It was a dark rainy day when Nero nearly killed himself.
Not intentionally of course. That was one of the many downsides to his powers. Use them too much, risk melting your brains. And he was having the worst day of his life.
First his fighter got hit with an electromagnetic pulse that fried everything and sent him crash landing onto a dump of a planet where the scum of the universe tended to hide. Stranded and with enemies coming in hot, he hadn't had time to make a call for help. So he did what he did best; cause absolute misery to those hunting him, and fry his brains.
Then the last of the bunch had decided if they were going to die, they were taking him with them, and detonated a bomb. In that split second Nero had two choices. Shield himself from the explosion and push his powers too far, or dive behind a fallen tree and hope it shielded him. The magnitude of the explosion decided for him, and he threw up his powers to shield himself from shrapnel and the fires of the explosion. And as it died down, an unimaginable pain erupted inside his head, worse than anything he'd experienced before. Blood came gushing from his nose, and suddenly the ground came up to meet him. As darkness flickered through his vision, he realized it was raining. So it was the end of Nero, lying in a puddle of mud and his own blood.
Nero came awake to the faint buzz of engines, and feeling like he had the worst hangover of his life. Every move made him nauseous, and his head pounded hard with every heartbeat. But, he was alive. That was a start.
Cautiously, he cracked an eye open, and momentary panic shot through him. It was black. Had he fried his eyesight? He opened his other eye, and blinked both of them rapidly. He raised a hand and passed it across his face. Nothing. Shit.
From the sounds and the floaty feeling he was getting, he assumed he was on a ship of some sort. He sat up slowly, cringing as he fought to not start dry heaving. He had been lying on a bed; that was a good sign. Perhaps someone had gotten alert of the crash after all.
"Syn?" He called out, hoping his best friend had come to save his ass.
He felt the autopilot kick on, and waited. A door hissed open, and Nero groaned at the sudden blinding light. Well, the good news was, his eyes were working after all. But from his over sensitive nose, he knew it wasn't Syn. It was a female, and damn did she smell good.
"How are you feeling?" A quiet voice asked as the door slid back shut, enveloping both of them in darkness.
Something cold brushed against his hand, and he grasped the water bottle carefully. Taking a few careful sips, he groaned as his head continued to throb. Suddenly the woman grabbed his hand and placed two capsules in it. He took the pain meds without question.
"Where are we?" He asked, taking a few more sips of the water.
"On our way to a safe place. We got out just before a second ship arrived. Looking for your remains, I assumed." She answered.
That must mean she had seen the carnage he had caused. And by seeing that, she probably knew exactly what he was. Would she turn him in for the bounty of a Trisani head? No… they didn't need him alive to collect a profit. Suddenly a sharp pain came from his thigh, and a few seconds later a metallic taste filled his mouth. Not his blood, but the cold iron taste of heavy sedatives.
"No." He managed to groan before he felt like his balance was going haywire. He didn't dare use his powers now, not yet.
Gently, she guided him to lay down again, moving his legs back up onto the bed in a more comfortable position. It was then that he realized his shirt was off, as her cool hands brushed over his chest in a probing manner.
"What are you doing? Who are you?" Nero asked, fighting the drowsiness that flooded through him.
Gods he wanted to sleep, to escape the agony his head was causing him. But it wasn't safe, it couldn't be. Why else would she be drugging him?
"You need to sleep and recover, and I can't have you running around hurting yourself. You took a piece of shrapnel to the chest, and if you move too much you'll bleed out internally. I called your friend Syn, they're waiting for you when we arrive. Just relax and go to sleep, we'll be there in a few hours." She said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He grabbed her wrist quickly, risking using the slightest of his power for a single glimpse at her. In that second he was able to get a few bits of information from her. She had in fact used his link to call the #1 in his contacts, Syn. She was bringing him somewhere safe. But why? Lastly, he was able to catch an image of what she looked like. Long black hair, bright green eyes, and a toned body that told him she wasn't a civ.
"Sleep Nero." She said more firmly, and with that he slipped into the abyss.
"Hey buddy, you can stop being a lazy ass and wake up any time now." Syn's snarky voice echoed.
Nero grunted, annoyed from being disturbed from sleep. What the hell was Syn doing in his apartment? A weird beeping noise kept sounding, making his agitation grow. A hand firmly grasped his shoulder, giving him a good shake.
"Dammit Syn, I'm sleeping." He growled, swatting at the hand.
"Yeah, for five kriken days." Syn commented.
Nero's eyes flung open, and he hissed at the bright light blaring down at him. This was not his room. Syn leaned over him, flashing a light into his eyes. Nero swatted at the light and peered around. Hospital room… what the hell?
