Vivian opened her eyes, and to her surprise, she found herself in a glass box of some kind. The moment she picked herself up from the ground, a headache stricken her, making the awakening highly unpleasant. The girl leaned against one of the walls and focused. At first, she had problems seeing properly as her eyesight was blurry, but the more she tried, the more things started to take shape. The room itself had a simple bunk and a hole in the ground, probably for relieving oneself. Apart from that, it was baren – sterile even – nothing like a place one would like to live in.
Thanks to the fact that the walls were made of glass, she could see what was behind them. To her surprise, she was in some kind of a warehouse. Her glass box was not the only one there, however. Throughout the whole place, there were dozens of similar rooms with what looked like bodies inside. The ceiling was relatively high, but it was made with concrete and had no windows. The only source of light were the lamps that were shining directly onto the glass cages. She could notice a strange room at one end of the place and a corridor leading somewhere at the other. The room was just a metal box converted into something akin to a living quarter.
"Subject H12 seems to be in good condition," a voice made her focus on the person that approached her confinement. He had a rather deep voice with an accent that Vivian could not quite place. "Another fine specimen for testing."
"Testing?" The girl was confused at the statement. "What are you planning to do to me?" The man simply ignored her and moved to the cage beside hers. She didn't get a good look at him, but his bright blond hair grabbed attention. He was wearing a white lab coat.
"Do we need any more candidates at this time?" It was the Faunus that she remembered from the street. He must've been the one to bring her here.
"It won't be necessary, mister Sepia," the blond man answered. "We have enough stock for the time being."
The Faunus bowed and left in the corridor's direction, leaving the man with the 'stock.'
She once again eyed her surroundings to gather as much information as she could. It seems there was only one way in or out. All walls were made out of concrete, and they looked much too sturdy to simply break through them. At least not by purely physical means. The lack of windows made her think that the place could be underground. The metal quarter at the end of the room made her really suspicious about what could be there. Investigating the walls, she noticed a few alarms. Getting out of the cages was what probably triggered them. She started to wonder what kind of measures they had to respond to such alerts. She might soon check that for herself, but she wanted to get as much information as she could for now.
The scientist-looking man made some notes and recorded a few of his thoughts to a recorder box. After that, he took off through the only exit in the place, leaving Vivian alone with other people trapped in the same predicament. She sat down on the bunk and organized her thoughts. Her head was still hurting, but she closed her eyes and stabilized her breathing. That helped her calm and made the headache at least somewhat bearable.
Based on what she heard, she started to go through her conclusions, they need people for some kind of experiments. So it would be a valid assumption that they take her for the said experiment at some point. That would be an excellent opportunity to get the information she wanted to obtain by getting caught in the first place.
A loud scream tore Vivian from her thoughts. A wail of agonizing pain. Her first instinct was to go help the tortured soul, but that would jeopardize the reason why she was here. Another yell coming somewhere from deeper in the complex. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't pleasant in any way.
After some time, someone entered the premises of the room she was imprisoned in. Vivian immediately started observing the individual. He was not very tall, but he was very athletic. Dressed in leather armor with a simple design that bore a symbol of a King Taijitu eating its other head engraved on his chest. His hair was a matted mess of light blue, but his eyes were bright and brilliant. He moved in an unorthodox way for a man as he skipped and hopped almost like a child.
"Please, help me." Some voice from one of the cages tried to reach the man, but he ignored it and moved further into the room.
Vivian tried to identify who was speaking, but their voice was too far to distinguish the person inside. The childlike man continued his peppy step while someone else entered the room.
"Where do you think you're going, Yakshith?" it was a woman dressed in a similar white lab coat as the blond man. She had long silver hair that turned purple at their ends, matching the color of her eyes.
"Just looking around," he answered with a smile that drastically twisted his expression. He no longer looked like a normal man but more like a manic beast. "Why do the rest of the team get to have fun while I do nothing most of the time?"
The woman sighed. "Because we pay you to protect the facility, now get out of here." Her last words were strong, forceful even.
"Why can't Rory play the role of the guardian? Or even better, Kain! He's perfect for that kind of labor," his smile vanished, turning his face into that of a normal man again. Vivian was amazed how such a small change completely distorted a man.
The silver-haired woman was getting visibly annoyed. "Rory is much more suited for intel gathering, but if you really want to get some job in the field, I can recall Kain."
The disgusting grin returned to Yakshith's face. "Great."
He skipped past the woman and disappeared from Vivian's field of vision. The woman, however, took a few steps to get closer to her glass cell. She looked directly into her eyes, smiled for a brief moment, and turned back. What was that? The Huntress started to think about what just transpired. A few names that might be crucial. So the small man was Yakshith, and he mentioned Rory and Kain. Seeing as Kain was mentioned not being in the facility, it's safe to assume he's not the man that brought her here. They were probably some muscle employed by the lab coat duo. Most likely Huntsmen, but she wasn't sure yet. And there are four of them? She still remembered that the blondie referred to the Faunus as Sepia, so with Yakshith, Rory and Kain, that should be the whole crew. At least with the information she had now, it was a safe bet.
