violet watched as she threw the rock, and it landed in a small fire that erupted into a large fireball making Violet flinch. One of the most dangerous things for Violet was fire. However, she did guess that if they were capable of tearing her apart, she would also die from that while she had tested her skin's strength, and it was tough for her to cut into unless she used a lot of force she had managed to cut into her skin and the cut did heal within a few seconds.

But the test showed that she could be injured and would take measures to protect herself, like using the unbreakable charm on her clothing and cushioning charms on the inside to hopefully make it impossible for her to be injured via swords and bullets unless they hit her skin. Violet would also now look into enchanting something with the flame freezing charm just in case someone sets her on fire.

"We need to move out. It's too dangerous to be here while there is still fire burning," Raven said.

"Okay, let's move out. Everyone keep close," Bellamy shouted out.

The group slowly made their way out of the wreckage while watching every step they made just in case. It took ten minutes to leave and make our way back to the camp. By the time we got back to the camp, it was already past midday.

"Come on," Violet said to Charlotte, and they both walked off to Clarke's tent.

"Clarke, we are going back to the grounders to hand over the metal and to tell them about the ship that crashed im sure that has set them on edge, and the sooner we talk about it, the better", Violet explained.

"Are you sure we can trust them?" Clarke asked, still looking uncomfortable about trusting the grounders.

"Not sure, but if it turns out we can't trust them, at least we can say we tried to live peacefully," Violet said.

"How long will you be gone? You and Charlotte are our best hunters," Clarke asked.

"Maybe three days tops", Violet replied.

"Okay, see you in three days with hopefully good news," Clarke said in a hopeful tone.

"Remember, if something happens, use the necklace to portkey to the bunker", Violet reminded Clarke.

"Your the one going to a grounder village," Clarke said, rolling her eyes.

"Right, let's go, Charlotte," Violet said, standing up and leaving camp Violet waited till they were out of the line of sight of the camp before she conjured a box and the conjured ten ingots of high carbon steel inside the box and enchanted it with a featherlight charm to make it easy to carry. Violet and Charlotte picked up one end each and walked towards the underground cave that Lincoln said he would wait out. Violet could hear someone in the cave as they got closer.

"Lincoln?" Violet called out at the entrance of the cave.

A moment later, Lincoln was climbing out of the cave. "What happened last night?" Lincoln asked immediately.

"Not sure the ship wasn't meant to come down for a week and a bit, so your guess is as good as mine, but it crashed and exploded. No one survived," Violet told him.

"Well, all of my people are twitchy. Some of them wanted to attack the camp, and they would have if it weren't for Anya," Lincoln said.

"Well, best not keep Anya waiting for them. By my guess, it will take about two hours to get to the village," Violet asked.

"Come on, let's go," Lincoln said and walked off in a light jog towards the grounder village.

Thanks to the featherlight charm Charlotte found it easy to keep up with Lincoln as they did a light jog through the woods, something that would no doubt take four hours if they had to carry the metal in its real weight.

It felt like no time had passed by the time that the three of them could hear the sounds of the village. Violet saw that Charlotte looked particularly excited about getting to the village. Violet herself was curious about what the village looked like. She expected it to be reasonably large as it was the capital of Trikru. It only took another five minutes before the village came into view.

And Violet was happy to see that it did meet her expectation on the size. There were a few actual wooden buildings and even one stone building, and the rest had wooden huts. The village wall was made out of metal scrap, and from the size, Violet guessed, anywhere from 250 to 400 people could live there, which wasn't a bad amount.

"I will go tell Anya we are here. You are not allowed to bring weapons into TonDC, so you will need to hand over your bows when we enter." Lincoln said as Violet and Charlotte lowered the crate to the ground, and Violet removed the featherlight charm so the grounders wouldn't notice that the metal weighed nothing when they picked it up.

"What are the seconds like?" Charlotte asked curiously.

"Hmm, I only met Tris, so im not sure", Violet replied, which was true. Violet didn't know everything about the grounders even after watching the show. The culture wasn't really explored in-depth other than Nightbloods, and how the commander is chosen the show from what Violet remembered didn't go into detail. Even when Octavia became a second, her duties and responsibilities weren't really explained.

