Escaping the Maze:
"Rise and fucking shine, Deus. It's your turn in the nerds room." Came a husky, filtered voice from beyond the door. Tapping resonated against its solid vertical surface and tired groans emanated inside the cell.
"It's been ten months and three days, motherfucker. You know the drill."
The voice was pissing off the occupant of the cell, that's for sure.
"Fuck you!" Was the occupant's husky response. The occupant? One Project DEUS, an embittered, abused Pachirisu. His tail stood tall as he sat up on the mattress, rubbing his ice blue eyes free of sleep.
"Did you hear that shit, Cordoza? This fucker has a real mouth." The voice mouthed presumably to his colleague somewhere or another. The Pachirisu rolled his eyes.
"Maybe because you're a cunt."
His choice of words seemed to aggravate the voice.
"What the fuck did you just call me? Get out here now, you sack of shit!"
The male Pachirisu smirked. He rubbed his ear with his paw. His ears coloured crimson along with his back stripe and the majority of his tail fur. The crimson fur covered in unique, swirling formations slightly lighter in shading that is commonly acknowledged as Blacklight Markings.
He was nude, to his annoyance and never having been given any clothing during his imprisonment the whole time. He was further humiliated not long after he was consigned to being a lab rat. Once with a full head of messy brown hair was reduced to a flat top mohawk, and assigned a regular drug to prevent it growing back. While a petty subject, it became one of a catalogue of reasons why Deus had spurned an attitude of timidity to something much more blunt and forced. After all, over ten months of being a test subject is a very long time.
However, just as he stood up the door to his cell flung open with unceremonious force. Before he could react, the Blackwatch soldier smashed the butt of his assault rifle against the male Pachirisu's jaw.
His jaw rippled on impact and he clumsily fell to the floor grunting. Blood spurted from his already swollen mouth and splashed against the whitened wall.
Curling in the foetal position defensively, blood continued leaking from his mouth across his face while coughing up more onto the floor.
"Get the fuck up, Deus!" The soldier demanded and wrenched the bruised Pachirisu up by the arm.
"Cordoza, this guy fucking stinks!" The masked human complained as his identically dressed partner appeared at the doorway.
"Letting me bathe once in a while would help." Sarcastically groaned the bleeding Pachirisu. He was slapped across his face for his discretion and handcuffed, before being bundled forward through the cell door that locked behind them.
"You're a fucking funny guy for a lab rat." The soldier taunted almost childishly. He was Brett Cole alright, his voice familiar.
Deus continued to be shoved forth by Cole and Cordoza. Ahead the Pachirisu surveyed the corridor, a long time familiar as it was. Tubular lights lined in two lengthy rows were suspended from the ceiling. They flickered violently and continuously, plunging the corridor into near darkness one second and illuminating it again the next. They acted like flashes of lightning on steroids, messing with everybody's eyes and sight. Clearly the lights had not been replaced in some time.
The male Pachirisu noted that the white tiled floor was smeared almost entirely of dried blackish-red blood. Some of it he guessed was his own given the many acts of violence and abuse that he had been subjected to. All those long, dried streaks and hand and footprints, all wasted away like the subjects it all spilled from. The walls too were all permeated with more...much more. No wonder the Blackwatch soldiers called it Hell on Earth.
His mind reeled through horrific imagery that plagued his last ten months. Mostly of being teasted on, he remembered the sharp jabs of syringes stabbing into his arms. Each time bloody holes were left to flow and then remembered one particularly brutal test.
Having been spread on his front bound to a rack, he felt his backside violently violated by a syringe so badly that he smeared blood on the test chair when he was made to sit in it. No doubt leaving Deus shitting blood for a week, he sure was in agony.
It made him shake his head while currently being dragged by Cordoza and Cole. He was glad to be rid of those horrible memories for a while.
"Maybe we should get the nerds to fucking torture you again, Deus. What do you think?" Cole taunted, questioning the Pachirisu, who sighed and ignored him. The soldier smirked to himself from behind the balaclava.
