Hey guys, sorry I didn't update right away yesterday, I still had to write this. Not only that but I got back pretty late, well, a lot later than I meant to, so I had a lot of stuff to get done. Sorry for those that didn't know I was gone for Easter Break, which is why I didn't update the next day. I like to try and update within the next day or two, but right now that may not happen.

Finals are coming up next week, and this weekend I have a concert I have to help plan here at school with the bands Ok Go, Jacks Mannequin, and The Plain White T's. It's craziness, so I'm pretty stressed, and pretty busy. I have two papers due on Friday, which will definitely get in the way of the next chapter.

Sometimes you guys can be so smart lol, I'm glad you've realized that Sven's part in this story isn't over, but there are some twists you may not have expected. This chapter is basically information, and I know I left a couple of plot holes, so sorry! X3

I hope you enjoy this chapter; I will hopefully have the next one up soon. I've only got about 11 days of school left, so this summer I will be writing a lot more. When this one is done I think I'll write another Black Cat fic., just don't know what about yet…lol!

Well, I hope you all enjoy this and I hope school, or jobs, or whatever you may have isn't too stressful, but I know this time of year can be! Talk to ya later! X3

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"A Mystery…Solved?"

It was raining, or at least I thought it was. There was a buzzing somewhere in my head that was beginning to drive me insane, but the rain kept coming, as if it were falling on me. The sounds grew louder as I felt light, almost dizzy.

I felt something cold rush over me, rustling my hair as I kept my eyes closed and let my skin grow cold. I felt as if I'd been asleep for years, like when you sleep in and realize you've gotten way too much for your own good. I felt sick, tired, and all around uncomfortable all in one.

I felt my hand jerk unconsciously as I slowly opened my eyes, the dizziness slowly subsiding as the world around me came into focus. I blinked several times as my body shivered in the cold air before I ventured to look around.

I wasn't sure where I was, none of it was making sense as I found myself caught between consciousness and unconsciousness. I turned my head slowly, my neck aching as I glanced to my side, my surroundings still as unfamiliar as they had been before.

The room was bare and cold with stark white walls and gray, tile flooring. Beneath me was the uncomfortable bed I had woken up in, its covers matching the walls, and it's rock hard mattress resting in a steal frame. Next to me was a small table where a glass of water and what looked like a bottle of pills sat as if they were waiting for me.

I groaned slightly as I moved to sit up, my back screaming out in protest as I pulled my knees up and leaned against them as the lightheaded feeling from before rushed over me again. I turned to grab the glass of water when a voice broken the buzzing silence and made me flinch.

I see you've woken up," The voice was mellow and sounded bored, but I couldn't put a face to it.

I glanced around only to see the strange room I was in and nothing more as I pulled my hand away from the glass.

"You've been unconscious for days," Their voice came again and it was then that I saw a shadow just outside the open door of the room. "I thought you'd be awake before then, but apparently not."

I strained my neck as I leaned over and tried to get a look out the door, wondering who the shadow belonged to, but I didn't have to trying much longer as the figure stepped into the room, a clipboard in their hands as they examined something attached to it.

It was a woman I had never seen before, and Creed had never mentioned her. She had long black hair pulled back into a tight bun and a decorative chopstick shoved through it to hold it into place. She had dark brown eyes and her face was narrow and pale, giving her an angry look. She was tall and thin and, from what I could see beneath the white lab coat, she dressed rather plainly to be one of the members of the Apostles of the Stars.

"Who're you?" I asked rudely, not caring how I sounded at the time being.

"My name is Maia Rusato," She replied coldly as she finally pulled her dark eyes away from the clipboard to give me a placid stare. "I've been the one taking care of your for the past few days."

"Why haven't I seen you around here before?" I demanded, not caring as I saw her eyebrow rising out of annoyance.

"I am Doctor's assistant," She began to explain, her tone just as cold as she went through the many pages on the clipboard. "I don't work directly with Creed, in fact I rarely leave this lab. Then again, I don't live here either, is that enough?"

I studied her as she looked back at me, pausing at one of the pages before hooking the clipboard onto the metal footboard of the bed and approaching me. She reached out and pressed the back of her hand against my forehead before taking my pulse, watching her watch as she did so.

"You see to be doing better," She replied as if I had asked. "I'll let Creed know."

"And you can let Creed know that if he hadn't got berserk on me I wouldn't be in this mess," I snapped back.

"It's not Creed's fault you were unconscious for so long," Maia replied as she took her hand away and crossed back over to the door. "Some are weaker than others, and that doesn't exclude you."

