I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, nuf said.

Ch.8

The wagon came to an abrupt stop, jolting awake all of its prisoners. The doors were thrown open and hands with invisible faces grabbed the kids and threw them onto the ground. Before they managed to stand their hands were tied together with rope in front of them and they were blindfolded. Then they were made to stand and walk with only the pulling on the ropes around their wrists to guide them.

After what seemed like hours, but in reality were only about fifteen minuets, of blind stumbling they were, once again, thrown to the ground. However this time they were relieved of the ropes and blindfolds. Looking around they noticed that the room was all white, the walls, ceiling, floor, everything. There wasn't any furniture or anything so they just sat on the floor. The only thing in the room that wasn't white was a four by three window on the far right wall. In was black and they couldn't see anything through it. It was obviously a one-way window for observations.

"What's going on, where are we?" Elizabeth whimpered.

"What makes you think I'd know" Mike answered her.

"This place looks like a laboratory," Sam observed.

"So what, are we the lab rats," Aryn stated, half jokingly.

"In all essence, yes," Came a voice. The whole group looked around to see a man standing in the corner. He had waist length, strait black hair, and startling orange almost-brown eyes. To help out the whole laboratory idea, he was wearing a white lab coat with a black pants suit underneath.

"Who are you?" Jessica spoke up, sounding serious for once.

"Well," he thought about it for a moment. "I guess you could say I'm your master."

"Like hell, the only person I consider my master is me," Cristian spoke up for the first time sense they'd been kidnapped.

"What do you mean our master?" Seth asked on a more reasonable note.

"I'm the one who's in control of you." At their questioning looks he continued. "Let me explain. All of you are test subjects in our experiment. Well everyone except you two," he pointed to Cristian and Seth. "You two came along by accident, but I'm sure we can find something to do with you. But I'm getting off track." He stopped talking for reasons that the group couldn't seem to understand, but it did give them a good opportunity to ask questions.

"You said something about an experiment. What experiment is that?" Erika was the first to ask.

"Ah, yes, all of you, except the ones I pointed out earlier have wave lengths that run on seemingly identical frequencies. When you were born we made sure you were separate, even placing one of you over seas." He paused for a moment to allow this new factor to absorb into their minds then continued. "As you can see you have all been drawn back together. Now we want to see exactly why you're so connected and even see if we can't harness that connection." He was looking at them like he was a teacher telling them that they had all done well on their math tests.

Everyone in the group started arguing at the same time, apparently thinking that if they insulted him enough that he'd let them go. Everyone that is, except Jamie. She had been sitting there quietly ever sense she had laid eyes on him, just staring at him. Something about him made her uneasy. As he watched the others argue his eyes slipped over to her and latched on to her. She was instantly struck with panic, unable to move or speak. He had the look in his eyes like a panther watching his prey. She wanted to call out to her friends to hide behind them and not have to look at him, but they didn't even seem to notice her. Please, she thought, someone help me. Make him go away or at least stop looking at me. Luckily, at that moment, his gaze flickered back to the group of angry teenagers who looked about ready to gut him.

Jamie breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed on to the nearest person's arm, which happened to be Sam. At the feel of the contact Sam looked over to the other girl.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jamie answered. "I'm just a little freaked out."

"Who wouldn't be," Stephanie broke into the conversation, "With this guy going on about how he owns us." She, along with everyone else was disgusted.

Well, it's been a long day and I bet you're all tired. I'll leave you alone, for now." Then he exited the room through a white door, that was barely distinguishable from the wall, and all fell silent.

"What do you think he meant by 'for now,'" Elizabeth's voice broke the silence.

"I think it means we'll be seeing a lot more of that man," Sam answered. He was right about one thing, they were tired. The wagon hadn't offered a very refreshing sleep and being abducted was an emotionally draining thing. They found some white blankets in a corner of the room and, huddling together in a nest of white, they fell asleep.

After resting for a few hours to regain their ability to walk, the team headed out to the closest city. They still hadn't recovered their energy and needed someplace safer to hide.

