Nope, still don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Ch.10

Yami fell to the ground gasping for air. She and the others had been going at this for nearly an entire day. After the collars had been put on them the man, whose name they found out was Korran, had given a warning. By simply pushing a button on that damned remote of his they were all filled with an electric shock. Not just a little zap but one that struck down to your very core and left you humming afterward. That brief taste made them quickly comply with his wishes and quietly followed him down hallways that, just like their previous room, were all white. At the end of one of the many identical halls was the door that they took. Inside was any child's nightmare, a real mad scientist's laboratory. There were tables with straps, large pointy objects laying on trays next to them and countless other objects you didn't want to know what they did. With a haunting reassurance that they would be coming back here sometime, Korran led them through another door at the other side of the lab into another room.

The room that met their eyes didn't seem to fit into this sterile laboratory building. It was basically an arena. The only things that broke the illusion were the absence of stands and a control like room that could be seen through a large window that covered the entire opposite wall. Korran led them to the middle of the arena and stopped them there. From the other side o the room, two people entered through a door and walked over to join them.

"I'd like you to meet my two assistants," Korran preached to his "captive" audience. "Erik and Shaylan." Shaylan was a woman, in about her late twenties, with pale blond hair and ice blue eyes. Erik was a man, about the same age as Shaylan, with a mop of mouse brown hair and dark grey eyes. He was shorter than his partner and seemed to be quieter too, for she was the one who took charge.

"I thought there were eleven, this is thirteen," she stated.

"These two" Korran pointed to Cristian and Seth, "Are extras that tagged along. I figured we could do something with them." The blond nodded, taking it as an answer. "Now for the real experiments-"

"What experiments," Sam interrupted him. "What's the point of all this and what are you going to do to us?" His face stayed calm as he turned to face the disrupting girl, but everything in his stance screamed menace.

"Like I explained before, you are all test subjects in our research. We're doing something with your energy or your human wave lengths if that makes more sense to you. That's already more than you need to know, so if you just do as you're told everything will run smoothly. You two," Korran once again pointed to Cristian and Seth, "Will go with Erik. The rest of you stay put." Erik walked away with his two assigned children following him and Korran and Shaylan went to the control room with the glass wall. They appeared in front of the main control board, which was right behind the window, and started fiddling with the buttons. There was a low rumbling and several large machines emerged from the ground.

"Jamie, go over there," Korran pointed to the machine in the far right hand corner. He then proceeded to assign each one of them to a different mechanism, everyone except for Erika and Stephanie that is. They were put together on the same pillar in the center of the room. Stephanie had been gagged with an intricate strip of metal and Erika was blind-folded with a similar device. Neither of the things would let any sound in or out. Stephanie was stuck to the floor, like how they had been captured at the baseball field, and couldn't move while Erika was free to move around but had no way of knowing where she was going. Korran suddenly appeared by the two and started to give his instructions.

"Now Stephanie, direct your sister where to go so she dose not get hit," Korran instructed. There was a large pillar in between the two girls and at Korran's instructions fired a laser beam at Erika. The light blue beam hit the ground mere inches from her feet only because at the sound Erika had blindly stumbled backwards.

"But she's gagged," Erika protested once she had regained her balance. "How do you expect her to say anything, much less give me directions?" As soon as she had finished her sentence another beam was shot. It grazed her left knee just enough to make her leg give out and make her collapse, leaving a small stream of blood trickling down her leg.

"That's for you to figure out," Korran sneered at the injured girl, he then left them to direct his attention to the others. The next one on his mental list was Mike. The kid was standing next to a smooth dome that didn't look entirely menacing. "All you need to do is try and move freely." Before Mike could ask what he meant the dome started to move. It slowly rotated around until it had made one full circle, and then stopped. There was a moment of silence in which nothing happened, but it didn't last long. Out of the dome shot eleven snake-like arms. One of the arms grabbed onto his waist, and one on each knee, ankle, shoulder, elbow and wrist holding him in place. Mike tried to move his right arm but to no avail. Pushing harder he found that he was capable of moving it forward a few inches, but a sharp pain made him relinquish the fight. The arms that held him had claws on the ends which they used to grab him, they were sharp, and moving against them made the metal dig into his flesh. Korran left Mike to move onto the next subject, Jamie.

