I thought the future arc of this fic was going to end up only one chapter because I'd lost the muse (or it got eaten by Bonded, whichever), but there'll be at least two more chapters since I needed to turn exposition into actual scenes and then I started thinking about how an alternate timeline Union would be different when Frankenstein and a clan leader have been trashing their bases for centuries instead of Frankenstein needing to play dead so he could search for Rai in safety despite not having any backup.
NHOrus speculated that M-21 and M-24's behavior in their first arc vs. their second might be due to them being on withdrawal from the pills (and wondering if the Union used drugs in those pills to help reinforce their institutional sociopathy/keep their mooks generic mooks without consciences), which is an interesting theory! Next time I read through Season 1 I'll consider it.
"Pick up those two," the red-headed noblesse said, dragging the infected's body behind him on the ground with one hand and pointing at Jake and Mary's bodies with the other. "You're coming with me."
"What if we don't want to?" M-21 asked, wondering what the hell he was doing, when this noblesse (what else could he be) had killed Jake and Mary so easily, along with the infected.
"Ugh…" M-24 grasped at his chest and hurriedly reached for the pills.
"M-24!" All M-21 could do was get between the noblesse and his friend, but all they did was watch.
"You're coming with me," the noblesse said firmly, once M-24 was on his feet again. "You're already involved in the creation of a mutant – go off on your own while one of you is sick and you won't like the consequences, trust me. I'll never hear the end of it either."
Before they were given another chance to object, they were herded away from the blood-splattered abandoned Union facility at spearpoint.
They stopped short when the elevator opened on a lab – thank god the noblesse they were following hadn't noticed. He just threw the infected's body over into a corner and walked up to a cot to shake someone in a lab coat awake.
They heard a groan from the scientist as he twitched, rolling over to reveal blond hair. Definitely a noblesse; normal people weren't that pretty. "I know this must be important, Urokai…"
"I found the mutant and… oh, never mind about the Union scum now. You have more patients."
"Patients?" Blue eyes looked at them groggily. "What…? Nevermind. It never rains but it pours." He stood up and went over to a cabinet, removed two pieces of glassware and walked towards M-21 and M-24, stopping a good distance away and holding the beakers out to them. "Label these with your names, cut yourselves and pour some blood into them."
"Cut ourselves?" M-21 stared.
He was stared at blankly for a moment before the scientist wondered, "Do you want anyone coming near you with a needle?"
It was a rhetorical question, but M-21 shook his head quickly before he changed his mind. Who knew what that needle might have in it.
"If Urokai brought you here instead of an emergency room, I assume you both have enough enhanced healing to take care of shallow cuts," he said, leaning forwards to hand M-21 the first beaker, then M-24. "Do you need scalpels or something?" he asked tiredly, pushing back hair that had fallen in front of his eyes as he turned his back to them and headed back towards the cabinet. "Once the blood's in the beakers, go lie down on the scanning beds over there. Once you and the blood are scanning, I can go back to sleep until the results are in…" He looked up at the clock on the wall. "Which will give me seven minutes until I next need to check on my other patients."
"If that's all, I can start the scans," the noblesse said, motioning at the scientist for him to lie down.
After the beakers were snatched out of their hands, M-21 and M-24 were herded towards scan tables with a pushing motion. The noblesse's spear had vanished somewhere while they were staring around the lab. It was a lot smaller than the Union labs they were usually in, designed for a few high-quality enhanced humans instead of mass-production of crap like the M-series. Or enhanced noblesse? Did noblesse even do enhancement? But why else would they have a lab like this?
The scan tables finished first. "You can stand up now," the noblesse told him. "Don't make too much noise. I'll wake him when the blood results are done."
By poking him with the blunt end of the spear, this time.
"I'm awake," the scientist said, sitting up groggily, rubbing at his eyes.
A tablet was shoved into his hands.
After taking a moment or two to blink, the scientist started reading rapidly, eyes darting around the screen. "The grey one has a werewolf heart."
M-21 blinked. What, a werewolf heart? Him? Why would Crombel waste something like that on a failure? It should have been yanked out of his chest and installed in another experiment by now.
