Six Years Later
Crisp night air fills the surroundings, as the moon shines brightly above. Not a single cloud is to be seen in the night sky, obscuring it's beauty. However, the same could not be said for the woods that lie under it. They hid much under the layers of leaves and entangled branches. But what they hid most of all was a small group of people that were on the move, all of them headed towards a very particular goal.
They all spread out when they near the base of a mountain that rests beside a small lake. At first glance, the mountain would seem like any other. But when looking again, you could see things such as doors and widows scattered to various parts of it. It hid something deep inside of it, and that something, was their goal.
"Alright, in position. How about you guys?" one of them says into an earpiece.
"I'm in position," one replies back.
"We're good to go whenever," another standing near a large drain pipe says.
"Great, so everyone's ready then?" a female voice asks and the others respond with a yes accordingly, "Then let's get this done."
"Right," one of them says, from their position in the woods. They then lift up a hand, "Here's hoping this goes as planned..." they focus on some lights that hang above a giant machine door, causing them to start flickering on and off. The door opens and some people walk out to investigate, and in the next second, all the lights around the door go out. "Okay, I've drawn their attention."
Elsewhere two other figures sit and one of them nods to the other, giving the go ahead. Then the other turns to a small section of metal wall they're facing and puts their hands onto it. A faint light emits from them as a small squared line shape forms in the wall, creating some kind of space section in it. They then remove the section from the wall, and it floats next to them. They reach into the metal wall and grab some wires that were hidden in it, handing them over to the other one beside them. The other takes the wires and connects them to a small black laptop they have opened up, and begins typing away.
"Alright, I'm hacking in to their system now," the female voice says. After a couple of seconds something eventually pops up on to her screen and she smirks, "Looks like you were right after all sparky."
"What level?" one of them asks.
"The fourteenth."
"Dang, that's pretty deep," the same voice says.
"It's the last level," the female voice says, "have you guys gotten in yet?"
"Oh uh-" the same voice goes to reply, but when they turn around to look at the drain pipe they're standing next to. They notice that where bars had been moments ago, are now gone, having been cut down, "Looks like it."
"Okay, I'll guide you guys," the female voice says, "when you get in to the room that connects to the drain, there should be a door."
When two figures emerge in a room, from a cover door in the floor connecting to the drain pipe, they shut it behind them and swiftly make their way to the door they were told of in the room.
"Okay, we're in. Now what?" one of them that is slightly shorter than the other asks.
"You will need to go right, then all the way to the end of the hall. There should be an elevator that can bring you down to the thirteenth level," the female voice instructs.
"The thirteenth ?" the shorter one repeats.
"You'll need to take another elevator to get to the fourteenth one," the female voice responds, "I'll disconnect the cameras on that floor and replace the footage with already prerecorded information on a loop. That way you guys can sneak past them. But hurry, I don't know how long this can go on for, before they start to notice something's up."
"Got it," the shorter one responds and nods to the taller one next to them, "I'll scout out a head a bit, and let you know if the coast is clear or not," and with that they head off through the door. Turning completely invisible as soon as they do. A few seconds go by before they reply into their ear piece, "Okay, it's clear."
The taller one then heads out of the room, keeping careful watch on their surroundings. They eventually catch up to the other one who's now visible again.
"There's no one around," the shorter one says.
"The guards on that floor, must have gone to check out the strange power outage near the front," the female voice informs.
"Either that or there aren't that many guards on this floor," the shorter one says as they run down a hall, eventually arriving at an elevator with the taller one, "Okay, we're at the elevator."
"Alright, I'll hack into it so you guys can go to the thirteenth level," the female voice says, and after a couple of seconds a small light above the elevator door turns green and it dings open.
Both the figures walk into it, then spot a small camera in the upper right corner of it, "There's a camera in here..." the shorter one says.
"I've already taken care of it," the female voice replies and the doors close as the elevator begins to descend."When the elevator gets to the thirteenth level, you will need to head down some long halls. You will need to take a left then another left and a right. Then you will find another elevator leading down to the fourteenth level. And I have to tell you guys, it's one hell of a massive level. If I wasn't here to direct you guys, you'd probably get lost."
