Chapter 1
Look Alive, Sunshine
"Tired of having feelings?"
"Everything is going to be fine."
"Did I take my medication today?"
"Keep working hard to stay alive."
"Tired of having feelings?"
"Everything is going to be fine."
"Did I take my medication today?"
"Keep working hard to stay alive."
The light monotone voice that he has on many occasions found soothing is beginning to grate on his nerves. It takes a lot of focus and will power for one Ivan Braginsky to refrain from causing any more damage to the broken and looped monitors hanging above the moving walkway leading into the main lobby. As his jaw sets and his teeth threaten to start grinding against each other at the sixth consecutive round of questions and statements he's had to hear, he focuses straight ahead, his height giving him the advantage of peering over the other employees in front of him towards their destination.
The belt they travel on progresses slowly towards a large building with many floors and surrounding towers, filled with cameras watching their every move and microphones hidden to catch their every word, covered in reflective windows that show nothing inside. They only mirror the sky and the immediate surroundings of the City, all with their emblem of a large monochromatic smiley face against a pure white background stamped in the center right above their company name:
Better Living Industries; a reminder that their growing utopia is a blessing and well-entitled God send to the hell of an aftermath from the previous war and how lucky are they to have such.
"Tired of having feelings?"
His eye twitches at the start up of a new round. He's only able to block it out for so long without the help of petty distractions. Unfortunately enough, common workers regress to nothing but just that as soon as they step on company property. It's easier and far safer this way, which causes expanse silence when all collected together and has his thoughts run a little more freely that acceptable.
It also has his patience grow thinner, and he's even more eager to hurry inside. He's more than ready to check in and begin his working day so that he may go home and away from the cool mechanical voice that threatens to drill straight into his mind and never leave.
"Did I take my medication today?"
He hasn't, truth be told. In the fear of arriving late he has skipped most of his morning routine, one particular part being the sanctioned time he ingests all fifteen pills prescribed to him by the mandated three doctors as per their employment regulations. Ivan feels the effects of not doing so greatly, and upon finally reaching a point in line where he is able to see his own reflection in the windows - pale hair in shambles, skin looking sallow, violet eyes smeared with light bruising underneath them, and his normal small smile twisted into an irritated frown only enhances his over all lackluster appearance when dressed in a grey suit with a grey coat and his grey scarf - the bubbling fester of frustration rises steadily within for unknown reasons that only further inhibits his ability to stay calm.
Suddenly, there's a hand on his shoulder; small with thin, deft fingers almost digging into his muscles through the thickness of his clothing, calls his attention away from the growing aggravation.
He glances down, and it's only when he meets with a smile plastered on the face of a man shorter than he - longish dark hair tied back loosely, healthy complexion for someone his age, and dressed in a dull brown suit that is just as bland as Ivan's own clothing - does the hand fall away from its hold on him and rests back down at the other's side.
"Yao," Ivan greets, and even attempts at smiling himself. "Good morning."
"Good morning to you," the other replies. "Or perhaps not, you seem a bit... flustered today, Ivan."
Ivan's eyes flicker to the monitor above, still repeating the same mantra and continuously fluttering between showing the company logo to static to multi-colored bars and back to their logo in rapid succession.
"I suppose I am," he answers. "I don't feel like myself today."
"Is everything all right?"
"Yes. Well, there hasn't been any changes since yesterday, and the day has only begun so nothing has happened yet. I don't really understand what is wrong."
A contemplative look crosses Yao's face. He studies Ivan, runs his eyes up and down the other, as if trying to find the source of the problem on the man himself
"Have you taken your medication today?"
Ivan's eye twitches again. "You sound just like that infernal machine."
Yao only nods, seeming to find his answer in the response. "Hm, that may be the problem. How many of those pills were you given?"
"Fifteen total. I didn't think skipping them for just the one day would make that much of a difference though. I was running late this morning, you see..."
Yao's eyes widen at the confession, as though completely flabbergasted at the idea of any one person being prescribed so much.
"That would make a very big difference," he says.
The volume of the monitors increases ten-fold at that moment, gathering the attention of everyone still riding the walkway through the main entrance. The computerized voice grows distorted and shrill before a single high-pitch tone shrieks out in waves. Ivan clamps his hands over his ears, and watches as the picture on the screen scrambles and pixelates before finally settling on shutting down completely. At the same time, just as the sound gives out, the walkway stops moving, the suddenness jolting many of the employees into almost stumbling against one another.
Ivan removes his hands from his ears and his eyes dart back down from the monitor, ready to tell Yao something about how odd this all is, there has never been technical problems like this before, when he notices the change in expression in the other. Before he is able to question it, however, Yao grabs at the front of his jacket and pulls Ivan right down to the ground with himself following right after. Not a second later, an enormous bellow breaks through the very front of the building, not fifty feet away from their position, sending giant clouds of dust, rubble, and shards of glass to crash and shatter against the pavement while hitting all those in their path. Ivan looks up after the first shrieks of those caught in the downpour start to yield, spares at quick glance at Yao who catches his eye while still remaining on the ground and shakes the other man's hand off from his back to sit up and take into account of what is happening.
