A Tale of Traitors

Queen: Captured

     "—you useless bag of heifer filth," I yelled, hearing the translator frantically shouting something over my voice. I was in the middle of spitting out any insult that came to mind when the interrogator slapped me right across the face. I gave him my meanest death glare, grinned wickedly and then spat my blood at him. He stepped forward until his face was uncomfortably close to my own, not even caring to wipe off the blood from his cheek. He spoke his dark language through gritted teeth. The translator in the corner of the room spoke in the English of the Averages so I would understand,
"Why are you here?"
I examined the ceiling as if I was thinking, landed my gaze back on the interrogator and gave an annoyingly innocent shrug.
"How did you get inside?"
     I repeated my previous actions, adding a bonus smirk when the translator looked nervously between the interrogator and I. He was outraged, and started to beat me more savagely than before. Three guards were holding me on my feet; I didn't focus on the pain, but instead on the pride I took in the fact that it took three grown men to subdue me. The interrogation had started about half an hour before, after they had finally got me under control and led the others into their individual cells. They had put bags over our heads long before we entered the bunker, but as far as I knew they didn't have all of us yet. I hoped with every ounce of optimism I had left that Willow wasn't part of our group. It had been about an hour's march from our place in the woods to the exact place where we were being kept. I suspected we were somewhere extremely hidden and guarded in the facility, which made me realize it was basically impossible for any of us to escape. Ugh, I hope Willow knows better than to come after us. How humiliating would it be for the whole universe to lose this battle because our chosen warrior infiltrated an Exterminator fortress in search of her lousy friends who were stupid enough to get caught? Very, very humiliating.
"If you don't start answering questions," the translator was saying, "we will be forced to move on to more painful methods of interrogation. Do you understand?"
My legs felt too weak to support me, but I continued fighting to stand on my own.
"Do. You. Understand."
I nodded, still refusing to speak. Oh, I don't want to be misunderstood; I wasn't afraid to speak to him. Heck, there's barely anything in this world, my own, or any others out there that actually terrifies me. Death is an old friend of mine, the thought of dying doesn't bother me. Besides, I thought, I'll be dying for something that matters. That is the greatest way to die, for something you've dedicated your life to. This rebellion is my everything. It gave me everything. It's all I have. I'll die defending it. These thoughts made me smile. No doubt, they were interrogating the others, too. So long as they all shut their mouths, we most likely had a few hours until they decided to kill some of us off, starting with the ones who were most resistant to their tactics. They would let the others know that their target would be killed if they didn't speak up to save their friend. When the others cracked, they'd just kill the rest of us. I knew they'd want to kill me first. I'd die a hero and show the others how that's done. I was perfectly at peace with that.

I just needed to take my time answering questions. I needed to stall.... to give Willow some time to run.

 "Was the Warrior with you?" The translator burst out when I didn't hear him the first time he asked.
"Which one?" I finally answered.
The anger on the interrogator's face was priceless. "Our scouts spotted her along with your group. It appears she vanished just as we ambushed you. Where is she headed?"
     My thoughts instantly bounced to the fairy thing—oh, the name was something weird and hard to pronounce. I was almost glad to have forgotten it. I knew its history, though. The professor had shown me the path when Willow was passed out, after we had bounced from Realm 4. My stomach dropped as I realized the Exterminators had probably found the map by now and were trying to analyze it. The professor purposely hadn't written anything on the map. He had all the information memorized, except for the stuff he kept in his journal. I'd tried reading his journal before, to prove to him that it was too dangerous to write anything down, and to my delight, I discovered that every couple of words or so, the professor would write in another language. Most of them were ancient languages that had died off already, like those found on the Rosetta Stone on Earth. It would be really annoying to try and translate the whole journal, and would take a long time. Experts would be involved. That made the horrible feeling in my stomach ease up a bit. Just because they physically had the information didn't mean that they understood it. There was still hope for us. But Willow... if they really hadn't found her, she was out in the wilderness somewhere with no information on where to go or what to do. What if she runs out of Shadow Catchers and the Spirits find her? What if something else finds her first, attacks, and slaughters her? What if someone else is out there in the wild, and, recognizing who she is, takes advantage of her kindness?

The interrogator roared something in his language of death, and the translator glared smugly at me.

 "Alright, Elf," the translator began as the interrogator started to unpack a container of syringes, wires, and restraining devices, "this is called an obsequio."
I furiously shoved myself against the stupid soldiers and the stupid tiny walls and flung my stupid limbs in every direction they could possibly go.
"Judging from your response, you are fully aware of the machine's capabilities, then." The translator flashed me an evil smile. Of course I knew what the machine was—it was the best technology mixed with enchantments that only the most powerful men would use. It read thoughts, jolted the brain with electricity, and used magic as a way to manipulate the person being tested by the mechanism. I had encountered these before. I'm strong, but these things tested every will of mine to keep a secret. Think about ANYTHING but the question, I screamed inside my head as the translator continued to tell me the importance of his mission and recap the purposes of the machine. How I'd never make it through the torture. The wiser part of me told me it wasn't right to scoff or laugh now. He indeed had the upper hand. The others would crack any second if they were using those things. Suddenly, I was thankful that I had no clue what Willow was up to. Well, I did know where we were headed and how to get there, how to enter and leave, how to open up the secret room, how to slay the beast.

Willow had been asleep for that whole conversation. She wouldn't know anything.

The guards would know... they would find the piece before she could...

"... Is this perfectly clear to you, Girl?" The Translator spat into my face. I didn't even attempt to lift my arm, knowing perfectly well how weighed down my arms were. Don't react, Idiot, he has the upper hand.

I smirked. "Certainly, Boy."