A demon city was nothing like a human city. True there were buildings and people, but the feel of the city was entirely different. It was decrepit, for lack of a better term. The two demons of the group reassured their teammates, actually Kurama reassured and Hiei just mumbled in agreement, that many cities were not this. They were just in an older and unkempt part of demon world. Many buildings looked run down, and so did the people. Demons, and other unidentifiable creatures, were crowding the streets making it very hard to walk. However it did make it easy to slip by unnoticed.

"The best thing would probably be to just rent a hotel room and stay there for a few days," Kurama suggested as they pushed through the crowd.

"Riiight. Don't those things cost money? 'Cause the last time I checked, we're broke," Yusuke retorted.

"Oh, money is not an issue," Kurama stated before walking on.

There was a pause before Yusuke burst out "Again with the vagueness, geeze!"

"I'll explain," Hiei put in, surprisingly helpful. "Youko was a thief and made quite a bit of money at his profession. You don't think the fox would just let all that go, do you?"

"So he still has his fortune from stealing?" Kuwabara asked.

Hiei just stared at the other boy for a moment before answering. "Yes. Now it would be a good idea to catch up with the fox. This is not a good city to get lost in." At that they all shut up and focused on relocating Kurama.

By the time they found him, Kurama had already "magically" obtained a place to stay. It was, in all essence, a hotel. He'd only bought them one room, figuring it would be less noticeable, but it held four beds. Hiei opted for the windowsill so the shortage of sleeping space wasn't an issue. After choosing where they were going to sleep, they all quickly fell into a much needed recharge.

Erika awoke to meet pitch blackness. She was depressed to find that she was the only one awake, so she pulled a blanket around her and waited for the others. It only took about ten minuets for other people to rise. And in fifteen minuets Travis, Christian and Elizabeth were all awake.

"What are we going to do now?" Elizabeth asked to group.

"What can we do, we're stuck here." Travis answered her. There was a moment of silence which was quickly interrupted by the blinding lights of the room coming on. The group was immediately hit with the shocking whiteness of the room. The new light also, inevitably, woke up everyone else. Except Jessica that is.

"Um, a little help?" Everyone looked over to see that Jessica had rolled over and was sleeping on a very awake Sam. But before they could pull her off the poor girl, Jessica rolled over again, kicking Mike in the face, and landing in a small ball on the floor.

"She's starting to wake up," Jamie explained. "She always moves around before she wakes up." And just to prove her right Jessica's head popped up with sleep filled eyes and a very confused look on her face.

"What?" she asked the group of people staring at her.

"I was just explaining how you manage to molest Sam and nearly behead Mike while still asleep," Jamie answered her.

"Oh," came the short reply.

"Well, I see you're all awake now," said a smooth, unforgettable voice from the corner. He was back.

"Stop sneaking up on us!" Yami shot at him as she and the others whipped around to face him.

"Aw, I'm sorry, did I fwighten you," He cooed at her mockingly.

"Man you just love to hear yourself talk, don't ja," Mike scoffed. He blinked and suddenly the guy was standing not even ten inches in front of him. He tangled his hand in Mike's spikes and pulled his head up, reviling his throat, which he shoved something around. He released Mike and took a step back.

"What is this thing," Mike yelled as he tried t pull it off. It looked like a metal collar, about one inch thick, and hugged his neck like a choker. No matter how hard Mike pulled he couldn't get it off.

"To put it simply, this is your remote. It lets me control you. After all, lab rats who misbehave are very annoying." As soon as he finished speaking, two dozen metal claws sprouted from the floor, stopping the rest of them from going anywhere. He came around to them one by one and placed an identical collar on them. No matter how much they fought him, trying to push him away and keep him away from putting the same things on them, he was still much stronger and over powered them everyone of them easily.

Once he was finished, and a few paces safely away, the claws released them. After a few minuets of realizing that the metal collars were not coming off, the group opted for glairing at him.

"I'm not going to let some stupid piece of metal control me," Jordan, who had been surprisingly quiet sense their argument in the wagon, stated.

"Well, you really don't have a choice in that," he half laughed at her.

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