He walked over to the girl and didn't stop until they were standing only a few inches apart. His eyes were bearing down on her, but she wasn't one to back down, and glared right back up at him with just as much, if not more, intensity. With out looking away from her he pointed to the nearby pillar and gave her the instructions.

"Destroy it, nothing more, nothing less."

"That's it," she was surprised. She had expected some impossibly insane task.

"Yes, there's a button right on the front, push it and it's destroyed." Now she was definitely suspicious. She cautiously took a step toward the pillar, nothing happened. She took another step and then another and another, it was definitely a trick but nothing was happening. She was only a few feet from it now and everything seemed fine. Then, in the middle of her next step, she found herself on the ground with her head spinning.

"What the hell," she gasped. Korran walked over and lightly touched the air around where she had fallen, it vibrated with energy.

"Did I forget to mention the barrier around it," he scoffed at her.

"Then how am I supposed to get to it?" she mumbled as she stood up and brushed herself off.

"I'd have thought one of you would have caught on by now," he sighed. "That's for you to figure out." At that moment a lazar shot from the pillar, identical to the one Erika and Stephanie were dealing with, and slashed across her right forearm. Gasping she clutched at the torn flesh as the blood dripped down her arm. It wasn't a very deep cut and the blood flow would stop soon, but it still hurt like hell. Korran, being the bastard that he is, merely smiled at her. "You may want to watch for that," and leaving Jamie to deal with her new found problem, he moved on to the last person on his list, Sam.

Sam didn't have a very hard job; all she had to do was watch. He strapped her to a chair that looked something like one of those blow dryers at a salon. At the top there was a helmet of sorts that strapped to her head. There was an assortment of wires and tubes coming from it that attached directly to the chair it's self. She didn't have to do anything, just watch the torment that her friends were going through.

All the other subjects didn't have a specialized device, yet. Instead the rest of them were given one of their own lazar shooting pillars to battle. They had been left like that and, now, nearly a day after they had first entered the room they were exhausted. Beaten, bloody, and battered there were only two things they wanted to do, rest, and kill Korran.

"That's enough," Korran called, reappearing in the room, and at his command all the machines disappeared. He seemed slightly disappointed, but not threateningly so. "It's not like I expected it to work the first time," he mumbled to himself. Korran led them back down the halls towards "their" room; thought it took a lot longer than last time seeing as most of them could barely manage to walk. The only two subjects in the group who weren't physically injured were Sam and Stephanie, but they were so emotionally drained that they might as well have been. When they got back to that annoyingly white room they were reacquainted with friends they had, up till now, forgotten about. Cristian and Seth were sitting there waiting for them.

"Seth!" Yami ran, as best she could, to her much missed boyfriend. "What happened to you, were you hurt?"

"No, not really," he answered her. "But I never want to see another needle again." He conquered her horrified stare with a warm smile, proving that he was alright. The one thing that she loved the most the most about the man in front of her was that he always managed to stay strong, even in the worst situations. She had been lost until he showed up and gave her a pillar of light to guide and protect her, and she was not going to let that go.

"Why?" Mikes voice broke through Yami's thoughts and brought her back to reality. This time it was Cristian who answered.

"That guy named Erik said they wanted to figure out why you were friends with us. What made our energy so special that you befriended us? Although I'm not sure how sticking a bunch of needles in us will explain that."

"I officially declare that this place is insane," Aryn announced.