I bawled my hands into fists as she left and shut the door behind her. What the hell did she mean by that? Just because I'd been unconscious for a few days didn't make me weak! Creed had practically suffocated me, how did he expect me to react to that? Then again…would I really have stayed out that long after what he'd done? In the end it didn't make a lot of sense, but then again, neither did Creed's actions, or the body I had seen, or the weird initials that I somehow still didn't understand (No worries guys, Train will get a clue VERY soon! Haha!)

I sat there for several minutes, wracking me brain as every thought and idea slowly filtered through. I wanted to leave, but who knew who was past that door. Would Doctor be there? Ready to go psychotic on me again? Or would I find myself face to face with the disgusting image of that person they were keeping captive?

I sighed and leaned back, my hands behind my head as I lay there, wondering when on earth I would be able to leave. I didn't have to wait much longer before the door opened again and both Creed and Doctor entered, their expressions obnoxiously pleasant.

"I'm glad to see you've recovered so well, Train," Creed almost cooed as he came up beside me and leaned forward to hug me-or something.

I sat up and evaded his gesture before pushing him away slightly.

"Don't you think it's kind of your fault I'm here?" I asked coldly, wanting to know why Creed had done what he had done.

"I had to, Train," Creed insisted, looking sadder than ever. "Don't you understand that?"

"No one has to suffocate anyone, Creed," I snapped sarcastically. "And most people don't run around doing that to people they claim they care about."

"Train, I-" He tried to explain but Doctor cut him off politely as he stepped forward and gently steered Creed away from me.

"What Creed did was for your own good," He replied as he began to ready an IV that had been sitting beside me. "There's someone here that needs your help, and we knew you'd never agree. I don't expect you to understand who-"

"I know who you're talking about," I snapped back, my anger getting the best of me as Doctor pushed his glasses up for the hundredth time. "That person you have in your lab. I don't know who they are, all I know is you keep calling them-"

S…V…the letters suddenly clicked in my mind. I wanted to hit myself on the head with the biggest rock I could find, or at least on the wall, but at the time being I couldn't do anything but sit there wide eyed as my mouth hung open like a dying fish.

S.V., those had been the initials on the persons paperwork. T.H. had been next to them and in the time between then and now I had wondered if those had been my initials, but I couldn't tell. I had never been into that room with that person before, so how could those blood samples have been mine? Yes, Doctor could've taken them during the three months when I was unconscious, or maybe after I had fought Creed…he did have a needle…that was it…

And S.V….if T.H. was me then S.V. was…GAWD I was so stupid! What was wrong with me? Ever since I had come here I hadn't been the same me, I even started to trust the people here, thinking that their intentions weren't to hurt me yet here they were turning around and stabbing me in the back.

I choked as the realization of who S.V. was hit me in the face like an oncoming train. I couldn't believe what an idiot I was.

"You…" I glared past Doctor to Sven as I threw the covers back and backed out of the bed before stepping down. "What are you trying to do?"

My voice was so low I barely recognized it myself as anger pulsed through me. I wanted to throw something at him, wipe that pathetic look off his face. He was sick, that was it, and I'd known it all along and yet somehow I had thought it was okay to try and trust him. What was the matter with me!

"Train, please," Creed pleaded, taking a step towards me as the bed separated us.

"No!" I yelled as I backed myself against the wall, trying to hold back all the violent things I wanted to do to him. "Why do you keep doing this!"

"Train, it's not what you think!" Creed cried, looking almost pained. I bothered me how pathetic he was being.

"No, no I think it is," I laughed angrily as I continued to point accusingly at him. "You killed him and now you're doing some sort of sick experiment on what's left of him. You just can't stop hurting people I might actually give a damn about, can you?"

"What are you talking about?" Creed asked, looking bewildered. "I didn't kill him."

"Are you delusional?" I yelled, my voice getting louder by the second. "You had her kill him! You told her to do it!"

"No, Train," Creed shook his head again. "I didn't do anything to him! It's not what you think!"

"Then who the fuck is S.V.? Huh?" I practically screamed. "Tell me that!"

"S.V?" Creed looked genuinely confused before he looked to Doctor who turned quietly to me.

"S.V. is a type of chemical we're experimenting with," Doctor explained calmly as he pushed his glasses up again. "Silicon Variant, that's what it stands for, not what I know you are assuming."

I only glared in return, refusing to believe his lies.

"Silicon is used for several procedures, but often times it has helped to slow bleeding and to heighten the energy levels of an individual. Most refuse to test this out on human beings but I feel that there would a sufficiently good cause to do so, and so I have," He explained this thoughtfully, as if he were going over the final plans of an experiment. "The only problem is, every blood sample I've tried has refused to mix with the Silicon Variant, expect…for yours. Yours mixed perfectly, and when I added it to the blood of the person you saw I finally had the results I was looking for."

