End of A Reality
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana
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A/N: Hey! ^^ No scene changes in this. You have been warned. Also, the title, as you might guess, is the title of (guess who?)'s theme, so it's not mine. ^^;
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"I'm getting less human."
~Vincent Valentine, FFVII
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Chapter 21: The Nightmare's Beginning
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This was the experimental animal?
Sebastian frankly could not imagine a more disgusting proposition.
"Professor Elm, you honestly can't be serious." The older man raised his thin, piercing eyes at the youth, whose immunity to such debilitating gazes was crudely apparent as he cued Rude to disentangle the net and dump his captive on the fractured floor. Sebastian lifted a thread-thin eyebrow as he inspected who the other so rudely manhandled. He scanned the static body briefly. Though the man was semi-prostate, at the very least his profession could be identified, which psychologically worsened an already worrisome offense.
"This is a scientist..you simply CAN'T be----"
"Oh, but I AM," Elm answered with a diabolical grin. One of the shadows shifted as if unnerved. A warped change that Rude wouldn't be more shocked if the scientist actually had changed into a Pokémon, an animal before his very eyes...like his leader..that was supposed to be dead in the first place.
Why? This maniac was nothing..NOTHING like the timid man Rufus had conferred with. Surely the president was decieved at this one's credibility. Wasn't he wondering why Hojo hadn't returned yet? Because some Goldenrod University student ten or some odd years graduated had taken something personal and planned on..he honestly had no idea. But he wasn't supposed to be in on this, right? He was only a Turk, after all.
Tseng watched apathetically. Empathy was forbidden in the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research branch anyway. The very emotion, which was involuntary, much less action.
He could take action..prevent a disaster from happening. It would be no strain to take the gun and fire a round in the delinquent's stomach. But..he couldn't do that, could he? This was the President's orders..and though the president was incapable and immature by virtue of his few years, the Turk bore it and smothered his personal feelings under a professional facade.
Tseng reached for his gun..Forget orders. This man was a threat. But so was Hojo. The Turks had relayed to him the reports of isolated bloodbaths after Sephiroth killed him, concluding with the death of Sephiroth himself after a bold campaign led by the terrorists. Preceding that, Hojo apparently did not care if he blew Midgar to hell. No guarantee he wouldn't try it again if he escaped his cohorts who were equally dangerous.
So whatever was about to happen....let it happen. It wasn't his arena.
The man rose from the floor with a whimper uncomfortably clear through the relative silence that pervaded the musty room. With one hand he searched for something, prodding at and rubbing with listless vigor at his face. Sebastian looked him over again now that he had a clear view....as clear as the insufficient lighting would allow the room to be, anyways. He appeared to be in his late fifties, judging from the receding hairline and spinal curvature that he himself had been spared in his fading prime.
Strangely the newcomer had no wrinkles to denote age. It was impossible to discern anything else in great detail, the face so thick with mud and other filth.
Filth like the squashed juices of the spider innards that Hojo spilled in the failed effort to get the DAMNED creature off his skin that perspired with the very effort........
Elm rubbed his hands in elated anticipation and pointed at the Turks commandingly. "Guard that door," he ordered briskly with an ill-fitting grin, walking sharply away from Rude and the excuse for a Sandslash and fixed hungry eyes on his would-be victim plagued with the tiny arachnid. Not so invulnerable now, are you? He stifled a full-blown guffaw without much success and inquired with blatant sadism in a thirsty leer, "Our generous volunteer looks chipper, don't you think?"
With that last, desperate attempt the old man managed to scrape off the crushed spider, respiring with a choked difficulty as one eye fumed in anger and the other twitched in terror. He buried them in the other scientist, wiping some of the accumulated grime from a side of his face as he growled,
"I see you do not plan to live much longer.....it is a shame," he hissed with venomous sarcasm, "--considering the offending brain is one of exceptional genius..."
"Oh, you flatter me, Professor." He motioned to the onlooking scientist, still tight-lipped in firm and evident disapproval. "Strap him down."
With the accursed arachnid and its clingy remains off his face, the lethal magma of contempt receded back beneath the crust. The flare of green faded to an insistent glow of calmness.
Sebastian stood adamant, confident in his seniority and more so in his convictions. But be that as it may, brash threats were stronger a hundred fold, and the sight of the rusted instruments that exuded the obvious threat of pain on the tray was stronger a thousand."I can make this as painful for you as it's going to be for him." The other scientist removed one of the instruments from the tray and brandished it like a knife aimed straight at the other's throat that whitened with dismay. "That what you want?"
The older man found himself wavering..of all commands, under one with far less experience. It gnawed at his ego, but as it was not a pride rashly and hastily restored, preservation and survival to him mattered above all else. He was of the kind who are cautious and guarded, willing to trade pride for security. Willing to trade pride for a so-called fellow human.
Which did not bode well for the_other scientist. Sebastian masked his reluctance and dutifully took the hunched-over man by the shoulders that felt unusually cold despite the presence of a labcoat, and pushed him towards the table washed in rust and blood. The feeble drip of Black Rain from the scientist's drenched clothes and tangled hair mingled with lives wasted on the stained pieces of floor.
"You are certain you will not reconsider?" the old man inquired with a grin of exposed malice that coated the Rocket scientist's nerves in icy suspicion, perhaps a drop of fear. With no evident change of expression, he hardened his nerves against his already loose code of ethics. Hojo swerved his penetrating gaze on the other scientist, now smiling through a partial mask of soaked earth. "No? Then carry on..."
Executioners went to Judgement shackled with guilt.
Hojo didn't, his indifferent conscience as free as a wild vulture. Crime? What crime? It was a favor to humankind...a service to the world. But no, they didn't see the benefit, did they? They saw it fit to punish him..and punishment had to be their sole intent. Why else would they bring him to this specific laboratory.....a parody of his vengeance, his justice. What great irony there was in this state of affairs. Haunting in its hilarity.
"The wolves devour one of their own pack...." Hojo muttered distantly, unconcerned at what lay ahead. The table..Anger and terror that had so recently consumed him fled with the spider.
He would let them re-enact the so-called "tragedy." Let them disappoint themselves.
Sebastian quirked a vexed eyebrow. One would think the.subject..would be terrified: he would flail and protest like any other human would.The unnatural placidity was..irritating, at best. "It is undoubtedly expected from a criminal, but as for the other one..... I suppose the most benevolent wolf likewise dons the sheepskin.." Sebastian eyed him uncomfortably and cleared his throat for no other reason than to relieve the anxiety building in his nerves. Quite the eccentric one...he mused as he laid the hunched man across the table and took hold of the straps he had mended earlier in preparation for the animal. Animal..this is not an animal, he snorted as he pulled the straps tightly over the older scientist. Sebastian found himself flinching at that warped grin of happiness. A rational human being. A man not far away from whatever torture the younger scientist had fashioned. Sebastian paused halfway in securing the legs. Am I mistaken? Perhaps because he reacted so calmly..maybe that was suffcient to classify him as non-human. Any normal man would fight the death to evade this...this brutality. Surely one who found something lighthearted in it surely had made a pact with the feral.
But...speech, he had that...reason..he had that as well. So, he must be human. No matter if he was green, that could well be a disease that certainly did not deny humanity, for the only disease that did was bestiality itself.
Though Sebastian was reluctant, Elm was ecstatic.
A sadist desired the natural human response to the threat of suffering, but... the other knew the nature of the Gaian chemical. He knew he wouldn't see an ordinary reaction from an unnatural being. Especially with the spider gone, the fear was forgotten, replaced by condescension and a slight air of superiority, coupled with manipulation that the green slug used to infuse guilt into his cohort who was hesitant about the implications of the procedure ENOUGH. The last thing Sebastian needed was guilt in his conscience that hadn't yet disintegrated amongst his own ambitions of unethical discovery within the Team Rocket ranks..
Elm held the scalpel and turned it over in his hands, letting its rusted metal shine dim light off his broad lenses.
My little friend...you're going to help me get even, aren't you? He caressed the blunt edge with his hand and beamed with undisguised malice. Let him accuse and berate. The sweet song of human shrieks would be ample payback for much more than Hojo's attempt to foil the experiment.
The aforesaid stared into the burnt-out bulb in the lamp that swung creakily overhead, casting a shadow that paced with heightening impatience. The last strap sealed off any hope of escape. But as it was, that was his lowest priority. What need had he to escape? What did this fledgling know of breeding the agony that destroyed the most stalwart of souls and stripped them of all identity? Not even their fathers recognize them...if they ever encounter them....heh...heh..... He twisted his neck in a random direction and smirked in an unshakable confidence. "You know very well that those who thrive on poison cannot be poisoned....do you actually think that you can make ME suffer?" he asked the other scientist scornfully. "You are welcome to perform any procedure...I doubt you will garner much satisfaction from it."
Elm snickered to himself as he cleaned the instruments with his back facing the other. Look at that..that subtle arrogance...so self-assured, so confident that the Mako and Jenova mixture in his blood would protect him. Heh...old men were so close-minded. He absently twirled the scalpel between his fingers, laughing as he walked towards Hojo and leaned his face uncomortably close to his.
"You sadly underestimate me, Professor. I learned from the best.....you and Professor Demoni." He closed his eyes fondly at the thought of his revered superior and he heaved a saddened sigh...."Sadly he's no longer the head of the Order." His eyes opened with enraged gleam that dripped from his irises. "Now YOU'RE at the top. Isn't that TOO convenient a coincidence, Professor??" Elm queried. He shifted and sat on the table, lifting Hojo's chin with one hand to ensure an unfragmented attention. His other hand made frenzied gestures as the fervor swelled in voice that had totally lost its mildness. "I read the papers. Jouto's top lawyers mysteriously disappeared. That was when they convicted Professor Sebastian here, which your ever-reliable Shin-Ra did NOTHING about," he accused, letting the narrow jaw drop to its incredulous owner's chest and slipping off the table, circled accusingly around the other scientist. "Professor Demoni couldn't stand the thought of losing a top researcher, so he planned a jailbreak and was caught by SHIN-RA guards, and for all his millions got a public defender because none of the lawyers were AROUND to defend him."
Hojo's eyes narrowed contemptuously up at the restless figure.
"You.....are insinuating that....."
Elm leaned over in a burst of sudden vigor and gripped Hojo's soaked shirt collar so hard his knuckles turned stark white.
"I sure am, Professor Hojo. How else did Black Rain production skyrocket, huh? More to produce and less to oppose. You wanted to get rid of Professor Demoni because he got soft and threatened your precious Gemini Project and the so-called progression of science. Now maybe you were just following your president's orders. Or MAYBE you wanted his position." He pulled the man up against the straps, tightening the pressure on his chest that added a pale violet to green.
"That is the most ridiculous accusation....." Hojo answered, unaffected by the loss of oxygen. Elm let Hojo's head smack against the hard table and backed away. That's right..no pain.
How about for the mind? Or the conscience?
"I don't think...what's his name..Gast---thinks so."
Oh, that's right.....
"You are implying that history would repeat itself...That is not so.. .I have only killed my predecessor, not my mentor."
This animal didn't have one. He had never known the meaning of the word, "regret".
"Runing his life is just as bad as killing him, Hojo. Celadon University's finest professor, Pallet's teacher is gone, and no one will run his lab. What's going to happen to all the Pokémon? All because your timely plotting landed him in prison. Now he's ruined."
He sharpened the scalpel on the grinding stone of vengeance. Hojo closed his eyes and gave a yawn of boredom. He opened them again, mildly irriitated. Draconis Rex was probably gone and this toddler barely weaned had a mind to accuse him of something so preposterous and untrue while spouting this righteous nonsense like those evangelical maniacs that occasionally stirred resentment against his department.
