Second chapter, whoop! I'm just bursting with ideas for this (unlike my poor The Tiger's Revenge), that's why the first chapter ended up so long. I meant to end right as I entered the doors to Fairy Tail, but I ended up going on and on and when I finally stopped, I found I was too lazy to erase it all and put it in this chapter. So, ha. Get used to the length, because most of these will probably end up like that as well.
Also, I realized that in the last chapter, I mentioned Laxus where according to the current plotline of Fairy Tail, he would be exiled by now. Disregard that fact, and pretend he is still a guild member. He just got off with an extremely verbal scolding. It is vital for this fic (you'll see why).
No, Fairy Tail is not mine. If it was, there would be a whole lot more bleeding and eternal agony. Just saying.
"Nnng. Please, think before you blurt out odd suggestions," Night looked at me with exasperated eyes while some the onlookers just dropped. I don't know if they fainted out of fright or the inability to face my awesomeness head-on, but at that moment, I didn't really care.
I flashed a giant grin at Makarov, displaying my wolf teeth, and said, "Pleeaaase? I need money to buy a bass! And a house! And food! And friends! I have no friends. I want some friendssss..."
I sulked. I like that word. Suuuulllllk. Well, I sulked until someone (Natsu, I presume) asked, "Why would you need a base?"
"Okaaay, since you are not the most intelligent person ever to walk this planet, let me give you a little lesson," I perked up instantly and dug through one of my coat's deep pockets until I pulled out my magic-imbibed pen.
On the air, I wrote out the words "BASS" and "BASE". "I'm presuming you thought I said this version," I circled the "BASE", "when I said the other version, B-A-S-S. As in, the guitar." For added affect, I drew a bass. "Understand?" I asked.
"I... think so...?" Natsu phrased it as a question while tilting his head slightly. I rolled my eyes with a huff.
"So, you play the guitar?" The girl named Mirajane spoke. She looked nice, but she smelled a bit odd. Must be something with her magic.
"Yep! I also sing, write, and draw!" I positively beamed. "Oh, and I can hold down my sake pretty well, too. Nightmare never lets me have it, though." I shot my furry foster father an affectionate glare.
"I have my reasons. One: a drunk you would be catastrophic. Two: you're underage," he countered my accusation. He had a fair point. The legal drinking age was eighteen. I was five years under that.
"She looks a legal age for drinking..." Laxus muttered. I looked at him, one brow raised, while a wolfish grin made its way to my face.
"How would you know, pretty boy? I'm thirteen," I said with a smirk.
A collective "What." went up at my words. Oh, I am so awesome.
"Seriously? You're thirteen?" Laxus glared at me.
"Is it that hard to believe? Well, it's not hard to believe that you are an idiot," I retorted, the smirk still plastered to my face as I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Are you deliberately picking a fight?" Night asked.
"Why yes, yes I am. How much you wanna bet he'll be down and out with one blow?" It might seem odd to be betting the odds against sch a muscly guy with someone else without looking away from my newest victim's eyes, which were now flaming, but I had confidence. "Besides, I'm genetically superior."
"You are not bringing that into this," Nightmare growled with conviction.
"Alright, alright, fine. Still wanna fight, though." I challenged Laxus silently. Yes, the whole guild was watching, but oh well. They would bear witness to my awe-inspiring power. Okaaaay, maybe it would be more like 'fear-inspiring', but that's not the point here.
"Fine, I'll play along. But you cannot use magic. Only Laxus can," Night looked around quietly. "Sound fair?"
"Deal. Let me fight him already!" I made the mistake of looking away from my opponent, and by the time I looked back at him, an electricity-charged fist was flying for my face. "Hello!"
I jumped to the side quick enough, but I still felt the lightning jumping around as it passed my cheek.
"Tsk! Too slow!" Without pause, my foot had connected with his face (not to brag, but I heard a pretty satisfying crunch from his nose) and Laxus was sent flying back, landing with a crash on the bar.
He didn't get up.
I sauntered over to him to see that his eyes has rolled back into his head and blood was pouring from his nose. He was breathing, so he wasn't dead, but he could be just faking unconsciousness to gain the upper hand. Like that would ever work. Still, I had to see.
"Poooooke." That's right, I poked him. In the cheek. I laughed as his head rolled over to the side, "Yup, he's out!"