"But don't you think it's weird that you used my initials and then ones that match Sven's perfectly?" I snapped.

Doctor only smiled in return before gesturing for me to follow him. The three of us left the room slowly and it was then that I realized we were in his lab. He walked several feet before entering a new room, the one I had seen the body in, and there it was, lying on the bed before us next to all the test tubes full of blood and, what Doctor claimed, Silicon Variant.

He retrieved the sample of my blood and the Silicon Variant, then retrieved one that belonged to Creed.

"As you can see it mixed wonderfully with your blood sample," He pointed out again as he held one of the tubes up to the light. "But not as well for Creed, or any of the others, including this one here."

"Then tell me," I cut in, not really caring about this sick experiment of his. "Who is that?"

Doctor smirked as he set the blood samples back down on the counter and turned to regard the figure lying, half dead, on the bed before us.

"You do remember Number X, do you not?" Doctor asked plaintively as he turned back to study me.

"You mean-" I thought hard as I remembered X, not the one I knew now, Xiao Li, but Ash, the one Creed had supposedly killed when he had been sent to convince me to return to Chronos.

"Yes," Creed replied quietly from behind me. "Ash. You see…what we're doing here, Train-well-we're trying to create something…something for you."

I turned and looked at him as he came up beside me and looked down at the disturbing figure of what was once Chronos Eraser Number X. It made more sense now…I had thought for those few moments it had been Sven, but why would he look the way this person did? The skin was barely there-everything seemed to be deteriorating slowly, but obviously Doctor had done something to prolong the effect. It would make sense of this was Ash… He had been dead for over two years now, therefore if Doctor could find a way to keep his body from being destroyed and-if Creed hadn't finished him off like we all thought-just seriously injured him, Ash's body would be slowly dying as he stayed stationary and asleep for two years…but something felt wrong.

"I know you don't want the power of the Tao, Train," Creed broke through my thoughts softly as he stared ahead of us. "I knew all along you'd never agree to drink the drink, or to become what I have…I knew that…but-but I thought if I could find another way, something less permanent-you might agree."

"How will this change anything?" I asked, still unconvinced. "If all it does it slow bleeding and give a person more energy it isn't going to do anything like that drink of yours will, and if it does, I still don't want it."

"You're right in saying it gives a person more energy," Doctor intervened and began to explain again. "But not the sort of energy you're thinking. Yes of course metabolism would be increased, more endorphins would be released into the bloodstream, but the sort of physical energy I'm talking about consists of far more than anything you could imagine."

I studied him as he turned to us and came closer.

"Your abilities would be increased, you would be able to run faster, jump higher. Your accuracy would be increased ten fold, your eyesight, your hearing; every sense in your body would be increased to a momentum you cannot possibly comprehend. The effects would wear off once you no longer need them, but another injection of the Silicon Variant into your bloodstream and soon enough you would possess those abilities again," He looked almost maniacal as he explained what this new invention of his could do.

"You see, Train," Creed said softly, turning to look at me with a weak smile. "I wanted to make something that wouldn't force you to feel bound to the Apostles of the Stars. I know how free you are sometimes-so I knew something like this would have to be created so you might consider making an exception for us."

I studied him for several seconds before turning and looking at the figure in the bed.

"It isn't fair," I replied slowly, my eyes falling on the disturbingly red tissue that covered his bones. "You need to let him die."

Creed looked at me then over at Ash, looking confused and almost shocked, before his expression softened and he nodded.

But before he could say anything something else came back into my mind.

"And I want to know something else," I interjected sharply.

"Yes, Train?" Creed asked, looking as thought he might flinch at my next words.

"What in hell did you have to suffocate me for?"

"Oh," Creed replied quietly. "That…"

"You see," Doctor cut in again, as if Creed couldn't speak for himself. "We knew you might refuse the Silicon Variant even if we explained how temporary it can be, so-"

"So you put it in me anyways, didn't you?" I growled at Doctor, then looked to Creed who almost looked ashamed.

"You'll feel the effects in a few hours," Doctor explained. "But they'll wear off quickly. We knew it worked on Ash once his blood was mixed with yours, therefore we knew we could safely inject it into you, and so far we've been proven right…except for the fact that you were unconscious for two and a half days."

"Yeah, except," I snapped back, my anger rising with him more than with Creed. "I swear to God if this stuff kills me I'm going to haunt the both of your for the rest of your freaking lives."

And with that I stormed out of the room, letting my anger get the best of me before I crossed the expanse of his lab and headed back towards my room. Sometimes Creed could make me so mad. He had forced that stuff on me, and what if it hurt me? Then what was he going to do after I came back from the dead and finished him off…as if I could do that, but sometimes, I wanted to.