The Skybox was quiet, save for the ever-present, rattling hum of the Ark's failing life support systems. Inside his dim, cramped cell, Aleksander sat cross-legged on the cold grating of the floor. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and rhythmic. He was meditating, pulling his awareness inward toward the simmering spark of his Phoenix core, letting the heavy, glamoured weight of the ten rings on his forearms ground him as he waited for the inevitable to unfold.
Getting arrested had been almost insultingly easy.
When Clarke was locked away for knowing too much about the oxygen crisis, Aleksander knew he couldn't let her go to Earth unguarded. His memories of the show were fragmented, but he knew enough to realize the ground would be brutal. So, he and Wells had orchestrated their own downfalls. While Wells had made a desperate, highly public display of destroying the last Eden tree on the station, Aleksander had simply bypassed the Ark's primary mainframe and triggered a level-four security breach right in front of the guard detail. It was a calculated, bloodless crime—just enough to earn him a spot in the Skybox without warranting an immediate floating.
The heavy hydraulic hiss of his cell door sliding open broke his meditation.
Aleksander opened his eyes. Standing in the doorway were his parents, Joseph and Ygraine. The guards stepped back into the corridor, giving the family a rare, heavily timed moment of privacy. Ygraine's eyes were rimmed with red, but her posture remained as regal and composed as ever. Joseph looked ragged, the stress of the Ark's looming expiration date weighing heavily on his shoulders.
"We don't have much time," Ygraine whispered. She dropped to her knees in front of him, pressing her cool hands against his cheeks. "The Council made a decision. They aren't executing the prisoners. You are all being sent to the ground. All one hundred of you."
"You're an idiot, Alex," Joseph muttered, his voice thick with a messy blend of anger and desperate paternal fear. He paced the three steps the small space allowed. "A brilliant, reckless idiot. Throwing your life away to get locked up—"
Alexsander simply leaned into his mother's touch before looking up at his father, his dark eyes eerily calm. "It wasn't reckless, Dad. It was math. Based on the oxygen depletion rates, the life support limits, and Chancellor Jaha's psychological profile, the chances of the Council using the delinquents as expendable radiation testers was over ninety-four percent. I knew exactly where this was going before I even touched the mainframe."
Joseph stopped pacing. He let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Alexsander stood up, the ten unseen rings shifting silently against his skin. He closed the distance between them, lowering his voice to a barely-there whisper meant only for their ears. "I'm going to survive down there. You know I will. I'm built for it."
Ygraine and Joseph exchanged a loaded look. They knew about the magic. They knew about the folded, dormant wings lying beneath his skin and the unfathomable, volatile power he commanded. They nodded, a silent, tense acknowledgment of the Dark Fey and Phoenix bloodline that made their son something far more resilient than a fragile human.
"But you need to listen to me now," Alexsander continued, his tone shifting. The quiet teenager was gone, replaced by an absolute, commanding authority. His hyper-advanced mind was already ten steps ahead of the Council. "The Ark is reaching its absolute limit. The oxygen failure is going to accelerate exponentially faster than Sinclair's models predict."
He placed a steady hand on his father's arm. "I left a datapad and a physical notebook hidden beneath the loose floorboard in my room, right next to my Grimoire. I wrote everything down. Every systemic precaution, every structural vulnerability, and the exact mechanical measures you need to take to ensure you both make it off this station when it inevitably rips itself apart. Read it. Memorize it. Follow it to the letter."
Joseph and Ygraine stared at the intense, unyielding expression on their son's face. There was no hesitation, no childlike doubt in his eyes. They had raised a boy whose intelligence dwarfed the greatest minds on the station, and they knew better than to question his foresight now.
Joseph gripped Alexsander's hand tightly, his jaw clenching. "We'll find it. We'll be ready."
"Just promise me you'll come back to us, Alexs," Ygraine said, pulling him into a tight, desperate embrace.
"I'll see you on the ground," Alexwsander promised. He let his control slip just a fraction, allowing the latent heat of his Phoenix fire to radiate through his skin, warming her against the chill of the Skybox.
Once his parents were gone, Aleksander settled back onto the cold grating of the floor, slipping seamlessly into his meditation. It wasn't long before the quiet was shattered.
The heavy metal door hissed on its tracks, followed by a loud, echoing CLANG as it locked in place. A male guard stormed into the dim space, his uniform pristine and imposing against the dreary, rusted backdrop of the Skybox cell.
"Prisoner two-three-nine, face the wall," the guard barked.
Aleksander opened his eyes, the luminescent green flash of his magic instantly buried beneath his glamoured brown irises. He nodded once, getting up with practiced compliance and turning his back to the door. He offered no resistance as the guard seized his forearm, locking a cold, heavy metal cuff over his wrist. The biometric wristband. It pinched his skin, the internal needles sinking in to monitor his vitals. He kept his breathing perfectly even, letting his magic mask the impossible, burning heart rate of a Phoenix so the band's sensors wouldn't immediately short out.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guard draw a pneumatic tranquilizer pistol.
Aleksander braced himself. He knew what was coming, and he knew it wouldn't work. His supernatural physique would burn through the chemical sedative in seconds. He was already calculating the exact moment his knees needed to buckle so he could fake unconsciousness.
But before the guard could pull the trigger, a voice cut through the tension.
"Hold on."
Abigail Griffin stepped into the cell. She looked exhausted but resolute, her brown hair pulled back, brown eyes sharp and assessing. Instead of her standard clinical scrubs or formal Council attire, she was dressed pragmatically in a pair of sturdy jeans and a worn leather jacket.
She gestured sharply to the guards. "Give us a minute. Privacy, please."
The guards hesitated, but Abigail was the Chief Medical Officer and a ranking Council member. They lowered their weapons and stepped out into the corridor, the door sliding shut to give them a brief illusion of privacy.
As soon as they were alone, the strict, authoritative mask on Abby's face softened. She offered Aleksander a small, strained smile. "Aleksander."
"Abby," he replied, turning around to face her.
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Clarke is going to be on that drop ship. I know why you and Wells are in here. I know what you both did. You're a brilliant boy, Aleksander, maybe the smartest mind this station has ever produced. But the ground... we don't know what's waiting down there." She paused, her eyes pleading with him. "Please. Look out for her."
Aleksander looked at Clarke's mother, feeling the weight of the ten glamoured rings on his arms and the dormant magic coursing through his veins. He didn't need to be asked.
"I've got her, Abby," he said, his voice quiet but carrying an absolute, unshakeable certainty. "I promise. Nothing on the ground is going to hurt her."
Relief washed over Abby's features, breaking some of the deep tension in her shoulders. "Thank you."
She gave him a curt nod and stepped back, knocking on the door frame. The guards filed back in immediately, their expressions stony and impatient. Abby didn't look back as she slipped past them.
"Alright, prisoner. Time to go to sleep," the guard grunted, raising the tranquilizer pistol again.
Thwip.
The dart bit sharply into Aleksander's neck. Instantly, the Phoenix fire in his blood surged to life, incinerating the foreign sedative before it could even cross the blood-brain barrier. His mind remained razor-sharp, his vision perfectly clear.
Playing his part, Aleksander let his eyelids flutter. He swayed on his feet, allowing his muscles to go entirely limp, and collapsed heavily onto the metal floor. As the guards stepped forward and dragged him out of the cell by his arms, Aleksander kept his breathing slow and shallow, his mind perfectly awake and completely ready for the fall to Earth.