Exit Through the Gift Shop

"Ahg! Iron! You absolute fucking coward!" Metas growled in hopes he could ignore the fire that emanated from the wound that bled heavily.

"I have more, why don't you just stand still so it hurts less as you and your group of friends die?" Silas asked with a twisted grin, and eyes that were mad with a crazed, glowing green.

Metas opened the door to the cell as Silas loaded the crossbow again. Thanks to his quick actions, the door took the brunt of the arrow's tip, and it didn't pierce him like the first one that was still sticking through his forearm just before his elbow joint.

There wasn't a word good enough for the agony the true Alpha was in - but he held the door and grunted at the others through his pain, "Get Lara - get Veltar and your sister - and get out. Now."

"Tell Myranda I love her endlessly," he added as another arrow was being loaded and ready to fly.

"You're going to have to tell her yourself" Jyriah insisted.

"We can't argue right now. We came here for your sister and her mate - so get them and go, that's a command" Metas replied back in anger, but it was only because Jyriah was fighting him on the matter.

"...you're still going to have to tell her yourself," Jyriah growled again through his teeth, but obeyed Metas' orders and went into the cell to help Ajax with moving all three of the injured party members.

"Gah!" Metas shouted as another iron arrow made contact with his skin - but luckily the door still took more of the force for him and the head of the arrow only punctured his shoulder a little - but it made it so much harder to keep the door open.

Silas was advancing slowly as he kept his concentration on loading the crossbow again. "You need to die, Metas. You've been a tick on my hide for my entire life, and you are the only thing standing between me and my rightful place. I am so tired of this endless feud. Just give up, and you will die just a little easier."

"You're using human tools -- forbidden human tools, and you dare say you're fit to be alpha? You're pathetic, and the first wolf larger than you who wants to usurp your rule will be able to rip you in half like an old rag. That's why you have to use whatever it is you're using to beat me. You can't do it otherwise," Metas spoke angrily as his pain only added to the rage he was feeling.

"See, that's the thing, Mets. You always thought your size meant you were the perfect fit to be Alpha - but really, you should have been worried about your brain, and the lack of it's ability. You can call me a coward all you want, but of the two of us, I'm the one who isn't bleeding and stuck with ...what are these things called?" Silas wondered for a moment as he lost his place in his monologue.

"They're bitch sticks - for weaklings and poor excuses for warriors like yourself!" Jyriah shot out as he came through the door with Veltar draped over his shoulder, and Syrana clutched to his chest.

"You shouldn't shuck insults at me, Jyriah. Your intelligence is about as deep as a puddle," Silas laughed a little deranged as he pulled the string back into its locking positions and shot another arrow towards the top of the door in hopes of wounding Metas' skull.

The alpha let out a wild cry of pain as another iron tip pierced through his flesh, only this time it was his left eye that took the hit. His cries were a haunting mix of anger, surprise, and fear. It was not a sound anyone in the area had heard from his lips.

"Come on - let's go, Metas. Come on," Ajax urged and grabbed at his bicep from the uninjured arm.

"I can't. This is our only cover..." came his warbled replied as his body started to shake from how much iron had entered his blood stream.

"Wait until he shoots that bolt thing and then we can run," Lara suggested with a grunt in her chest from the mere movement from Ajax's breathing.

"Hey, Mets... I kind of need you back here!" Jyriah cried in terror.

"Agh..." the injured Metas replied in frustration.

Another arrow flew, but this time it narrowly missed him as it stuck entirely through the door.

"Now - go go go!" Lara insited and clawed at her friend's arm desperately.

"I..I'm trying..." Metas urged as his throat bubbled up with foam.

The pain was blinding. He could only see white as he pushed through each pulse and prick of pain. Metas wasn't even sure where he was going - he just knew to follow the voices of his friends calling his name.

"Whose the coward now!? Are you running from me again? You're the pathetic one!" Silas hurled towards Metas as he reloaded the crude short-range missile again.

Metas' brain was so focused on moving forward, that he couldn't even reply. It just wasn't worth the effort to think of words as he was starting to stumble forward from dizziness.

Silas' footsteps came running up behind them as he gave up on using the weapon again, and instead he went at them with the full-force of his legs, but when he came around the corner, all he saw was a stone wall.

Unlike Metas, Silas had no idea how anything without a knob worked. His blood was neither divine, nor worthy of the magics that still lived in the rocks of the mountain. Had he been, then perhaps the rock would have moved for him, and he wouldn't be standing there in a cold sweat.