"Yes, thank you almighty hacker, we'd be lost without you," the shorter one says sarcastically into the ear piece, and some stifled chuckles are heard through it from the others.
"Ha ha, funny. But can we keep in mind the seriousness of the situation?" the female voice says dryly.
"Yeah don't worry we got it," the shorter one says.
The elevator reaches it's destination with a ding, and the doors open. The two figures head out and reach the first turn.
"There are some guards standing look out," the shorter one informs.
"I'll see if I can draw their attention," the female voice says.
"How are you..." the shorter one trails off when they spot a door nearby opening and closing, in repeated sessions. The guards walk towards it and the shorter one gets an idea, "Wait, keep it open for a second."
"Why?" the female voice asks.
"Just do it."
The door stays open and the short one goes invisible, The two guards seem ready to walk away, when suddenly one of them gets knocked backwards into the room, followed shortly afterwards by the other one.
"Okay- close it and lock the door now!" the shorter one quickly says. And the door quickly shuts and locks. The shorter one then kicks the keycard lock, breaking it. "There, that should take of them for a bit."
"What happened?" one of the others asks.
"I pushed the guards into a room and now they're trapped in there," the shorter one replies.
"Oh," is the only simple response they get.
"Hey, it was a good idea!" the shorter one protests.
The taller one continues down the hall walking by the other, who then notices and moves to keep up with them. When they get to the next turn, they spot more guards down it.
"Damn more guards," the shorter one mutters.
"Sorry, there are no doors down that hall, I can't help you this time," the female voice says.
"It's alright, I got it," the shorter one says and they turn to the taller one, "I'll try and distract them, and when they aren't looking make a dash for it," they then turn invisible again and walk down the hall.
Next there is a loud banging somewhere on the hall's wall. The guards look in the direction of it and one of them walks towards it's source. Then they are suddenly knocked down, the other guard quickly raises their gun and moves forward. The guard makes it over to the one one the floor, then there's suddenly more banging down another hall. The guard turns towards it and heads down that hall.
The taller figure then goes down the hall and turns right, just before the corner that the guard had went down. They keep on going until they see another turn leading right and glance down it, making sure it's clear, which it seemed to be.
"Hey," the tall figure says into the ear piece.
"Oh, it finally speaks," the female voice says back.
"I'm at the elevator."
"Okay, hold on a second," the female voice says followed by typing sounds, the elevator door opens then, "you and Chase got there already?"
"Just me," they reply as they step into the elevator.
"Huh? Where's Chase then?"
"I'm a bit busy at the moment distracting some of the guards," the shorter figure, Chase, says into the ear piece.
"Oh, well I'm sure knowing you, you'll do fine at it," the female voice says.
"Hey!" Chase exclaims.
"Anyways, sparky, you will need to go down a lot of halls to get to that room."
When the elevator reaches it's level another ding goes off and the doors open. The tall figure walks out of it.
"Where do I head first?" they ask.
"Alright, listen closely, I'll guide you through it as you go along," the female voice instructs.
And the tall figure does, following all the directions through the labyrinth like halls. Until they come across two guards standing watch in front of a big mechanical circular door. The tall figure hides around a nearby corner and observes.
"I'm at the end of the hall. There's a big mechanical door with two guards standing watch in front of it. Is this the room?" the tall figure asks.
"Yes. I'll try to hack the door open," the female voices says.
"I'll take care of the guards then," the taller figure says, stepping away from the corner.
"Wait, hold on-"
But before anymore can be said, the tall figure rushes at them and they raise their guns.
"Hold it!" one of them yells, "Who are you?!"
But before they have time to react properly, the tall figure runs up to one of them and kicks the gun from their hands. Then just as quickly the figure turns and swings a leg back, kicking the guard's head hard enough to knock them down to the floor out cold. Then just as fast, grabs onto the other guard's gun and kicks their stomach, causing them to let go of it, then greeting them with the blunt end of it hitting their face and causing them to follow the other guard onto the floor in a state of unconsciousness.
"Okay, took care of them," the tall figure says, "how's the door going?"
"Jeez, so reckless..." the female voice responds dryly, "and almost there, this door sure has a lot of damn unnecessary firewalls. But it's nothing I can't handle," a smirk crosses her face as she unlocks the final code in the firewall, "got it."
