We're Not Monsters… Are We?

Jace and Genesis walked down the hallways and fought off the guards that tried to stop them. Jace used his new weapon almost flawlessly as he cleaved through their defenses. He cleaved a guard's weapon down and brought the haft up to bash him in the face, then sent the side of the blade into his knees to cripple him. He fell over as another one came up to Jace's side. Jace brought his leg up and kicked him, then turned and sent him back into a wall with a powerful slash. Genesis sent a wave of energy out and blasted the guards back as they charged in again. He sent his aura through the blade and brought it down into the ground, sending out a shockwave and sending the guards down again.

They quickly worked through and defeated the group of guards, then continued navigating the halls as more sounds came from above them. Jace bit his lip nervously as they seemed to go deeper and deeper into the facility rather than toward the exit.

"If you keep biting your lip like that you're gonna start bleeding." Genesis said without even glancing at Jace.

"I can't help it, it's a habit." Jace replied and tried to take a breath to calm himself.

"We'll get out of this," Genesis assured him and looked on down the hall, "But for now, we need to find the lab and see if there's anything there that can tell us what they did."

Jace thought it over for a few moments and nodded. "Yeah, that would be a good start."

They came to a wider hallway and saw a group of guards coming for them before being attacked from behind by Grimm. In their surprise, they were killed by the Grimm as Jace and Genesis watched in shock. "Do you think that's what's attacking?" Jace asked as the Grimm started to come for them.

"I hope to Oum not. That's just gonna make things harder for us." Genesis replied.

The first Beowulf was a young one and lunged at them quickly. Jace quickly cleaved it in the side and sent it to the ground, then another one jumped and clawed at his legs. Jace lifted his leg up to evade the attack and stomped down hard into its head, he finished it by cleaving his axe down into its back. Genesis sent a fireball and caught a charging Beowulf in the mouth. Its head was engulfed in flames as he slashed his sword across and took out the remaining few Grimm.

"You don't think these things came all the way down here do you?" Jace asked nervously and looked down the hall where the Grimm came, "I mean, they might've had them locked up like what they do at Atlas sometimes."

"What, and they escaped in the commotion?" Genesis looked down the hall, then back to Jace and saw his nervousness.

"That's what I'm hoping is going on."

Genesis looked back to where they came and sighed, then turned his head back to their path. "Well it looks like we'll be fighting Grimm either way. Lets just get going."

They continued on throughout the maze of hallways and rooms trying to find the lab where they were experimented on. They both felt something inside them now that they knew shouldn't be. They couldn't train their senses to be this well. From hearing commotion above and behind them easily to smelling blood and dust from multiple hallways away, they knew one thing at least had to have been put into them. DNA of the Faunus.

Then there came the fact that these people had injected their bodies with dust. Jace felt multiple different temperatures and feelings in his skin, reacting with his aura. He felt hot, cold, heavy, light, solid, and fluid all at different times. Jace clenched his right fist and looked at it, seeing the air around it distorted with heat. He shook his head and looked back to where they were going.

At the intersection of two hallways, they came across a horrified scientist and grabbed him by the arms. "Where's the lab!?" Genesis yelled the question at him.

"I'm not telling you rats anything!" The man yelled back as a small group of guards came down the hallway.

Genesis roared and threw the man with all his strength into the group. They were bowled over by the force of him slamming into them as Jace rushed toward them. He stomped his foot onto a few of their heads to knock them out before the rest of them returned to their feet. Genesis flew by and kicked one of them back down to the ground with his boot to the guard's head. He quickly turned and sent the other into the wall with a wave of energy from his sword as the last one was slammed into the opposite wall by Jace.

Genesis found the scientist again and held him up by his throat. "Where is the Lab?" He asked again in a lower voice.

The man hesitated and scowled at the two, then felt rising heat in his throat. "It's down that hall!" He gave up and pointed down the eastern hallway.

Genesis tossed him to the ground and reared his leg back, then kicked him in the head to knock him out. "I guess we have a direction to go."

"It's better than nothing I guess." Jace replied and started biting his lip again.

They walked for fifteen minutes before they came across multiple occupied cells. Occupied was a stretch since all of those in them looked to be in comas. And each of them were in some stage of crystallization.

"God damn…" Jace said quietly and looked away from the first cell.

The woman in it was extremely malnourished and her legs were covered in multicolored crystal. This was why no one had successfully infused dust into themselves. Most of the time, people that had done so were quickly crystallized while they could only watch. Sometimes, like with this woman, they were forced into comas from the stress and pain and were slowly crystallized from there. Anyone who had done so were considered insane by the general public.

The next cell had shown them exactly what laid in store for that woman. The man in the bed was fully covered in crystal. It was a horrible sight to Jace and Genesis, so they kept walking past the cells until they were in the lab.

"Gen… let's take a break for a minute." Jace said as he came to a stop.

"Yeah, sure. You alright?" Genesis asked in concern.

Jace shook his head slowly and fell to a knee. "No… What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know man, it doesn't make any sense." Genesis answered.

"Those people… Gods, they're turning into pure crystal. One of them is already. W-what if that happens to us?" Jace asked fearfully and looked up to Genesis.

"There's really nothing we can do about it…" Genesis admitted as he held his head down, "But what we can do is at least get out of here and back to dad."