"Ya man," Cristian agreed with her. The squeaking of a door caused them all to fall silent as they looked for the source of the noise. The culprit turned out to be a small dog door; they had somehow missed earlier, in the only door to the room. Through it were shoved eleven trays and eleven bowls before the flap snapped shut.

"Is it safe?" Elizabeth asked after a moment of confused silence.

"Only one way to find out," Mike declared. He cautiously crept over to the objects in question and picked up the nearest tray. "Its food," he called to the others, and then added "Sort of."

"What do you mean 'sort of'," Sam asked as the rest of them hustled over to join Mike. He showed them the contents on the tray and poked it with a fork.

"Well, it could almost pass as food," he said as the fork in his hand rebounded off of the grayish brown blob on the plate.

"Eeeeeeew, its worst than the cafeteria food, and that's saying something. Is it even edible?" Aryn cringed. Travis, deciding to just take the initiative, pulled one of the trays over to himself, grabbed the fork, pulled a piece of the goo off and shoved it into his mouth before anyone could tell him otherwise. They all stared at him in horror as he chewed the substance in his mouth for long moments. Once he had finally swallowed it there was a long pause.

"Well," Seth encouraged.

"Once you chew it for awhile it's not bad," Travis answered, and that was all the convincing needed. Everyone grabbed a tray and ravishingly dug into the questionable meal. After all, they had not eaten for a wile. Yami held one of the bowls up to her face and stared at it.

"I'm assuming this is water," she mused.

"One can only assume," Jamie, who was also glairing at the clear liquid in her bowl, advised. Yami tipped the bowl to her lips, took a long swig, and gave her critique.

"Yep, it's water, although it's not the cleanest tasting."

"I hope we don't have to stay here too long. I don't know how long I am going to be able to live on this stuff," Cristian complained, with good reason.

"Oh, I'm sure Jamie's boyfriend and his gang will save us eventually," Jordan scoffed.

"Hun," Jamie looked at the girl.

"Kurama," Jordan drawled the word as if she was talking to a slow toddler.

"Are you still on about that," Jamie exasperated. "Somehow I think our current situation is a bit direr."

"I know that!" Jordan retorted. "That's why I'm not making a big deal about it, but I'm allowed to be annoyed." Jamie knew her friend didn't really mean most of what she was saying, she hoped. She was just stressed and taking it out the only way she could.

"Jordan," Jamie pressed her words at her "I'm not going to have this argument with you," ending the conversation. Before anything else could be said the lights went out throwing the white room into black. However this time a few safety lights flickered on, like those you would find in a photography dark room. The setting would have almost been peaceful if it were not for the whole being stuck in a mad demon scientist's laboratory. For there was no question in their minds, Korran was not human. The group found that their nest of blankets and pillows was still there from the day before and they quickly settled down to rest and heal in the sleep that quickly claimed them. They could only imagine what horrors would await them tomorrow and not even their dreams gave them much comfort.

The next morning the Reiki Tantei woke up to find a lavishing breakfast waiting for them. Once they were finished they sat down with Vaala to try and workout their plan of attack. However, before that was addressed, Yusuke brought up a different question.

"Hey Kurama, yesterday you told us that you had old ties to this clan and that they got punked by other demons." Kurama nodded in consent, wondering just where this was going. "Well, knowing you and knowing Youko I just thought it was kinda strange. I would have thought you'd be one of the first demons to take advantage of them." Kurama had a hard time keeping down the laughter that had suddenly formed inside him at Yusuke's statement and even Hiei gave a chuckle.

"Yusuke, I do have morals." Kurama responded with an obviously fake affronted look that just ended up making him look adorable. "I'd managed to gain their clan's trust and that is a rare thing. I wasn't about to through that away," he explained to the ever dense detective.

"Earned their trust, how?" Yusuke asked.

"I explained about their clan's downfall. Well, when their clan was attempting to go underground I helped them. Many demons were not happy about the idea and sought to stop them. I, along with a few others, defended them and gave them the leeway they needed to escape." Vaala was nodding in agreement.