The big mechanical circular door then winds up and opens, and the faint sound of gears turning could be heard as it does so. The tall figure looks in to the room, it's dark. But as soon as they step into it, the whole room light's up instantly. They see that the room is a huge, metallic, circular shape inside. They spot what also seems to be four giant test tubes filled with some kind of blue liquid in them, all placed around in a square-like shape with each tube being the corners. They also see all kinds of machinery spread about the room. However, it was what was in the center of this huge room, that was the real goal of this mission.
In the center of it lies a metal table, positioned at a slight angle. It's gears under it were locked in place keeping it that way. On top of it lie a person attached to it by steel clamps. As the tall figure walks slowly towards the metal table, they remove the black mask they had been wearing, wanting to see the person before them more clearly. As they get closer to the table, they start to see just what kind of condition the person is in, and a whirlwind of emotions dances through them.
They can't help but stare in sadness at the very mutilated looking body before them. Stitches running all of which way around the mouth and a sewn shut eye. The legs were gone, one from the knee down and one from the thigh, along with most of one arm from the elbow and a couple of fingers missing from the other. The head was completely shaven, showing stitches running along the scalp. And some areas on the body were bruised pretty badly, most were really red, having been swollen by the stitching. But even underneath all of that, they still knew that was the person they had been searching for all this time.
"Kenny?" the figure says quietly, "What the fuck did they do to you..."
The tall figure looks away as their hands clench tightly into fists, anger starting to rise inside of them. They had wanted to make whoever did this to him pay. They manage to calm down after a few seconds though, remembering why they had came here, and look back up. Slowly they reach a hand up and place it on the side of the stitched face.
"Kenny..." they repeat sadly.
Their gaze falls again as they try their best to keep control of all the emotions running through them at that moment. They had known going in that the condition of Kenny would be bad, but they had no idea just how bad. The figure wasn't even sure if their voice would reach him or not anymore with the condition he was in now. But their doubts are washed away fast when a voice speaks.
"Cra...ig..?" a very tired and worn out hoarse voice asks.
The tall figure looks up instantly at him after hearing his name be said.
"What are you... doing here?" Kenny asks.
Craig let's out a small laugh, like that of relief, "What a dumb question. I'm here for you," and a small smile spreads across his face.
"How did you... get here-"
A very loud alarm suddenly goes off, interrupting Kenny.
"Shit, they found out that someone hacked in to their system," the female voice tells everyone, "listen sparky eyes, if you've found your boyfriend already, grab him and get out now. Because it won't take them long to figure out what's going on here."
"Do you know how to unlock these things?" Craig asks Kenny, grabbing at the clamps and trying to open them.
"You need a keycard to unlock them... Usually one of the higher up scientists carries one with them..." Kenny replies.
And as much as Craig would love to hunt them down and kill each and every one of them for what they've done, there wasn't enough time to. So he decides to come up with a another plan.
"That will take too long," he says, "I think I have a better idea."
And with that, Craig's eyes begin to glow a warm light. Shinning brighter and brighter, until a beam of sparks shoots out of them. He aims the intense beam at the steel clamps, and one by one cuts them open, releasing the hold on Kenny. As Kenny starts to fall free from his steely metal confines, Craig reaches out both arms and catches him, wrapping his arms tightly around him.
"Finally..." Craig says quietly, "I got you back."
For a few moments Kenny doesn't move, but when he does, he slowly raises up his still intact arm and hugs Craig back. The hug doesn't last long though, as voices from the ear piece speak up. Snapping Craig back to the present time.
"Um, Craig, you still there?"
"Yeah, you still there sparky?"
Craig lowers Kenny onto the floor, sitting him up right, then presses down on the ear piece, "I'm here," he replies and removes his jacket.
"Did you find him?" a nasally sounding voice asks.
"Yeah, just got him down from a table he was attached to," Craig informs, then takes his jacket and wraps it around Kenny's bare body, zipping it up. After which, he puts the black mask back on to hide his face again, "We're on our way back to you guys," and with that, he picks Kenny back up in his arms.
"Okay, but hurry. I don't know how long I can keep in the system, till I get blocked off," the female voice says.
