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ATTENTION!
This story is a spinoff of "Homura Akemi: Test Subject One" by PK Atomyst. While it is not strictly necessary for you to read his story before this one, it is highly recommended that you do, as this story may contain spoilers.
To find his story, simply insert the following link into the URL bar on the FFN homepage: ( /s/11408944/1/Homura-Akemi-Test-Subject-One ).
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"Send in Test Subject Zero." Came the apathetic voice over the intercom.
Madoka, dressed in nothing but a white hospital gown, walked behind two armed guards. Her eyes darted around the corridor, taking in her route through the facility. As always, the white tiled walls were featureless and the two-way mirrors revealed nothing but her own scared expression. The tiled floor felt cold against her bare feet. The fluorescent lighting made her eyes string. They were too bright, and let out a constant low buzz that irritated her ears. If she did not think about the buzzing she could not hear it, but when she did think about it, it was all she could hear. It was driving her insane.
She, and the two armed guards who were escorting her, stopped at a metal door. As a camera stationed just above the door rotated and looked at them, the guard to her left put up a hand and waved. There was a beeping sound coming from somewhere inside the door, and then it slid open with a hiss.
This door, just like all the others she had seen so far, was nearly a foot thick and seemed to be solid metal all the way through. There was no way she could break it. Her bow was effective against living targets like Witches and Familiars, able to rip through them in seconds, but against solid objects, they were practically useless. Unless she focused and put a lot of magic into the strike, her arrows would just fizzle against the surface. If she wanted to escape from here, she'd need to find another way out that went around those doors.
The metal door led to a long room. Inside, there was not much to see. There was a mirror on the wall in front of her, which she guessed would have a group of scientists sitting behind it. On the floor at the end of the room closest to her, there was an X made of red tape, and at the far end of the room there was a target at about shoulder height in front of another mirror. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all white, and there was that annoying buzzing of fluorescent light, just like everywhere else in this awful place.
The guards stationed themselves on either side of the door. It beeped, hissed and slid shut again. Madoka stood, a few paces ahead of them, and looked around.
That same monotone voice came over the intercom. "Test Subject Zero: Madoka Kaname, age fourteen." A pause, probably while whoever the voice was speaking to made the appropriate notes. "How are you doing today, Madoka?"
Madoka didn't respond. They didn't care about her, not one bit. What was the point in answering?
"If you would, please step over to the red X and stand facing the mirror." There was not much point resisting such a simple request, so she stepped forward onto the X. This wasn't the first time they had brought her to a room like this, and she wondered why they wanted her to perform the same tests again.
"Good. Now, if you could, please transform your clothing."
Madoka just stood there, and shook her head.
"Is everything alright, Madoka?" Asked the voice.
"Please let me go." Madoka said. She knew that they wouldn't listen to her, that they intended to keep her locked up in here forever so she could be studied and experimented on. But she had to try! "I just want to go home, I want to see my family. Please…"
"Please transform your clothing." The voice said again, as if it hadn't heard her.
"NO!" Madoka shouted, her frustration flaring. "No more tests! No more anything! I just want to go home! Please let me go home!"
"Please transform your clothing." The voice repeated, more sternly.
Madoka felt her hand clench, her anger boiling. Then she replied, her voice suddenly very cold. "Fine."
She raised her hand to the centre of her chest, where her Soul Gem was hidden, and reached for her magic. A bright, rainbow light radiated out and covered her body. Her hospital gown ripped away, vanishing around her, quickly being replaced by ribbons and fabric. She wondered what the people watching her behind the mirror were thinking. Were they awed? Curious? Impressed? Whatever they felt, she knew that they had failed to fully grasp what they were seeing.
She opened her hand and summoned her bow, feeling the wood grow in her palm. This wasn't just a unusual phenomenon or scientific curiosity. This was power. Raw, unlimited power. And she was the one who wielded it. No matter how scared she was, no matter how helpless she felt, she was still dangerous. Those watchers should be afraid. Very afraid.
"Thank you for cooperating, Madoka." The voice said, but Madoka wasn't listening. Her bow in hand, she raised it and pointed it at the target across the room. It was obvious what they wanted. Not waiting for an instruction to do so, she pulled back on the bowstring and fired a bolt at the target. It sped across the space, slamming into the target with such force that the stand supporting it toppled, causing the scorched target to fall to the ground.
