[wow I didn't think I'd ever actually update. But I do read every single comment!! Just sayin. Anyhoo, enjoy :P]
Rex smirked as Van Kleiss rushed off into the hallway, proud of himself for being able to mess with the man's mind. It was a suitable revenge for all the times the older EVO messed with his, after all. The only thing he wasn't faking was how sleepy he actually was, although the echoes of despair coming from the far end of the hall were enough to finally nudge him into full alertness.
Making an effort to hide his amusement, he made his way out into the hallway and followed the sound of the clamoring voices. Biowulf sounded absolutely angry, no doubt having been spiked with something fierce- or at least, Rex hoped. But as he completed a few turns to follow his captor through the castle, he noticed a strange smell. The further he walked, the more he could sense it- and soon, it was almost in his tastebuds.
It was downright awful!
The pungent fumes emanated from right behind the corner of the final hallway leading to his destination, but second thoughts kept him from turning to look. The pungent scent alone made him want to shower immediately, but the sounds coming from Biowulf also contributed to his hesitation. Even without peeking around the corner, he realized that he didn't hear commotion due to anger , but that of pitiable distress. The mechanical wolf was wailing and making the nastiest retching sounds he'd ever heard.
A golden gauntlet pulled him forward, yanking him into the dreaded scene.
"Ow- what is going on?" Rex yelped, genuinely disturbed. But as soon as he got a good look at his surroundings, he regretted ever wondering. The walls and some of the floor were covered in bright red vomit, and Biowulf was laying amidst the filthy goo that seemed to escape from his body in an unrelenting fashion. His fur was matted with the sticky stuff, and he lay clutching his stomach in agony. The bright light that was normally in his eyes was quite dim- an alarming sign.
"Rex, drag him to one of the cold labs down below," the king commanded the boy. "I am sure you know the one. And make sure to not touch any of the red liquids with your bare skin."
The teen stood silently, unable to find the words.
"Now!"
"O-okay, jeez," the boy stammered, trying to recall the orders he had just been given. "Cold lab. Don't touch the red stuff. Got it."
Rex grew a mechanical arm and lifted Biowulf off the ground to the best of his ability, edging away from the gruesome scene. He'd never seen so much red before in one room, even after working as a soldier boy. He hurried down to lower floors, finding it an abhorrent task to stuff his suffering nemesis' through the doorframes without covering them in biological muck. Even without turning to look, he could tell there was a subtle hint of anger mixed in with Biowulf's pain.
"If I find out-" the blue EVO began, before hacking up more red splatter onto a nearby wall. The teen was somewhat glad the threat was too weak to continue; the whole ordeal was already disturbing enough. As soon as he reached his destination, he flung open the cold room's door and dropped the still coughing EVO onto one of the beds behind the glass barrier that split the room in half, then locked the door behind him as he rushed to the other side. He partially feared the wolf-human's strength making an extremely unnecessary fight, and partially the sight of such disturbing symptoms.
Van Kleiss was with them soon enough, arriving a quick five minutes later. He carried a clipboard with a solemn look on his face, placing it on the counter. One peek at the scribbled notes on the page was enough to make Rex shudder. Although he couldn't make out what exactly was written from a distance, he could definitely see that every letter was written in bright red ink.
Rex swallowed.
"Behave yourself and try to get your body under control for the time being, Biowulf," the king commanded the blue EVO beyond the glass barrier. "I'm going to fill your chamber with sleeping gas to remove you from consciousness. Lie down and breathe deeply to accelerate the process."
The boy watched as one press of a button facilitated a silvery gas emanating from the walls of the other half of the room, knocking Biowulf out within the span of a few minutes. He looked most peaceful when he finally passed out, his limbs dangling over the edge of a bed like string. Rex turned to the monarch, awaiting some sort of assurance that the situation wouldn't remain so dire.
"Stranger and stranger things are occurring under the roof of this castle," Van Kleiss murmured, not even looking in his captive's direction. "Perhaps there's a pattern…"
The child stared wide eyed at the man, feeling a strong wave of paranoia crash over him now that some of the shock had faded.