"I managed to lock out some of the guards, from the entrance outside. Hopefully it helps a bit," another voice says, "although I don't know how long that will last for."
"Got it," Craig replies, then looks at Kenny, "hold on tight. This might get a bit rough," and he takes off running out of the room. When he gets closer to where the elevator is located, he reaches up a hand and presses the ear piece, "Hey- Dot, you still able to control the elevators?"
"Yeah, for now," the female voice, Dot, replies.
"Alright, I'm almost there now, so get ready."
"You were able to memorize the route back?" Dot asks surprised.
"Yeah," Craig says and rounds a corner leading to the elevator, "I can see the elevator now."
"Okay, on it!" Dot says and types away.
As Craig reaches the elevator doors, they open and he runs inside of it. They close behind him after and the elevator begins to go up. When they open again reaching the thirteenth level, he continues on his path to the next one.
"Chase, I'm back on the thirteenth level, are you ready to go?" Craig asks.
"Yeah, I'm on my way now. Meet you at the elevator," Chase replies.
As Craig continues down the halls, he quickly approaches the next elevator.
"I'm at the next one!" Craig says.
"I'm on it!" Dot says and once again the doors open.
"Chase where the hell are you?!" Craig yells as he enters the elevator.
"Hold on, almost there!" Chase replies.
And about a second later, he comes around a hall corner. When he get about halfway down the hall to the elevator, some guards round the corner as well and follow after him, guns raised. Chase runs into the elevator and a guard yells at them to stop.
"Close it!" Chase yells and the doors soon start to close, following a loud bang going off. After they close all the way, Chase looks at Craig and then down to Kenny. He smiles, "So this is Kenny huh? Nice to finally meet you," he chuckles a bit, "wish we could've met a bit longer though," and he begins to cough, little splatters of blood making there way out of his mouth.
Craig spots a growing red spot, spreading across Chase's stomach, "You're..." he trails off.
"Yeah I know," Chase says and then collapses on to the floor.
"Hey!" Craig shouts.
"It's okay," Chase wheezes and places a hand over his stomach, "we were able to save your friend. So I'm okay with this. I just hope... that maybe now, you will finally be able to smile," he then looks at Kenny, "and Kenny, I may not know you but, you're lucky to have someone like Craig who would risk everything for you," the words cause Kenny to glance up at Craig, who is keeping his gaze fixated elsewhere. "And tell the others it's okay."
Craig looks at him, "Maybe I can-"
"No," Chase shakes his head, "I don't want you guys coming back to try and get me and risk getting caught in the process. Besides... It's already too late," and Craig looks down at the floor, seeing a big pool of blood forming around his body. The elevator reaches the first level with a ding, and the doors open. "Time to get going now. And don't worry about me, I'm just going to take a long rest is all..." and with that, Chase closes his eyes.
Craig lingers there for a few seconds watching him, but when he doesn't see Chase's chest moving anymore, he turns and heads out of the elevator. Knowing that there's nothing he can do for him now.
"Damn it," Craig mutters under his breath as he runs down the long halls.
"Crap, they've cut me out of the system. You guys better be close to the exit!" Dot's voice says, cutting in to Craig's thoughts.
He still needed to tell the others about Chase, but first he needed to focus on getting out of there. As he looks down the hall that he had come from when entering the building, he sees a bunch of guards now running towards him from that direction.
"Halt!" one of them shouts and raises their gun.
Craig takes a sharp turn around the nearest corner, just as they open fire at him. "Well can't go back the way we came from," Craig says in to the ear piece.
"What, why?" one of them asks.
"Too many guards," Craig says, "looks like I'll have to make my own exit. Dot were you able to memorize any rooms on this level that connected directly to the outside?"
"The outside? What do you mean?" Dot asks.
"Like any rooms that had windows in them," Craig explains.
"Oh yeah, I remember seeing a few at the far end side. They should be to the left where you guys came in from, at the very end. There should be some rooms with windows there, connecting to the flat side of the mountain."
Craig quickly realizes that's the current direction his taking, "Okay."
He turns left and sees a hall with doors on one side, all of which he guesses are the rooms with windows in them. He reaches one of them and sees that he needs a keycard to enter it.
"Stop!" a voice orders.