"It'll adapt to sort the damage from Union incompetence out eventually as long as he doesn't strain himself enough to become destabilized, although there are a few obvious ways to speed that up that obviously no one at the Union bothered to try." The scientist closed the file without even bothering to ask any questions. "The other..." M-24's results prompted a disgusted groan. "Get him out of my lab and into a bedroom with his friend and some tea. His body is producing adrenaline and stress hormones at levels noble biology isn't designed to take. Please tell me whoever thought this was a good idea, and designed that excuse for a medication, has already been stabbed?" he asked, glancing in the other noblesse's direction.
"I found them with two Union agents, not scientists."
"Yes, you were tracking Master's coffin – you wouldn't have taken time out of that to go base-raiding." The scientist rubbed his eyes.
Base-raiding?
"Your compatibility problems are more serious," he told M-24, turning to him and looking almost apologetic. "I should be able to whip up a better excuse for a medication in a few hours that will keep the symptoms under control, but right now I have two other patients I need to monitor around the clock, so while there are a few different treatment options we could pursue, since you're not in any immediate danger I just don't have the time to consider experimental treatments. Not to mention that I am exhausted and exhausted people make mistakes," he added, suppressing a yawn. "Talk to Urokai if you have any questions, and feel free to make yourselves at home." With that, he went back over to the cot and fell down on top of it.
They were glad when the noble said, "Well, follow me," and they could leave the lab.
"This will be your bedroom," said the red-haired Noblesse – Urokai? He opened the door and waved them inside. "You can have the one on the right," he told M-21. "The one on the left is Regis' room. He hasn't reached his majority and needs his sleep, but don't worry about waking him up – we don't get frightened by noises in the night the way you humans do. You lie down," he said, pointing at M-24. "What kind of tea do you want?"
"Uh…" M-24 said when the noblesse kept looking at him, waiting for a response.
"I don't want any tea," M-21 said.
"That's up to you – you're not the stressed out infant. We don't have tea bags in this house – I'll bring you hot water and the tea leaves." He nodded. "That way you can see what you're putting into what you drink."
With that he left, sweeping out of the room without fully closing the door, and M-24 finally started taking off his hat and coat. "There's another noblesse in that direction," he said quietly. "I think Frankenstein and his patient were also noblesse."
A knock on the door, and they could see the redhead through the gap in it, or at least M-21 could make out dark green and his hair through the gap. He stood there while M-21 and M-24 looked at each other.
A second passed, and another second, while the noblesse just stood there. Finally, M-21 blinked. "Come in?" he asked doubtfully.
Only now he nudged it open, and they could see him carrying a pile of cloth. "We have nothing else that will fit you, so I've stolen Muzaka's bathrobe for you and his pajamas for your friend," he said unrepentantly, putting the clothes down on a table by the door. "Please, keep them. Please."
What was with that note of disapproval? It worried M-21: did he not like their clothes or something? They couldn't afford to anger someone powerful enough to swat Jake and Mary.
The noblesse kept on chatting. "I'm doing the laundry while Frankenstein's treating Sir Raizel, so don't worry about any bloodstains – although there's a bathroom through there, if you want to shower."
With a noblesse coming in and out? But he was already out the door again.
They had a couple of minutes to see that the bathroom was unusually large and the other door led to a walk-in closet when there was another knock.
"Come in," M-21 said quickly this time. Maybe once the tea was up they could tell him to leave them alone so they could supposedly go to sleep?
He put down a wooden folding table, and two… electric pitchers? "These are the kettles," he told them. "Use the dark green one for the herbal teas and the pale one for green and white teas – I'm not bringing you anything caffeinated when you must be so stressed after those awful people," he told them, completely oblivious to the fact that having a noblesse waving a spear at them and haul them across town jumping from rooftop to rooftop – and then into a lab! – was definitely stressful. "The water will be warm by the time I've brought up the teas and tea-making things. I'll bring you a book so you can look up what the different teas do and how they taste. It will tell you how to make the different kinds, and what the tea leaves and different herbal infusions should look like."
