He had made a deal with the devil himself.
At least, that's what it felt like. Lord Death did mention he would have to fight through hell for his chance at freedom.
He shivered, remembering how pleased he sounded when he made his decision. Not that it was much of a choice to begin with. It was either die for sure in 90 minutes, or probably die sometime in the next 24 hours, with the chance of being set free if he survived whatever it was that he was needed to do.
The two guards escorting him were dressed like all the others he had encountered in the prison before. They wore matching black and gray combat uniforms with high-quality body armor, dark helmets with reflective visors that hid their identities, and they sported a pistol on one hip and a collapsible baton on the other.
Considering he was in chains and fairly weak due to starvation, he thought it was overkill to have two armed guards watching over him. But then again, perhaps that was why he and the other inmates were all locked up in here in the first place. Lord Death ran a very tight ship, and there was pretty much next to zero chance of escape precisely because of procedures like this.
He glanced at their name patches, though instead of names, they had serial was G-217 and the other, G-433. Kind of like his own, with his prisoner ID stitched onto his shirt and on the hem of his right sleeve. It occurred to him that he had not heard his name spoken aloud in months.
They stopped at one of three elevator banks spaced out around the prison. Each elevator bank consisted of two magnetic lifts operating side by side in the same shaft. The shaft itself was completely sealed and was a total vacuum, allowing the lifts to move easily without any air resistance.
Instead of a call button, there was a sensor pad between the two sets of elevator doors. Several cameras mounted on the walls nearby kept a constant watch.
One of the guards, G-217, took something out of his many pockets and scanned it at the sensor, eliciting a positive beep. He couldn't see what it was he used, having been made to stand far back against the opposite wall, but it was likely some kind of ID card or security fob.
He faintly heard G-217 speaking into the commlink built into his helmet in hushed tones. He proceeded to wave at one of the cameras, presumably to say hi to whoever it was that he was speaking to.
That was another layer of security. All the elevators in the prison were directly controlled from the central command center. Operating the elevators otherwise was impossible, and anyone wanting to traverse floors without using the elevators would have to use the various stairwells situated all over the facility.
He glanced at the other guard, whose gaze he felt directly on him. G-433. Did that mean he was a newer guard than G-217? It was so difficult to tell how old they were, given that his only clues were their voices, their lower halves of their faces and their numbers.
More importantly, did that mean there were at least 440 guards in the prison? That seemed to be an awful lot, but then again, he didn't know how big the prison actually was. He had barely left his own cell to get an idea.
After they stepped into the elevator, it took a few seconds after the doors shut before it began to move again, and he stiffened when he realized that they were going down.
The floor they had just come from was several floors below his cell block, so why were they going down instead of up? He thought that he would be taken back to his cell first, before he would be brought out to do whatever it was that he had agreed to, but apparently, he was wrong. It had already begun.
The elevator continued to speed up its descent, and he glanced at the guards nervously, noting that they did not seem bothered at all about the fact that they were getting closer to what seemed like a total freefall. He knew the facility was large, but this was something else.
"How far down does this thing go? Where are we going?" He finally blurted out. Rules be damned.
G-433 turned his head slightly, his thin lips twisting into a smirk. "All the way to the gates of hell."
He stared at him as he felt almost weightless for a few seconds before the elevator began to decelerate.
"Keep quiet," growled G-217. "Both of you."
He was greeted with a well lit room with three other people as he was ushered in by his escorts, who remained outside as the door slid and locked shut behind him.
He took in his surroundings, noting that it resembles a classroom. There were four desks in a line near the center of the room. They were facing what looked to be a blank wall where the teachers desk and board would be if this was actually a classroom.
As he scans the room, he locks eyes with the other prisoner that's made himself comfortable atop one of the desks. He's never seen another prisoner before. He's wearing a similar prison jumpsuit, although his sleeves seem to have been purposely torn off. The man's bright blue hair makes a stark contrast against the gray jumpsuit, kind of painful to look at after not seeing much color other than black and white for the past few months.
"There are other prisoners here?" One of the men said, incredulous. His voice was obnoxiously louder than necessary, and the way he spoke immediately tipped him off that he was not the kind of guy who took things very seriously. A natural troublemaker, no doubt.
At the man's remark, the other two in the room, another man and a woman had turned their attention towards him. The woman wore simple casual attire, a peach colored sweater vest and gray slacks. The thing throwing him off the most about her appearance was the lab coat she was sporting.