Hah....but they were of some use eventually... Black Rain production raised forty percent.
"I did not contrive whatever plot you are accusing me of instigating..." Hojo stated, quite agitated. An itch that he couldn't scratch decided to develop. The mud started to loosen and roll into his mouth. The air was oppressive and moist..wonderful news for him drenched to the bone in Black Rain. He leaned his head foward as far as the straps allowed and growled again,
"You are wasting time...both mine and yours... Samuel's ambitions after he allowed Gemini and Dittwo to escape are questionable, but he landed himself into legal ruin by his own error."
The shadow of the blade fell across his body. Hojo stared into eyes mad with vengeance, very much like his on that day..
"You know what? It doesn't matter." He hurled it down and cut through the labcoat sleeve and the shirt underneath it from shoulder to wrist, a loud rip flooding the room. The blade sat now sat on naked flesh and Elm's grin molded his face in a latent deadliness as he stated with mock pleasantness, "Because I'm going to ruin you."
The point of the blade sank through the outer layers of skin to the inner, breaking through blood vessels that spurted liquid Mako as the scalpel chipped the bone. He left it embedded there, smirking at Sebastian and commanding with sickening glee, "Observe."
Hojo plastered a grin on his thin face and kept it there, a haunting expression on a body unable to feel any sort of physical injury. Callous to pain, absolutely unaffected.
"See, Professor?
No pain. Look at him, smiling like that.." the younger man sneered in warranted ecstasy. This was the intended effect after all. "It's because the....." He pulled out the blade and cut through the already-torn sleeve, a good portion of the pallid green skin visible as Jenova's cells did its work and repaired the flesh quicker than any blood could clot, leaving the skin seamless and leaving no sign that any wound had ever been inflicted at all.
"I...don't believe it.." Sebastian gaped in pure shock..an emotion he had never felt in his long career, too accustomed to his work. Not unlike the old man, there were no surprises..his life was blasé. No new discoveries to be made, only improvements and modifications on the older ones....but THIS.... "Regeneration.." he stated while he approached the glowing liquid and simply stared. ".....that's not posisble in humans without leaving a scar...nor an internal wound that large can heal in that short amount of time...!"
"Exactly. And as long as he has this mixture in him, death is impossible. Imagine that, huh?" Elm grinned as he held the blade, now filmed in luminous Mako and Jenova cells that coated the edge, over the old man's arm. "But for my purposes, more importantly, it numbs pain. See?" He this time raised his arm and stabbed with full force, tearing the length of the upper arm. No cry, no complaint, not even a movement. Hojo was still drunk in a perturbing serenity. Sebastian looked on with the kind of shock that fills the bored mind with inquiry and returns it to infantility. He let himself be absorbed for a minute space of the moment, losing a bit of his cynicism in this perplexing property.
"This could be a significant breakthrough in the use of weaponry," Sebastian stated. "If a Pokémon was created to withstand this Mako, it would be unstoppable. Giovanni would be quite pleased," he added, nodding with appraisal.
Ah, yes, he would...Hojo thought, not bothering to veil the gleeful grin that only broadened. I must analyze the feasibility of infusion on Zero-X and Gemini...It dissolved into a tightened frown. He distastefully fixated his narrowed gaze at the younger man. As soon as this experiment is finished.
Elm seemed to forget Hojo was there, his focus glued on the experiment. Within seconds the wounds healed, leaving the skin unscarred. But he had wowed Sebastian enough. Now it was time to begin.
"The only catch is the behavior of the mixture. Watch: it can't heal multiple fractures in the skin." He dug the blade into the wound that had healed only moments ago and wrenched it from shoulder to hand, cutting a deep gorge from which the Jenova cells grew new skin cells to replace the rent ones. But this time he didn't wait for it to heal. Without ceremony he plunged the scalpel into Hojo's other arm, tearing a hole in his labcoat with a sharp rip of fabric and then a sharp rip of flesh through the lower arm.
The Jenova cells repaired both wounds in a full minute. No surprise that Hojo didn't even feel it. "You will have to do much better than that," he taunted with a supressed laugh. "I knew Samuel long before you.....being briefly acquainted with him however, you should at least be a novice..but no, you are quite the beginner."
Elm refrained from any reply, too engaged in his work to even hear him. He systematically, methodically, cut through the skin, watching as the regeneration lessened..The wounds closed with more difficulty, with more strain on the Jenova cells.....straining to multiply at unimaginable, impossible rates... Slowing until..
Until the wounds didn't close at all.
"See that, Professor Sebastian?" Elm pointed with the scalpel at the gaping tears coughing a drop of Mako. "Once regeneration stops, the mixture drains freely." He raised the instrument again, this time above Hojo's chest. "But I don't want to be here forever. We still have phase two ahead of us." He rested the point against the old man's heart. "You want pain, Professor? Here it is." He forced the blade through and made a jagged incision, sticking the scalpel underneath the thin layer and pushing against the chest wall, growing elated at the ample bubble of Mako that formed in the crack as the younger man hacked his way deeper and deeper into that body supposedly impervious to pain. Yeah...we will soon see about that.
So distracted was the aged scientist in this unwavering surety that it wasn't until Elm gouged a wide square in his torso, carved it with careless jerks that opened his sides as well as his chest, taking pins in his other hand as if he was only another cadaver to be taken out of the freezer and dissected and piercing the walls of the flaps of skin to the table as the luminous Mako was finally freed and now dripped...in small droplets slowly crawling from and across the vital organs through the glowing ribcage onto the table.....it wasn't until his body started to hurt from the Mako loss and he peered into his insides, at his heart, lungs, that gradually stopped glowing, that slowly became lifeless corpses in themselves, that he realized fully what the younger scientist was doing to him. It fell upon him in dreary gloom that carried the barest hint of fear. Without the chemicals....... he'd be...dead......dead...that was it.....ah-ha..
While the Mako leaked out of his body that shuddered as its source of life wormed out of its grasp and deprived it of any strength, he could do little than offer a grin that violently contorted with the loss of his lifeblood.
"An unwise choice you have made...utterly expected from a juvenille...you will end up kiling your precious specimen before he has a chance to feel pain....." Hojo leaned the back of his head against the iron table and laughed outright, his eyes glazed with a haze of something not so right in the head.....and a creeping awareness of the absolute weakness that readied to vanquish him as the Mako dripped out of his body, collecting in a bubbling pool of green that drowned him in euphoria.
A euphoria that slowly receded as it leaked more, as it drained the artificial power from emaciated muscles, that made him look up at his hands shrivelled by age...Jenova's cells hid it except for the bend in his back...now his true age showed...the natural deformities that develop with so many long years...though more pronounced in others who let their health deteriorate.And indeed..he had never really taken care of himself properly, whether it be nutriton, hygiene, or the like. The scores of years returned to punish him.
Hojo looked at himself with eyes that blurred in and out of clarity. From what he could identify... Regained wrinkles on skin that draped loosely over thin bones attacked by its many diseases that left it sapped of near all use...along with the myriad of scars and holes in his body from that struggle at the Mako Cannon, cutting deep through crude and rushed stitches...
The stitches. Hojo lifted a thin, wiry limb, now wracked by the deformities of age and the scathing reminder of what he was...merely a reanimated cadaver for experimental testing. Ha...he...Professor Hojo...was the result of an experiment. He would laugh if it didn't strain lungs on the verge of failure. Yes, he knew that...it caused him the slightest bit of discomfort. That was the thing. Discomfort, nothing else. "Where is this pain you speak of, Professor?" he coughed, easing down his hand shuddering with weakness. Perhaps he should congratulate Elm for making him age thirty years..forty at the most. But he still failed at torture. All the better for him. "Hm? Where is it...?"
"Here," Elm answered, replacing the scalpel with a syringe and plunging it into a vein as he would a knife, setting Hojo's teeth on edge. The piercing needle sank further, his finger on the tab, forcing vermillion liquid into his body that twisted in response to this new..fluid that he hadn't seen in what seemed to be an eternity. At first glance anyway without testing its composition...normal blood..
Elm's eyes broadened as the red fluid started to drip with the alien liquid in a lurid swirl of blood and Mako. With a noticeable grimace he held the syringe with one hand and reached for his thread and needle on the tray, shoivng the other instruments aside with a lot less regard as his ambition fueled the carelessness and impatience that was a scientist's adversary. Some of the instruments clattered on the floor as he grabbed the thread and needle and left the syringe stuck in Hojo's skin as he shifted towards the chest. "Professor Sebastian, take over," he ordered, throwing his head towards in the direction of the emptied tube projecting painfully out of the epidermis. "We're getting rid of the Mako, not the blood."
Sebastian found himself obeying, refilling the contents of the syringe when it was emptied and injecting the blood into the human's body. Crude, yes, unconventional, yes, tedious, dangeorus, yes, but the entire crude experiment was carried out with crude instruments and crude recordings and crude methods...not even anesthetics. Not even a proper method of blood transfusion. The instruments were contaminated. The subject was contaminated. This lab was contaminated. For all he knew his brain was contaminated by now from participating in this atrocity.
But it was either that or risk death....
He only partially concentrated on his task, one and a half eyes rooted to Elm hummed a rather morbid children's song that ended in "We all fall down," as he cheerfully removed the pins from Hojo's body, leaving pinpricks of blood that dripped back into his innards as he closed the flaps of skin as he would slam a door, making the victm wince as his own flesh rubbed against his ribcage and sent pain coursing through his entire chest cavity that rose with difficulty, halting in a choked inhale as Elm pushed the needle into the skin, bringing the sharpened piece of metal in and out, in and out, the teeth grinding harder against each other each time. Now the pain freely and wholly burned into him..the Mako gone, his shield gone, it left a vulnerable husk that squirmed, writhed, groaned, but killed any scream.
Elm grinned, weaving the needle dangerously close to the heart that clamored for the chemical and beat with weakened fury underneath the skin. "You look like you're enjoying this, Professor. Too bad you won't be able to express your gratitude."
Hojo could only manage a contemptuous glare that wavered under the unrelenting torture..he didn't think that Elm would be bold enough to ACTUALLY do it..to extract the Mako..to demand his assistant replace it with useless crimson blood of humanity...but he HAD...and now the glee-ridden scientist held the scalpel again, this time over his victim's sickly head. Hojo braced himself, knowing full well that this would hurt..no Mako to numb his nerves now..no escape from the hot burst of pain that gushed through the wound that trickled a drop of blood that released an infinity of agony.
What ate at him, burned at him the most was that he had evaded this agony that ambition trained him to impose on others.For nearly his whole life...The palpable anguish at the Mako Cannon where Valentine spent all of those ancient bullets directly into his heart darkened in hate....it returned to his memory in vague, ill-fitting pieces, exuding the sensation of pain.....
He felt a moistening in his hardened eyes as the blade stopped at the thick bone of the skull, and his torturer withrew the scalpel and exchanged it for another machine..what was it? He couldn't quite see it..this eye was blurring with wetness...that he refused to show. Hojo did not scream, nor did he cry. Ever.
What right or reason had he to, anyway? He really had asked for it. All that mocking, that belittling, the drops of blood rolling down his forehead and into his mouth were almost deserved. Almost...had this been actual science and not simply an abuse of it.
Heh...he tasted the blood. The taste of iron, but just as well if it was nickel...Nicodemus...the devil's element.
This was the devil indeed, drilling a hole through the exposed skull with sick fervor, chipping away the bone that protected the brain, capable of immensities that not itself could even fathom, but delicate, frail, and vital for life.