Plumes of black smoke emit from the now gaping hole in front of them. There's the crackling of fire and a few licks of red and orange flames spotted inside the building, mixed with the zapping noise of ray guns being fired. There's shouting from within, from Agents spouting out orders to one another through their pull over gas masks and to the workers screaming as the dive for cover or rush for an escape and other individual voices he is unfamiliar with whooping, cheering, whistling, and laughing. Ivan can see and hear smaller explosions happening beyond the damage and civilian workers running back and forth in between the Agents, barely visible between the white suits acting as bright blips of light that flicker through the chaos. The roar of engines vibrates the entire floor and the loud cat calls grow even more so as four motor bikes crash through the broken panes and into the panicked crowd.
"We have to get out of here!" Yao shouts at him and hurriedly picks himself up from the floor. He pushes himself up and over the railing, Ivan following the example and chases after, unintentionally causing a trend in pattern as many others begin to do the same.
He's nearly hit by one of the motorbikes, one that is circling around with two passengers dressed in clashing colors and wearing masks, one in the driver's position and another in the back with a painted ray gun pointed at the sky, firing it off while howling. Ivan scans for Yao, but the other is lost in the pandemonium, completely out of his sight in the mob of screams and rushing people.
Instead of trying to track him down, Ivan opts for going solo. He scans for nearby shelter, and thinking the best place for it would be somewhere against the parts of the building that have been left undisturbed thus far, makes for an alcove between two pillars. He ducks and dodges the flying laser beams thrown by Agents attempting to apprehend the assailants, nearly knocking into many of those scrambling around him. Many more of those dressed in the same manner as the ones on the motorbikes come forth from the wreckage, running at break speed as their chased by a numerous amount of armed guards. Some fire back, their ray guns hitting too close to the civilians for Ivan's liking and he even considers taking a few of them done for the sake of the other's safety.
However, before he's able to enact any of his thoughts, he hears the detonation of another explosion, a series of them, smaller perhaps and just as contained as the massive one minutes earlier, but as equally loud and destructive. There's an ear-splitting screech from a frightened woman in the back that he barely registers. His eyes are turned up on instinct, seeing the showering splinters of glass being blasted outwards at the very same time the pillars he'd been racing towards crumble from the top and come crashing down, hitting monitors and knocking them free of their holding wires and soon the electricity that had coursed through them is completely audible, crackling in waves and emitting static charges.
Suddenly, it's the trigger of a flashback; sirens blaring in the street as him and his sisters refuse to leave the body of their fallen mother despite his eldest sister's age and he being fourteen, the both should have been more rational in their own self-preservation. Yet Natalya would not stop crying, being the youngest and only ten, still somewhat naive to what is happening to their society, to their world, and it hurt to leave, so they stayed. Stayed among the fleeing citizens of the city as the bombs approached closer and their city fell around them. As the girls sheltered themselves using one another to the horrors of their surroundings, Ivan watched.
The people falling, hit by shrapnel or stray bullets fired from those resisting or the laser beams fired from the opposition. Streams of white trails of missiles taking off flying through the sky. Bright lights. Shrieking noises. A shadow rapidly descending over them, one that diverts his eyes to taking full notice of and seeing the crumbling ruins of a tall building finally come crashing down and towards the three of them...
Ivan's snapped out of the memory at the recognition that once again there's a growing shadow looming over him, growing larger and larger, and it isn't until it's too late to realize that it's a flailing body being thrown his way.
Falling with the pieces of broken glass and bits of concrete is a blond male, dressed in red jeans and a brown bomber jacket left unzip with a black bandanna covering the bottom half of his face. He calls out to Ivan below, most likely in warning, but he isn't able to hear the muffled words lost in the surrounding noise. The surprise keeps him rooted to the spot and it's a crash collision when the impact finally hits.
Ivan falls back like dead weight, the wind being knocked out of him the whole time. The back of his head hits hard against the ground, and ache instantly pulsing inside his cranium because it while an elbow that digs right into his gut as a head hits the underside of his chin and his legs end up tangling with the other's before the blond rolls over on to his back. Ivan tilts his head in his direction. He sees him covered in shallow cuts and bruised hands reach up to pull the black bandanna down completely below his chin, revealing the entirety of his face and he barks out laughing.
"Aww, man.. That was while..." he chuckles and sighs at the same time while his hands busy themselves in righting a pair of glasses he wears. His head turns towards Ivan, still sprawled on the floor and surrounded by glass. "Hey, dude, thanks for breaking that fall. I prolly coulda died!"