There was a moment of silence in the room, before the voice began speaking again. "That was very impressive, Madoka. Please remain where you are as one of the guards fixes the target."
Madoka turned back to the mirror and stared at the reflective glass, her expression dark. "I tried to ask nicely."
She whirled around and unleashed two more bolts at the guards. They barely had time to shout before the bolts collided with them and flung them against the wall, before crumpling to the ground.
Madoka turned to the mirror again, her bow still raised. The voice said something about calming down, but she ignored it. Enough was enough. She was done cooperating. She was done obeying. She wanted out, now! Those metal doors were still too thick for her to breach, but the mirror was another story.
She fired at the mirror. It collided with the surface with a small explosion, the energy dissipating across it. She fired again. And again. And again! A crack appeared on the reflective surface, and Madoka shifted her aim to focus on that point, making the crack longer and longer, until other cracks began to appear and create a spider web pattern on the mirror.
She could see her reflection in the mirror. Her pink dress stood out against her white surroundings. Her pigtails had been caught by the rushing air and blew back behind her, threatening to break away from the ribbons holding them. Her face…
Madoka blinked. Her expression was one of anger… hatred… someone who'd been pushed to the edge and refused to be pushed any more. She paused, briefly breaking off her attack. Was that really… her?
Then, she felt something hit her back and dig in, and suddenly she lost control of her body. A scream left her lips as her legs gave out and she fell to the ground, her body convulsing. It was more painful than anything she had felt in her life. She could barely move a single finger, but somehow she managed to get her head up just enough to see two wires going from her back and leading to a small gun held in one of the guard's hands. A taser. Dumbly, she realised that she hadn't knocked the guards as unconscious as she had assumed.
Her body gave off one more burst of distressed motion before falling limp, Madoka's consciousness fading into blackness. Her Magical Girl uniform disappeared, and she was once again wearing nothing but a white hospital gown.
The room they had put her in was not that bad. It was big, to say the least. It was like having her own personal apartment. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room. The living room came with a widescreen TV and a plethora of video games and movies to choose from. The fridge was pretty well-stocked, and she was told if there was anything else she wanted all she had to do was ask.
She had asked. They refused.
Groaning, Madoka sat up on her bed. They had taken her back here, but who knew what they'd done to her while she was unconscious. Slowly, she stood up and looked around the room. Almost immediately, the lights turned on. Madoka blinked, then glared at the camera in the corner of the room. They were watching her. Of course they had been watching her.
She walked out of her bedroom and crossed the living room to the bathroom. There weren't any cameras in this room, obvious or concealed. She knew this, as if she stayed in here for more than twenty minutes her observers would get nervous and send a guard in to check on her. They claimed to be worried for her safety, even though the possibility of suicide had never crossed her mind, not while she had her family and friends on the outside to get back to.
No, the reason she came in here was much simpler than that. In this room, and only this room, she had privacy. She could hide in away from everything, and try to forget that she had been trapped in here for almost two weeks now. Here, she had the smallest amount of control over her situation, and that was all she needed to keep herself sane.
And if they were lying about the lack of cameras… well… it's not like they could do anything with the footage anyway. Not if they wanted to keep her wrongful imprisonment a secret.
Madoka looked into the mirror. A pink haired girl stared back. Her hair was a mess, loose down to her shoulders, her ribbons taken when she arrived here. Her skin was pale, having not seen the sun since she got here. Her eyes were slightly sunken with faint bags forming beneath them. She hadn't been sleeping well. It was too quiet, too silent. At home, there was always some reminder that she lived in a city, and the absence of those sounds was almost deafening.
This wasn't the same girl she'd seen in the test chamber. This girl looked… tired. Just… tired. She'd been here too long. She wanted to go home so badly, it was almost killing her. She wanted to see her mother, her father, Tatsuya, Sayaka, Hitomi, Mami. Most of all, she wanted to see Homura. She… she didn't know what she felt about the raven-haired girl. Was it friendship, or something more? Even with her near infinite amount of time to think about it, she still couldn't figure it out. And even if she did, would Homura feel the same? Did Homura think of her as a friend too, or something more as well. How far did their friendship go? All she knew was that whatever it was they had between them, she wanted it back. It's what she missed the most, and that desire was the only thing holding her resolve together.
Madoka started to turn, unable to keep looking into her own eyes, and stopped. On the back of her hospital gown were two tiny red dots. She frowned. Those hadn't been there before.
