Title: Last Two Standing
Chapter: 4
Story Notes: This is 'technically' version two of this story. It was in great need of some substance to it. I have been doing a bunch of research this time around BUT there will still be some made up factors here. This is a fiction story after all.
Chapter Notes: This chapter did not change too much from what I originally had. Just small points here and there. Some combining of parts from a couple different chapters. The next chapter will be mostly new however. Are the improvements working well?
It seemed to be a common stance. Trowa leaned against a wall, arms casually crossed over his chest. Sometimes his emerald eyes were closed, making him appear very relaxed. Today they were open, observing, watching the lone sleeping figure in the infirmary's white-sheeted bed through the dimmed light. Blinks seemed to be at exceptionally stretched intervals. After all, he might miss something by closing them for that split second.
But no, the blond they had rescued seemed to be encased in a drug induced slumber and would only wake when the unknown substance finally drifted out of his system. Locks of shoulder length golden hair were now dry and tousled from lack of attention. His sleep had turned to fitful ever since the other rescue had stepped out of the room with Wufei to be shown the washroom just down the hall.
The braided man was another story, completely. He was 'very' much aware of his surroundings and down right refused to be more then five feet away from his companion at all times since they arrived at headquarters almost five hours ago. Nevertheless the passed time found an immense improvement from their initial meeting, starring down into the void of a loaded gun barrel. To say the least a huge sigh of relief was taken when they finally breathed in fresh air, leaving behind the darkness and enclosure.
Both, the resident doctor, Sally Po and Wufei were mere seconds away from forcing a shot of sedatives on the protective young man so they could get near enough to the other to check him over for any injures when they first arrived. It was comparable to dealing with an overprotective, snarling guard dog. Though, one that kept a pistol tucked in the waistband of his dirtied pants. It was painfully apparent, even to one with no medical background, that they had been horribly abused and malnourished while locked away in that underground lab.
Trust was something that would be a fight to gain for a long time to come that was for certain. Trowa shook his head at the memories.
All in all, these were the only two. Bodies littered the aftermath when the search crews combed through the rubble. It was painfully apparent that the majority of the secret organization had fled safely. Even the remaining man Heero had incapacitated had a hole in his head when they went back to cuff him.
Little evidence remained, most of it dismantled or destroyed. Violet eyes had watched at a distance, glazed over in remembrance, before he was led away along with the waterlogged blond. The rest of the test subjects were released from their watery graves so they could be, hopefully, identified and given a proper burial.
The two survivors had been ushered into a car and taken back to the main Preventer's building and straight to the infirmary located on one of the upper most floors. They took up residence in one of the few individual rooms set aside for those with a prolonged visit. Sally wanted to keep them quarantined to where only a few people were coming in and out. Mainly herself and the three whom had brought them into the daylight for the first time ever. They'd figure the rest out later, at the moment they were taking it step by tiny step.
Sally had left a short while ago. She wanted to immediately run several tests on the blood samples they had fought to collect from the two. Heero took the little data they were able to obtain from the warehouse to a computer on a different floor, one fully encrypted on the network. Only Wufei and Trowa remained, in what appeared to be a silent stare down with the one, conscious, rescue. Separated by the expanse of open floor in the room the two had been set up in.
The brown haired boy was filthy, covered in soot and blood. Wufei did not sugar coat this fact after several counts of nothingness. Offering to show the other where he could clean up, if even just a little. The calculating glint remained unwavering on them, causing even a trained soldier an episode of goosebumps. It was only a promise from Trowa, answering an unforeseen question, that set the long haired boy's mind enough at ease that he took that step beyond the room's door. Taking one final gaze back before finally taking his eyes off his fellow rescue after many tiring hours. He would go and Trowa would watch.
"D-Duo... Duo..."
Far gazing eyes focused back to the bed where the soft voice originated from. The sheets were being, once again, twisted as the blond shifted restlessly. His features desperate and fighting with unknown memories. A single tear fought past long pale lashes to trail down his cheek. Even unconscious, he knew his companion was not around and it was having a negative affect on the poor boy.