When Craig looks up, he sees a bunch of guards running towards them with guns raised. He swears to himself internally and looks back to the door. He tries to focus his gaze on it, but doesn't think he'll have enough time to bust it down. Just then, the light on the key lock turns green and the door slides open. Craig looks at the doorway confused for a split second, before he hears more shouts and rushes into the room. As soon as he enters it, the door quickly slides shut behind him locking it's self.
A few seconds later, he hears banging coming from the other side of it. Most likely being from the guards. Quickly he looks around the room, noticing chairs, tables and a board in it. The set up of it like that of a meeting room. Craig looks over at the far side of the room that the windows are on and rushes over to them.
"Exactly how do you plan on getting you all out of there sparky?" Dot asks.
"Like I said..." Craig replies as his eyes begin to glow, "I'll make an exit," he tightens his hold around Kenny, " You might want to look away Kenny, it's going to be bright."
With that, Kenny faces away from Craig, pushing his face into Craig's shoulder instead. The glowing in Craig's eyes intensify and suddenly a big beam of sparks shoot out of them, hitting the window they're in front of. The sparks go right through the window and cause it to shatter down all at once. The glow in Craig's eyes start to dim down as the sparks fade away.
He goes over the the edge of the window frame and looks down it. At the bottom he sees it drops off in to the small lake. The bangs on the door continue, seeming to grow more loud.
"Hold on as tight as you can to me," Craig says to Kenny while tightening his own grip on him.
Kenny does the best he can to hold onto Craig with his one good arm. Craig takes a few steps back from the edge and then takes in a deep breath before running forward and jumping off from it. And just as soon as he's falling, he comes into contact with the water, crashing hard into it. He surfaces with a gasp, cool air now filling his lungs. And he tries his best to swim over to the shore, while still holding onto Kenny with one arm. When he eventually does reach the shore, he heaves himself up along with Kenny and rushes off into the nearby woods. He keeps on going until he hears a familiar voice call out to him. When he looks over to it, he sees two people from the group there. They rush towards him.
"Boy, you sure weren't kidding about that exit," a boy with short brown hair and a nasally voice, says.
Craig yanks off his black mask with one hand, to make it easier for him to breath, "Less talking, more moving."
"Good point," the boy with brown hair agrees then notices Kenny, "is that...Kenny?"
"Yes," Craig answers.
The brown haired boy's eyes widen, "Holy shit, what-"
"We can talk about this later," Craig cuts him off.
"Wait, where's Chase?" the other one, who was a boy with short black hair asks.
A silence falls as the other two look at Craig for the answer.
"Craig?" the browned hair one asks.
Craig averts his gaze, "He didn't make it," he finally says.
"W-What?!" the browned haired one exclaims.
"What happened?" the other asks.
"He got shot," Craig says, "he died in the elevator when we were escaping."
Just as a silence starts to set in, the remaining two of the small group show up.
"Hey, what are you guys still doing here? We need to go," the female one, Dot says.
"Where is Chase?" the last one of the group, with very short curly black hair asks. But no one replies, "Guys?"
"Why is everyone so quiet?" Dot asks arching a brow.
"He didn't make it," Craig says.
"What?" both Dot and the short curly haired one say in unison, shocked.
"He got shot," the short blacked haired one adds.
"Seriously?" Dot says in disbelief, "I-"
She gets cut off when shouts are heard in the nearby distance. Drawing everyone's attention to them.
"Look, we can't stay here- I'll tell you guys what happened when we make it back to the hideout okay?!" Craig quickly says, "Let's go!" and he heads off, the others also following after him deep into the woods.
A/N: There will be some OC's that will be appearing in the story from this point onwards, but they will only be playing some minor parts in it. Also I know that this chapter starts off with a big timeskip and there are probably a lot of questions as to what happened. Don't worry, I promise that they will get answered in the following chapters.
(Random side note: Last chapter was the end of what I like to call the 'Youth Arc', and this chapter is start of what I also like to call the 'Older Arc'.)
Edit: I know that this chapter is going to throw some people off… But there is a reason why it happens and why I chose to go this route in the story. This was something that I REALLY had to think about A LOT when writing this part. And I know not everyone will like it, but I chose what I felt was right for this story.