"Professor Elm, if I may remark..." Sebastian observed over the whir of the drill that poured smoke from the dent in the bloodied head. Elm stopped drilling momentarily, patting the skull with one hand in false concern for the man cringing underneath the machine. "Your subject is right. You may kill him before the experiment is finished." He grabbed at the silence as his opportunity. He had had quite enough of this insult. "Besides," He moved his hand with a placating gesture. "Wouldn't you be more interested in experimental Pokémon? This is quite dangerous. If a Pokémon dies, it is not nearly as much as a loss as a---"
Elm stopped Sebastian's rather monotone voice with a finger on the other's lips. He leered at the Rocket scientist for a while before turning back to his target. So far, only a dent. It would be easier if he did as the Romans did and cracked the skull with an Ag hammer. On the other hand, he didn't wish to spend a year or so of his life rebuilding the animal's brain that would surely be shredded with the pieces of bone tearing into the grey matter. His lips pursed in an upset frown. They hadn't even GOTTEN to phase 2, thanks to Sebastian's whining and Hojo's smart remarks.
But if this shut the both of them up, he'd do it.
He turned on the drill, its high whimper raising the volume of his voice in aggravated proportion.
."Professor, you're hard to convince. You and your humanistic values. 'We can't experiment on humans. It's too dangerous,'" Elm imitated Sebastian's somewhat nasal voice with a mocking grin. The drill spun faster and the subject tried to grab his head with the blast of pain crushing his skull only to find they didn't reach that far and he was too.physically weak to even try. Clamping his teeth on his tongue, he let his hands drop and endured it until he stopped the cursed machine. "Damn the danger, Professor. If he dies, we can revive him again. It's that simple."
He started it again.
The drill cut away a huge slab of bone that clattered on the table and this time sent Hojo's teeth ram into his sewn lips in silent agony, drawing blood that trickled down his chin onto his neck.that likewixe had been sewn....it really only occured to him now that those stitches were hidden all those years. Remove them and he'd fall apart in pieces of flesh and bone..literally crumble. He found himself exhaling uneven, erratic breaths from this haunting collection of thoughts as he heard the whine of the drill in his ears, and the youth's despicable voice that flaunted its arrogance.
"I should thank you for your ONE important contribution to science, Professor. On this Earth your famed reanimation procedure is science fiction, the topics of books and its hundred film adaptions. Thanks to you, it's not just fiction anymore--"
Though his brain hurt like..hell, to put it bluntly, he could still think.
Oh...call him a minor player in the world of technology, did he?
Pride overshadowed pain and reduced it for a scant moment as Hojo's black eyes flared a spark of heated resentment. Intimidation swelled and though it was he strapped to the table, getting his skull drilled into by a scientist as mad as him, he had not changed. He was still, after all was said and done, Professor Hojo.
He could detect a faint twitch in one of Elm's sinews as he let his slanted gaze stab into his juvenille soul. "Do you have the faintest idea of how many lives I have ruined through science? Through advancements and improvements in technology, there are many who will never be the same...and you say that is of little importance...have you any idea....?"
"'Yes. It was a crime against humanity," Elm answered without any change of expression. Whether he was intimidated by the old man or he did it intentionally, Elm's hand slipped and the drill marked a bloody streak on his forehead. This time he couldn't supress it any longer and screamed his heart out, clutching the sides of the table that did little to alleviate the pain of the drill hacking into his skull. "Oops...sorry," Elm apologized with the utmost insincerity, withdrew the drill and set it back on the skull again, using his other hand to keep his subject from writhing...and he was writhing quite a bit..the youth caught the elder unawares....of course, enjoying it fully.
He finished the drilling and layed the awful tool back on the tray, grinning satisfactorily. He walked back towards the man, taking him by the red-splotched chin in some show of power and lifting it upwards, then letting it drop down, sagging eyes wide with painful shock as blood dripped down the bridge of his nose." But lucky you, they'll never find out who put them through all that torture." He walked towards Sebastian, returning his frown for an assertive smirk before turning back to the subject and giving him a sincerely fake smile.. "Consider it a favor, Professor. Don't worry, you don't need to pay me back." He issued a terse order to his elder. "Wire him up."
If Sebastian wasn't mistaken, Elm referred to the machine that the Turks had hauled in when they first arrived. He had assembled it himself without knowing its purpose, to contribute to this torture. He would not be used. That was the final straw.
"If you're not already aware, Professor Elm," Sebastian informed with an equally terse reply,"this machine acts like a galvanic cell..." He grasped one of the wires between his fingers and waved a sharp hook at him in demonstration. "It produces electric current..I will not willingly electrocute a human," he stated, steadfast in his refusal.
"Then you'll do it UNwillingly," Elm snapped, striding in front of the other scientist's face, power nesting in the other's gaze. "I told you to leave your anthropocentrism at home, Professor Sebastian. But if you won't take my advice, I'll prove to you how easily anyone can be revived," the youth warned threateningly, roughly taking the pieces of skull that he'd cut away.
"Humans should not be subjected to such torture---"
That was it.
"T-011, kill him.
He guessed that would be him. Tseng let an embarassed growl brew in his throat but raised his weapon, bound by orders. Several tries to steady it, but by the time Tseng had it aimed on the target, Sebastian threw up his hands and faced the machine hurriedly. The nerve...of...that...
The Rocket scientist was visibly unwilling as he attatched the wire to the target's brain. Of all upstarts to take advantage of him, a boy as far as he was concerned. But he could not lift a finger against him...oh, no...then he would be killed. So much power if one had a minion. Yes..he used to have muscle..Tyson and Bashou and Buson... Then he was the head of that research..his famed crystal...and like he questioned Elm now, the PPL questioned him....hm.
People didn't really become self-aware until they see the same fault in others.
The older scientist disgustedly turned various dials and entered instructions into the machine. He made a noise of distaste. This was crude, too. He could only hope that the machine would output a small spark of a sick Pikachu and not the hundreds and thousands of volts of Raikou. He could only hope that it was built as accurately as it was designed.
"Go."
Sebastian pulled the switch, a faint spark shooting through the wire and shocking the core of the old man's cerebrum. Elm watched, gave his signal, and strode towards the subject who strangely... didn't react any differently. This time, there was no sign of pain. Sebastian stared with quirked eyebrow. There should have been a reaction by now, but...all the subject was doing was laughing and ranting. Even as Elm roughly estimated where the slabs of skull fit and fitted them in an unsightly mess and re-sewed the patch of skin and hair onto re-formed skull, the victim was absorbed in his victory.
"Ha...ha.....ha...Your negligible attempts are without the intended result," Hojo smirked through the mask of mud and blood that crawled down the stitches that ran along his body. "You are just as much a failure as that Sephiroth clone...what was his name? It does not matter...Names do not matter...tell me, what is your name?" he asked Tseng while he faced towards the ceiling. "Do you remember? What is his name? Do I remember? I do not." The content smile faded somewhat. A crease from the frown added itself to the multitude as the ceiling grew unfamiliar in his mind. "Nor do I remember why I'm here." He blnked his black eyes."An experiment, yes? A test?"
The electricity penetrated that feeble portion that commanded speech, thought, the very ability to be bi-pedal...the crucial portion that could never be fully, permanently reconstructed, prone to breaking and mentally crippling its posessor.
Its delayed effects overcame what retarded it and began to manifest themselves as the specimen continued to rant.
"Why am I the subject? The guinea pig? Is my intellect inferior to yours? HA...HA..HAHA...." Hojo began to laugh out loud, his eyes rolling towards the back of his head as he immersed himself in crazed happiness. "My brain can ward.....ward....." Then it collapsed.
The brain that failed him now betrayed him. The spark obliterated the repaired remnant and made it worthless to the standards of man. "..Something... is...horribly.." Hojo felt something leak out of his brain like the blood leaked down his face. Intelligence, its capacity to become intelligent, reversed and headed forever backwards. "...wrong..where is..intellect..brain...brain...my brain..." His eyes snapped open in damning revelation. Down through the chain of neural development until it joined with the very sublevel of brain activity. "Where is it.....?" He " Intellect..?" lost "Thinking..?" his Smarts?..? Smarts...gone...gone..GONE." mind
In the most literal sense of a word that now meant nothing to him.
A panic surged through every worn cell of his body, and he struggled, futilely, in bodily weaknes now joined with the weakness of mind. Not only weakness...the NON-EXISTENCE of mind. Brainless...totally, utterly, brainless. That single spark of electricity shorted out a lifetime of development..how?! Why?! Cries that became screams, made of no language, no speech, no words, but more importantly, NO THOUGHT.
Hojo writhed and flailed against the straps, not knowing why he was here, for what purpose..He wanted to escape. Why were they keeping him here?! He was mad with fear...fear of everything, fear of the---what was that? It was above him. What was above? What was that word? What did it mean? What was a word?!!
The growling became snarling, the snarling became screaming, invading the dark corners of the room and the dark corners of his shattered brain. Desperation engulfed him. He gnawed on the straps, soaked with other's blood, Vincent's, Draconis Rex's, now his own, the Mako that still bubbled under him, that made him cold and fearful and terrified and madly desperate to flee.
Somewhere in his struggle, his glasses fell off and shattered on the floor. A monster had no use for such sophisticated devices, anyway.
"That enough proof for you, Professor?" Elm asked, fitting another syringe with a needle. He walked past the wordless, speechless scientist, who could only stare at the.....animal. An animal he had dared to call a human. This rebuked any chance of it..that that was a human being...there was no way. All it took was one spark of electricity, and this creature's brain was gone. He did not know exactly why.. or how....but that it happened... That was sufficient proof for him. He found himself nodding in complete agreement. There was clearly no room for dispute.
It seemed as if the two scientists had come to an understanding.
Inhuman screams flew through the room in waves of total fear that bounced off the walls and flooded its source in terrifed anguish.
Elm rolled the syringe between his fingers. As much as he liked to hear the little wretch shriek, his ears rang after a while from the unsavory cacophony. The needle would silence him.
As he motioned for Sebastian to aid with steading the thrashing head that bit with its bloody teeth in its futile attempt to break the straps, he hurried in finding the vein through the mess of blood and mud and Mako and sweat that had been punctured many times over consciously and willingly and rushed to stop the struggle so he could stop the ringing in his ears...or maybe he wanted to lock out any feelings of guilt. Better finish it quickly so it would no longer be a vague semblance of begging human eyes gripped with human terror.
Right, he wasn't like Sebastian. He'd as soon do this to true humans in a heartbeat.
"Now if you don't mind, I'd like to begin the actual procedure."
The needle punctured the skin, and there was a loud thud as the body fell limply on the table, drifting in swarms of emptiness. "Now..our subject has normal blood, according to blood tests preceding Mako infusion, his blood type was AB ---"
Into memories. "The most susceptible to Black Rain. Do you mean to ship it to Kanto?"
Into dreams. "After all the effort of recovering it? Don't be silly, Professor Sebastian. I won't let it go so easily this time. That Professor Ivy...she wanted to keep it in a competent mental state for her own projects. Now it's my turn to have some fun." And into nightmares.
*~*~*
Sedative wore off Subject still asleep but capable of commotion Difficult to concentrate Input all data for Gemini I Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Gemini I Extract DNA Implant DNA of Gemini I from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject growling.
Input all data for Zero-X Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Zero-X Extract DNA Implant DNA of Zero-X from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original state Ignore subject yelling.
Input all data for Draconis Rex Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Draconis Rex Extract DNA Implant DNA of Draconis Rex into nuclei Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject screaming.
Modify Transform Materia to transform biotic organisms into biotic organisms Heat Transform Materia Inject liquified Transform Materia Input data for n subjects with connection of memory Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to n subjects Inject all mutagenic agents Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject shrieking.