A moment later, Lincoln came back with Anya, two guards and her second Tris. Violet noticed that the two guards were tense, unlike Anya, who seemed to be much more relaxed, but with her enhanced vision, Violet could see that she was stressed.

"Anya", Violet greeted her and smiled at Tris.

"Violet, your people caused a lot of problems in the last two days", Anya replied.

"I can explain that, but first, I brought the metal ten ingots," Violet said, gesturing to the box.

Anya gave the two guards that came with her a nod, and they went to check the box before nodding back to Anya and picking up the box and taking it back to the village.

"Well, let's go talk about the last two days. Your second can be shown around by Tris," Anya said as she led the way back to TonDC.

"Okay," Violet said as she handed Charlotte a bag full of small gemstones and followed Anya as Tris and Charlotte introduced themselves to each other. Violet was amazed by how nature had taken back what would have once been the capital of the USA. There was nothing left to show the thousands of houses that used to be here or the roads that should have been on the ground.

As they entered the village, they had to hand over their bows and the knives that they were carrying. Many of the villages gave them curious and cautious looks. The village was very active, with kids from the ages of five to seven running around, with most of them being girls and only a few boys to the far left where what Violet guessed were the seconds of all the village warriors. There was a total of nine seconds training at the moment, not including Tris.

Anya noticed where Violet was looking. "Do your people have seconds?" Anya asked.

Violet knew that Anya was asking in part to learn more about a possible enemy, but she was sure that she was also asking out of curiosity.

"I guess I do as Charlotte is my second and shadows me everywhere. I haven't got around to teaching how to use a sword or anything like that. I have been teaching her how to hunt and track, and we haven't had time to do more than that. We are the best hunters, so we spend almost every day hunting, so the camp has enough food." Violet explained.

"As for the Ark, the warriors are called 'The Guard' you can put in a request to join them at the age of thirteen, and the training takes four years in total. But the training is nothing like your seconds do. They are meant more to be peacekeepers than warriors as there is no one to fight," Violet said.

"You don't have warriors?" Anya asked, confused.

"There are only our people living on the Ark, so there is no one to fight. They are trained to use guns, but they haven't for over 90 years, and any fights that happen on the Ark from the people living on there don't have weapons, or maybe at best they have iron rods but no swords or guns," Violet said.

Anya and Violet walked into the only stone building, and Anya motioned for her to take a seat.

"So, the last two days?" Anya asked.

"So yesterday while I was travelling here with Lincoln, the camp lost contact with the Ark in the morning. The camp thought it was a problem with the tech or the Ark was out of range," Violet explained.

"So you were in contact with this 'Ark'?" Anya asked, confused.

"Yes, using a piece of technology called a radio it allows long-range real-time communication", Violet explained.

"Okay, carry on," Anaya said.

"The camp waited for the Ark to come back into range which should take around two hours, but the Ark never came back into contact, so the camp thought that it was a tech problem, but after checking out the radio, it was working perfectly so it must be a problem on the Ark.

That was the last time we were able to talk to the Ark over a day ago, and we haven't been able to talk to them since. As for the ship that crashed to the ground, they are called Exodus ships, and there are two of them… Or there was two of them. One of them crashed yesterday." Violet said before taking a sip of a drink that Violet was surprised to find was fruit juice.

"Each Exodus ship could have around 900 people. As for why it came down last night, we have no idea it wasn't due to come down for another nine days at least." Violet said with a confused face.

"Is there no way for you to ask your people?" Anya asked.

"No, the problem is on the Ark, so we can only wait if there was a serious problem on the Ark that could be why they did an emergency launch last night. If that is the case, then I would expect more in the next day, or two" Violet explained helplessly.

"Do they control where they can land?" Anya inquired.

"They should be able to. We have no idea why the ship crashed last night. So it is possible that they can't control the landing. I wish I could tell you more, but we really have no idea." Violet sighed.

"I see. Well, let's walk around the town a bit and see what our seconds are up to," Anya said, standing up.