Pushing quieting off the wall, the tall Preventer went to the bedside, kneeling down, and whispered calming words. Hoping to sooth the other until his friend returned. Long fingers rose to brush sweat soaked bangs out of the other's face when the boy's eyes snapped opened, revealing large blue-green orbs. Confusion was plain in those eyes, then turmoil set in when enough focus was gained to see a stranger mere inches from him. The blond kicked his feet against the bed, pushing his back hard and flush to the headboard. The farthest he could move in the confined space of the bed against the wall.
Seconds ticked by in silence, Trowa's hand frozen in mid-motion, shocked beyond the use of words.
It was then, that the small boy screamed...
An invisible force flung Trowa and everything within arms reach to the blond across the room to meet the opposite wall with painful vigor. The very foundation of the room under his tall body took on a tactile rumble, quickly building up in strength as if the epicenter of an earthquake was immediately beneath them. Shelves were rapidly emptied of their contents, glass broke, pieces of the ceiling cracked and fell to shattered on the ground. The overhead light exploded in an ear numbing pop.
The red emergency lights flooded to life, dousing all corners of the room in an eerie shade of crimson. Trowa swore, roughly, into the tile his face pressed against. Muscles straining to right himself from the force keeping him dumped in a heap on the ground. He ignored Une's voice as it crackled over the intercom piped through the building, giving orders. He instead focused on figuring out a way to correct the chaos surfacing in that very room.
"Quatre!" The door banged loudly as it bounced off the wall, almost being torn off its hinges. Duo stumbled across the heaving floor and further into the tinted room, making it halfway to the bed before he was stopped forcefully by a barrier his eyes could not see. Breathing heavily, he tried to call to his friend "Quat, it's okay... We're safe.. Quatre stop!" Words he himself wanted to believe but found he just could not.
After Duo had bolted and the ground started shaking, Wufei quickly followed the brown haired boy back to the room. First laying eyes on the, now awake, blond, then shifting to find his friend struggling against a wall, unable to get upright. He landed hard on his knees, grabbing Trowa firmly with both hands to assist, confusion manifesting in his black eyes. But, whatever had accrued was obliviously out of the realm of probability, this was painfully realized when Trowa was unable to explain what had happened between heaving breaths. Instead keeping his eyes glued on their two charges. Watching as the braided rescue attempted to reassure his very distraught companion, while miming the open air in front of him.
Duo placed both palms, at shoulder height, against the invisible barrier. He could 'feel' the force stopping him from getting closer to the bed. Forcing a calm set to the forefront of his mind, he pushed aside the screams that threatened to tear his very soul from his already abused body. Fingertips dug into the air, then strained to pry apart the very air molecules before him. With one final grunt, Duo's arms flung apart, seeming to open the doors needed for him to take an impossibly large stride to reach the bed. Arms engulfing the panic-stricken blond in an ungainly fold of limbs.
The shaking stopped. The cries cut off almost instantly, breaking into choked sobs. Quatre immediately latched on to his companion who rocked them both in a calming sway. A hushed repeat of their safeness in his ear. And that they were together... Safe and together...
"I sure hope you've found out something."
After the episode, both victims remained inseparable. Teary eyes succumbed to sleep, Quatre tucked safely into Duo's side, the outside world quickly forgotten. The Chinese man gathered three burgers from their dropped spots in the hallway, while he confronted the wave of people looking to check on their safety after the building no longer felt like it was going to crumble apart around them. He took large bites and looked over Heero's shoulder. Who was seated in front of a laptop, ready to show them his findings.
Fingers danced over the keys, bringing up a screen that showed the well-known glass tubes. "It would appear that they were experimenting with so-called Newtype abilities. A myth today, though many scientists believe it is the next logical step in evolution for humans." More clicks. "They enhanced and activated many sections of the brain that would normally remain dormant in typical person." Several brain scans popped up, showing the difference in patterns. "These 'Newtype' scans appear to be using all portions of the brain, simultaneously."