"I'm going to perform some tests on him," the king continued, his voice now raised to a normal level. "I wouldn't advise you to watch, unless you enjoy seeing him cut open temporarily like a dead fish."
Rex backed away in fear.
"Even worse, he won't be given any sort of amnesia for the procedure. Thanks to Breach, our stock of any sort of numbing agents were turned to ash."
The boy's legs were now frozen in place as his brain conjured up unsolicited horrors of the possibilities.
Van Kleiss pulled a scalpel out from one of the drawers below him and held it up so that the blade flashed underneath the unforgivingly harsh lights.
"Unless, of course, you wish to assist me?"
Rex bolted from the room, his mind swimming with a sordid mixture of fear and guilt. None of this was supposed to happen. None of it even made sense. All he did was want to get Biowulf a little bit drunk so he could stay safe, not make him almost puke all his internal linings out! How did this situation get out of control so quickly?
What was in that champagne?
He made his way up several floors to the kitchen, noting giant red stains that decreased in intensity as he reached the dining area. By the time he got to the fridge, all he could see were tiny specks, barely even visible unless you were trying to look out for them. This must have been where it all started.
Panicking, he hauled everything out of the fridge he had spiked, then the pantry, and finally the ruined tea leaves. He didn't even have time to feel worse about destroying them now. Hauling everything into a large garbage bag, he dragged the trash with him all the way to the Garden, using his giant claws to dig a massive hole in the ground to bury everything he had regrettably tainted. By now, the sun had begun to rise, highlighting the sweat the dripped down his forehead, emphasizing his anxiety and exhaustion.
What a terrible start to a Friday.
The food supply may have been drastically reduced for the time being, but at least now he didn't have to worry about suffering the same fate as his passed out nemesis on a lab table. He mentally thanked himself for leaving some normal food hidden in his room, then hurried back to the lab several floors below, hoping the half hour or so he bought was enough time to determine what made everything go downhill.
When he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of Van Kleiss tossing a red stained glove into a mini trash can, making him feel sick to the stomach. Biowulf, he noticed, was still unconscious, and flipped over- hopefully to hide any giant surgical gashes that were created in his absence. But what worried him the most was the somber look on the monarch's face as he wrote several notes on his clipboard. Not a trace of curiosity, satisfaction, or even hope.
"Well, Rex, in this series of unfortunate events, this one might be the most permanent," the man stated, his voice cold, almost robotic. "I know you two did not get along, but I hope you enjoyed whatever time you knew him. It will be all you have left."
"WHAT?" Rex sputtered. "It doesn't matter what I thought of him! You can bring him back, can't you? DO something!"
"I'm afraid you're going to get used to dealing with sudden death," the older EVO continued. "At the very least, you may take it as a life lesson. There's nothing I can feasibly do for him anymore."
"I thought you were one of the world's greatest scientists! Isn't that what you always brag about? Don't give up on him!"
"It's not that I've given up, it's that the circumstances surrounding his inevitable death have given up on me."
Rex gripped his head and sank to the floor. Whatever guilt he felt before felt like a whisper compared to the screams that resonated inside him now. Dealing with death was something he had barely recovered from- hell, he still wasn't out of the woods yet- and he had no idea how to deal with one that he caused. Did this make him a a cold hearted murderer?
That final thought made everything ten times worse.
"It is a shame, really," Van Kleiss sighed. "He was one of my best workers, but now I only estimate his lifespans to have a few hours left, give or take. The cure was at the tip of my fingers, but fate isn't always so kind."
At this, the teen perked up, trying his best to see through his now watery eyes. "C-cure? What do you mean?"
"There was a way I believed I could help him, but I hit a dead end at the last minute," Van Kleiss informed him. "Normally things of this nature don't affect me, but this time…"
"I-I can help with the dead end!" Rex blurted mindlessly, his voice wavering. "Anything! I can't let him die!"
The man raised a brow, finally adding human emotion to his face. "You seem awfully concerned, given this is someone you despise. And I don't believe you have the scientific expertise to help with anything. Just stay put and let him have his final moments in peace. It is the least you can do."
"No!" Rex yelled, his voice cracking at that unstable volume. "I have miracle nanites! So do you! There shouldn't be a dead end!"