Anya led her out of the building and showed her around town, which seemed to be split into sections. One was clearly housing with wooden huts that each seemed to have a small garden where herbs and possibly food was being grown. The next section was a market district and workshops. The market was mostly made from stalls selling many different things, the typical things like meat and vegetables.

There were also things like the fur of many different animals and leather as well as waterproof material that looked like some kind of animal skin, maybe seal skin that had a horrible smell to it. There were also two blacksmith shops that were actual stores and two lumber shops that sold raw wood or manufactured wooden goods.

The last section of the village was what Violet guessed where the military section, as that was were the seconds where all training and there was also a range for people to practice using bow and arrows and another for using swords.

As Violet and Anya walked up to this section, they could see that both Tris and Charlotte were using the range and that Charlotte had been given her bow back with one of the village guards just a little behind her. Violet guessed they let her use her bow for training and would look after it when she wasn't using it anymore.

"Im curious to see how good she is with a bow," Anya said aloud, looking at the scene.

Violet wasn't worried. She had used a fair few charms on Charlotte that allowed her to think and react at superhuman speed and had near superhuman sensors making her eyesight nearly as good as her own vampire enhanced sight. It wasn't a fair fight at all for Tris.

"She is very good", Violet simply said.

They both watched as Tris went first and shot three arrows, with all three of them hitting the red circle and one of them hitting just shy of the yellow centre circle.

"Not bad", Violet said as Charlotte stepped up for her turn.

Charlotte fired the first arrow that hit dead in the centre of the target before firing the second arrow that hit the outer yellow centre circle. Violet noticed that far more people were paying attention to Charlotte now, with some whispering asking each other how she was so good with a bow. Charlotte shot the last arrow that sunk right next to the first arrow before looking at Tris, who looked a little annoyed but still congratulated her on her skill with the bow.

"She is gifted with the bow," Anya said, looking thoughtful. "You said she hasn't had any training with a sword?"

"No, not yet. Once the rest of the camp get better at hunting or manage to at least hunt one thing a day, we can move onto swords," Violet said.

Anya and Violet watched as Charlotte passed her bow back to the guard before turning around and seeing them and most of everyone else watching before walking up to Anya and her.

"Good job Tris. Keep practising, and soon im sure you will be able to beat Charlotte" Anya praised and encouraged Tris.

Violet wasn't surprised that Tris was so skilled as Anya was the teacher of Lexa, who became commander. While Lexa no doubt had more training when she got to Polis and became an official Nightblood and got training for that, the foundation of her fighting would have been learned from Anya.

Violet looked at the sky and saw that it was getting dark.

"Your welcome to stay here for the night", Anya offered, seeing her looking at the darkening sky.

"Thank you," Violet said while thinking about the camp. She was sure the mountain would be making their move soon. Violet just wasn't sure how they would do it as of the moment they weren't at war with the grounders, and hardly anyone had been hurt by them, so she wasn't sure how they planned on getting them back to the mountain.

They could just invite them. Violet was sure most of them were stupid enough to agree without thinking, but if they did that, they wouldn't be able to force the ones that said no, or they could just gas them like in the show and tell them they saw the grounders planning to attack them. If they were smart, they could even send reapers to attack them before 'saving' them.

Violet was sure they wouldn't be able to get all of them as some would be out hunting or getting water. Clarke's portkey would activate if she was knocked out with the gas taking her to the bunker so she would be safe. Violet could do nothing more than wait. If they knew she had made contact with the grounders and that they were on a goodish relationship, then they would be forced to act while she was away, which was a lot, but either tonight or tomorrow morning would be the best time for the mountain men to act.

Not that it changed the outcome Violet would kill them all at some point, it was the best way to build up a relationship with the grounders, and they couldn't live above ground anyway even with bone marrow treatment, the resistance to radiation wouldn't pass on to any babies they had unless they had them with the people from the Ark. And Violet knew if the people on the Ark agreed to take the mountain men in as part of there people the grounders would move to kill them all.

The grounders had suffered for over 90 years and been treated like livestock to have their blood drained like animals. There was no way for peace between the grounders and the mountain men.