Input all data for Vincent Valentine Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Vincent Valentine and four separate organisms programmed to release under heavy physical stress Chatlier's principle is asserted In a system of equilibrium if a stress is introduced equilibrium will shift to relieve the stress: Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, Chaos Extract DNA Implant altered DNA of Vincent Valentine into nuclei Repeat original procedure: Give standard Mako/Jenova infusion Re-program brain to release maximum concentrations of Mako/Jenova compound into bloodstream when subject's under stress Take into account Lamarck's second law: inheritance of acquired traits proved invalid by later research Remedy problem with hacksaw Problem remedied Subject out of control Must be sedated again Second sedation complete Find raiments Experiment complete Disconnect computer Raiments found Now there's no difference.
*~*~*
Hojo sunk into disconnected images of ancient ocurences that flooded his mind from which all rational thought had been purged.
He was at the arch again, the sun flaring its scant rays through winter clouds in his dark brown eyes. He'd been outside for quite some time staring with poorly-veiled longing at the people under the arch glowing with love underneath a gentle spring sky that turned its other visage for him.
...They're happy...
Vincent and Lucrecia broke their embrace, and he could not consciously--- move--warn her--stop her---it was he who loved her...!
.....But I love her...
....I need her......
Something was out of place. Then it struck him like the pierce of a needle improperly used as a weapon such as a sword or knife. He was in his memories, except now HE was his enemy watching---himself, wasn't it?
Those mannerisms...those subtle gestures made in complete control of methodical thought...that was not Vincent. That was Hojo.
.....I WANT her....
Hojo couldn't stop himself running towards Lucrecia, and he took this hand that wasn't his own and grabbed her by the arm, his, Vincent's eyes burning in desire.
...Hey, angel. I'll take you over to my place...
That bastard.....so...this is how it happened..
....I..I really shouldn't, Vincent...
This is what led up to it..
...Come on, baby. Your heart's divided between us, but who do you love more?
A conscious decision on both their parts.
...Y.....you're right...
...Yeah, I know I am.
All behind his back. And now he could only watch while it unfolded, while he relived this fool's memory of bodily lust.
*~*~*
He stared into a pair of unnervingly familiar shocked brown eyes that quivered in a thinly-veiled fury...he had been betrayed...they who he trusted...they BETRAYED HIM.....
The child was the proof. DNA was the most honest creation of nature. This was NOT HIS CHILD.
TRAITOR!
The voice was nauseatingly distinct. It grew ever distant, as a hand gripped him by the collar and rammed him into the wall. Somewhere far off he felt a shift in his body..a change. He was sweating now, hard. His...own eyes burned into his very soul, exposing all lies for what they were.
...Eddie, relax..this is a misunderstanding...
.He felt his head bash into the wall.
..Oh, yes, Valentine. Quite the misunderstanding. This infant disagrees...
Are you saying that Lucrecia and I...? You're off your rocker...! That Jenova-bloated kid is yours, not mine! I had nothing to do with it. NOTHING.
The green eyed baby stared at him hollowly, almost accusingly. Hojo felt his hand release his neck, and he slumped down on the floor, for the first time in his life, truly afraid.
*~*~*
He found himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun. At first he didn't know whether to be afraid, but should he really? Would Hojo kill himself out of jealous rage? It was almost funny.. the pathetic sight of that weasly little wuss who was about to kill him. Yeah, right.
...You really think you can pull that trigger, Eddie?...
An explosion of sound tore through his soul. Excruciating pain ripped through his left arm as the bullet shattered the bone and snapped it off, the arm and him landing with a flump on the floor. He stared into the eyes that exuded every emotion at once..forever altered and skewed by the hatred in his dark soul.
I just did.
The second shot threw him into oblivion.
*~*~*
Hojo woke with a dull ache that flowed through his body towards his left arm that concentrated into a pain that throbbed faint enough for him not to pay attention to it. The ceiling came back into focus. It was vaguely famliar... In fact...this whole situation was familiar, disturbingly so.
Like a dream when woken up from it discovered its truth.
"That was quite the disarming nightmare..." he mumbled, staring up into the broken and dusty lamp. "But it is nothing of importance, as it is the brain's method of relieving tension that finds no outlet-----" Hojo blinked widened eyes. He could think..he could speak again. His voice had changed a few octaves, but it was probably a product of imagination.
The point was he could speak and think. A smile spread across his lips with...oddly.....difficulty...as if the facial muscles were tightened to the point to prevent a change in expression. Negligible. That wasn't the point. His eyes filled with glee as he gave a hollow laugh. "Ha...ha...ha.....you thought you could change ME...into an animal? It was only a temporary fluke..transient flaw in his neural patterns..they had failed again.....ha... HA...HA.....HA....."
As much hilarity as there was in their utter failure, Hojo somehow found no mirth in the laugh...
He heard Elm's mild tread on the floor and he shifted his head to the other side, shooting the younger scientist a heated glare.
"Save your prattling, Professor. If you're so human, get off that table."
Hojo arched an eyebrow..or at least tried to, and lifted himself halfway up, still bounded by the straps. Strange..his body felt..so...weak...so... drained.....He heard Elm's voice again in that tone others came to despise in himself. A dread suddenly seeped into his soul. "Move your left arm. I think you'll find the improvement very useful."
The ache was more pronounced as he moved it...strange,.. he didn't feel it....plagued by numbness....but it moved....in a way almost...mechanical...
He tore through the straps with surprsing ease, blinking groggily as he rose, knocking his head on the lamp. He took his other hand and rubbed it gingerly, finding it garbed in a long, black fingerless glove that stetched to his elbow, that was almost completely WHITE...Tangled strands of his hair, not quite as greasy as usual, lay against a disturbingly familiar high collar and spilled over his shoulder in thick, jet strands...
Hojo slid a bit more wary now, off the table, in odd, wavy movements that were unfamiliar to him, strange...alien. He landed on the floor with a faint crunch, a heavy, cumbersome fabric flowing behind him. He walked unsteadily on legs that weren't his, and slowly whirled around and bored a questioning glare into the eyes of the other scientists. Patterns of crimson reflected on their spectacles. Spectacles..where were they?
To his horror, they were underneath a triangular-shaped shoe sculpted entirely of brass painted with gold as an added...mockery..which he could see..distinctly. He could..see perfectly...in fact, clearer than he had ever seen in his entire life.
He rigidly bent a stiffened back to grasp the broken glasses, the crushed shards dangling by a thread before they plinked on the floor. It was in this act of straightening when he...he saw himself in the leftover glass mirror cracked through the middle, and he saw the cracked reflection of not Hojo, but.....
"Vincent Valentine...." he murmured, staring at the hollow crimson eyes that glared into his soul. In the mirror he saw the brass claw of inhumanity that ripped through the straps so easily..so effortlessly..now a burden on the remaining socket that plagued him with a sore ache from the amputated arm and this metallic limb that had been crudely shoved in its place and attatched to his skin with screws, bolts and wires hidden under that brass plating also streaked with gold paint..And the sick irony of it.. ..he had made it that way. He had...constructed every damned step of this man's hellish descent, of his fall. But now it all turned on him. He brought the pale white fingers to his mouth and raised his head and the flash of the teeth reflected from the mirror.
Except, there were only....fangs. He ran his finger along one of them, distant and bewildered. He had..DESIGNED this... To mimick the creatures of myth and fantasy that fed upon youthful blood...
Now he thirsted for.....no...NO.....it could not be. It was utterly impossible..... he was not VINCENT, he was HOJO, DAMNIT.....!!!!!!
He had this claw, didn't he? With an enraged yell, he shattered the broken mirror. 7 years' bad luck, the superstitious said. What did it matter if it was 7,000 or 7,000,000,000 years....yes, he had designed Valentine in that way..... Now was HE, his CREATOR, forced to live that way? Live as long as the chemicals ordered him to? Never......NEVER...
He clamped one hand and one claw on his head and screamed in torturous agony at this vengeance that betrayed its exacter.
"I am...I am not..Vincent....Valentine....." he growled, the gold-hued claw clenching into a lifeless fist and drawing no blood but an impersonal clink that reverberated in his ears. He forcd his muscles that replied with agonizing delay and finally let him spin to face the two scientists. "I
AM NOT HIM....."
"You say that now, Professor. I assure you that there will come a time when not even you'll recognize yourself. Look at you..the thirst for blood you instilled in Mr. Valentine is coming out, I can see it." He nudged his cohort and put a hand to his mouth as he whispered aloud,"Professor Sebastian, lets leave before things get too CHAOTIC."
"Ch.....Chaos....." Hojo felt raw terror shoot through every icy vein in his body. "Wh...what need do.....I have to..to fear it?" he asked, attempting to steel his nerves. "It is..my creation.....a surprisingly autonomous mind that Valentine had much difficulty in combatting...but that.....was precisely..the point...." Hojo reeled foward, the red eyes wide as something awoke within him, clamored to escape.....The deadly killer he had trapped in Valentine's soul..now.. was...his..."...But...my..intellect..is far more...prepared..." His claw dug into the cracked, bloodstained floor. Blood that screamed vengeance.. payback...."The poisoner cannot himself be poisoned.....if he feeds on it..." Animal-like breathing tore thorugh his chest that encased a sprinting heart. Blood pulsed in his head...he felt the sensation of changing...again...taking on a hideous form as he crashed on the floor, the shock barely visible as his features melted and became something far more terrifying. An unearthly shriek lifted off his vocal chords that choked off words once more and perverted them into a demon's roar...
The demon he created...the demon of pure destruction, untainted by human thought, human reason, it was never human and never would be.
Nor would...HE......ever...be..
"I...I think you have made a mistake, Professor Elm," Sebastian muttered with heightening fear as the specimen writhed on the floor as if in the grip of Pluto himself. The corpselike red eyes rapidly exploding to hellfire virtually begged him for a quick and brutal death. The older man backed up and turned, running as briskly as fear permitted him past Tseng and Rude.
The fur on Tseng bristled stiffly, nothing more. No empathy.must have come from the long years at the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research. It killed any sympathy for either of the victims, for Hojo or for the juvenille. Orders were orders, but for now, instinctual want for survival proved stronger.
"Rrrrghets grrohg, Rhhudrgh," Tseng ordered half-coherently through a persevering mid-pitch growl. He holstered his gun as well as this clumsy grip allowed him, and he turned a hard gaze on Rude. "Thrghis hghrigh hrghabrough ghro hrghret hghugree." With that, Tseng took off towards the exit.
"I don't know what you just said, sir...but I'm with you."
The anguished roars grew louder as the Turks retreated through the nightmarish basement after the scientist. It was clear everyone sensed impending danger. They joined the stampeding flocks of bats. They too sensed something horribly, horribly wrong. Instinct commanded them to flee, and they obeyed.
Their instincts weren't wrong.
Glass shattered as demonic wings erupted from Hojo's back that squared its size, growing jagged fangs from jaws that spewed bloody hellfire. It beat the heavy wings, pushing itself up from the floor with lethal claws that gouged thorugh the decrepit floor. A roar flew from the depths of its monstrous diapraghm and its eyes, two burning red flames that allowed its victims to stare into the depths of its hellish soul.
"Cowards," Elm accused as a terrible shadow loomed over him and the fiery breath of the demon burned at his face. He looked up amusedly, the demon's roar making the musty, blood-choked air shudder in inferiority. "My work here is done, Professor Oak," Elm acquiesced to the promise of a gory demise as the demon rose above him, its claws casting shadows of death on the wall. "As for you, Professor Ivy.."
The dank air writhed with the deadly cry of bare hate.
"I'll be seeing you soon."
Hell encompassed heaven and rained in a maelstrom of blazing death.
TO BE CONTINUED........
*~*~*
A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 22!^^
by Blue9Tiger/DarkMutatedBrock/La Cidiana
*~*~*
A/N: Hey! ^^ No scene changes in this. You have been warned. Also, the title, as you might guess, is the title of (guess who?)'s theme, so it's not mine. ^^;
*~*~*
"I'm getting less human."
