Death row. 

There were a lot of places Ravenna had imagined being after the UN conference. This was not one of them. The trial had been less than stressful - with a dozen counts of brutal murder, kidnapping charges, terrorism, and attempted theft of the most powerful object in the world, there was no question as to what her sentence would be. But now that she was actually here...

There was something awfully surreal about knowing that you only had a few hours left to live. Ravenna felt like she should cry and scream at the injustice she had suffered, but her empty heart had no more tears left to shed. After a lifetime of suffering and betrayal, she should've expected Juliana to stab her in the back. In fact, it was unreasonable for her to expect anything else. Still, she had been too foolish, too naive, to see the inevitable coming. She'd seen what she wanted to see instead of what was. 

She had been hopeless before, but Juliana had made her something worse than that. She had given her hope, and then snatched it away. 

"You want to talk?" Roy's voice came promptly from the cell next to hers, almost as if he sensed her inner turmoil. She could barely see his bruised face through the bars from her position curled up on the cold metal floor. Metal, like her. Perhaps the King had been right, and this was where she belonged. Rotting in prison with the rest of Arcana's scum. 

"No. I don't want talk. Just tell me what the plan is. How do we get out of here?" 

Roy let out a deep sigh, resting his head against the bars that separated them. Ravenna had only ever seen him wear his Obsidian Hunter outfit, the long, gray trench coat he wore as the Eagle, or an expensive suit. It seemed wrong, almost degrading to see him in a faded, oversized prison uniform, his usually intense gaze replaced with an unprecedented emptiness. 

"There's no plan, Rave." 

"What do you mean, there's no plan?" Ravenna hissed loudly. "You're kidding me. You know Arcana like the back of your hand. What's the loophole? What's the secret?" 

"I'm sorry, Rave. You may be in denial, but we are going to die today. There is nothing I can do about that. I wish things had ended differently, too, but... they didn't. And they won't. The world isn't kind to people like us- you already know that. We knew what we were signing up for." 

"Knowing is different from experiencing," Ravenna muttered softly, the reality of the situation just beginning to hit her. 

There was a long pause, probably as Roy figured out how to respond to this. "This is the most trite thing I could possibly say right now, but... I love you, you know. When I first met you, I wanted to use you to prove myself. To show the world how I could make a warrior out of a nobody. But you proved me wrong. You weren't a nobody, and I was foolish to think I had anything to do with what you've become. What we've started... it doesn't end here. You heard Juliana's speech- she's declassifying the Order, ending an era of secrecy. We won, Rave. We did it." 

"No," Ravenna shook her head, hot tears finally making their way down her cheek. "If we won, we'd be on the cusp of a new world. A world where knives are for cooking, not killing. Where there's always plenty to eat, and a place to call home. Where our kids will never have to worry about being shunned for their differences. We were going to change everything, Roy. Juliana's made a minor policy modification! How could you call that a substitute for what we were going to accomplish with the Box!?" 

"Rave... think of all the soldiers who've ever died in all the revolutions there have ever been. All those people who never saw the freedoms they were fighting for become reality. Their fight is not invalidated. History may remember those who finish wars, but equally important are those who start them. We have started a war, Ravenna. And if I know anything about human nature, someone will come along to finish it." 

Ravenna shuddered, slowly rising to a sitting position. His words made sense, but they gave her little comfort. She jolted to alertness at the sound of Roy's cell door sliding open, rushing to the wall that separated the two cells in an attempt to see what was happening. 

"It's time you terrorist piece of trash." Two guards entered his cell, taking their positions on either side of him. 

"Goodbye, my Raven," Roy reached through the bars, his warm fingertips momentarily brushing against her ice cold ones. She reached forward, hoping to hold onto him forever, but found herself grasping at thin air. He didn't struggle or even say a word as the guards led him away and Ravenna let out a choked sob as she shrank away from the now-empty cell. 

As he was walked briskly down the prison hallway, Roy's gaze kept returning to the black ring on his finger. Ironically, it was the same one Juliana had worn a few weeks earlier, and it quite inconveniently prevented him from accessing the Power. He racked his memory for information on the ring, remembering the Juliana had told him it was impossible to take off without the key. Well, impossible is always relative... 