Ivan growls, more angry at having just played landing mat to one of those responsible for not only the wreckage but for causing trauma to those innocent caught in the cross fire and causing him to remember incidents he would rather keep repressed. He rolls over and scrambles on to his knees, reaches over and grabs at the lapels of the blond's jacket. Ivan heaves him upwards while standing himself and even shakes him a little.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demands.
"Hey! Hey!" the blond cries. "I didn't throw myself out the damn window! And anyway, what the hell were you doing just standing there? Things are blowing up, dude, you're supposed to run and shit."
"Don't make me repeat myself. Why the hell would you want to blow up a building filled with innocent people?"
The blond only laughs again. "Nah, nah, it's totally cool. Really, we know what we're doing."
Ivan's fists clenches further into his jacket. He wants to punch him in the face for his nonchalance but isn't able to do anything. He feels the barrel of a ray gun pressed against the base of his neck suddenly, freezing him in place and only being able to keep the blond man in place.
"Let him go," a voice behind him commands.
The blond in his hold veers his head to the right to catch a glimpse of the one who has come to his rescue. His blue eyes turn upwards as a smile blooms on his face once more. "Mattie, baby, my hero."
"Alfred, shut up," the other says, sounding exasperated. "Let him go, or I'm gonna shoot."
"He'll do it too," the blond - Alfred - says. "He's like a total kitty-cat when we're on the DL, but he can be a brutal mothafucka when pushed."
"Alfred. Shut. Up."
His words are punctuated with a hard dig of the barrel against Ivan's skin, most likely forming a mark that will last for days. Ivan lets go of Alfred's jacket in one quick move, all of his fingers releasing their grip simultaneously. His hands drop and Alfred dusts himself off while stepping away. Despite this, there's still a weapon being held against Ivan and he doesn't move in fear of setting off the other.
"Let it go," Alfred tells him. He pulls open his jacket, revealing an inside pocket where a red, white, and blue spray painted ray gun is kept and brings it out for use. He checks the battery while saying, "The Scarecrows are coming out and Honda's with them, we gotta blast this shit. Oh. Hey. Made a pun."
The barrel's pulled away, slower than normal but quick enough that it has Ivan breathe out a relived sigh. He chances a look behind him, sees the other man Alfred called "Mattie". "He's just as tall as Alfred, almost identical save for the length of his own blond hair that is pulled back in a short ponytail, dressed in an olive green denim jacket and black cargo pants. He says nothing as he reaches down and places his own gun (painted red with white stripes) in a leather holster strapped to his thigh.
"If Crows are coming out then we need to bounce now if we're gonna make it back to the Camino," he tells Alfred, ignoring Ivan entirely now as he heads for a dusty orange bike laying on its side some ways from them.
"I'm a little more worried about Honda finding us, not like we haven't taken on Crows before!" Alfred says while chasing the other.
Ivan does nothing more than stare after them, unsure what to make of it all as Mattie picks the bike up and twists it in the right direction leading out back into the city from the front entrance. He swings his leg over and revs up the engine while Alfred fires off into the oncoming crowd of the Scarecrow Unit in their full body white jumpsuits and attached hoods covering their faces. He hits one in the leg and doesn't hold back a cheer while hopping on the back of the bike. His companion revs again, and Alfred looks back Ivan and winks in his direction, whether in sincerity of mockingly, it's hard to say.
"Keep shining, handsome!" he calls out and flashes a smile at him before the bike takes off.
The two shield themselves with a large pick up of dust that clouds around them at the initial stage of their speeding off from the property. Members of the Unity charge after them all the same, regardless of how visible they seem and even knock into Ivan carelessly in following their orders. When a majority of them have passed, he falls back down to the floor, sitting upright among the remains of the building and stirring sounds of everyone still present from the fiasco. He brings his knees up, and even hangs him head, suddenly drained and feeling exhausted.
He wishes he had taken his medication today.
xxx
Disclaimer The future is bulletproof, the aftermath is secondary.
-I thought of this plot so long ago it's so oooold I doubt there's anyone still into it and does it even matter because the killjoy era is over anyway why am I still gonna write this blarragaarah..
-Um... There were a few people that I talked to about this after they reviewed F.T.W.W.W. (years ago, yeah I know), because this is actually an extension of that, the entire story if you will, and it's not exactly crossoverish as much as it is just Hetalia'fied because while some terms are excluded a lot of it is pretty much the same of what it's based from and you can really tell.
-I mean, I pretty much just jacked the Zones, BLI, and the Scarecrow Unit.
-Meeeeeh, anyway, I gotta finish this other one-shot for m'wife's birthday on Saturday, figure out how not to sound stupid when typing up Lullaby, and try not to forget Lick the Star while beating down this plot bunny for another one-shot that will not leave me alone.
-Stay shiny all, I'll... see you when I do. :D
ETA: re-wrote some jazz here, fixed some grammar shizz and yeah... Yeah gonna pick this old project up again!