I turned back to the group of people. More unconscious bodies littered the ground (definitely can't face my awesomeness) and multiple people were gaping. In fact, the only person that didn't have their mouth gaping open was Erza, thought her eyes had widened.
"No way! Natsu and Gajeel had to work together to bring him down and they still got extremely hurt but she knocked him out with just a kick! She didn't even break a sweat!" Lucy whispered.
"Soo, how 'bout it? Can I join?" I looked to Makarov with a grin.
Makarov was staring at Laxus as though the guy's soul had just floated up and out of sight. I stared at him patiently - hey, it's not everyday one can face my awesomeness - until he looked at me. I could see the decision in his eyes before he told me, and I smiled. "... Well, erm, not everyone can defeat Laxus so easily, so I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I? Welcome to the family!"
"Yay!" I pumped a fist in the air and as I did so, the long sleeve slipped down slightly. I didn't have time to pull it back up before someone noticed it...the Barcode.
"Is that a... barcode on your wrist?" I looked to the girl who had spoken. It was Levy, the petite girl that smelled of parchment and ink. I sighed.
"Yeah. It's my Number. 1A75328." I stared at the ground in shame, a mind-numbing ache clawing its way into my head. I didn't want to see the pain of those awful memories in Nightmare's eyes. And I didn't want to see the looks on their faces if they recognized the Number.
"Your number? Why would you have a number?" I realized the voice as Erza's. I heard murmurs of agreement ripple through the group, even though it had begun to disperse.
"Do you really want to know?" My voice came out small and hoarse; I realized how desperate I sounded. Despite my best efforts to hide it, I was trembling, and I could tell Night was too.
"Yeah! C'mon, tell us!" Natsu's loud and overbearing voice fell hard upon my ears and I unwillingly flinched.
I closed my eyes with a sigh, mentally preparing myself for the flood of memories that was sure to come.
I began to explain, "That 'asylum' we were being held at nine years ago wasn't really an asylum. It was a laboratory. I was five when my sold me to them. I was immediately given a Number, an ID, upon arrival. That is to say, 1A75328. The man who ran the place... he would always refer to us affectionately, as if we were pets of his. He never called us by our names nor our full Number, but rather, he shortened our Number to the last two digits. He called me Twenty-eight."
"I was referred to as Zero-zero. That lab, it was built around me. They slaughtered my family, my pack, my entire species. I'm only alive because I was a pup, and the only one with black fur and red eyes. They even killed my two sisters. I was captured under the pretense that I could be of extreme use to them. They intended for me to grow up and become the ultimate war weapon. It would have worked. They experimented on me. Needles, anesthesia, cold steel tables and thick leather straps holding me down were a daily routine." Nightmare drew in a long, shuddering breath before continuing.
"I grew at an unnatural rate, to an unnatural size. I was about ten years old when I realized I could talk. I never let the scientists know. At night, I would practice words, copying what I heard the technicians say as they worked, where no one could hear me. My vocabulary grew, as did my intelligence. I began to formulate a plan to escape."
I took up where he left off. "The first thing they ever did to me was strap me down on a table to take blood and run numerous other tests. I struggled. I screamed. I cried. I was five, and I was terrified. I didn't know who those people were, what they were doing, or what had happened to my parents. Just before they took me to an individual room, a cell, really, the boss came in and smiled down at me, as if he were a dentist and doing nothing more than filling a cavity, and said, 'Welcome! This will be your home from now on. Your name is 1A75328. Don't forget it~!' and just like that, he walked out with a laugh. I remember it being odd sounding, kinda like a 'Shurorororo~!*'
"Anyways, the second day I was there, I was taken on a 'tour' of the place. Everything was white. The walls, ceiling, floor, uniforms, lights, everything. We passed four separate chambers that sent chills down my spine. The first seemed completely plain. Until I noticed the fact that the floor dipped slightly inward, ending at a drain in very center of the room. There were also shackles on the floor and dangling from the ceiling. I later learned that it was known as the 'Whipping Chamber'
"The second room was almost as plain as the first. On the back wall, there was a viewing window. In the middle of the room there was..." I hesitated before shaking my head. "No. I can't remember it well.
"The third room was heavily guarded. The door was iron with numerous locks and latches running down it. They were all locked, and there was no window to peer inside."