"Let him bleed out with dignity. You are not capable of saving everyone. I believe I've told you that before."
The teen took a deep breath, feeling completely helpless. Back at Providence, his nanites could usually solve situations like this, but if one of the actual inventors of the machines claimed it was futile, who was he to disagree? Even Holiday, in all her genius, knew less about the machines than her enemy did.
This must be how every civilian he saved felt like. Too bad no one could come and rescue him this time.
"We can at least try!" Rex pleaded, feeling his face turn red. "Come on! We still have a chance as long as he's alive!"
Van Kleiss stared at him for a moment, his face conveying an emotion the boy was too upset to interpret at the moment.
"Who knew you would be so invested?" he noted aloud. "Still, you are incorrect. We have no chance of letting him live for even a couple of hours more unless I can trace back the exact cause of his condition. You see, his body is emitting antibodies for a certain pathogen, but one day is not even enough to determine the chemical sequences that match them. Even for the best scientist in the world, it's a shot in the dark."
Rex looked down at the floor, remembering the champagne. He only had the tiniest window to disclose his secret to the man before him to save someone's life, but it could come at the cost of his own. After all, he did steal and now almost kill the king's most loyal and trusted servants. Every second that passed was a threat to *someone's life, but it was up to him to determine who would end up on the chopping block.
But he was never one selfish enough to endanger anyone's life.
"Alcohol," he mumbled weakly, gazing up with his miserable brown eyes.
The king tilted his head. "What?"
"Champagne," the teen spoke up, agony expressed in every syllable. "I found it in one of the labs after I woke up from the poisonous gas. It was in the food upstairs so Biowulf would…"
He couldn't bring himself to finish the rest of his sentence.
Van Kleiss's cold expression remained unwavering.
"Is this the reason you are reacting as if you're taking this far more personally than normal?" he asked pointedly.
Rex nodded, wiping a tear from his eye.
"And therefore, you are the reason he is now most certainly going to die today?
The boy nearly choked on his tongue trying to find the words to respond.
"It's worse than you can imagine. The lethal compounds that I had stored away in that bottle are notoriously difficult to create an antidote for. The exact procedures would take at least a week, at minimum. You sentenced him to death as soon as you touched that bottle."
The child shook his head vigorously, as if that would somehow change reality.
"In fact, now that I know what caused this, I also know that he may not even have a few hours left. It's honestly a miracle he even made it this far. Perhaps his EVO biology enhanced his immune system so he could stay alive for just a small while longer. He could very well be dead as we speak."
"N-no.. please.. you need to do something.."
"You are in no place to tell me what to do after the murder you've committed today. No wonder Providence always referred to you as a weapon. Perhaps they knew you were a monster all along. It's a shame you never knew."
At this, Rex's last twinges of self restraint snapped, and he began to cry profusely on the cold lab floor, utterly guilty and humiliated. And for once, he had no one to blame but himself. Van Kleiss never forced him to poison anyone, Biowulf had done nothing but made vague threats that were likely only meant to scare him, and Breach was out of the equation entirely. His upbringing- or what he could remember of it, anyway- was supposed to lead to the opposite of this. What once was a brave national hero was now drowning in loud misery in front of the one person who should never have had the opportunity to see him so broken. If anything, he'd learned that no amount of tears could wash the pain away.
The abrupt sound of laughter momentarily distracted him, absolutely jarring to say the least.
"Cease your sobbing and compose yourself, Rex," Van Kleiss's suddenly amused voice commanded him. "It really is too easy to play with your mind."
Rex glanced up, his vision incredibly watery, barely able to make out a grin on his captor's face.
"You truly are childish sometimes, honestly," the king went on. "At least, this little stunt of yours. Perhaps next time you'll ponder the consequences before trying to fool me."
Rex buried his face in his jacket to wipe it before coming up for air, now facing confusion on top of his despair. "W-wait, y-you knew?"
"Of course I knew. You show up in my laboratory acting completely out of character, and the next thing I know Biowulf is displaying the symptoms of a harmless food additive I concocted in my lab several weeks ago. And now here you are, losing your mind over nothing."