Deus was not amused however as he remembered being heavily beaten by another Blackwatch soldier. Restrained in chains he was covered in blood while frequently spitting up more. Then the soldier ordered a meek scientist forward. He was one who used to be on Deus' team.
Deus could see the Wartortle trembling, but was less than subtly encouraged at gunpoint to attack his one time colleague. The male Pachirisu looked away ashamed back then, saying nothing. He heard the Wartortle reluctantly scooping up a cutting tool from the nearby table. Hearing it whir into life, Deus squirmed uncomfortably on the chains. He knew it was a screeching buzzsaw.
He heard the Wartortle muttering 'I'm sorry, Patrick', causing them to both tear up and sniffle. The Blackwatch soldier could be heard clicking the chamber of his brandished sidearm threateningly. He said 'He is Project DEUS, not Patrick Mercer. Now stop being sentimental and fucking do it!'
The Wartortle nodded and Deus heard the buzzsaw approaching. Grimacing on the chains he cried out in pain as the spinning circular blade began slicing into his wrist. His blood quickly started squirting out against the face and lab coat of the Wartortle. More spurted against the Blackwatch soldier's body armour.
He felt it cutting muscle tissue, tendons, nerves and bone. It was excruciating.
His blood covered body thrashed pathetically and spasmed. More sprayed from his wrist, thoroughly drenching the Wartortle, the soldier and a nearby wall. It seemed to go on forever until he felt his paw sever and drop off. Looking down he saw nerves and tendons sticking out of his severed limb. The stump on his ruptured wrist spilled more as the already vast crimson pool on the floor was further added to. He was in shock as the Wartortle threw aside the blood soaked buzzsaw.
The water Pokemon breathed heavily in complete shock with widened eyes.
The human Blackwatch soldier did nothing but offer a smirk, noting the pair of tearful Pokemon before him. The Wartortle apologised profusely to the blood soaked Pachirisu who merely nodded. He finally looked up again as black and red veins began covering his arm and once receded, repaired his arm completely. Even his paw was reattached with no evidence of prior severance.
The Blackwatch soldier's brows raised as if in surprise, before holding his sidearm against the Wartortle's cranium. Threateningly clicking a bullet into its chamber, both the Wartortle and Deus began to sob and plead. The soldier revelled in the tear stained begs for mercy and coldly pulled the trigger.
The Pachirisu's lip quivered in horror as sizable entry and exit wounds ripped open on the Wartortle's head. The scientist collapsed on the floor lifelessly with blood spraying from his wounds, coating the wall nearby and pooling quickly beneath him.
The male Pachirisu sobbed in a cowardly manner at the cold and heartless manner which Blackwatch always seemed to favour. The Blackwatch soldier noticed and told Deus to get over it as if it was normal.
Deus could not take the soldier's remorseless attitude any longer. With bloody tear stained cheeks, he plucked up enough courage to spit blood at the antagonistic soldier. The soldier, who he would later come to know as Dalton, saw the bloody phlegm strands splash against his body armour. In retaliation he whipped the abused male Pachirisu across his already battered face several times mercilessly with his sidearm.
Dalton would later become a sniper, but that event helped to change Deus from an emotional coward into somebody much more ready to stand up to his adversaries.
"Deus stop daydreaming, you stupid little prick!" Barked Cordoza, causing the male Pachirisu to snap out of his memory cesspool and concentrate on reality.
The two Blackwatch soldiers pushed him forward with force. Such force was enough to knock him to the bloodstained floor on his side. Typically Cordoza and Cole made a habit of kicking him in the gut. Blood spilt from his mouth and further stained the floor. Wheezing, Cordoza and Cole noticed and shrugged, remorseless in the direction of the poor abused Pachirisu.
As Deus shrivelled onto his back, he noticed an array of hanging human corpses suspended upside down by rope from the ceiling. Wrapped in black bags, they dripped blood profusely from their forms.