Heero glanced briefly over his shoulder to the other two. "According to the data on this disc, many 'test subjects' were brought in to use and try the procedure on. But, as of today, only four look to have survived the initial 'awakening' procedure."
Four profiles replaced the previous screen, each showing a different male. The first stood tall and tan, black mane hanging down to his shoulders. "The earliest was an Icelander by the name of Hana. He would have been twenty eight at the time this was recorded. There are eight years of records for him in that lab." A video started to play, the same young man was shown, sitting cross-legged in a woody forest.
"Subject 01, test fifty seven... " A deep, unknown, voice declared. The dark hair experiment threw a cold glare in the camera's direction, but didn't dare disobey. Brown eyes closed, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Then he disappeared.
The voice started speaking again but no one heeded it at that moment. "He vanished..." Trowa's voice filled with awe as he pulled his chair forward to get a better look. Food fully forgotten.
"Close..." Heero continued, "From what I can figure out, his body is capable of heating via electrical stimulation, the change in degrees between himself and the surrounding area causes a steep temperature gradient that bends light away. Affectingly making himself appear invisible."
"Wouldn't that come in handy for our line of work."
The Japanese man chose to not state the obvious. "There is no information on history or family in any of these records. Even the recorded finger prints are missing from our main system. My guess is that they erased all proof that any of them ever existed." Heero's brown bangs swayed slightly as he shook his head before moving onto the next one.
"Next was Duo... American... Twenty two, he was only sixteen when they brought him in initially. Apparently his powers were developed to be able to block any of the other Newtype abilities from his fellow test subjects. I have to assume Hana grew too powerful for them to safely contain and they developed Duo to counter act that 'setback'."
Duo's profile faded out and a red head took his place. "Blaay, five years as a test subject would put him at twenty five years old. African. Pyrokinesis was what he was developed to do. Forcing particles to rub together and create friction at speeds that would make an object appear to spontaneous combust." Another video displayed a round of tests where Blaay ignited several combustible materials at varying ranges.
Finally Quatre's blond head appeared on the laptop. "Quatre is of Arabian decent, and is also twenty two but only has two years recorded in these files. The time gap between him and Blaay appears to have had a large jump in the procedure and opened up new methods for developing a Newtype's ability. He does not need to control objects at a molecular level, instead he has abilities that we would refer to as empathy and telekinesis. The later, we saw demonstrated earlier." Trowa grumbled a bit at that. "His powers seemed to have advanced much further then the others even though he was there a far shorter time."
One final recording faded in. Quatre's small form appeared to be thrown to the ground in front of an almost transparent cube holding cell. Duo was the prisoner, kneeling and pounding his fists sharply against the thick plastic like material. His hair was loose, falling in a curtain to pool on the ground around him. The shot panned out, revealing four other occupants, all dressed in a far too familiar white lab coat. Bright lights glared down on top of them all.
"Okay 04 lets try this again, you know the purposed consequences if you refuse to cooperate with us this time, hmm?" There was no indication what the 'consequences' might be but the blond nodded his head slowly, eyes impossibly wide and reflecting many levels of raw fear. Behind him, Duo pleads were left unheard as he continued to beat his fists against the material of his holding cell.
"Subject 04, test thirty four... third try."
They watched for several minutes but nothing appeared to change. The scientists observed the pale boy in front of them, while the Arabian stared right back at them. His chest heaving in gulps of labored breath. The only difference, slowly realized by the ones watching the video, was that Duo had calmed. His violet eyes closed, hands extended in front of him and pressed to the point of blood loss against his confinements in the direction of his fellow experiment.
"02 stop."
The American didn't move a muscle.
"02!"
Nothing.
One of the white coated men pulled a small remote control looking device out of a pocket. "Duo if you do not stop blocking him... You know what will have to be done."
"Duo p-please stop..." Quatre's shaking voice was barely audible and broken by his intake of precious air.
