"It looks like a few rats tried to take my cheese." Zephiel said. His sharp eyes glared directly into Roy's eyes, causing the redhead to tremble in fear.
"Who are you?" Ike asked, carefully watching the men's movements.
"I am Zephiel, the leader of this facility. You must be Ike, whose family unknowingly adopted my precious Experiment #9."
"Experiment #9?" Ike asked, looking at his friends.
"Sir! We got them!" one of the guards shouted.
Some of the guards moved away, revealing their fellow workers dragging a struggling Fox and Falco in, whose hands were handcuffed. Next to them were Zelda, Morgan, and Pit, who shared the two's fate.
"Zelda!" Link exclaimed in anguish, his azure eyes widening.
"L...Link." Zelda could only softly said, her face as pale as paper.
"No...No!" Lucina gasped in horror.
"This can't be!" Owain groaned, clutching his fists.
"Why?" Samus mumbled in defeat.
Marth tightly clutched his umbrella and whimpered in fright. "H...How?" he asked softly.
"If it weren't for a certain, hidden, tracking device placed on a certain angel, all of you could've successfully fled." Zephiel said, sending a chill down Pit's back. The angel guiltily looked down.
"Let go of them." Ike sternly ordered. "Or, do you want to fight?"
Ike regretted saying those words, as Zephiel's men pointed their guns at them.
"Foolish boy." Zephiel said wickedly, smiling at the helpless teens. "Don't you notice that you and your worthless friends are at a disadvantage?"
Ike could only look at his enemies. Zephiel was correct. Guns had an advantage over a bat.
"If you are wise, I suggest you to surrender." Zephiel added.
Zephiel's sentence punched Ike in the stomach. Defeat, which tasted bitter, was forced down his throat. His heart suddenly felt heavy at the feeling. As a shadow covered his eyes, Ike dropped his baseball bat, which landed on the floor with a clunk. Marth, Link, and Lucina did the same with their weapons. Owain, Samus, and Red put their hands behind their heads and awaited their fate.
The men forced Zelda, Morgan, Pit, Fox, and Falco into the lobby and made them kneel down on their knees. They bounded the remaining rescue squad members' wrists with handcuffs.
Ike grunted in pain when one of the men violently slammed him onto the floor on his stomach. Blistering pain twisted in his stomach. Yet, Ike ignored the pain. Trying not to show fear, he looked directly into Zephiel's eyes and asked, "What are you going to do to us now?"
"Simple. I'll ask you a question." Zephiel simply answered, which confused Ike a bit. "Which flower do you like better: the rose or the bluebell?"
"A rose." Ike bluntly answered.
"A rose is your answer..." Zephiel went closer to Ike and crouched down in front of him. "If that is so, I'll tell the Experiment #9's or Roy's purpose in this facility."
"Go on." Was Ike's only sentence.
"This private facility used to research possible cures to diseases, such as cancer." Zephiel began. "Twenty years ago however, I gained leadership of the facility. I decided that our research needed to step up. We began to experiment with genetics at first."
Pit's wings shivered at the sentence.
"Then, I felt that this world was imperfect." Zephiel continued. "So I decided to try to create a new, perfect race of humans. An adult test subject would be unsuitable, as they already have experience of this current, existing world. In order to make our tests work, we began to experiment on newborn infants. The beginning of a human's life is always the most innocent part."
The teens cringed at the sentence. The rose's spiky thorns had jabbed them in the fingers. So, that was Roy's purpose in the facility!
"Many workers at the facility offered their newborn children to the facility, as they wanted them to be idolized by the new humans in the future. However, our tests themselves were not perfect. Eight children could not physically bear our tests." Zephiel eyes Roy, who trembled uneasily. "Because our tests continued to fail, people did not want to offer their beloved son or daughter. The experiment came to a complete halt, until I learned of Roy's birth. His father used to work here; he was only interested in finding cures to diseases, not the rebirth of mankind. Foolish man."
"Who was my dad?" Roy nervously asked.
"Your father's name was Eliwood Pherae." Zephiel answered. "He was a very intelligent man. He would've been one of my greatest men if he wasn't so sensitive and naïve. He was one of the only few men who protested against creating a new race of humans."
"Eliwood Pherae?!" Roy thought to himself in shock. "He's my art teacher! No wonder why I had a feeling that I saw him before! He's my father!"