"I remember it. I was only a young child of eight at the time. Kurama here personally rescued me when I found myself on the receiving end of a demon's sword. I was whisked away to safety by a powerful silver fox." Vaala said, adding in more details to Kurama's story.

"Don't give me too much credit, I was only a kitling at the time myself," Kurama spoke with a surprising amount of modesty.

"However Kurama was the only one of our allies that kept ties with us and quickly became much respected among my clan," Vaala finished.

"Now on to the more pressing matter," Kurama brought the conversation back to its intended topic. "How do we go about rescuing the humans?"

"I guess we need to find out where they were taken and how to get to them," Kuwabara noted.

"Excuse me," Vaala interrupted. "Did you say humans?"

"Yeah," Yusuke answered her. "A group of human children were kidnapped and taken to this world, somewhere around here.

"Um…" Vaala seemed hesitant but decided to ask her question anyway. "Why were they taken?" Kurama was the one to answer her.

"Apparently they're being used in some sort of experiment as test subjects." As soon as she heard this Vaala blanched white. Whiter if that's possible.

"What is it?" Kurama questioned.

"Even my clan has heard of it," she answered him. "There's a lab that does experiments on humans. No one knows who's behind it for no one's willing to get close enough to find out."

"I take it that's our place," Yusuke muttered. "So, do you know how to get there?"

"Yes, but I-" but before she could finish Kuwabara jumped out of his seat.

"Then what are we waiting for, we have to go save them!" Kuwabara started running for the door but, as he passed, Hiei stuck out his foot, causing Kuwabara to trip and quickly become reacquainted with the ground, face first. Sputtering he managed to shout "What the…Hiei!" before Hiei gut him off with a glairing retort.

"Baka. Do you even know where the lab is, much less how to get out of this cave?"

"Well no" the carrot top muttered.

"Then I suggest you shut up and listen," Hiei snapped. Kuwabara sulked back to his seat and waited for Vaala to continue.

"I do know where it is, there's hardly a demon around here that does not, but I can't take you," Vaala expounded. "My clan does not dare leave the sanctity of these caves. I am the only one who leaves and I will not go any further than the forest. However I know someone who would take you, for the right price." At this she looked at Kurama.

"I believe I know who you are referring to," the fox answered the quizzical stare. "Although he is expensive I am willing to match his price. Besides, I am sure I can convince Koenma to reimburse me latter," and at his answer Vaala stood from her seat.

"Good, then I will contact Cougar," and she swept out of the room. Yusuke turned to the fox next to him.

"All right Kurama, what are you doing now and who the hell is Cougar?" Hiei, mimicking Yusuke, also turned his attention to Kurama.

"Yes fox, what is going on?" Hiei did not like being uninformed.

"Oh, you will find out in a moment," Kurama reassured them with a smile.

A few hours latter Hiei, Botan, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara and Vaala found themselves standing in the forest at the entrance to the cave. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was sense virtually no light managed to penetrate the darkness between the trees.

"Oh, I do hope we get going soon. Who knows what's happening to those poor kids," Botan spoke up for the first time. She had been unusually quiet all morning. Her statement caused Kurama's mind to bring up echoes of his thoughts last night which he hastily shoved to the farthest corners of the back of his mind. Now was not the time to think about things like that. Latter, when he was alone he could deal with the still present question that lingered in his mind. Why did she- but before Kurama could finish his mental question a distant rumble interrupted him.

"What is that," Yusuke asked.

"Cougar is here," Vaala answered him simply. The growling grew louder, turning into the growling of an engine. From the darkness of the tree's edge shot five colorful blurs which made a large circle around the group before stopping on a dime in front of them. The blurs were revealed to actually be people. The one in front, who looked like the leader, spoke first.