She turned so her back was facing the mirror and, craning her neck to see the reflection, pulled down the collar of her gown. She grimaced. There were two red welts where the taser had hit her, with the skin around the wound inflamed. She reached back and tapped one with a finger, hissing as it stung. When she brought her finger back, the tip was red with blood.
Sighing, Madoka opened up the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a box of Band-Aids. She could heal the wound with magic, but that would just be another thing to add to the growing list of reasons why she was locked in here. Plus, it would waste magic. Better to just let it heal naturally.
She had some trouble applying the Band-Aid, as it required her to coordinate her hands in a place where observing them was difficult. Eventually, she managed to cover the wounds to a satisfactory degree. After checking her handiwork, she adjusting her gown back into its original position, concealing the wound again. She did have to wonder, with the amount of medical staff in this place, why hadn't they done that themselves? If she got an infection, that'd be bad for them, right? Maybe they suspected that healing herself was something in her power to do, so they left it alone to see what would happen. Well, too bad for them.
"Madoka, is everything alright in there?" Said the voice over the intercom. It was the same monotone guy she was getting used to hearing. She decided to start referring to him as Dr. Mono.
Madoka sighed, looking at her exhausted expression in the mirror again. Time's up. Back into the eyes of her captors.
She stepped out of the bathroom and back into the living room. "I'm fine, thank you. Just fine."
If Dr. Mono picked up on her sarcasm, he didn't let it show. "Because of your outburst, your TV privileges have been revoked for the time being. You are confined to your room and may not leave it. Please refrain from damaging our lab further."
Madoka smiled slightly. Confined to her room. AKA, they couldn't perform tests on her because of the damage she'd caused. Victory, albeit a petty one. "It's not like I can leave anyway."
"It is too dangerous for you to be allowed outside of this facility." Dr. Mono said. "You pose a danger to others as well as yourself."
"Really…" Madoka replied, glaring at the camera. "Everything seemed to be fine until you kidnapped me!"
"You are here for the benefit of the greater good. With your cooperation, we could change our scientific understanding and propel humanity forward."
Madoka could feel her anger building. For the greater good? They had taken her away from her friends, taken her away from her family, and they dared to call themselves good? Her mother was probably tearing the city apart searching for her, her father losing sleep every night she was away. Tatsuya might not know what was going on, but he had to know something was very wrong. Sayaka and Hitomi would be worried sick. Mami and Homura… they… they might think that she had died in a labyrinth, and had given up hope. How could anyone who had caused so much pain think that they were GOOD?
"Miss Kaname? Are you there? Can you hear me?"
"SHUT UP!" She screamed. "JUST SHUT UP! YOU DON'T CARE! YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"
There was a moment of silence. Then: "Don't worry, Miss Akemi. I don't think she was talking to you."
Huh? That wasn't Dr. Mono. It was a completely different person.
"She was engaged in another conversation at the time." Said a third, familiar voice. "I thought it had ended, so I transmitted the words to you. My mistake."
Her eyes widened. It couldn't be… "Kyubey? Mami? Homura?"
In writing, there is something known as Creative Burnout. This is a state where you exhaust yourself through not pushing yourself or trying to tackle a task that's too large all at once. For the last two years, I've been slowly building a story I've taken to calling Project Kriegsgeschichte. In July, I made a decision to alter the story structure to give me more freedom while writing. This led to the complete and total collapse of pretty much the entire plan. This wasn't a mistake, I still stand by the reasoning behind my choice. I just thought, 'So what? I can fix it. I just need to plan it more.'
Yeah, no. Trying to recreate two years worth of work all at once hits the 'too large a task' category right on the head. Creative burnout achieved.
So, I'm taking a break from all my other stories. Give it a month or two for my mind to sort out the issues and come at the problem with fresh intent. And in the meantime, I need a new project. One I feel inspired about and can give me a chance to rekindle my creativity, but without all the extra plot weighing it down. And so, 'Madoka Kaname: Test Subject Zero', the latest of the TSO spinoffs, was born.
I don't intend this story to be a long one. I also don't know how many updates it will get, if any at all. I am just working on this to try and get my creativity back, and as soon as I do, I want to get back to my main projects.
You can follow me on twitter ( 'at' Axius27) to bug me about releasing updates. Criticism is always greatly appreciated :)