A/N: 2nd (technically 3rd) chapter so far. This one took a little longer to make, but it has some of that rare fluff in this section of the story and some nicknames, too. If anyone gets confused name-wise, I'll be sure to clarify some things in the end notes.

Until then, enjoy!

Test 673 winced from the lashings on his back. He deserved them, though. Disobedience earns punishment. Obedience earns reward.

The chain around his neck clacked against the hard floor of his training cell, which was empty and dark, plenty of room for learning to obey. The doors to his cell creaked open loudly, and he looked up at the person responsible for his progress.

A rotund man, well fed no doubt, well dressed (even in his trainers clothes) and a stern face that showed no room for imperfections. His far-too skinny black leather boots were the noisiest out of everyone's, and to 673's sensitive hearing, it was the number one thing that would make him and his hellhound snap.

Disobedience earns punishment.

"I must say, 673," began Mr. Williams, his voice echoing around the empty space, "aside from your little outburst last night, you've been behaving nicely. I'll bring the Lieutenant in to let him decide if you're well enough to be returned to your quarters. I expect superlative behaviour from you. Understood?"

673 kept his eyes trained past Mr. Williams, his face stone and unflinching. "Yes, sir."

An ugly grin pushed his rosy cheeks upwards, showing his crooked teeth and gold fillings. "Very good. I'll be back within 20 minutes or so."

Mr. Williams strode out of the room, the clacking of the heels on his boots looping in 673's mind even after he left. All he had to do was behave, be obedient, and he'd finally be rid of the harsh training he had endured for the past week.

Although, he thought, maybe it was worth it. The only way I'll be useful is if I can follow orders.

673 smiled to himself, for these people were only helping him be better. As far as he knew, they were doing nothing wrong. They were only getting him used to himself and his forms.

Everything was fine.

Lieutenant Greyback laughed gruffly at the sight of the giant hellhound bashing himself into a wall, determined to break through even though it was made of reinforced iron. His giant, horrid mix of a human's hand and a dog's paw complete with razor-sharp claws scraped and punctured holes into the metal with terrible screeching. Mr. Williams shouted at him, and the hound stopped and turned to listen to the tiny man.

"The General ordered for the serum to have some elements that would give him some other capabilities. Shall we test them?" asked Mr. Williams with that same ugly smirk filled with twisted joy.

"By all means, Williams. He's still under your care, after all." Greyback responded, crossing his arms and leaning to the side casually.

"Beast!" Williams shouted, pulling out his stick and conjuring a target a few metres away. "Fire!"

673's lifeless gaze turned to where the target sat, smoke beginning to leak from the sides of his mouth, his belly and chest growing a little more orange, and his huge, sharp-clawed paws planting themselves to the ground. His head lunged forward, his mouth bursting open and a massive, explosive ball of flames and reactive gas erupting from himself and disintegrating the target on impact.

Williams gave a very feminine shriek and dove behind Greyback, who flinched away and covered his eyes from the flash of light. 673 panted heavily, his mouth hanging open and smoke seeping out of the corners.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho…" Greyback chuckled darkly, slowly making his way around the back of the creature. "Very impressive indeed." He placed his sandpaper-rough hand on his snout, grinning pridefully when he didn't lash out. "You've done well, Williams. Give Test 309 my condolences as well; I hear she's gotten quite the beating from this beast."

"Th-thank you, sir." Williams stammered, still cowering far away from 673. Greyback smirked at the little man quivering near the entrance of the large room.

"Have him turn back and give him some clothes, I'll be moving him back to his room." He stated, striding to the door and exiting, his eyes laced with a disgustingly playful look. Williams was barely able to get the words out of his mouth, but 673 twitched and growled, bones cracking and shifting audibly until there was a man lying on the floor, breathing heavily and muscles fluttering visibly.

Williams summoned an outfit somewhat resembling scrubs with the symbol of an upside-down triangle with a vertical and horizontal line cutting through the middle. He handed them to 673, who had pushed himself from the floor and readjusted his glasses.