Deus gasped until he was punched across the mouth by Cole, who wrenched him up to his feet again. The male Pachirisu looked up again and noticed the rows of corpses no longer there. Noting the blood on his chest fur spilt from his mouth, he continued shambling reluctantly forward.
"Keep fucking moving, Deus. We're nearly there and all the fucking nerds can piss all over you, hermoso." Cordoza taunted. Indeed, Deus noticed double doors straight ahead. The infected in the cells all around had remained quiet the entire time.
"You just wait, you dipshit motherfuckers. You just wait." Deus mocked in response, cryptically. He seemed confident and smirked somewhat broadly. The Blackwatch soldiers looked puzzled but shrugged and pushed him on.
The double doors swung open on their own accord. Inside was a lab, perfectly shining white. A lighting fixture lit up the room brightly and security cameras permeated each corner.
"We have your lab rat motherfucker, now we must attend to more important fucking matters." Cole spoke up towards the numerous scientists in the room. Deus spied four of them.
Cole grabbed the male Pachirisu's crotch and squeezed it harshly. He smirked as he drew back, leaving Deus to reflect in disgust and wince.
"Leave my dick alone, you sick fuck."
His remarks were only rewarded with wolf whistles and chuckles though.
"You know you want me, Deus." Cole continued to taunt sickeningly. Deus however ignored him. Cordoza and Cole left through the same doors to attend an apparent meeting elsewhere.
"I'll kill you, Cole!" The male Pachirisu yelled out in the direction of the departing Blackwatch soldiers. All he heard was Cole's fading voice saying:
"Sure, Deus. I'll be commander before that ever happens."
It sounded sarcastic. They had left the handcuffs on Deus' wrists as they always did in the testing labs. Now, he was left at the mercy of the scientist foursome.
Looking around, the room was quite modern and well lit. The ceiling light dominated most of the ceiling and never once flickered.
In one corner beneath a watchful security camera was a large, clean table. On that table was a set of drab coloured trays. Each held either fresh syringes, scalpels or scissors. They were well organised.
Beside them was a buzzsaw. One much like the one responsible for cutting off his paw months back. The male Pachirisu sighed in contempt of his reminder, his ice blue eyes diverting to the centre of the whitened room.
There was a bog standard chair with wrist restraints on its arms. It was a chair he was made to sit in many times before. It was the chair he was made to sit in after he was messily jabbed in the rear. He cringed somewhat as his mind flashed back to the events. The dried blood on the chair and on the floor in front of it did nothing to help suppress past horrors.
"Come on, Deus. The tests are waiting." One of the lab coat wearing scientists called out towards him. Deus' eyes clamped to him, a Lucario, glaring back.
Reluctantly, he slowly wandered over and stood by the test chair. The Lucario, a female Dewott, a male Fennekin and a male Quilava all stood by with white lab coats fluttering.
The Lucario squirted fluid from a syringe he clutched, mockingly with a cold stare.
"So much for you pricks being my former partners." Deus snarled as he glared at each one with gritted teeth. He referred to each one as his former colleagues working on the very project that now inhabited him. He was quickly hushed by the Lucario.
"You were always too quiet, Deus. Nobody but that Wartortle understood you and you fucking helped none of us."
The Lucario's deep voice angered the male Pachirisu somewhat as the other three stood guard.
"I made all the fucking breakthroughs and you know it. You clowns stood there and took all the credit!"
The Lucario became just as agitated and he began to yell.
"The project needed a defining voice. You never spoke out enough so I did all the talking. You're not as smart as you think you are. I mean...look at you now. You're fucking pathetic!"
Just as Deus was at breaking point, the female Dewott stood forward to defuse the situation.
"Guys just stop, OK? Deus, get in the chair. We have tests to run." Her voice commanded. The other three nodded and the Fennekin spoke up.
"Quickly, Deus. Blackwatch security is thin on the ground tonight."
He sounded uncertain, nervous even.
"Oh...well that's a shame." The male Pachirisu retorted sarcastically.