"Quit gawking. You're acting like you're not a prisoner locked in here as well.." admonished the second man. He was tall, pale skin and raven black hair with guarded golden eyes. Other than scolding the loud man, and glancing in his general direction when he arrived, he didn't seem particularly interested in him and resumed studying the paperwork in his hands.
"Ah fuck off.I was just surprised, is all." The blue haired man said, sounding simultaneously amused and annoyed.
His gaze settled on the woman as she repositioned herself in her seat and looked over the paperwork the raven haired man passed over to her. Her green eyes flickered across the pages as she read in silence.
"Please," The man with golden eyes locked eyes with him. "Take a seat, we should be getting started in a moment." He gestured over to the last open chair next to the blue haired prisoner before he continued going over the paper in front of him.
He walked as best as he could -he and the other prisoner were still bound at the ankles and wrists- to the desk that was waiting for him and took a seat.
The second his legs rested from standing, the blue haired man reached over, dragging his other wrist along and stuck his hand in his face. "I'm Blake, by the way." He gestured towards the dark haired man, who continued to ignore them. "And that's Kid. He doesn't seem too interested in interacting more than he has to with the likes of us."
Hesitantly, he shook his hand before turning to face Blake. "Soul. How long have you been here?"
Blake shook his head. "Maybe twenty or thirty minutes at most before you showed up."
Soul bit back a chuckle and dropped his wrists to the desk heavily, "No, I mean here. In the prison. I haven't seen a single prisoner since I was locked up."
Blake leaned back and shrugged. "A couple months maybe. Strange that they've kept others away- ,"
"Are you two done?" Kid interrupted them as he rose from his seat. They both turned to face him as he stood at the front of the room.
"Tch- who put you in charge?" Blake sneered at him. Kid sneered in his direction, ready for a response but was stopped short when a voice rang out from the intercom on the wall.
"That would have been me, Prisoner 715-34-B7T." Lord Death stated. His voice left them staring at the intercom hanging on the wall in silence as they waited for him to continue.
"How many times do I have to tell you old man? I have a name." Blake slammed his palms down on his desk and shouted.
Lord death hummed, for acknowledgment or ignoring the obnoxious prisoner, no one was sure. The lights flicked off and Kid's face was lit up by the projector on the wall behind the desks. "Sit down Kid. Time is short, so questions will be taken by Kid after the briefing."
"You're here because you agreed to the terms of my deal, or in the case of Dr. Albarn and Kid, you were assigned here by the DWMA for researching purposes. And if you haven't figured it out already, everyone in the room will be teaming up for this mission. You all have some form of combat training or experience and are skilled in various fields, so I trust that everyone will get along. I am not in any way overstating it when I say that your success, and survival, depend on it. That being said, Kid is your team leader on this mission, so do as you are told."
As Lord Death spoke, a speck of white appeared in the middle of the screen that quickly grew into a three-dimensional schematic of what looked to be a sprawling underground facility. The view roasted for a handful of seconds before one cross-section of it was highlighted and the rest faded away as the view zoomed in some more.
"The map you see before you is of a secret research facility known as Patchwork Laboratories. Recently abandoned. Your mission is simple enough, you must infiltrate the facility and restart the reactor located in Area 80," As he said this, a section of the floor was highlighted. "Unfortunately, the closest safe access point we can deploy you at is here, in Area 71." Another part of the 3D map was highlighted, three stories above their objective.
"Getting the rest of the way there will be up to you. Speed and stealth are your best options, since you will have limited supplies and resources. You will also receive no additional support, and will have very limited, if any, communication with us once you're down there until the reactor is restarted." Lord Death paused, letting the information sink in.
Soul frowned. He opened his mouth to speak, but bit back his questions until the lights flickered back on. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, none the least of which was why an outside force was being sent in to restart a reactor in a presumably hostile facility. It made no sense at all.
"Once you have completed the objective of restarting the reactor, Prisoner 501 and Prisoner 715 will be deemed the task of guarding Dr. Albarn and Kid while they proceed with their end of the mission. After this briefing, you'll be taken to the labs for small testing and then the armory where you will pick out your weapons and gear. Once that's settled, you will be brought to your respective quarters to get some rest and nourishment. Deployment will be in 10 hours. I wish you all the best of luck."
With that, there was an audible click of the intercom as the map disappeared and the screen went black again, before the lights flickered on blindingly.
"What the fuck?" Blake blurted out, the first one to break the silence.