If it was a real book, it might be trustworthy, but it was probably possible to soak drugs into tea leaves so they looked right, right?
Except doctors didn't like the experiments taking anything but the exactly calibrated amount of drugs. Or maybe that was why the book, so M-21 and M-24 would give themselves the exact doses. Or…
M-21's ears caught rattling outside the door this time before the noble knocked. They stared at the wire frame holding what had to be dozens of little ceramic canisters in different colors. It was plonked down on the table by the door that held the clothes, accompanied by, "Some of them might not be ideally fresh, I was in North America for a few months – I can't really shut down the percentage of the US's military recruitment they funnel right over to the Union," he said, frowning, "and they certainly won't let me, not when if it was shut down the Union would take random civilians instead of military-age 'adult' men – although I don't see how that makes it any better, when the Union just turns them into helpless children. Not that they don't also take random civilians, but the Tenth Elder wanting his supply steady gives them some leverage with him when three different Union officials decide they all want the latest celebrity and it's a problem for them to have to find five body doubles of every starlet and heartthrob and tutor them extensively in the original's life and experiences. Or else it's such a bother to cover up, and then the Union blames them and uses that to extort more concessions. The Union likes to remind whatever human nations think they're the most powerful who the real power is, and at least before they could split the burden with Russia…" Out the door again, talking more to himself than to them.
This night just really wasn't getting any less confusing.
"Who are you guys?" M-24 dared to ask when the noble returned.
"You really don't know who I am? Sir Urokai Agvain, rogue noble, 'how dare the nobles attack the Union when this is humanity's world now?'" He rolled his eyes. "Or rather, the 'superior' humans' world now."
The two M-series looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Well," he said, still sounding put out. "It's not your fault they treat you like mushrooms, but clearly I haven't been doing my job right if you've never heard anyone at the Union curse my name. It's so difficult to maintain a reputation when they cycle through agents so quickly – I put the fear of me into one design generation and then there's another batch of poor brainwashed people running around. And I can't go base raiding now, I need to take care of things here while Frankenstein's exhausted and help him look after Cadis Etrama di Raizel. I'm not leaving them alone in this house with that Muzaka." They saw fangs in his mouth for an instant, but he seemed more grumbly than likely to attack anyone. "Oh yes, I found gourmet hot chocolate packets in one of the cupboards – I'll apologize to whoever they belong to in the morning, so get something warm into you. If Frankenstein thinks it will help he's usually right about these things." Instead of watching to see if they obeyed, he said, "Come downstairs if there's anything else you need. I'll be checking on people and seeing if there's anything I need to do to get ready for tomorrow," and left.
Drinking the hot water really did help. "It's a little like drinking blood," M-24 said, surprised. "Maybe if I add some sugar…?"
M-21's eyes widened and he started going through the little canisters for anything that might make the water look more like blood, in case that made a difference.
When M-21 heard noise in the hall outside he tensed, but it had been hours. And they were promised pills for M-24. He was going to have to risk it. One of the doors in the hall opened, and M-21 froze. First because he went damn, caught, and then because when he looked up he saw grey-brown hair framing an oval face, a strange, perfect, eldritch beauty that stopped him in his tracks.
He didn't need to see the red eyes to know that this was a noblesse. They had to be, even though the ones last night, even if they were too damn pretty, they weren't… they looked like supermodels, but this was a…
The goddess sighed, turned, and went back into her room.
When he could move again, his nose twitched. He had no idea what he was smelling, but he realized that he wanted some.
Was it just instinct, or some clue to the lost memories? Maybe a favorite food?
It was wanting to see what it was more than trusting them enough to want to risk eating any of it that drew him downstairs.
The noblesse from last night was wearing an apron. Dark green again. With that and his hair, the only thing that would have made it more like that holiday was adding some white to the ensemble.
The white was in the hair of the two teenage-looking noblesse sitting at the table.
"Does your friend have any foods he likes?"
It took M-21 a moment to realize that was addressed to him. "What?"