"Lieutenant Greyback was very pleased with your demonstrations, 673." said Mr. Williams, his voice still shaking and his round little body trembling. 673 raised an eyebrow at his behaviour, but gratefully took the clothes offered to him.

"Thank you, sir. Will I be allowed back to my room?" He asked, wiggling into the pants.

"He's waiting outside to take you there." Williams answered, and 673 nodded respectfully with a "thank you".

Once he was fully dressed, Williams opened up the door for 673 and allowed him to finally walk out of the cage he was stuck — not stuck, training — in for the past week. Greyback greeted him with a smile— which was oddly malevolent for someone who was supposed to be proud of him, some part of his brain noted.

"Sir," He greeted.

"You did very well in there, 673." He began, shaking his hand as if he were an old friend. "Walk with me."

Greyback led him down the hall of closed-in cages, where every door would be indistinguishable from each other if it weren't for the labels. Many of them had Training Space written on them, but one in particular caught 673's eye.

"Sir," he said, "what's 'Outside'?"

Greyback only laughed in response like 673 had told a joke and waved it off. "That's where all the scouts and soldiers go." He answered, and 673 simply nodded.

In the short time he got to know the Lieutenant and tried to ask every question he had, many were left unanswered other than some vague responses. "We have a noble purpose here," He would say. "After this basic behavioural training, you'll begin working with other sergeants and your teammates whom you'll meet at your orientation."

"Orientation?" 673 asked.

"Every new soldier has one," He replied. "For now, just focus on letting us control your hound."

Now, one week later, he was finally being led back to his room. They took good care of him in the time he'd gained consciousness, keeping him fit with plenty of meat and food, giving him small rewards like shorter training sessions if he was good, and fixing his glasses whenever he threw them off during his transformations.

As they walked in comfortable silence, 673 noticed how empty the hallways were aside from a few odd people walking about with security-type tools in their hands. There was a man who nodded respectfully at Greyback with long, brownish-blond hair — almost as long as 673's ebony hair, which went down near the middle of his back — and his ribcage exposed with sharp teeth, almost like some twisted second mouth.

Another man, this time with shorter, browner hair, had strange but eerily pretty sunset-colored crystals sifting and poking in and out of his body. He, too, gave Greyback a respectful bob of his head.

There was a tall, slender woman with the purest shade of white for her sleek, lengthy hair with deep red eyes and slits for pupils, her long and thin forked tongue darting out to taste the air. She smiled at the two men, her giant, venomous fangs glinting at them and the patch of scales over where her forehead and eyebrows met shining in the lights overhead.

673 chose not to question. One of the first rules he had learned was to keep moving, always obey direct orders, and never ask questions. He just wasn't ready to learn everything quite yet, at least, not until he became a soldier.

He was pulled out of his musing when Greyback stopped at a familiar iron door that led into the same little room that had greeted him upon his awakening. Greyback left him alone in his room after another pleased comment about his training and a kind goodbye, and the door was shut just a moment later.

He heaved a heavy sigh and slid down the wall to his left, leaning his head back against it and tilting it towards the ceiling. His muscles still ached a little from his training, and his head throbbed a bit but the coolness of the wall helped sooth it.

"I hear you're one of Greyback's new favourites," A voice suddenly muttered, soft and feminine and so familiar, almost sparking a blurry, distant image in his mind but remaining just out of reach.

673 flinched regardless, his head whipping every-which-way to try and find the source of that voice.

"Sorry," it spoke again, a hint of a chuckle behind its words, "I didn't mean to scare you like that."

"'Scared'?" 673 scoffed as he nervously rested back against the wall. "Nah, just surprised is all."

"Uh-huh." It — she — hummed, and 673 bit back an excuse at the sarcastic tone.

Instead, he asked, "Have you been here since I woke up?"

She chuckled. "No, I was moved here sometime after they took you to behavioural training. Not really sure why, but I'm positive you now by now that we don't—"

"Ask questions," 673 answered with whoever was on the other side.

"They probably had a good reason to. Maybe to show you around sometime and how things are done here?" She pondered. 673 agreed and there was a beat of silence. "What's the number they gave you?" She spoke again.