"You're right, but Gods… why did it have to be us?"

"I don't know, but we're not starting to turn to crystal. We have that at least. You ready to search?"

Jace stood up and nodded slowly as Genesis caught sight of Jace's eyes. "Hang on a second, Jace." Genesis said and leaned closer.

"What is it?"

"Your eyes… they're red as blood."

"My eyes are what?" Jace asked incredulously and stared at Genesis, "They're red?"

Genesis nodded and saw the disbelief in Jace's eyes. "They match your aura color now, so there's that." He tried to joke but sighed and turned toward the lab.

They looked around the large room and saw multiple pods on one side filled with a type of liquid and two of them had people in them with hoses and oxygen masked strapped to their faces and different tubes and wires attached to their arms and chests. Jace searched a nearby table for anything that can help them. He stopped in his tracks when he started to hear pained moans and screams. The other people that had been experimented on.

"Dust, I feel sorry for these guys." Jace said, unable to stop hearing the pained cries.

"There's nothing we can do for them, the only thing I can think of is… is putting them out of their misery." Genesis replied lowly, looking to the ground and thinking about how they would just starve to death if left there. He regretted that he even said it.

"I swear if I have my way, I'm sending that scientist straight to hell." Jace said as he started to search the table.

He looked through multiple papers and books trying to find anything that can tell them something. A few sheets of paper had drawings of different land dwelling Grimm such as Beowulves, Ursai, Deathstalkers, and Taijitus. As well as aerial Grimm like Nevermore and Griffons, and aquatic Grimm like Krooks and Wretches. Each drawing covered weaknesses and strengths of the Grimm, such as the aquatic ones being susceptible to bolt dust while land based Grimm were more susceptible to burn dust. He took all the papers and stacked them together, holding them in his left hand while he continued searching the tables.

He moved tools and different medical instruments out of his way as his eyes fell on a book. It's title was mostly faded out but he could barely make out the word "Dust" on the cover and spine. He opened it up and the front page talked about ancient techniques with dust. The main topic being dust infusion.

'If one without control of their aura attempts this themselves, then they will perish as their body will refuse the dust and they will be frozen in crystal. If one does have control over their aura, and they are careful in infusing the dust into themselves, then in time they shall have complete control in the type of dust they use.'

Jace read through the words over and over while his mind tried to process it. "So if this is right, then we should be able to use this dust?" He thought to himself and looked at his hand. He saw a bit of frost cover a small bit of the book and he set it down, then put the pieces of paper inside and closed it. He twisted his bag around and put the book inside of it as Genesis called over to him.

"Hey Jace, I found something."

Jace quickly walked over toward him and looked to see a journal in his hands.

"Look at this," Genesis said while pointing at a specific entry, "Looks like he was trying to make some kind of soldier with the experiments. Like someone that could do anything." He continued to skim through the pages, but time was short so he took it and put it in Jace's bag.

"We can read it later when we're out of here, we need to leave," Jace said, "They probably built their defenses up top. But… there's one thing we need to talk about."

"Yeah… Yeah, I know," Genesis sighed, "What do we do about them?"

"I guess for now, we should look at them…" Jace answered. They went off toward the screams, both conflicted in what to do.

It was a horrible sight. Multiple people, twisted, ugly, deformed Faunus and humans that were the source of the cries.

"My god!" Genesis exclaimed and recoiled at the sight of them. "So this is what he did? How does a man like that even exist?" He continued, revolted by the sight of the prisoners.

"Oh Oum no… Genesis, they're just gonna starve here… t-there's no going around it…" Jace said slowly, "We have to… put them out of their misery. They deserve that at least." He finished as he drew 'Ebonshot.'

"You're right, they deserve peace from… this." Genesis agreed and drew his pistol as well, citing a short prayer asking for forgiveness.

Then, they opened the first cell door, ready to give the prisoners peace.

One by one, the two brothers went into each cell and ended the suffering of the experiments. From men, women, Faunus, and even children of both races, they were each put to rest.

If they were allowed to live, they would simply starve to death, a very slow and horrible demise. Each of them were horribly disfigured from the countless procedures performed by Grigori and his other scientists. A few of them had the look of bird skulls due to their genes reacting horribly to the genes of a Nevermore or Griffon. Others had larger arms or legs from Ursa genes, some had smaller limbs because of other failed operations.

It took them half an hour to go through the cells to do their grim task. When they were finished, they looked to each other with blank expressions. Another thing they would have to live with for the rest of their lives. It left both the brothers sick to their stomachs with having to take the lives of others. But this was to give the prisoners peace… surely they could be forgiven.

"We should leave now… before anyone gets here." Jace said.

"You're right, we can't get cornered in this place. Lets go." Genesis said and they walked down the long hallway, carrying the weight of what they've done, and what was done to them, to hopefully freedom.

Jace took his sword from his back and replaced it with his axe as he stared blankly down the hallway.

"Weird," He thought, "this hallway seems a lot longer now."

XxXxX

AN: Crystallization. That's a fate worse than death. To just slowly turn to stone. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

And with this chapter, we have a horrible moral dilemma. Either let the prisoners suffer slowly, or end it for them. Honestly, I would be too scared to do anything at that point. That, added with the disgust of what had been done to them, is gonna eat away at them.

See you next chapter, and have a nice day!