"Does your friend have any foods he likes?" the noblesse asked again. "Comfort food. He saw a lot of dead bodies and being in a house with a lab must be worrying him, the poor child. We need to keep him calm or he'll have more of those attacks and I'll have to drag Frankenstein up here to do something about it when he should be sleeping."
Drag the scientist up here, instead of dragging them up there?
"Well?" the noblesse prompted him. "Or should I just pick something and start cooking? That way, you can watch me cook."
If he picked something random, the noblesse might not have the ingredients tampered with in advance, if M-21 made sure the noblesse used the supplies these other noblesse were eating out of. So he nodded and let the noblesse chatter, introducing the noblesse at the table as Regis Landegre and Seira Loyard. "The children will be spending the day at school."
The problem with staying down here to keep an eye on the noblesse was that he wasn't back upstairs by the time M-24 came down after him.
"M-21?" he asked, looking around at the noblesse in the room. Was everything okay?
"I'm watching him cook," he said, and M-24 relaxed a bit.
The goddess he'd seen earlier came down the stairs, holding a hand-mirror and carefully applying something to her nose with a brush as she walked.
"And this is Ximine Siriana," Urokai Agvain said.
"My apologies," she said to M-21 with a slight bow. "I was on my way to ask someone if my make-up was adequate. I was unaware there were humans in the house other than the principal."
"Make-up?" M-24 asked, mystified. "Can't noblesse…"
She colored slightly, and M-21 stared at her face. She was still pretty, but not in a way that froze his brain. "I have not yet reached my majority. Although I am able to keep my height from changing, I am not yet able to maintain a form other than the one I am used to taking, and my parent had never seen a human. Fortunately, make-up and wearing the male uniform can conceal most of the inaccuracies, so I am able to attend school with Seira and Regis instead of waiting until I am no longer in the uncanny valley."
"She's not the only reason the Lord has mandated that anyone who wants to be a parent needs to pass a test on human anatomy," Urokai said, rolling his eyes. "Thank goodness the new Lord is letting nobles learn about the humans and the outside world. You don't know how lucky you have it," he told the three of them. "In my day…"
"I hope you don't think that he is what nobles are like," the short one said to M-24, cutting off Urokai. He frowned at Urokai. "If you're assisting the Noblesse's Bonded, you should be setting a good example! I'd heard rumors, but I still can't believe you're this inelegant and talkative."
Ximine covered her mouth as she gasped, but the other noble girl ignored them. Urokai's eyes narrowed.
"Who is setting a bad example?" he demanded. "When you just used that word in front of a small child?"
Small child? Who was a small child? The noble boy was the smallest kid in the room.
"I don't care about an authentic human cultural experience… No, if that's what you want I'm washing your mouth out with soap."
Regis opened his mouth to protest, but Urokai leaped over the table, grabbed him and left the room in a single blurred motion.
"Sir Rousare is very elegant, and Sir Gejutel is very distinguished," the white-haired girl said, sipping from her tea. "Regis has gotten the impression from Shinwoo that adolescent rebellion is an important part of the human experience, and is attempting to meet the requirements and get over that phase quickly, so he does not have to act inelegantly in front of the Noblesse."
"The Noblesse?" M-21 asked. "Aren't all of you noblesse?"
"Only if we are speaking French," she informed him after shaking her head. "The Lord is still considering standardizing which particular words to use, and if we should use the Lukedonian words even though they derive from very old languages and use several sounds that few modern human languages use anymore. However, the current preferred terminology is 'nobles.' As for your question, all of us under this roof are nobles except for the principal and Lord Muzaka."
"The principal?"
"The houseowner," she told them. "We are boarding here to attend school in the human world and learn more about modern human culture. The Principal has placed Sir Agvain in charge of us; he must stay in the lab tending to Sir Raizel and Lord Muzaka."
"The blond doctor?" M-21 asked. She nodded.
"He isn't a noble?" M-24 looked confused.
She shook her head. "He is the Bonded of the True Noblesse. When he carries such a dignified noble aura, it is an easy mistake to make," she told M-24. "Yatarl Kertia was also attending school with us, but he was placed on active duty to observe the nearest Union facilities by Sir Agvain, and has already moved out."