"Wh-what do..." The Quilava began to ask in concern only to widen his eyes in horror at what transpired next. Deus' handcuffs snapped in two and with a spurt of red mist, his right arm became a string of biomass. Black and red in colour, a sharp silver appendage sat where his paw would have been.
"Holy shit!" Cried the Fennekin in terror. He and the other scientists had never seen the male Pachirisu mutate before. They knew that this spelt trouble. Before they knew it, Deus thrust his shape-shifted arm forth.
Parts of its biomass glowed on and off like a red beacon and as it stretched freakishly across the room, revealed its spinal cord like appearance. The claw like appendage made contact with and sliced off one of the security cameras from its perch. The camera sparked as it hit the floor with a mechanical thud.
As Deus' mutated arm retracted to him again, he surveyed the fear on the four scientists. It made him smirk. One somewhat sinister.
"I...I always feared this day would come." The Quilava trembled as he noted the handcuffs, or the remains of them, on the floor before the male Pachirisu.
As Deus dragged his mutated arm like a threatening whip on the ground, the scientists held their paws out before them, pleading for mercy. The male Pachirisu was not in a friendly mood. Instead, his mutated appendage sliced another security camera from its perch.
"Please, Deus. Consider what you're doing." The female Dewott pleaded with a shaky voice. Still no change in Deus' mind. Instead, almost immediately after his arm retracted, he thrust it forth again. Same result: severed security camera and its transmissions cut off. His arm yet again retreated and narrowly missed the Fennekin's ear on its way.
"Deus please...stop for a second to think about our families..." The Fennekin added his plea to the fray. Deus glared at the Fennekin while dragging his whip like arm across the ground. In doing so, sparks flew up around it while leaving a lengthy drag mark on the surface. Then, one last time he thrust it forth and severed the remaining security camera from its perch. It crashed to the ground as the male Pachirisu's arm retracted to him.
"Deus look at yourself. You don't want to do this. You will regret it if you do!" The Lucario remonstrated, realising the four of them had no security cameras watching over them like guardian angels. Their fear escalated to new heights. For good reason too, as Deus' arms mutated mutated through another bout of red mist. This time, his arms simply resembled large grey fists. They looked like rock solid boxing gloves. Pounding the floor to demonstrate their strength, large cracks appeared in the surface and threw up small, irregular chips into the air. Then, with a hinting smirk and a glare for each of the four terrified scientists, he pounded both fists simultaneously against the floor. The impact further dented the surface and sent out a large shock wave in all directions. The pulsing shock wave swept all four of them off of their feet and hurled them in different directions. Each of them hit the walls and bounced off like a pinball. Three of them hit the floor with heavy grunts. One, the Quilava, landed on the table full of tools. The trays toppled over and deflected him to the floor. As the trays hit the floor, the tools they so neatly stored fell around him like lethal raindrops.
Scissors hit the ground. Syringes hit the ground. Scalpels hit the ground. However a stray scalpel flew up above the Quilava and stabbed itself deeply in his gut. He cried in pain as some blood spurted into the air. His lab coat around the wound was quickly stained red as well. While he found the scalpel was lodged in the wound, worse was to come in the shape of the now toppling buzzsaw.
"Anderson!" The female Dewott cried out in vain in the midst of a coughing fit, due to the impacts her own body had. Anderson only had enough time to blink as the off balance buzzsaw toppled from the table. Its round blade embedded itself even deeper in the Quilava's abdomen. It caused more brief squirts of blood and stained his white lab coat further red.
The Lucario attempted to crawl towards Anderson to assist his stricken colleague. Deus passed him on foot and kicked out at his jaw. The result was a sickening and the sound of his jaw snapping. It was clear for everyone to hear as blood splattered across the floor near to the Lucario's mouth. However his speech remained defiant.
"Fuck you, Deus. You leave Anderson alone or I swear..."
Deus interrupted the winded Lucario.