"I won't let them hurt you..."
"As you wish 02!" A button was depressed and several unseen black discs on the floor of the cube emitted a sparking current. Duo's lean frame jerked violently before he screamed out in pain, body falling to the side. Quatre's voice echoed as, he too, curled in on himself.
"Pain... Hate... Jealousy... Pain..." The robotic like list that left the blond's lips slowly rose in volume, voice box cracking as he clutched at the sides of his head, yanking at fists full of hair.
"Pain... Confidence... Addiction... Deceit... Lust... Pain... Loathing... Pain... Malice... Pain..." The video feed slowly began to shake as the ground it recorded rocked, much like that of an earthquake. Something they had all, now, experienced. "Panic... Pain... Pain... Pain... Pain..!" The boy was now screaming his voice hoarse with the repeat. The thick plastic cage behind him splintered from top to bottom, one side falling away in a noisy crash. The electricity was diminished with it, grounding to the outside of the box, leaving the one inside withering.
"You may proceed 02."
Given permission by his superior, Duo slowly crawled on hands and knees out of his confinement and the short distance to Quatre's side. Gently laying a hand on the other's trembling arm. The raw chant cut off at that exact moment.
A voice behind the camera spoke. "Good... good. He is improving quite nicely." The video cut off to black before ending.
Silence reigned as the Preventer's stared blankly at the black laptop screen, stunned. It wasn't right. Giving people abilities they were never meant to possess, then playing games so improvement could be marked and recorded.
"What did they hope to accomplish with these Newtypes?" Wufei voiced the single most important question on everyone's psyche. But Heero could only shake his head. He didn't have the answer. None of the files recovered even hinted to any kind of objective.
Too much information to be digested yet too little to be of any use, it all flew around in one big jumbled mess inside Wufei's head. These 'kids', though they really couldn't be called as much, seeing as they were almost the same age as himself, were 'extremely' dangerous. They had seen it on two different occasions now. Once on a documented recording, and once in real life. How would you expect a person's instinct to react when faced with an unknown and your only known fall back was an ability that shouldn't exist outside the only world you have ever known?
Their life before that day was a complete negative to the outside world. What good was it to allow them to remember it? A little memory lapse with an already tweaked brain wouldn't do any more harm.
Hands rubbed roughly over his lean face, a bed called yearningly to him. The day had been long and taxing. But he couldn't go to bed. Not just yet. He had to talk to them first. He had questions that they could possibly answer, questions his superior officer would surely echo once he went down to find her.
The light in the room was still broken, though the glass had been cleaned up. A thin ray of sunlight snuck past the thick, drawn curtains, illuminating the sleeping forms on the bed but keeping the view of the city hidden. Duo lay of his back, his hair was loose of its thick braid. Providing a natural sheet beneath them. To his right the blond was curled tightly against his side. Nose dug into the folds of the other's clean white shirt. Seeking whatever warmth might be found there. Protected in the enclosure of Duo's arm around his lithe body. His own shoulder length tresses brushed out of his face and tucked behind an ear.
They seemed well enough. Sleep always had that illusion of solace even on the most dangerous of people. The black haired Preventer went to gently shake Duo to awareness. But his hand ran into an invisible barrier about two inches above the boy. If he did not understand what Duo had run into before, he did now.
Aquamarine eyes stared unblinking at him over the rise and fall of his friend's chest. Almost daring him to make another move. However Duo took that instant to jerked slightly, opening his oddly colored eyes with a sleepy blink. "Quat?" He rubbed one eye with his free hand and looked down to his bed companion, then followed the other's line of sight to Wufei. He reigned in his body's programmed response to move away from the Asian man and instead tightened his hold on the blond for a split second. "It's okay Quatre, they helped us leave that place." The Arabian's lashes flickered and the spell was broken. He resumed his previous position, eyes closed, and snuggled closer in the croak of Duo's arm.
"Sorry..."