Now sniffling, the teen tried to make sense of the world he thought was crashing down upon him. "B-but all of the b-blood…"
"There is no blood. It is merely a byproduct of the additive that is generated once it is metabolized by your cells during digestion. Essentially, nanite-generated food coloring. In fact…"
Van Kleiss turned towards the sleeping figure across the lab.
"He will have no memory of this event at all. That was the original purpose of the flavoring- a non detectable amnesia inducer. I simply needed to find a way to keep the side effects from occurring in the meantime. Side effects that make you regret touching my property now, correct?"
The boy stared at him, dumbfounded. "Y-you went all this way… just to trick me…"
"And it was justified. You landed the first strike, and I retaliated. You should have known by now to never lie to me."
The teen lowered his gaze towards the floor, unable to think of a single word to remedy the situation. There might not have been any at all. But even then, did he truly deserve to be made to cry like this?
"It isn't fair," he mumbled. "Biowulf was going to hurt me. It was self defense."
"You're ridiculous," Van Kleiss criticized him. "He would never have landed a finger on you behind my back unless there was some very strong force pushing him to do it."
The silence as a response to his words made the king realize something.
"Now that I've said that, I'm starting to believe that there is more to this than you're telling me," the king continued. "It does not make sense for you to act so cruelly for no reason. I would consider myself a far larger danger to you, and yet you have tried nothing of the sort on me."
Rex wiped the remaining tears from his face and turned away. "And g-get myself killed on the spot?"
"It seems that ever since you've arrived in Abysus, there's been an unusual amount of hatred directed at you from Biowulf. It's always been rather strange to me."
"Are you playing dumb?" the boy accused, trying to see the monarch as best as he could with his blurry vision. "Everyone here was my enemy before I ever got here. Half the time, you people still are!"
"Rex, you are not the first of our enemies to have resided with us- although, you are the most permanent," the older EVO elaborated. "Whether I captured the others by force or brought them here to negotiate peace from a- I believe I've said this before- position of strength, he's tolerated them well enough no matter how much they'd fought before. You seem to be a unique case, yet there is no apparent reason for it."
"I-I don't know what you're talking about. You're just trying to mess with me even more!"
A hand grasped the boy's chin and made him face his captor, his red, puffy eyes shocked on top of the confusion.
"I have no interest in toying with your head further; you've already gotten what you deserved for spinning falsehoods," Van Kleiss sternly informed him, keeping his grip on Rex's head firm. "But I don't believe for a second you are entirely ignorant to the logic behind Biowulf's strange attitude that only lights up around you. You must know something."
He received nothing but a glare in response.
The man thought for a moment, then let go of the teen. "If you wish to be difficult, so can I. If you do not tell me what it is, you will be forever banned from investigating the fate of your old coworkers. Your choice."
Rex's eyes widened. "No! You can't do that! I helped you with everything you asked me for!"
"You do not negotiate with me. I am the one in command. Now, are you going to finally let the truth out, or will you let the truth of your old home's demise remain buried in the dust?"
The boy buried his face in his knees, and took a deep breath. "There is literally no length you won't go to hurt me."
"Oh, please. You hurt yourself by acting out. Don't be upset when you face consequences."
Rex sat quietly for a moment, wondering if it was really worth it to endanger Biowulf to gain his own closure. One one hand, never would he place anyone in harm's way for selfish reasons. It just wasn't like him! It would be betraying everything he stood for.
But on the other hand, how much loss did he have to suffer for being the "good guy"? How much pain did he have to endure just to maintain his morals? Was there any room for his own peace of mind in his moral framework at all? Why did he complain about being used as Providence's tool when he turned right around and only lived to serve others at his own expense? Did he not deserve the most simple thing of knowing what happened to those whom he loved, even if it meant hurting someone who was always working for the wrong side anyway?
Would Biowulf ever even protect him from the good of his heart?
Rex scowled. He knew the answer to that one.
"Fine," he suddenly spoke up. "You win. But just so you know, doing this doesn't make me a bad person. It means that for once, I put myself first."
The king raised a brow, looking down at the child. "Spare me from your incessant need for validation. Just tell the truth."
"I saw Biowulf in his human form."