"Hello Vaala I got your message and came as soon as I could even though I don't usually take things so shout notice you said Youko Kurama was involved so I figured I could make an exception so what is it I'm needed to do," the man rambled in all one sentence with a medium toned energetic voice. Neither Kurama nor Vaala were thrown off from his run together words but the rest of them, including Hiei, were completely lost and could not keep up with his speech at all.

"Hello Cougar," Vaala addressed him. "Yes I did contact you and yes our friend Kurama does need some help, and he is willing to pay." The man titled Cougar was a character to say the least. He had fiery orange hair with yellow highlights that seemed to be stuck in a permanent windblown effect. He was wearing an electric blue and black jump suit along with hot pink sunglasses, despite the lightlessness of the forest. As he had talked he had removed the shades revealing blue eyes that matched his suit. It was now Kurama's turn to confront the man and there were some things that needed to be dealt with, like explaining who these people were. However that didn't seem to be first on Kurama's list for the fox dove right into an explanation of their mission and where they needed to go. After a few minuets of confusion Yusuke could not take the confusion any more and practically exploded on his friend.

"Aaaaaaagh, Kurama I'm sorry. You may know exactly what's going on but I'm completely lost. Ya mind helping me out here buddy?" Kurama turned to his explosive friend whom he was unable to ignore with an apologetic look on his face, and quickly hurried to give them an explanation.

"Sorry Yusuke, I suppose you all would like to know who this is."

Yusuke nodded in agreement but corrected the only mistake in Kurama's assumption. "Yes, but first I think we'd like to know what he is 'cause I'm going out on a wild limb here and guessing he's not human," Yusuke went on in his usual arrogant tone.

"Ah," Kurama sighed. "Let's see how best to put this," he mumbled to himself. "Well, let's just say that humans were not the first to coin the phrase 'Speed Demon'."

"Soooo their…" Yusuke hesitated.

"Yes," Kurama answered. "In case you have not noticed yet they are very fast and energetic. If you need to get somewhere quickly and efficiently there is really no one else to rely on and I know Cougar personally through…" he hesitated a moment deciding weather or not to tell them that Cougar and his gang had been a get away from his jobs on many occasions. Deciding it was best not to tell them he ended his sentence with "Dealings," and let them figure out the rest for themselves.

"Let me introduce you to the rest of the group," Cougar broke in. "Markay" he pointed to a girl to the right of him with extremely short bright pink hair, red eyes, and wearing a black tube top and skin tight camouflage printed pants. "Jangi" a man positioned just behind Markay with red-brown spiky hair large green eyes (not as great as Kurama's eyes though) and wearing baggy forest green pants and a grey t-shirt. "Dela," a girl with wavy gold hair and pail amber eyes, was wearing a short reddish brown leather mini skirt red tank top and black fish net going down her arms. She was standing behind and to the left of Cougar. "And last but not least, Kor." This man was standing to the left of Dela. He had tan skin and black hair with silver streaks tied back in a lose pony tail and blank gray almost white eyes. His ensemble consisted of form fitting blue jeans and a tucked in white t-shirt with a black leather jacket over it. These names flew by the Reiki Tantei in a fraction of a second and they struggled to try and grasp them.

"So," Kurama spoke up. "Cougar's group is going to transport us to our destination."

"Alright," Yusuke simply nodded.

"So, I guess this is where we part ways," Vaala announced, stepping forward. She would be sad to see them leave but the pain would be bitter sweet.

"Yes it is," Kurama agreed, stepping up to her and taking her hand. "Thank you for everything my friend, I'm in your debt."

"Kurama," Vaala laughed. "I think my clan is still in your debt." At that point Botan popped over Kurama's shoulder, bubbling her gratitude.

"Oh yes, thank you for everything." After everyone had thanked her profusely, even Hiei had eventually been dragged into paying his tribute, Vaala turned to head back to her clan's home, wondering not if but when she would see her new found friends again. However, she had a clan to run and many things to do. She could not waste time pondering idle questions that would one day answer themselves.

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