Shaking his head and lowering his hand, Wufei brushed off the apology. "There is no need." He stopped to echo the yawn that came from the brown haired boy, before pulling up a chair to the bed. Leaving enough space to, hopefully, not make the others more uncomfortable then they already were. "I wanted to ask you some questions if you're up to it?"
The bed creaked as Duo untangled himself from his friend, sitting upright and away from the warmth. Quatre didn't so much as twitch. "What kind of questions?" Trust was hard to be won. That much was evident in the clear tenor that spoke and the small narrowing of suspicious eyes.
"We reviewed some data that we recovered from the lab. There were four of you correct?" He had to wait a minute before receiving a slight hesitate nod. Wufei wanted to be very careful not to overstep boundaries that might hurt the little trust that had formed just from the escape his team had offered the two in front of him. "Did you work with each other often?"
"No." Violet eyes looked to the still open doorway as he answered. Taking the cue the Preventer nudged it shut. Only after the fact, did Duo continue. "I rarely saw the other two... but Quatre, he needed me more. Or rather 'they' wanted me there when they did tests." Wufei didn't have to ask who 'they' were, he already knew by the venom that dripped off the word. "Quat could hurt them and they knew it."
A thin brow arched upwards. "How so?"
The rescue's finger tapped the side of his skull twice.
"Sounds a bit careless on their part to me."
"It was... That's why I was there."
It made sense in a sickening sort of way. Moving on. "Duo... isn't your real name, is it?" The Chinese man had to figure as much, but they wanted to connect the invisible dots the data had given them. It also verified how much memory the experiments were allowed to keep while their brain had been played with.
The single barked laugh was not quite expected. "Of course not." Idle hands grabbed at the mass of brown hair, pulling it over his shoulder, fiddling with the long loose locks. Pulling them together tightly, then releasing them again. Over and over Duo performed this motion. "Real names were the first thing to go. Most never made it through to get their new name..." The last statement was barely whispered. Duo took in a shaky breath and began again a bit stronger. "We're just numbers really. But they thought they were being clever when the names were assigned to us. Half the time they didn't even use them." Silence reigned again as Duo ordered his thoughts. His brain screaming that he was not to divulge this information to anyone or be punished. Except the ones who would punish him, were now gone.
Wufei waited patiently. "Hana... Hana was the first, the number one when spoken in Korean 'is' Hana." He indicated to himself with a limp wave of his hand. "Duo is an American term meaning a pair or two. Blaay or Blaa is Hmong for three. Quatre-"
"Is French..."
A nod. "Just numbers... Not very clever if you ask me."
"Do you remember anything about your past?" Wufei leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees.
Long brown hair shook. "No, just that dark place." The lean form shivered but didn't reach for a blanket, instead leaving it tucked around the blond.
What was said confirmed a few of their suspicions. Trowa had caught a pattern with the names, but couldn't place them all. Memories were completely wiped. It only helped a little, but anything was better then nothing at all, as the saying goes. One last question. "Do you know 'why' they were doing this? Why they were creating humans with these powers?"
A waterfall of chestnut was released, once again free from molding hands. Impossibly large eyes glazed over in a painful memory. "Something bad... Something 'very' bad..." the words were choked out in a visible rising of hysterics. "I have no clue what!" They were merely tools after all. "I acted when I did because they were going to kill us! They had already killed the ones waiting to wake up." It was obvious the boy was on the verge of tears, yet none ever showed in his eyes. On a closer look Wufei noticed wet trails flowing down Quatre's cheeks, ending in the folds of the sheets, shedding the emotions the other could not through clenched lashes.
The rescue's final words came out in a throaty whine. "I did not want to die..."
The Chinese man stood from his seat and took the chance of physical comfort by placing his calloused hand on Duo's thin shoulder. Ignoring the small flinch he felt beneath it. "And you will not. You are safe here. And you will no longer be used in someone else's game. That I will guarantee on my honor, understand?"
The barest nod of acknowledgement was all that Wufei needed. In his heart, he realized that was probably the first time those words had been spoken to either of them.
And it hurt.