~Vincent Valentine, FFVII
*~*~*
Chapter 21: The Nightmare's Beginning
*~*~*
This was the experimental animal?
Sebastian frankly could not imagine a more disgusting proposition.
"Professor Elm, you honestly can't be serious." The older man raised his thin, piercing eyes at the youth, whose immunity to such debilitating gazes was crudely apparent as he cued Rude to disentangle the net and dump his captive on the fractured floor. Sebastian lifted a thread-thin eyebrow as he inspected who the other so rudely manhandled. He scanned the static body briefly. Though the man was semi-prostate, at the very least his profession could be identified, which psychologically worsened an already worrisome offense.
"This is a scientist..you simply CAN'T be----"
"Oh, but I AM," Elm answered with a diabolical grin. One of the shadows shifted as if unnerved. A warped change that Rude wouldn't be more shocked if the scientist actually had changed into a Pokémon, an animal before his very eyes...like his leader..that was supposed to be dead in the first place.
Why? This maniac was nothing..NOTHING like the timid man Rufus had conferred with. Surely the president was decieved at this one's credibility. Wasn't he wondering why Hojo hadn't returned yet? Because some Goldenrod University student ten or some odd years graduated had taken something personal and planned on..he honestly had no idea. But he wasn't supposed to be in on this, right? He was only a Turk, after all.
Tseng watched apathetically. Empathy was forbidden in the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research branch anyway. The very emotion, which was involuntary, much less action.
He could take action..prevent a disaster from happening. It would be no strain to take the gun and fire a round in the delinquent's stomach. But..he couldn't do that, could he? This was the President's orders..and though the president was incapable and immature by virtue of his few years, the Turk bore it and smothered his personal feelings under a professional facade.
Tseng reached for his gun..Forget orders. This man was a threat. But so was Hojo. The Turks had relayed to him the reports of isolated bloodbaths after Sephiroth killed him, concluding with the death of Sephiroth himself after a bold campaign led by the terrorists. Preceding that, Hojo apparently did not care if he blew Midgar to hell. No guarantee he wouldn't try it again if he escaped his cohorts who were equally dangerous.
So whatever was about to happen....let it happen. It wasn't his arena.
The man rose from the floor with a whimper uncomfortably clear through the relative silence that pervaded the musty room. With one hand he searched for something, prodding at and rubbing with listless vigor at his face. Sebastian looked him over again now that he had a clear view....as clear as the insufficient lighting would allow the room to be, anyways. He appeared to be in his late fifties, judging from the receding hairline and spinal curvature that he himself had been spared in his fading prime.
Strangely the newcomer had no wrinkles to denote age. It was impossible to discern anything else in great detail, the face so thick with mud and other filth.
Filth like the squashed juices of the spider innards that Hojo spilled in the failed effort to get the DAMNED creature off his skin that perspired with the very effort........
Elm rubbed his hands in elated anticipation and pointed at the Turks commandingly. "Guard that door," he ordered briskly with an ill-fitting grin, walking sharply away from Rude and the excuse for a Sandslash and fixed hungry eyes on his would-be victim plagued with the tiny arachnid. Not so invulnerable now, are you? He stifled a full-blown guffaw without much success and inquired with blatant sadism in a thirsty leer, "Our generous volunteer looks chipper, don't you think?"
With that last, desperate attempt the old man managed to scrape off the crushed spider, respiring with a choked difficulty as one eye fumed in anger and the other twitched in terror. He buried them in the other scientist, wiping some of the accumulated grime from a side of his face as he growled,
"I see you do not plan to live much longer.....it is a shame," he hissed with venomous sarcasm, "--considering the offending brain is one of exceptional genius..."
"Oh, you flatter me, Professor." He motioned to the onlooking scientist, still tight-lipped in firm and evident disapproval. "Strap him down."
With the accursed arachnid and its clingy remains off his face, the lethal magma of contempt receded back beneath the crust. The flare of green faded to an insistent glow of calmness.
Sebastian stood adamant, confident in his seniority and more so in his convictions. But be that as it may, brash threats were stronger a hundred fold, and the sight of the rusted instruments that exuded the obvious threat of pain on the tray was stronger a thousand."I can make this as painful for you as it's going to be for him." The other scientist removed one of the instruments from the tray and brandished it like a knife aimed straight at the other's throat that whitened with dismay. "That what you want?"
The older man found himself wavering..of all commands, under one with far less experience. It gnawed at his ego, but as it was not a pride rashly and hastily restored, preservation and survival to him mattered above all else. He was of the kind who are cautious and guarded, willing to trade pride for security. Willing to trade pride for a so-called fellow human.
Which did not bode well for the_other scientist. Sebastian masked his reluctance and dutifully took the hunched-over man by the shoulders that felt unusually cold despite the presence of a labcoat, and pushed him towards the table washed in rust and blood. The feeble drip of Black Rain from the scientist's drenched clothes and tangled hair mingled with lives wasted on the stained pieces of floor.
"You are certain you will not reconsider?" the old man inquired with a grin of exposed malice that coated the Rocket scientist's nerves in icy suspicion, perhaps a drop of fear. With no evident change of expression, he hardened his nerves against his already loose code of ethics. Hojo swerved his penetrating gaze on the other scientist, now smiling through a partial mask of soaked earth. "No? Then carry on..."
Executioners went to Judgement shackled with guilt.
Hojo didn't, his indifferent conscience as free as a wild vulture. Crime? What crime? It was a favor to humankind...a service to the world. But no, they didn't see the benefit, did they? They saw it fit to punish him..and punishment had to be their sole intent. Why else would they bring him to this specific laboratory.....a parody of his vengeance, his justice. What great irony there was in this state of affairs. Haunting in its hilarity.
"The wolves devour one of their own pack...." Hojo muttered distantly, unconcerned at what lay ahead. The table..Anger and terror that had so recently consumed him fled with the spider.
He would let them re-enact the so-called "tragedy." Let them disappoint themselves.
Sebastian quirked a vexed eyebrow. One would think the.subject..would be terrified: he would flail and protest like any other human would.The unnatural placidity was..irritating, at best. "It is undoubtedly expected from a criminal, but as for the other one..... I suppose the most benevolent wolf likewise dons the sheepskin.." Sebastian eyed him uncomfortably and cleared his throat for no other reason than to relieve the anxiety building in his nerves. Quite the eccentric one...he mused as he laid the hunched man across the table and took hold of the straps he had mended earlier in preparation for the animal. Animal..this is not an animal, he snorted as he pulled the straps tightly over the older scientist. Sebastian found himself flinching at that warped grin of happiness. A rational human being. A man not far away from whatever torture the younger scientist had fashioned. Sebastian paused halfway in securing the legs. Am I mistaken? Perhaps because he reacted so calmly..maybe that was suffcient to classify him as non-human. Any normal man would fight the death to evade this...this brutality. Surely one who found something lighthearted in it surely had made a pact with the feral.
But...speech, he had that...reason..he had that as well. So, he must be human. No matter if he was green, that could well be a disease that certainly did not deny humanity, for the only disease that did was bestiality itself.
Though Sebastian was reluctant, Elm was ecstatic.
A sadist desired the natural human response to the threat of suffering, but... the other knew the nature of the Gaian chemical. He knew he wouldn't see an ordinary reaction from an unnatural being. Especially with the spider gone, the fear was forgotten, replaced by condescension and a slight air of superiority, coupled with manipulation that the green slug used to infuse guilt into his cohort who was hesitant about the implications of the procedure ENOUGH. The last thing Sebastian needed was guilt in his conscience that hadn't yet disintegrated amongst his own ambitions of unethical discovery within the Team Rocket ranks..
Elm held the scalpel and turned it over in his hands, letting its rusted metal shine dim light off his broad lenses.
My little friend...you're going to help me get even, aren't you? He caressed the blunt edge with his hand and beamed with undisguised malice. Let him accuse and berate. The sweet song of human shrieks would be ample payback for much more than Hojo's attempt to foil the experiment.
The aforesaid stared into the burnt-out bulb in the lamp that swung creakily overhead, casting a shadow that paced with heightening impatience. The last strap sealed off any hope of escape. But as it was, that was his lowest priority. What need had he to escape? What did this fledgling know of breeding the agony that destroyed the most stalwart of souls and stripped them of all identity? Not even their fathers recognize them...if they ever encounter them....heh...heh..... He twisted his neck in a random direction and smirked in an unshakable confidence. "You know very well that those who thrive on poison cannot be poisoned....do you actually think that you can make ME suffer?" he asked the other scientist scornfully. "You are welcome to perform any procedure...I doubt you will garner much satisfaction from it."
Elm snickered to himself as he cleaned the instruments with his back facing the other. Look at that..that subtle arrogance...so self-assured, so confident that the Mako and Jenova mixture in his blood would protect him. Heh...old men were so close-minded. He absently twirled the scalpel between his fingers, laughing as he walked towards Hojo and leaned his face uncomortably close to his.
"You sadly underestimate me, Professor. I learned from the best.....you and Professor Demoni." He closed his eyes fondly at the thought of his revered superior and he heaved a saddened sigh...."Sadly he's no longer the head of the Order." His eyes opened with enraged gleam that dripped from his irises. "Now YOU'RE at the top. Isn't that TOO convenient a coincidence, Professor??" Elm queried. He shifted and sat on the table, lifting Hojo's chin with one hand to ensure an unfragmented attention. His other hand made frenzied gestures as the fervor swelled in voice that had totally lost its mildness. "I read the papers. Jouto's top lawyers mysteriously disappeared. That was when they convicted Professor Sebastian here, which your ever-reliable Shin-Ra did NOTHING about," he accused, letting the narrow jaw drop to its incredulous owner's chest and slipping off the table, circled accusingly around the other scientist. "Professor Demoni couldn't stand the thought of losing a top researcher, so he planned a jailbreak and was caught by SHIN-RA guards, and for all his millions got a public defender because none of the lawyers were AROUND to defend him."
Hojo's eyes narrowed contemptuously up at the restless figure.
"You.....are insinuating that....."
Elm leaned over in a burst of sudden vigor and gripped Hojo's soaked shirt collar so hard his knuckles turned stark white.
"I sure am, Professor Hojo. How else did Black Rain production skyrocket, huh? More to produce and less to oppose. You wanted to get rid of Professor Demoni because he got soft and threatened your precious Gemini Project and the so-called progression of science. Now maybe you were just following your president's orders. Or MAYBE you wanted his position." He pulled the man up against the straps, tightening the pressure on his chest that added a pale violet to green.
"That is the most ridiculous accusation....." Hojo answered, unaffected by the loss of oxygen. Elm let Hojo's head smack against the hard table and backed away. That's right..no pain.
How about for the mind? Or the conscience?
"I don't think...what's his name..Gast---thinks so."
Oh, that's right.....
"You are implying that history would repeat itself...That is not so.. .I have only killed my predecessor, not my mentor."
This animal didn't have one. He had never known the meaning of the word, "regret".
"Runing his life is just as bad as killing him, Hojo. Celadon University's finest professor, Pallet's teacher is gone, and no one will run his lab. What's going to happen to all the Pokémon? All because your timely plotting landed him in prison. Now he's ruined."
He sharpened the scalpel on the grinding stone of vengeance. Hojo closed his eyes and gave a yawn of boredom. He opened them again, mildly irriitated. Draconis Rex was probably gone and this toddler barely weaned had a mind to accuse him of something so preposterous and untrue while spouting this righteous nonsense like those evangelical maniacs that occasionally stirred resentment against his department.
Hah....but they were of some use eventually... Black Rain production raised forty percent.