"Oh! Um— #673," He answered, and the person on the other side laughed angelically.

An image, blurred and muffled, appeared.

Joy and warmth with that same noise… so familiar…

"Your laugh is really pretty," He blurted, and immediately his cheeks felt like they had been doused in gasoline and set on fire.

"Oh! I — er — Thank you! I've, ah, never really heard someone compliment that about me," She stuttered. "Sorry, I just found it such a lucky coincidence because my number's 573,"

"Brilliant!" He laughed, and she did as well. "100 apart— How long have you been here?"

Her laughter died, and he could almost feel the frown on her face. "Oh, I don't know… Maybe four years? They've taken great care of me, though, and I've made it pretty high up in the system here."

673 whistled, resting his cheek against the wall. "Four years? It seems you haven't had a bad experience with it, though."

"Eh," she muttered. "The first year wasn't the best. All the new ones get picked on the most, but it gets better."

"Huh…" 673 mumbled under his breath. "Well, thanks for the heads up, 573." They both cringed a little at the long number used on someone other than their superiors.

"Yeah, we'll have to get used to that," 573 said, an embarrassed titter escaping her lips. 673 pondered their names, twirling a loose lock of his long, ebony hair around his fingers, and then he smiled, as if hoping it would brighten up his new acquaintance's day.

"What if I call you Five?" He asked, his voice cheery and light. "You can call me Six— Unless it'll be too confusing for the real 5 and 6."

"Five," she repeated, a giggle bubbling in her chest, "and Six… I think they're quite fitting. And you don't have to worry about the real ones; they've been gone for years now."

"'Been gone'?" Six muttered. "What— Oh. Erm… Well, did they go peacefully?" He queried, and there was an answering sigh on the other side of the wall.

"No one knows. They were two of the First, so I'm assuming they must have."

"The First?"

"A group of the original soldiers started here. It ran from numbers 1 through 10, if I recall correctly. You'll cover it all in your orientation training and continue to learn about the history over the course of being a soldier." said Five.

Six made a mental note of it and tucked it safely in the back of his mind. "So are you a soldier?" He wondered.

"Was. Now I'm a drill sergeant and the captain of one of the scout teams." She corrected matter-of-factly.

Another image flashed through his mind.

Brown and cinnamon.

He shook his head in annoyance, grunting simultaneously.

"Are you all right?" Five called sympathetically, and he nodded.

"Sorry, my head just hurts." He lied. Well, half lied.

"Oh! Then I can give you some quiet if you need! It's almost curfew anyways, and I'm sure you're exhausted by now—"

She rambled on for some time and Six listened in amusement, but those strange, new and unwelcome images kept flashing again and again. A hazy woman with tanned skin and white patterns — What was it? Vitil… Something… — with life and joy and radiating warmth all around, so close to him, as if he could touch her, as if he knew her , maybe in another time…

"Oh, gods, and now I've just kept you longer!" Five's voice suddenly cut back through his brain, making the images suddenly wash away into the unknown. "Six, I'm terribly sorry… I'll stop talking now so you can get some rest."

Six chuckled at her own enthusiastic fussing. "You're fine, Five. I like talking to you. We can continue our discussion tomorrow and maybe we'll get to see each other soon, yeah?"

She chortled. "I'll be looking forward to it, Six."

As Six settled into his bed, calling out "good night" to his new friend, all was right with the world and it would only get better from there.

A/N: First and foremost, I sincerely hope no comments are about how kinky the first part of the chapter is. My friend brought it up and now I must take precaution since yall read way too much smut, and to that I smh my head.

Anyways—

As promised, here are the name clarifications for the characters:

#673's nickname is Six given to him by his new friend. And hopefully you all can guess who he used to be before now.

#573's nickname is Five given to her by Six. Just like him, I'm sure you guys can infer who she used to be as well.

It's pretty straightforward and it's easier with the real Tests #s 5 and 6 being gone too.

I hope this story is going well for you all and, again, if you have any concerns / ideas criticism is welcome! Until the next chapter, I bid you all adieu!

~ Eclipse 3