"You know you're perfectly capable of biting your own finger off? Your brain just stops you from doing it," Ravenna commented randomly. They were laying on the roof of the Jacker compound, looking up at the stars. 

"You're exactly the kind of person who would know stuff like that. Creep," Roy swatted at her face with a pillow as she giggled, rolling away from him. 

Okay, Rave. Time to put your morbid fact to the test. 

Bracing himself, Roy brought his index finger up to his mouth, biting down hard on the tender flesh beneath the ring. As his teeth sunk deeper, he began to feel the Alpha Box's presence again, his abilities slowly coming back to him through the blinding pain. 

"What's he doing? Sicko." The guards' acknowledgment of his actions didn't seem to go beyond this. After all, in half an hour or less, he would be dead. 

........................................

"Oh, don't worry, we didn't forget about you." Ravenna didn't even look up at the guards who came to get her, hanging limply like a rag doll and forcing them to practically carry her down a hallway of cells identical to her own. Reaching a locked door at the end of the passageway, one of the guards scanned his ID card and opened the door. 

After days in a semi-dark prison cell, Ravenna was nearly blinded by the white light that seemed to radiate from every corner of the room. She heard the sound of the door shutting behind her, but didn't bother to get one last look at the outside world. Were these really her final moments? Was this how it would all end? It felt awfully... underwhelming. She was scared, alright, but not as scared as she felt she should've been. More than anything, she was numb. She wished they'd let her and Roy go together. She wished she could hold his hand as the light left her eyes. But of course, that was against protocol. Her life was about to be ended impersonally and unceremoniously in a sterile room by a timid-looking nurse holding a long needle. 

"Just step up here," the nurse instructed, gesturing to a hospital-style cot. "It'll be quick and painless." 

"I'm not afraid of pain." 

The nurse didn't react to this statement, watching coolly as Ravenna lay down on the bed, looking up at the fluorescent lights above her. Just as she raised the needle, a glassy look came over her eyes and Ravenna's stomach twisted with surprise and excitement. 

"Hey Rave..." the nurse said softly. 

"...Roy?" Ravenna whispered, barely daring to believe it. 

"Yeah," the nurse nodded. "By the time I got my powers back, I had just enough time to Jack and preprogram one person. The choice was obvious, so don't worry about me. By the time you get this message, I'll probably be dead. Don't you dare feel guilty or I'll come up from Hell just to slap you. We don't have much time, so I'll get right to it: I've already checked out the surveillance camera in this place. It's video only, so they won't hear us. I'll just do this, and from the camera's perspective, it'll look like I gave you the shot." The nurse placed the syringe beside Ravenna's arm and emptied its contents onto the floor. 

"Now, I need you to lay real still. I'll cover you with this- it should be light enough that you can still breathe." 

Ravenna stared blankly and tried to keep her breathing shallow enough that she looked dead- at least through the grainy surveillance camera. Soon, her vision was obscured by a white sheet, and she felt movement as the nurse wheeled her cot out of the room. The further away they got, the more her mind raced. Just minutes earlier, she'd thought her life was ending, but now... she'd been given a new beginning. 

Don't you dare feel guilty or I'll come up from Hell just to slap you. The Eagle- a man who, just a few years ago, had seen her as little more than a prop, had the opportunity to save himself or her and he'd chosen her. 

Corpses don't cry, she reminded herself, clenching her fists in order to keep still as the nurse continued to wheel her away. Ravenna flinched at the feeling of a gentle breeze on her face and pushed away the sheet that was covering her to see the nurse slowly coming to her senses as Roy's Jacking wore off. She, the cot, and the nurse were in the middle of the small wooded area that surrounded Arcana City's federal prison. Not wasting a moment, Ravenna jumped off the cot and sprinted away into the woods as fast as her legs would take her, the only thought in her mind being to get away. 

Roy had made the ultimate sacrifice for her... and she wasn't going to waste it. She may have been fleeing Arcana City now, but she would be back to watch it burn. Before, she had fought for hope- because she longed for a better world for herself and those she loved, but there was no more hope left in her heart. There was only hate. And she would not rest until her revenge was complete. 

He started a war. She would finish it.