Nightmare chipped in here. "That was my room. It was completely soundproof, and could not be destroyed from the inside or outside. I tried."
"The third was simple. Every surface was padded. The door had a keypad lock. It was the 'Isolation Room'." I sighed and sat down at the nearest table my head in my hands. I felt the eyes follow me as I moved, and Night came to sit beside me, his head hung low and ears pulled back.
It was a few minutes before I could speak again. "I spent the most time in the Whipping Chamber. My arms were held above my head by the shackles. my feet were chained to the floor. I soon learned that the drain in the floor was for the blood. I was scarred again and again, until I was completely numb to the world. See?" I lifted up the hem of my shirt to show my stomach, which was laced with ugly scars. There was never a full square inch of unscarred, pale skin.
By this time, Laxus had awoken and was watching me intently. I looked at his face and bit back a laugh. "Pfft... Your face looks like you were hit with a wrecking ball. Night, fix him, or else I'll be laughin' too hard to continue," I chuckled, turning to Night. He stood and loped over to Laxus, stopping to sniff his blood-covered face. With a nonchalant rise and fall of his left shoulder, Nightmare licked Laxus's face. The mage recoiled backwards, a look of pure disgust on his face. I laughed again.
"What was that for?!" Okay, his comment even had Erza giggling.
Night rolled his eyes and padded back to me and I looked at Laxus. "Say thank you. Your face just got fixed." I smirked before continuing on with my story.
"I spent time in the second room when I didn't behave. All that I remember was pain. It was as if whatever they did fried my brain and prevented me from thinking straight. I spent weeks at a time in the Isolation Room. No food, water, freedom, or human contact for full weeks. On the side, I was always experimented on. My genetics were enhanced. I was made immune to everything, including poisons." I suppressed a snicker. "The only thing they didn't seem to get rid of was my ADD. I never focused long enough. My studies were severely neglected. I may have been a sorely abused lab rat, but I still needed to learn.
"Then came the day my magic appeared. It was my sixth birthday. I was on my way to the Whipping Chamber when something snapped. The guards escorting me were decapitated in seconds." I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth and I looked at my audience to say, "I remember the way the walls and clothes turned crimson, and the coppery scent of blood filled the air. It only took a few minutes for more guards on patrol to happen by, and the one that got away raised the alarm. The entire corridor was gassed and I was knocked out.
"The first thing I noticed when I woke was was the Boss glaring at me. He asked how I killed his men, and I couldn't explain as well as I could demonstrate it, so to do so I raised my and flicked my fingers slightly. I was acting purely on impulse, and as I watched, the shadows around the edges of the room slithered forward and formed a little ball in front of me. Like this." I turned my middle and forefinger into a small circle and shadows formed in front of me, making a fist-sized ball of swirling black and dark purple substances.
"It's pretty." Natsu was staring at my shadow orb with a grin on his face. Just to delight him, I took it in my hand and tossed to his face. He caught it, and he had Happy took turns tossing it around.
"Anywho, after that I had no more experiments on me. I constantly wore a collar that drained my strength and made me too weak to use magic. They knew I could obliterate them." I finished my part, and let Nightmare resume.
"It was when they decided to see how long I could last when tortured that I found out I could heal. That didn't work with them. If I was to be a war machine, I needed a powerful, deadly magic. Mad had that. They arranged a magic-switching machine to be made so we would have out abilities switched with each other's. It didn't work as they planned."
"I went berserk, killed them all, destroyed the machine."
"Yeah. It was the next day I heard the scientists talking about the 'execution of 1A75328'. From what I knew, she was an innocent, six-year old girl. Of course I did something. The idiots left my door open, I broke out, followed the scent I had memorized to Mad's room, broke it open, treated her like a pup and grabbed her by the scruff."
"It didn't hurt a lot."
"Quit interrupting. I ran out, dodging guards and scientists alike while she giggled and sliced open a gas main. The explosion had the whole place up in flames and my fur got singed. It took forever to grow back."
"And you reeked of burnt fur for a few days," I chortled.
"Shut up! It was your fault in the first place!" After that, Nightmare took to muttering sourly under his breath.
And that was when I was struck the the most amazing idea ever. Sorta. I knew I would get my way, though. I always do.
Long chapter is long.
*Alright, a free cookie cake to anyone who can guess who the boss is. He will play a very important role~
I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. I'm a really crappy writer.