M-21's enhanced ears heard a door open – the same from last night, the elevator to the lab. Footsteps. Speak of the scientist?
No, this was a man with grey hair with bags under his eyes. While he yawned, stretching, the redhead reappeared. "Yo, Uro-"
A red-eyed death glare shut him up.
He held up his hands in a peace offering, one of them holding a glass bottle. "Frankenstein sent me up with some pills?"
"For that child," Urokai said, pointing his spatula at M-24. "Put it down on the table and go back downstairs."
M-21 tensed. Was the noble threatening this guy to force him to return to the lab? But with a spatula, though?
The new guy looked longingly at Urokai's frying pan and sniffed the air. Then he blinked and turned to look at M-21, sniffing the air again. "Damn. I'm going to have to go kill Union guys as soon as we're done here and find out what the reprisal for that'll be this time. How'd they get another kid? I thought I'd put the fear of the Lord into everybody about condoms."
"According to Frankenstein, he's a human with a werewolf heart, not a born werewolf," Urokai said, walking back into the kitchen to flip a pancake with his body between Muzaka and the pan.
"That's not much better. If they grabbed someone and keep 'em unconscious, they can cut as many hearts out of the poor bastard as they want." Muzaka rubbed his eyes. "Hope Frankenstein still has the data from the DNA tests we used to figure out the last one; whoever they grabbed might still be alive in there." He yawned and stretched, but the motion seemed to put him off-balance and he staggered. "Better go lie down again."
"Without even talking to him about what it means he has a werewolf heart?" Urokai tsked. "You're still so utterly irresponsible. Don't make poor Frankenstein do your job – if you know this cub has been through the Union, then obviously he's afraid of scientists and Frankenstein doesn't need to be upset by a cub being scared of him when he's got poor Sir Raizel to worry about. If you had done your job, Muzaka…"
"I know, I know, you can kill me later after Raizel's better," Muzaka said, yawning again. "Right now I got to go lie down again, or whatever I say's not gonna make any sense. I'll talk to him next time I'm conscious for long enough, okay?" He waved vaguely at M-21 with a friendly smile and turned around to head back towards the lab.
M-21 wasn't sure why he almost took a step to follow him. Maybe it was just not wanting to watch someone end up in a lab?
Or was it something else?
Poor, poor Regis. He got trolled and Seira's letting it happen because it is a Learning Experience and that's what they're here in the human world for.
Regis was sent out into the human world for a few years before he reached his majority: since there's a safe place to send the kids in this 'verse, Raskreia can also send non-purebloods out for the learning experience. Since noble kids don't happen that often, Frankenstein waits until there's three or four at or near their age of majority so they're not alone among humans and have other nobles to try to figure this out with.
Notice how M-21 was calling Ximine a goddess? That was the shock we keep seeing people experience when they see Rai. Ximine can't pass for human without make-up, so she was very obviously a noble. There was no brainfreeze looking at Urokai since Urokai was doing the thing Regis did to try to keep people from freaking out over Rai at the photo shoot, only he's much better at it, so M-21 hasn't been desensitized at all, the way people just kind of get used to Rai after awhile. I just find it funny that in a house with the Noblesse, a clan leader and two pureblood clan heirs the one that gets called a goddess is the non-pureblood.
Backstory is that Ximine was never born in the original timeline: her parent didn't want to their child to be shamed by being born into a clan with no honor. After the slaughter of the Landegre, a lot of the Siriana and Agvain joined the Central Order Knights since ensuring that the Landegre's work did not go undone was all they could do to atone for the actions of their former clan leaders. The person who would have been Ximine's parent was one of Gradeus' victims.
Remember how the werewolves said they could get noble test subjects whenever they wanted? It'd make sense if that was often Kuharu's job since he could chase down non-pureblood Kertia easy. Yatarl was one of the clan members Rajak unknowingly avenged by killing Kuharu - he went into eternal sleep at the age of 223, a few years before the webtoon started.
They're basically here to help establish one of the differences between the 'verses - Lukedonia is much better off.