"You swear...what? I find it so fucking lovely that you lot get on. You know, like a fucking house on fire! Where were you motherfuckers when I needed you?! When I was hurt? You stood there and did nothing! Now you expect me to have sympathy for you pricks! For that I'm going to make you all fucking suffer and watch your buddy Anderson due before your eyes. Then, the rest of you will follow him...one by fucking one!"
The four of them simultaneously widened their eyes following his revelation. With each of them terrified, Deus moved towards and stood beside the sprawled and injured Quilava. His left arm had returned to normal. His right had become a large metallic blade, covered with glowing biomass that illuminated on and off.
"D-Deus...pl-please..." Anderson warbled weakly, coughing up some blood. He and the other scientists watered up with tears as if it was a last plea for mercy. Deus coldly shunned them. He glared into the moist eyes of the Quilava who stared back at him, fearfully shaking his head. Deus continued to glare as his normal paw pressed the buzzsaw's on button. Within seconds the rotating circular saw blade whirred into life while stuck in Anderson's body. Immediately it began ripping open his abdomen with sheer ferocity. As his screams of pain almost matched the screeching of the saw, his blood sprayed densely and splattered all over Deus. It also began covering the table, the nearby wall and all the scattered tools and trays on the floor.
His abdomen tore open with a squelch and exposed jagged flesh. His intestines were sliced into by the ravenous saw and a large coiled segment splashed messily on the floor. While the rest of his entrails spilled and hung from his body, his private area was then cut into with painful results. Making nothing but a large, fleshy hole that audibly squirted blood, his genitals were cut off and the severed genitalia landed in one of the nearby trays.
The saw had caused so much damage that his body had almost completely been cut in half at the waist, merely held together through a few flaps of flesh and skin, as well as his now exposed spinal cord. His body was a fleshy wreck and blood flowed and gushed continuously from the wounds. More or less, it was like an autopsy gone hideously wrong.
Deus watched with almost sadistic satisfaction the entire time. His frontal body and face were dyed almost completely red.
Miraculously, Anderson was still alive if barely, groaning in pain. The buzzsaw skidded off of his spinal cord and visible ribcage and shot across the floor dangerously. Barely missing a sidestepping Deus, it sliced open the Lucario's cheek as it shot past. Hitting the chair its off button collided with one of the legs, shutting it off. Its circular blade slowed to a halt and ended its headache inducing reign of terror.
"Oh fuck..." The Lucario groaned as he clasped his paw to his mangled cheek. Blood squirted from the wound profusely, quickly pooling on the floor. His cheek had flaps of dangling skin and flesh hanging from the deep, gaping gash.
However he knew the Quilava was far worse off than he was, noting the vast pool of blood around his teammate and friend. His eyes watered up a little once again. The female Dewott was beside herself, sobbing openly as her strength could muster. The impact with the wall had likely taken its toll on her with several cracked ribs and external bruising. The male Fennekin could barely control his emotions either while he was still recovering from being winded by the same impact with the wall.
Deus picked up the male Quilava whose blood was still spewing from his mouth from coughing fits. The result was most of his face being covered in specks of blood. Even more completely covered the rest of his body and tattered lab coat. Now being held tightly around the neck by a glaring Deus, his intestines spilled out of his body and splattered in a coiled red mess on the floor. His body was upright, suspended in the air. His exposed spinal cord barely held onto his lower half that would otherwise be completely severed. Half of his ribcage showed, submerged in many heaps of damaged muscle tissue, arteries, tendons and flesh. His squirting blood drenched Deus' fur even further. It was almost a miracle that he was still alive.
However the male Pachirisu decided to end Anderson's suffering. Without allowing him another word, Deus thrust his blade arm forth. Its tip stabbed through Anderson's upper chest and the rest of the blade arm sunk its way inside. Blood spurted as it pierced squelching, gooey flesh and caused the hapless Quilava to cough up even more blood. Some of the blade punched through his back, impaling him. He was way too weak to cry in pain. The female Dewott's sobbing could be heard in the background while the Lucario and Fennekin looked away, distraught in disgust.