They made it down the stairs all together, but when it came to the hole in the earth they clawed up from, his body started to give out and waver back and forth.

"M-Myranda.. tell her..." he didn't get to finish. Instead, his right eye rolled back into his skull as he started to slump forward.

"Metas - Metas, wait! Someone grab him!" Lara screamed as she watched the large form of her friend fall forwards into the tunnel he and Jyriah had climbed up from.

"Metas!" was the last thing he heard before the white light turned into an abyssal black. He felt nothing as his body pinged off of the metals and objects they had used to climb up in the first place.

What were once allies that helped him ascend to the castle, were now enemies that reached out to damage his body further as gravity pulled him down the rocky pile of junk.

*********

"Metas?" Jyriah said as he reached out to touch his mortal form that had been very much battered. At least the arrow that was in his forearm was gone, but it had left a gaping wound where a lot of his muscles had been torn out.

"...Is he dead?" Lara asked with tears in her eyes.

Ajax had returned with Veltar over his shoulder, and once he got to the ground for a respite, he approached his mate, who had begun to heal much quicker with Ajax at her side.

"No, thank the Goddess. He's hurt badly, but he's alive. Once you heal up, Lara - you and Ajax need to take Veltar and Syrana back to the cave. Myranda knows more about medicine than I do, so she should be of use to us all since we're all injured in some way," Jyriah said sadly.

"I'm going to stay with my brother here so I don't have to look at my baby sister's heartbroken face. Damn that Silas."

"Understandable," Ajax replied and gave a nod of affirmation.

"Joss should be there by now. If you could send him to help me, that would be helpful," Jyriah sighed out and looked to the ground to avoid anyone seeing his unhappy face.

Not even laughter could help him out of this pit.

"At least we have Metas. Silas would have immediately killed him if we left him behind," Ajax tried to give the usually jovial little flame a reason to brighten, but all Jyriah did was sink his hands into his face.

"I know you two have to...get cuddly and stuff, but can you let me plug my ears or something so that you can do whatever it is you do to heal each other?" Jyriah complained and turned away from the canoodling couple.

"I'm sorry - it can't really be helped," Lara replied timidly, unsure of how to handle a very distraught Jyriah.

"Yeah, yea - I know," Jyriah waved them off and hunched down to lock them out of reality, and plugged his ears to ignore all the lippy-smacky noises that he despised (even when kissing his own mate - he just hated the sound so very, very much).

*******

"What in the mother of magic happened!?" Lara shrieked when she saw Myranda's body that was injured as badly as Metas' was.

"I-I don't know..." Joss squeaked out as he was still in shock, and even covered in blood and blood spatter.

Lara's eyes widened once she was able to take in the extent of Myranda's wounds. They were the same exact ones that Metas had. Even her left forearm had muscles torn through at the same place.

"We have to get Metas back here - right now. Right right now. Leave her and come with me" Lara didn't offer an explanation, and leaned out of the waterfall to help Ajax bring in two more bodies - one of which Joss knew immediately.

"What is going on?! Where is Jyriah and Metas?" Joss' anxiety rose and his heart started to pound so hard he could see its beating in his eyes as his vision started to get a bright light surrounding his vision like growing frost.

This was not at all in the different outcomes he had planned for.

"Joss! We need your help - snap out of it!" Lara said and reached out to shake his shoulders. "If you want to save her and Metas, we have to bring them together. Now come back with us and help us keep his body stable. We need you to not be freaking out right now. Put her down, and come with us," she urged and started to pull at his arm.

"Y-yeah... but what happened? What the fuck just happened?" Joss asked again insistently.

"Isn't it obvious? They're fated mates," Ajax said as though this were information everyone should know.

"What? What is a fated mate?" Joss asked, but once he saw their faces, he realized that the last thing he needed to do was lob anymore questions.

'Come on, get focused - ask questions later, get firsthand knowledge now'.

Joss put Myranda down as gently as he could. Her wounds that had appeared right before his eyes were still so terrifying to see. It was one thing to be hit by invisible weapons, but it was another to have them happen in front of an innocent bystander who was still conscious enough to have to process the scene.

He had no idea what fated mates were, but he wanted to find out immediately, and hope that Jyriah wouldn't get mad that he left both of his sisters unattended.