"I did not contrive whatever plot you are accusing me of instigating..." Hojo stated, quite agitated. An itch that he couldn't scratch decided to develop. The mud started to loosen and roll into his mouth. The air was oppressive and moist..wonderful news for him drenched to the bone in Black Rain. He leaned his head foward as far as the straps allowed and growled again,
"You are wasting time...both mine and yours... Samuel's ambitions after he allowed Gemini and Dittwo to escape are questionable, but he landed himself into legal ruin by his own error."
The shadow of the blade fell across his body. Hojo stared into eyes mad with vengeance, very much like his on that day..
"You know what? It doesn't matter." He hurled it down and cut through the labcoat sleeve and the shirt underneath it from shoulder to wrist, a loud rip flooding the room. The blade sat now sat on naked flesh and Elm's grin molded his face in a latent deadliness as he stated with mock pleasantness, "Because I'm going to ruin you."
The point of the blade sank through the outer layers of skin to the inner, breaking through blood vessels that spurted liquid Mako as the scalpel chipped the bone. He left it embedded there, smirking at Sebastian and commanding with sickening glee, "Observe."
Hojo plastered a grin on his thin face and kept it there, a haunting expression on a body unable to feel any sort of physical injury. Callous to pain, absolutely unaffected.
"See, Professor?
No pain. Look at him, smiling like that.." the younger man sneered in warranted ecstasy. This was the intended effect after all. "It's because the....." He pulled out the blade and cut through the already-torn sleeve, a good portion of the pallid green skin visible as Jenova's cells did its work and repaired the flesh quicker than any blood could clot, leaving the skin seamless and leaving no sign that any wound had ever been inflicted at all.
"I...don't believe it.." Sebastian gaped in pure shock..an emotion he had never felt in his long career, too accustomed to his work. Not unlike the old man, there were no surprises..his life was blasé. No new discoveries to be made, only improvements and modifications on the older ones....but THIS.... "Regeneration.." he stated while he approached the glowing liquid and simply stared. ".....that's not posisble in humans without leaving a scar...nor an internal wound that large can heal in that short amount of time...!"
"Exactly. And as long as he has this mixture in him, death is impossible. Imagine that, huh?" Elm grinned as he held the blade, now filmed in luminous Mako and Jenova cells that coated the edge, over the old man's arm. "But for my purposes, more importantly, it numbs pain. See?" He this time raised his arm and stabbed with full force, tearing the length of the upper arm. No cry, no complaint, not even a movement. Hojo was still drunk in a perturbing serenity. Sebastian looked on with the kind of shock that fills the bored mind with inquiry and returns it to infantility. He let himself be absorbed for a minute space of the moment, losing a bit of his cynicism in this perplexing property.
"This could be a significant breakthrough in the use of weaponry," Sebastian stated. "If a Pokémon was created to withstand this Mako, it would be unstoppable. Giovanni would be quite pleased," he added, nodding with appraisal.
Ah, yes, he would...Hojo thought, not bothering to veil the gleeful grin that only broadened. I must analyze the feasibility of infusion on Zero-X and Gemini...It dissolved into a tightened frown. He distastefully fixated his narrowed gaze at the younger man. As soon as this experiment is finished.
Elm seemed to forget Hojo was there, his focus glued on the experiment. Within seconds the wounds healed, leaving the skin unscarred. But he had wowed Sebastian enough. Now it was time to begin.
"The only catch is the behavior of the mixture. Watch: it can't heal multiple fractures in the skin." He dug the blade into the wound that had healed only moments ago and wrenched it from shoulder to hand, cutting a deep gorge from which the Jenova cells grew new skin cells to replace the rent ones. But this time he didn't wait for it to heal. Without ceremony he plunged the scalpel into Hojo's other arm, tearing a hole in his labcoat with a sharp rip of fabric and then a sharp rip of flesh through the lower arm.
The Jenova cells repaired both wounds in a full minute. No surprise that Hojo didn't even feel it. "You will have to do much better than that," he taunted with a supressed laugh. "I knew Samuel long before you.....being briefly acquainted with him however, you should at least be a novice..but no, you are quite the beginner."
Elm refrained from any reply, too engaged in his work to even hear him. He systematically, methodically, cut through the skin, watching as the regeneration lessened..The wounds closed with more difficulty, with more strain on the Jenova cells.....straining to multiply at unimaginable, impossible rates... Slowing until..
Until the wounds didn't close at all.
"See that, Professor Sebastian?" Elm pointed with the scalpel at the gaping tears coughing a drop of Mako. "Once regeneration stops, the mixture drains freely." He raised the instrument again, this time above Hojo's chest. "But I don't want to be here forever. We still have phase two ahead of us." He rested the point against the old man's heart. "You want pain, Professor? Here it is." He forced the blade through and made a jagged incision, sticking the scalpel underneath the thin layer and pushing against the chest wall, growing elated at the ample bubble of Mako that formed in the crack as the younger man hacked his way deeper and deeper into that body supposedly impervious to pain. Yeah...we will soon see about that.
So distracted was the aged scientist in this unwavering surety that it wasn't until Elm gouged a wide square in his torso, carved it with careless jerks that opened his sides as well as his chest, taking pins in his other hand as if he was only another cadaver to be taken out of the freezer and dissected and piercing the walls of the flaps of skin to the table as the luminous Mako was finally freed and now dripped...in small droplets slowly crawling from and across the vital organs through the glowing ribcage onto the table.....it wasn't until his body started to hurt from the Mako loss and he peered into his insides, at his heart, lungs, that gradually stopped glowing, that slowly became lifeless corpses in themselves, that he realized fully what the younger scientist was doing to him. It fell upon him in dreary gloom that carried the barest hint of fear. Without the chemicals....... he'd be...dead......dead...that was it.....ah-ha..
While the Mako leaked out of his body that shuddered as its source of life wormed out of its grasp and deprived it of any strength, he could do little than offer a grin that violently contorted with the loss of his lifeblood.
"An unwise choice you have made...utterly expected from a juvenille...you will end up kiling your precious specimen before he has a chance to feel pain....." Hojo leaned the back of his head against the iron table and laughed outright, his eyes glazed with a haze of something not so right in the head.....and a creeping awareness of the absolute weakness that readied to vanquish him as the Mako dripped out of his body, collecting in a bubbling pool of green that drowned him in euphoria.
A euphoria that slowly receded as it leaked more, as it drained the artificial power from emaciated muscles, that made him look up at his hands shrivelled by age...Jenova's cells hid it except for the bend in his back...now his true age showed...the natural deformities that develop with so many long years...though more pronounced in others who let their health deteriorate.And indeed..he had never really taken care of himself properly, whether it be nutriton, hygiene, or the like. The scores of years returned to punish him.
Hojo looked at himself with eyes that blurred in and out of clarity. From what he could identify... Regained wrinkles on skin that draped loosely over thin bones attacked by its many diseases that left it sapped of near all use...along with the myriad of scars and holes in his body from that struggle at the Mako Cannon, cutting deep through crude and rushed stitches...
The stitches. Hojo lifted a thin, wiry limb, now wracked by the deformities of age and the scathing reminder of what he was...merely a reanimated cadaver for experimental testing. Ha...he...Professor Hojo...was the result of an experiment. He would laugh if it didn't strain lungs on the verge of failure. Yes, he knew that...it caused him the slightest bit of discomfort. That was the thing. Discomfort, nothing else. "Where is this pain you speak of, Professor?" he coughed, easing down his hand shuddering with weakness. Perhaps he should congratulate Elm for making him age thirty years..forty at the most. But he still failed at torture. All the better for him. "Hm? Where is it...?"
"Here," Elm answered, replacing the scalpel with a syringe and plunging it into a vein as he would a knife, setting Hojo's teeth on edge. The piercing needle sank further, his finger on the tab, forcing vermillion liquid into his body that twisted in response to this new..fluid that he hadn't seen in what seemed to be an eternity. At first glance anyway without testing its composition...normal blood..
Elm's eyes broadened as the red fluid started to drip with the alien liquid in a lurid swirl of blood and Mako. With a noticeable grimace he held the syringe with one hand and reached for his thread and needle on the tray, shoivng the other instruments aside with a lot less regard as his ambition fueled the carelessness and impatience that was a scientist's adversary. Some of the instruments clattered on the floor as he grabbed the thread and needle and left the syringe stuck in Hojo's skin as he shifted towards the chest. "Professor Sebastian, take over," he ordered, throwing his head towards in the direction of the emptied tube projecting painfully out of the epidermis. "We're getting rid of the Mako, not the blood."
Sebastian found himself obeying, refilling the contents of the syringe when it was emptied and injecting the blood into the human's body. Crude, yes, unconventional, yes, tedious, dangeorus, yes, but the entire crude experiment was carried out with crude instruments and crude recordings and crude methods...not even anesthetics. Not even a proper method of blood transfusion. The instruments were contaminated. The subject was contaminated. This lab was contaminated. For all he knew his brain was contaminated by now from participating in this atrocity.
But it was either that or risk death....
He only partially concentrated on his task, one and a half eyes rooted to Elm hummed a rather morbid children's song that ended in "We all fall down," as he cheerfully removed the pins from Hojo's body, leaving pinpricks of blood that dripped back into his innards as he closed the flaps of skin as he would slam a door, making the victm wince as his own flesh rubbed against his ribcage and sent pain coursing through his entire chest cavity that rose with difficulty, halting in a choked inhale as Elm pushed the needle into the skin, bringing the sharpened piece of metal in and out, in and out, the teeth grinding harder against each other each time. Now the pain freely and wholly burned into him..the Mako gone, his shield gone, it left a vulnerable husk that squirmed, writhed, groaned, but killed any scream.
Elm grinned, weaving the needle dangerously close to the heart that clamored for the chemical and beat with weakened fury underneath the skin. "You look like you're enjoying this, Professor. Too bad you won't be able to express your gratitude."
Hojo could only manage a contemptuous glare that wavered under the unrelenting torture..he didn't think that Elm would be bold enough to ACTUALLY do it..to extract the Mako..to demand his assistant replace it with useless crimson blood of humanity...but he HAD...and now the glee-ridden scientist held the scalpel again, this time over his victim's sickly head. Hojo braced himself, knowing full well that this would hurt..no Mako to numb his nerves now..no escape from the hot burst of pain that gushed through the wound that trickled a drop of blood that released an infinity of agony.
What ate at him, burned at him the most was that he had evaded this agony that ambition trained him to impose on others.For nearly his whole life...The palpable anguish at the Mako Cannon where Valentine spent all of those ancient bullets directly into his heart darkened in hate....it returned to his memory in vague, ill-fitting pieces, exuding the sensation of pain.....
He felt a moistening in his hardened eyes as the blade stopped at the thick bone of the skull, and his torturer withrew the scalpel and exchanged it for another machine..what was it? He couldn't quite see it..this eye was blurring with wetness...that he refused to show. Hojo did not scream, nor did he cry. Ever.
What right or reason had he to, anyway? He really had asked for it. All that mocking, that belittling, the drops of blood rolling down his forehead and into his mouth were almost deserved. Almost...had this been actual science and not simply an abuse of it.
Heh...he tasted the blood. The taste of iron, but just as well if it was nickel...Nicodemus...the devil's element.
This was the devil indeed, drilling a hole through the exposed skull with sick fervor, chipping away the bone that protected the brain, capable of immensities that not itself could even fathom, but delicate, frail, and vital for life.