"I remember every detail of the day when you were born." Zephiel continued. "Being the fool he was, your father refused to hand you over to the facility. You were snatched out of your mother's arms. Your father and grandfather tried to chase after us and rescue you, only to get taken down by a single bullet. After that day, your father never returned to the facility."
"What did you do to Roy during these fifteen years?" Marth asked, his voice shaking.
"Simple." Zephiel answered. "We wanted to make him perfect, right? A perfect human being is intelligent, good hearted, and submissive. We strictly disciplined him and never let him outside, as his innocence would be tainted. To enhance his intelligence, once a year, we would surgically cut open his head open and insert engineered brain tissue in it. This helped him learn and memorize things much quicker. His brain contains more than twenty sources of brain tissue."
"If Roy never escaped, what would you do to him?" Link asked, his pointy ears slightly lowered. He was a bit afraid of the answer.
"We would continue to run tests on him until he turned eighteen." Zephiel answered. "Then, we would make his submissive and intelligence part of his genetics and release him, into the world. Like most human beings, he would find a soulmate and pass down his blood to his children."
"That means, his children would inherit his intelligence and submissiveness and pass it down to his children!" Red gasped.
"Exactly." Zephiel answered. "Eventually, Roy's decedents will overtake and replace the current human population, finally creating the perfect utopia."
The teens could only look at each other in utter shock. After many months of admiring and enjoying the light Roy emitted, they finally saw the dark shadow he hid behind his back. So, this was the terror Roy was hiding behind his sweet, innocent personality.
"Now do you know my plan?" Zephiel asked evilly, taking a pistol out of his pant pocket.
"I... Well... Yes." Ike could only say, looking up at his enemy.
"It's a shame that neither of you can see the light of the utopian society." Zephiel said, pointing the pistol at Ike's forehead. "Due to interfering with my plans."
"Wait, what you doing?!" Roy exclaimed in shock as his eyes spotted the lethal weapon.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Zephiel replied, placing the rock-hard barrel of the gun on Ike's forehead. "I'm going to terminate the ones who interfered with my plans."
"No, don't!" Roy screamed, shrugging against the handcuffs that bonded him. "Don't kill them! Please!"
"Ike!" Link shouted, his eyes widening in fright. "N-No! Please, don't!"
Marth and Red quickly looked away.
"W...Why?" Samus could only say, looming down at the floor.
"Don't you dare hurt my friends and cousins!" Lucina yelled angrily. "If you want to hurt someone, hurt me!"
"Please, just let them go!" Roy begged, tears filling his eyes. "Don't hurt them! Just let them go and keep me! I'll let you do whatever you want with me! I don't care what kind of experiments you perform on me! I don't care how many times you cut open my head! Just let them go!"
"Sadly, they saw everything." Zephiel coldly replied, lightly setting his finger on the trigger. "If we let them go, they will tell authorities where the facility is. We could not let that happen, right? The only way to fix this is to terminate the evidence... One by one, from oldest to youngest."
"Please, don't! Please!" Roy screamed. "Don't hurt them!"
One of the men quickly covered Roy's mouth, muffling his desperate cries. "Don't worry, you'll forget this soon..." the man hissed into his ears.
Completely helpless, Roy shut his eyes, let his tears roll down his face, and began to sob into the man's hand.
"I'm sorry, everyone." Ike spoke out loud to his friends, looking down at the floor. Tears began to fill his eyes. "It looks like this is the end... For me..."
"No... Just no!" Link said softly to himself, his ears drooping.
As Zephiel slowly pulled the trigger, Ike sighed quietly to himself and shut his eyes. Memories, either good or bad, began to flood through his thoughts.
"So, this is what they meant by life flashing by your eyes..." Ike said to himself. A tiny tear rolled down his right cheek.
There was a loud bang followed by the screams of Ike's friends.
Author's Notes: Guys! Guys! This is not the last chapter! There is still one chapter left!
Here's the second-to-last chapter! I pretty much gave out Roy's role in the facility in this chapter and left an annoying cliffhanger. The chapter also kinda reveals why Zephiel's the main antagonist of the story (Even though he appeared only a few times.) In FE 6, (SPOILERS!) Zephiel wanted to rid the humans from Elibe by allying himself with dragons, because he thought the dragons would not repeat humanity's mistakes. Kinda makes sense, does it?
To be honest, I don't really have any story questions for this chapter. I'll just see what you guys have to say about this chapter.