"About time, sleeping beauty. Thought you fried your brains for good this time." Syn said, taking a precautious step back as Nero sat up stiffly.
"Five days?" Nero murmured, grimacing as his muscles stretched.
"Yup. You've been drooling too, ugh." Syn teased, looking pointedly at Nero's mouth.
He glared. Feeling a strange tightness to his chest, he looked down to see himself wrapped in bandages.
"How bad is it?" He asked, p[resin a hand to a sore spot.
Syn smacked his hand away. "Not too bad. I went in and patched things up, and while you were sleeping your body did most of the healing. A few more days and you'll be good as new."
Nero took a few steadying breaths as his memory returned.
"The girl?" He asked.
Syn leveled a serious look on him. He picked up a folder sitting on the chair near the door and flipped it open, then handed it Nero.
Nero took in a sharp breath at what he saw. A picture of the girl was clipped to the top of a packet of papers. It looked almost like a mugshot, except terrifyingly worse. She was in a straight jacket, with a muzzle strapped tightly around her head. Her hair looked like it had been crudely chopped off at some earlier point as it lay in a messy halo just below her ears. The caption at the bottom dated it as nearly seven years ago, and was titled "Subject J".
Nero only briefly glimpsed through the papers, listing a nauseating display of violent behaviors and horrific treatments and experiments performed. The last paper was dated shortly after the mugshot was taken, and was titled with "Final Report". It listed the final results of the treatments and experiments, the condition of Subject J, and ended with, "Subject has become too violent for further control or treatment. Subject J terminated via Isoteria."
"We have nothing else on her besides that file. No name, no date of birth, no origin planet. We don't even know what facility or treatments they're talking about. Nothing was recorded technologically, it was all on paper. I was able to track this down through an archive system, and a facial recognition program." Syn said.
Nero's brow furrowed as he thought that over. What the hell had this kid gotten herself into?
"There's more?" Nero asked, looking up at Syn.
"I was able to get some samples from her, with some difficulty. Those reports don't lie, she's insane. Took enough tranqs to take down Hauk before we were able to get her down. I think I have an idea of what kind of experiments were done on her. You're not gonna like this buddy." Syn said, sitting down heavily.
Nero felt a chill run through him. Yeah, this was bad.
"The samples I took were so hard to read, I couldn't figure out what I was looking at. Then, I happened to be checking one of your tests when I noticed something. Checked back, and it turns out… somehow, those sick bastards transfused Trisani blood into her, and it bonded with her human blood. They created a lab made Trisani hybrid, but with the human blood still being in there, it seems they thought they'd be able to control her better. Somehow, she got full Trisani powers. And either she can't use them, or we got lucky." Syn commented dryly, looking disgusted himself.
Nero felt his lip curl with his own disgust. Did the cruelty done to his people have no end? Then, confusion filled him.
"Wait… why did you tranq her in the first place? Did she attack you guys or something?" Nero asked.
Syn smiled sheepishly for a moment.
"Well, we couldn't be too careful. While the medics were moving you off the ship, she didn't appear to plan on staying, and we started asking questions. She tried to bail of there, tried to fly the ship out while the loading dock was still out and everything. Nyk was able to hit her with a stun and she crashed the ship. Then she tried to run, and the stuns just didn't seem to be working, and she just kept running, so we decided she might be a threat and took her down."
"Damn Syn, the girl saved my life." Nero growled.
"Ok, ok." Syn said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "But for the record, she's not a girl. Whatever they did to her made her age a lot more slowly, kinda like Andarions do. She's actually 26, even though she looks like 19 tops. Besides, we couldn't risk just letting her waltz off into the sunset. She knew what you were, and we couldn't risk that news getting out."
"So where is she then?" Nero asked.
"We got her under sedatives in one of the holding cells. We don't dare wake her up until we can move her somewhere she can't harm us." Syn responded.
Nero sighed, and paused. His head didn't hurt, not in the slightest. With what he'd done, five days was definitely not enough to heal the damage he'd done to his noggin. He raised an eyebrow at Syn.
"Oh, right, speaking of your fried brains. Oddly, I didn't find the usual damage when I scanned your head. No idea what happened there."
A commotion outside startled them, and suddenly in came Dancer Hauk, crowding the room as a devilish grin crossed his face.
"Well good morning sunshine." He boomed loudly.
"Oh gods why are you smiling like that?" Nero groaned.
"Now sweetums, we really thought you were gonna be a vegetable this time." Darling chimed in, shoving his way past Hauk's massive frame.
Nero rolled his eyes at the two of them. But something pulled at his thoughts. A persistent, irritating tug that pulled his attention away from the boisterous conversation of his friends. A quiet whisper really, a split second image.
Nero… why…