"Professor Elm, if I may remark..." Sebastian observed over the whir of the drill that poured smoke from the dent in the bloodied head. Elm stopped drilling momentarily, patting the skull with one hand in false concern for the man cringing underneath the machine. "Your subject is right. You may kill him before the experiment is finished." He grabbed at the silence as his opportunity. He had had quite enough of this insult. "Besides," He moved his hand with a placating gesture. "Wouldn't you be more interested in experimental Pokémon? This is quite dangerous. If a Pokémon dies, it is not nearly as much as a loss as a---"
Elm stopped Sebastian's rather monotone voice with a finger on the other's lips. He leered at the Rocket scientist for a while before turning back to his target. So far, only a dent. It would be easier if he did as the Romans did and cracked the skull with an Ag hammer. On the other hand, he didn't wish to spend a year or so of his life rebuilding the animal's brain that would surely be shredded with the pieces of bone tearing into the grey matter. His lips pursed in an upset frown. They hadn't even GOTTEN to phase 2, thanks to Sebastian's whining and Hojo's smart remarks.
But if this shut the both of them up, he'd do it.
He turned on the drill, its high whimper raising the volume of his voice in aggravated proportion.
."Professor, you're hard to convince. You and your humanistic values. 'We can't experiment on humans. It's too dangerous,'" Elm imitated Sebastian's somewhat nasal voice with a mocking grin. The drill spun faster and the subject tried to grab his head with the blast of pain crushing his skull only to find they didn't reach that far and he was too.physically weak to even try. Clamping his teeth on his tongue, he let his hands drop and endured it until he stopped the cursed machine. "Damn the danger, Professor. If he dies, we can revive him again. It's that simple."
He started it again.
The drill cut away a huge slab of bone that clattered on the table and this time sent Hojo's teeth ram into his sewn lips in silent agony, drawing blood that trickled down his chin onto his neck.that likewixe had been sewn....it really only occured to him now that those stitches were hidden all those years. Remove them and he'd fall apart in pieces of flesh and bone..literally crumble. He found himself exhaling uneven, erratic breaths from this haunting collection of thoughts as he heard the whine of the drill in his ears, and the youth's despicable voice that flaunted its arrogance.
"I should thank you for your ONE important contribution to science, Professor. On this Earth your famed reanimation procedure is science fiction, the topics of books and its hundred film adaptions. Thanks to you, it's not just fiction anymore--"
Though his brain hurt like..hell, to put it bluntly, he could still think.
Oh...call him a minor player in the world of technology, did he?
Pride overshadowed pain and reduced it for a scant moment as Hojo's black eyes flared a spark of heated resentment. Intimidation swelled and though it was he strapped to the table, getting his skull drilled into by a scientist as mad as him, he had not changed. He was still, after all was said and done, Professor Hojo.
He could detect a faint twitch in one of Elm's sinews as he let his slanted gaze stab into his juvenille soul. "Do you have the faintest idea of how many lives I have ruined through science? Through advancements and improvements in technology, there are many who will never be the same...and you say that is of little importance...have you any idea....?"
"'Yes. It was a crime against humanity," Elm answered without any change of expression. Whether he was intimidated by the old man or he did it intentionally, Elm's hand slipped and the drill marked a bloody streak on his forehead. This time he couldn't supress it any longer and screamed his heart out, clutching the sides of the table that did little to alleviate the pain of the drill hacking into his skull. "Oops...sorry," Elm apologized with the utmost insincerity, withdrew the drill and set it back on the skull again, using his other hand to keep his subject from writhing...and he was writhing quite a bit..the youth caught the elder unawares....of course, enjoying it fully.
He finished the drilling and layed the awful tool back on the tray, grinning satisfactorily. He walked back towards the man, taking him by the red-splotched chin in some show of power and lifting it upwards, then letting it drop down, sagging eyes wide with painful shock as blood dripped down the bridge of his nose." But lucky you, they'll never find out who put them through all that torture." He walked towards Sebastian, returning his frown for an assertive smirk before turning back to the subject and giving him a sincerely fake smile.. "Consider it a favor, Professor. Don't worry, you don't need to pay me back." He issued a terse order to his elder. "Wire him up."
If Sebastian wasn't mistaken, Elm referred to the machine that the Turks had hauled in when they first arrived. He had assembled it himself without knowing its purpose, to contribute to this torture. He would not be used. That was the final straw.
"If you're not already aware, Professor Elm," Sebastian informed with an equally terse reply,"this machine acts like a galvanic cell..." He grasped one of the wires between his fingers and waved a sharp hook at him in demonstration. "It produces electric current..I will not willingly electrocute a human," he stated, steadfast in his refusal.
"Then you'll do it UNwillingly," Elm snapped, striding in front of the other scientist's face, power nesting in the other's gaze. "I told you to leave your anthropocentrism at home, Professor Sebastian. But if you won't take my advice, I'll prove to you how easily anyone can be revived," the youth warned threateningly, roughly taking the pieces of skull that he'd cut away.
"Humans should not be subjected to such torture---"
That was it.
"T-011, kill him.
He guessed that would be him. Tseng let an embarassed growl brew in his throat but raised his weapon, bound by orders. Several tries to steady it, but by the time Tseng had it aimed on the target, Sebastian threw up his hands and faced the machine hurriedly. The nerve...of...that...
The Rocket scientist was visibly unwilling as he attatched the wire to the target's brain. Of all upstarts to take advantage of him, a boy as far as he was concerned. But he could not lift a finger against him...oh, no...then he would be killed. So much power if one had a minion. Yes..he used to have muscle..Tyson and Bashou and Buson... Then he was the head of that research..his famed crystal...and like he questioned Elm now, the PPL questioned him....hm.
People didn't really become self-aware until they see the same fault in others.
The older scientist disgustedly turned various dials and entered instructions into the machine. He made a noise of distaste. This was crude, too. He could only hope that the machine would output a small spark of a sick Pikachu and not the hundreds and thousands of volts of Raikou. He could only hope that it was built as accurately as it was designed.
"Go."
Sebastian pulled the switch, a faint spark shooting through the wire and shocking the core of the old man's cerebrum. Elm watched, gave his signal, and strode towards the subject who strangely... didn't react any differently. This time, there was no sign of pain. Sebastian stared with quirked eyebrow. There should have been a reaction by now, but...all the subject was doing was laughing and ranting. Even as Elm roughly estimated where the slabs of skull fit and fitted them in an unsightly mess and re-sewed the patch of skin and hair onto re-formed skull, the victim was absorbed in his victory.
"Ha...ha.....ha...Your negligible attempts are without the intended result," Hojo smirked through the mask of mud and blood that crawled down the stitches that ran along his body. "You are just as much a failure as that Sephiroth clone...what was his name? It does not matter...Names do not matter...tell me, what is your name?" he asked Tseng while he faced towards the ceiling. "Do you remember? What is his name? Do I remember? I do not." The content smile faded somewhat. A crease from the frown added itself to the multitude as the ceiling grew unfamiliar in his mind. "Nor do I remember why I'm here." He blnked his black eyes."An experiment, yes? A test?"
The electricity penetrated that feeble portion that commanded speech, thought, the very ability to be bi-pedal...the crucial portion that could never be fully, permanently reconstructed, prone to breaking and mentally crippling its posessor.
Its delayed effects overcame what retarded it and began to manifest themselves as the specimen continued to rant.
"Why am I the subject? The guinea pig? Is my intellect inferior to yours? HA...HA..HAHA...." Hojo began to laugh out loud, his eyes rolling towards the back of his head as he immersed himself in crazed happiness. "My brain can ward.....ward....." Then it collapsed.
The brain that failed him now betrayed him. The spark obliterated the repaired remnant and made it worthless to the standards of man. "..Something... is...horribly.." Hojo felt something leak out of his brain like the blood leaked down his face. Intelligence, its capacity to become intelligent, reversed and headed forever backwards. "...wrong..where is..intellect..brain...brain...my brain..." His eyes snapped open in damning revelation. Down through the chain of neural development until it joined with the very sublevel of brain activity. "Where is it.....?" He " Intellect..?" lost "Thinking..?" his Smarts?..? Smarts...gone...gone..GONE." mind
In the most literal sense of a word that now meant nothing to him.
A panic surged through every worn cell of his body, and he struggled, futilely, in bodily weaknes now joined with the weakness of mind. Not only weakness...the NON-EXISTENCE of mind. Brainless...totally, utterly, brainless. That single spark of electricity shorted out a lifetime of development..how?! Why?! Cries that became screams, made of no language, no speech, no words, but more importantly, NO THOUGHT.
Hojo writhed and flailed against the straps, not knowing why he was here, for what purpose..He wanted to escape. Why were they keeping him here?! He was mad with fear...fear of everything, fear of the---what was that? It was above him. What was above? What was that word? What did it mean? What was a word?!!
The growling became snarling, the snarling became screaming, invading the dark corners of the room and the dark corners of his shattered brain. Desperation engulfed him. He gnawed on the straps, soaked with other's blood, Vincent's, Draconis Rex's, now his own, the Mako that still bubbled under him, that made him cold and fearful and terrified and madly desperate to flee.
Somewhere in his struggle, his glasses fell off and shattered on the floor. A monster had no use for such sophisticated devices, anyway.
"That enough proof for you, Professor?" Elm asked, fitting another syringe with a needle. He walked past the wordless, speechless scientist, who could only stare at the.....animal. An animal he had dared to call a human. This rebuked any chance of it..that that was a human being...there was no way. All it took was one spark of electricity, and this creature's brain was gone. He did not know exactly why.. or how....but that it happened... That was sufficient proof for him. He found himself nodding in complete agreement. There was clearly no room for dispute.
It seemed as if the two scientists had come to an understanding.
Inhuman screams flew through the room in waves of total fear that bounced off the walls and flooded its source in terrifed anguish.
Elm rolled the syringe between his fingers. As much as he liked to hear the little wretch shriek, his ears rang after a while from the unsavory cacophony. The needle would silence him.
As he motioned for Sebastian to aid with steading the thrashing head that bit with its bloody teeth in its futile attempt to break the straps, he hurried in finding the vein through the mess of blood and mud and Mako and sweat that had been punctured many times over consciously and willingly and rushed to stop the struggle so he could stop the ringing in his ears...or maybe he wanted to lock out any feelings of guilt. Better finish it quickly so it would no longer be a vague semblance of begging human eyes gripped with human terror.
Right, he wasn't like Sebastian. He'd as soon do this to true humans in a heartbeat.
"Now if you don't mind, I'd like to begin the actual procedure."
The needle punctured the skin, and there was a loud thud as the body fell limply on the table, drifting in swarms of emptiness. "Now..our subject has normal blood, according to blood tests preceding Mako infusion, his blood type was AB ---"
Into memories. "The most susceptible to Black Rain. Do you mean to ship it to Kanto?"
Into dreams. "After all the effort of recovering it? Don't be silly, Professor Sebastian. I won't let it go so easily this time. That Professor Ivy...she wanted to keep it in a competent mental state for her own projects. Now it's my turn to have some fun." And into nightmares.
*~*~*
Sedative wore off Subject still asleep but capable of commotion Difficult to concentrate Input all data for Gemini I Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Gemini I Extract DNA Implant DNA of Gemini I from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject growling.
Input all data for Zero-X Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Zero-X Extract DNA Implant DNA of Zero-X from sample into nuclei Allow total change Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original state Ignore subject yelling.
Input all data for Draconis Rex Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Draconis Rex Extract DNA Implant DNA of Draconis Rex into nuclei Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject screaming.
Modify Transform Materia to transform biotic organisms into biotic organisms Heat Transform Materia Inject liquified Transform Materia Input data for n subjects with connection of memory Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to n subjects Inject all mutagenic agents Inject trace amounts of antidote to allow reversion to original primal state Ignore subject shrieking.
Input all data for Vincent Valentine Negative Impulse Generator enabled embedded memories trigger by sense or experience linked to Vincent Valentine and four separate organisms programmed to release under heavy physical stress Chatlier's principle is asserted In a system of equilibrium if a stress is introduced equilibrium will shift to relieve the stress: Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, Chaos Extract DNA Implant altered DNA of Vincent Valentine into nuclei Repeat original procedure: Give standard Mako/Jenova infusion Re-program brain to release maximum concentrations of Mako/Jenova compound into bloodstream when subject's under stress Take into account Lamarck's second law: inheritance of acquired traits proved invalid by later research Remedy problem with hacksaw Problem remedied Subject out of control Must be sedated again Second sedation complete Find raiments Experiment complete Disconnect computer Raiments found Now there's no difference.
*~*~*
Hojo sunk into disconnected images of ancient ocurences that flooded his mind from which all rational thought had been purged.
He was at the arch again, the sun flaring its scant rays through winter clouds in his dark brown eyes. He'd been outside for quite some time staring with poorly-veiled longing at the people under the arch glowing with love underneath a gentle spring sky that turned its other visage for him.
...They're happy...
Vincent and Lucrecia broke their embrace, and he could not consciously--- move--warn her--stop her---it was he who loved her...!
.....But I love her...
....I need her......
Something was out of place. Then it struck him like the pierce of a needle improperly used as a weapon such as a sword or knife. He was in his memories, except now HE was his enemy watching---himself, wasn't it?
Those mannerisms...those subtle gestures made in complete control of methodical thought...that was not Vincent. That was Hojo.
.....I WANT her....
Hojo couldn't stop himself running towards Lucrecia, and he took this hand that wasn't his own and grabbed her by the arm, his, Vincent's eyes burning in desire.
...Hey, angel. I'll take you over to my place...
That bastard.....so...this is how it happened..
....I..I really shouldn't, Vincent...
This is what led up to it..
...Come on, baby. Your heart's divided between us, but who do you love more?
A conscious decision on both their parts.
...Y.....you're right...
...Yeah, I know I am.
All behind his back. And now he could only watch while it unfolded, while he relived this fool's memory of bodily lust.
*~*~*
He stared into a pair of unnervingly familiar shocked brown eyes that quivered in a thinly-veiled fury...he had been betrayed...they who he trusted...they BETRAYED HIM.....
The child was the proof. DNA was the most honest creation of nature. This was NOT HIS CHILD.
TRAITOR!
The voice was nauseatingly distinct. It grew ever distant, as a hand gripped him by the collar and rammed him into the wall. Somewhere far off he felt a shift in his body..a change. He was sweating now, hard. His...own eyes burned into his very soul, exposing all lies for what they were.
...Eddie, relax..this is a misunderstanding...
.He felt his head bash into the wall.
..Oh, yes, Valentine. Quite the misunderstanding. This infant disagrees...
Are you saying that Lucrecia and I...? You're off your rocker...! That Jenova-bloated kid is yours, not mine! I had nothing to do with it. NOTHING.
The green eyed baby stared at him hollowly, almost accusingly. Hojo felt his hand release his neck, and he slumped down on the floor, for the first time in his life, truly afraid.
*~*~*
He found himself looking straight down the barrel of a gun. At first he didn't know whether to be afraid, but should he really? Would Hojo kill himself out of jealous rage? It was almost funny.. the pathetic sight of that weasly little wuss who was about to kill him. Yeah, right.
...You really think you can pull that trigger, Eddie?...
An explosion of sound tore through his soul. Excruciating pain ripped through his left arm as the bullet shattered the bone and snapped it off, the arm and him landing with a flump on the floor. He stared into the eyes that exuded every emotion at once..forever altered and skewed by the hatred in his dark soul.
I just did.
The second shot threw him into oblivion.
*~*~*
Hojo woke with a dull ache that flowed through his body towards his left arm that concentrated into a pain that throbbed faint enough for him not to pay attention to it. The ceiling came back into focus. It was vaguely famliar... In fact...this whole situation was familiar, disturbingly so.
Like a dream when woken up from it discovered its truth.
"That was quite the disarming nightmare..." he mumbled, staring up into the broken and dusty lamp. "But it is nothing of importance, as it is the brain's method of relieving tension that finds no outlet-----" Hojo blinked widened eyes. He could think..he could speak again. His voice had changed a few octaves, but it was probably a product of imagination.
The point was he could speak and think. A smile spread across his lips with...oddly.....difficulty...as if the facial muscles were tightened to the point to prevent a change in expression. Negligible. That wasn't the point. His eyes filled with glee as he gave a hollow laugh. "Ha...ha...ha.....you thought you could change ME...into an animal? It was only a temporary fluke..transient flaw in his neural patterns..they had failed again.....ha... HA...HA.....HA....."
As much hilarity as there was in their utter failure, Hojo somehow found no mirth in the laugh...
He heard Elm's mild tread on the floor and he shifted his head to the other side, shooting the younger scientist a heated glare.
"Save your prattling, Professor. If you're so human, get off that table."
Hojo arched an eyebrow..or at least tried to, and lifted himself halfway up, still bounded by the straps. Strange..his body felt..so...weak...so... drained.....He heard Elm's voice again in that tone others came to despise in himself. A dread suddenly seeped into his soul. "Move your left arm. I think you'll find the improvement very useful."
The ache was more pronounced as he moved it...strange,.. he didn't feel it....plagued by numbness....but it moved....in a way almost...mechanical...
He tore through the straps with surprsing ease, blinking groggily as he rose, knocking his head on the lamp. He took his other hand and rubbed it gingerly, finding it garbed in a long, black fingerless glove that stetched to his elbow, that was almost completely WHITE...Tangled strands of his hair, not quite as greasy as usual, lay against a disturbingly familiar high collar and spilled over his shoulder in thick, jet strands...
Hojo slid a bit more wary now, off the table, in odd, wavy movements that were unfamiliar to him, strange...alien. He landed on the floor with a faint crunch, a heavy, cumbersome fabric flowing behind him. He walked unsteadily on legs that weren't his, and slowly whirled around and bored a questioning glare into the eyes of the other scientists. Patterns of crimson reflected on their spectacles. Spectacles..where were they?
To his horror, they were underneath a triangular-shaped shoe sculpted entirely of brass painted with gold as an added...mockery..which he could see..distinctly. He could..see perfectly...in fact, clearer than he had ever seen in his entire life.
He rigidly bent a stiffened back to grasp the broken glasses, the crushed shards dangling by a thread before they plinked on the floor. It was in this act of straightening when he...he saw himself in the leftover glass mirror cracked through the middle, and he saw the cracked reflection of not Hojo, but.....
"Vincent Valentine...." he murmured, staring at the hollow crimson eyes that glared into his soul. In the mirror he saw the brass claw of inhumanity that ripped through the straps so easily..so effortlessly..now a burden on the remaining socket that plagued him with a sore ache from the amputated arm and this metallic limb that had been crudely shoved in its place and attatched to his skin with screws, bolts and wires hidden under that brass plating also streaked with gold paint..And the sick irony of it.. ..he had made it that way. He had...constructed every damned step of this man's hellish descent, of his fall. But now it all turned on him. He brought the pale white fingers to his mouth and raised his head and the flash of the teeth reflected from the mirror.
Except, there were only....fangs. He ran his finger along one of them, distant and bewildered. He had..DESIGNED this... To mimick the creatures of myth and fantasy that fed upon youthful blood...
Now he thirsted for.....no...NO.....it could not be. It was utterly impossible..... he was not VINCENT, he was HOJO, DAMNIT.....!!!!!!
He had this claw, didn't he? With an enraged yell, he shattered the broken mirror. 7 years' bad luck, the superstitious said. What did it matter if it was 7,000 or 7,000,000,000 years....yes, he had designed Valentine in that way..... Now was HE, his CREATOR, forced to live that way? Live as long as the chemicals ordered him to? Never......NEVER...
He clamped one hand and one claw on his head and screamed in torturous agony at this vengeance that betrayed its exacter.
"I am...I am not..Vincent....Valentine....." he growled, the gold-hued claw clenching into a lifeless fist and drawing no blood but an impersonal clink that reverberated in his ears. He forcd his muscles that replied with agonizing delay and finally let him spin to face the two scientists. "I
AM NOT HIM....."
"You say that now, Professor. I assure you that there will come a time when not even you'll recognize yourself. Look at you..the thirst for blood you instilled in Mr. Valentine is coming out, I can see it." He nudged his cohort and put a hand to his mouth as he whispered aloud,"Professor Sebastian, lets leave before things get too CHAOTIC."
"Ch.....Chaos....." Hojo felt raw terror shoot through every icy vein in his body. "Wh...what need do.....I have to..to fear it?" he asked, attempting to steel his nerves. "It is..my creation.....a surprisingly autonomous mind that Valentine had much difficulty in combatting...but that.....was precisely..the point...." Hojo reeled foward, the red eyes wide as something awoke within him, clamored to escape.....The deadly killer he had trapped in Valentine's soul..now.. was...his..."...But...my..intellect..is far more...prepared..." His claw dug into the cracked, bloodstained floor. Blood that screamed vengeance.. payback...."The poisoner cannot himself be poisoned.....if he feeds on it..." Animal-like breathing tore thorugh his chest that encased a sprinting heart. Blood pulsed in his head...he felt the sensation of changing...again...taking on a hideous form as he crashed on the floor, the shock barely visible as his features melted and became something far more terrifying. An unearthly shriek lifted off his vocal chords that choked off words once more and perverted them into a demon's roar...
The demon he created...the demon of pure destruction, untainted by human thought, human reason, it was never human and never would be.
Nor would...HE......ever...be..
"I...I think you have made a mistake, Professor Elm," Sebastian muttered with heightening fear as the specimen writhed on the floor as if in the grip of Pluto himself. The corpselike red eyes rapidly exploding to hellfire virtually begged him for a quick and brutal death. The older man backed up and turned, running as briskly as fear permitted him past Tseng and Rude.
The fur on Tseng bristled stiffly, nothing more. No empathy.must have come from the long years at the Public Safety and Maintenance of Administrative Research. It killed any sympathy for either of the victims, for Hojo or for the juvenille. Orders were orders, but for now, instinctual want for survival proved stronger.
"Rrrrghets grrohg, Rhhudrgh," Tseng ordered half-coherently through a persevering mid-pitch growl. He holstered his gun as well as this clumsy grip allowed him, and he turned a hard gaze on Rude. "Thrghis hghrigh hrghabrough ghro hrghret hghugree." With that, Tseng took off towards the exit.
"I don't know what you just said, sir...but I'm with you."
The anguished roars grew louder as the Turks retreated through the nightmarish basement after the scientist. It was clear everyone sensed impending danger. They joined the stampeding flocks of bats. They too sensed something horribly, horribly wrong. Instinct commanded them to flee, and they obeyed.
Their instincts weren't wrong.
Glass shattered as demonic wings erupted from Hojo's back that squared its size, growing jagged fangs from jaws that spewed bloody hellfire. It beat the heavy wings, pushing itself up from the floor with lethal claws that gouged thorugh the decrepit floor. A roar flew from the depths of its monstrous diapraghm and its eyes, two burning red flames that allowed its victims to stare into the depths of its hellish soul.
"Cowards," Elm accused as a terrible shadow loomed over him and the fiery breath of the demon burned at his face. He looked up amusedly, the demon's roar making the musty, blood-choked air shudder in inferiority. "My work here is done, Professor Oak," Elm acquiesced to the promise of a gory demise as the demon rose above him, its claws casting shadows of death on the wall. "As for you, Professor Ivy.."
The dank air writhed with the deadly cry of bare hate.
"I'll be seeing you soon."
Hell encompassed heaven and rained in a maelstrom of blazing death.
TO BE CONTINUED........
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A/N: Stay tuned for chapter 22!^^