She was waiting for quite some time before anything else happened. The room was generally quiet, not taking into account some moans and grunts from the cages nearby. The atmosphere here was grim, but she wanted to know exactly what was going on before she was to attempt an escape. Finally, the blondie and the silver-haired woman entered the area talking about something Vivian could not hear. They were followed by Yakshith and Sepia close behind. They stopped at her box, and the man opened the door with a card he had on a chain on his hip.
"It seems your time has come faster than suspected," the blond man said, looking intrigued.
"Why is that even, Aurelius?" Yakshith asked, picking his nose with his pinky.
"Aurelius Moridun Blaine, you uncultured swine!" He said, angry, while Sepia put cuffs on Vivian's hands. "But why indeed?" He turned his attention to the silver-haired woman.
She measured the Huntress from head to toe. "They have something about them. I believe it's the right subject to expedite our efforts."
Aurelius sighed with one of his hands raised dismissively. "If you believe so, Aria."
"Korin," the woman addressed the Faunus. "Can you and Yakshith transport the subject to the main laboratory?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said and pushed Vivian forward.
The scientists went to the makeshift quarters while the two hired muscle led her through the complex to a room not so far from the one she was held in.
"Why do you have to be so proper all the time?" The smaller of the two said in a sarcastic tone.
The Faunus scoffed. "They pay us good money. The least I can do is keep them satisfied with our work."
Yakshith scoffed right at him. "I don't see the appeal. We're good at what we do, so why bother with the all 'nice attitude' towards the employers?"
"Because with that attitude, you could find yourself without a job when this one ends," Korin said, still pushing Vivian in a specific direction.
The girl was examining as much of the layout of the place as she could. The corridor they were using split into a T cross at one point. They went right while the left seemed to stretch much further into the complex. After just a short while, they stood before a large door.
"Why so silent?" The smaller man leaned forward to get his face closer to Vivian's. "Practically everyone before you was franticly trying to know what the hell was going on."
"I think I can infer what is going on from the context," she said, still looking around.
"Looky here, Korin," the mocking tone of the man stung Vivian. "We have an intellectual here."
"Would you please be kinder to our subject?" Sepia opened the doors with a card he had on him. Vivian tried to look into it, but the Faunus was too fast in hiding it inside his coat.
When the door slid to the side, the girl noticed what was inside. Strange machinery that she has never seen in her life. Not many people were actually inside, apart from the crew that probably worked on whatever project took place in there.
Yakshith moved in front of her with his arms behind his head. "The same look as all the others," he smiled, which made him look unsettling. "Had the same expression the first time I saw what was going on here."
When they ventured deeper, she started noticing steel cages that seemed out of place. However, what horrified her to the core was what she saw inside them. They looked like people but morphed in some way. Many had abnormal growths coming out from strange places on their bodies, while others had black marks all over. This didn't look natural in any way. Suddenly, one of the people inside a cage jumped towards them, growling like a wild animal. Vivian had the time to take a good look at the man, and she was startled by what was inside. It looked like a human-Grimm hybrid with very distinctive Grimm hands. His entire body was misshapen with teeth growing in places where there should be none and an eye on his leg that gazed in all directions like it was searching for something in a panic.
A horrifying beast that no longer could be called human. So that's what they are doing here? She could not believe her eyes at the unethical practice that took place here. She felt another push from the Faunus captor when he noticed she lingered for a bit too long at the monstrosity's cage.
"Forward," he said, with his chill and soothing voice. "There's really nothing to stare at."
"Oh, I feel like I've seen enough," she rebuked and activated her semblance. It was time to get out of here.
She broke the cuffs with one of her tentacles, and with the rest, she lashed out at the captors. Yakshith flew against a nearby machine and dropped to the ground while Korin was held against the nearest wall. Vivian took the key card from the Faunus and flung him away. She ran to the door they went through and used the card on the reader.
When the passage was opened, she took off as fast as she could. On the T section, she went straight, and soon after, the alarm started blaring. There was a door on the left, but it didn't look like a way out. Thanks to her semblance, she could move faster than an average person. Especially in corridors like that, as the walls were excellent support for the additional limbs her ability provided.
Another random corridor took her to a room with some strange equipment that she didn't care about. It was a dead-end, so she circled back to find a different way. The alarm was still blasting, and the complex guards were rushing from different directions to stop her. Using simple guns, she could block the bullets with her semblance. She disposed of them with ease, but the longer she tried to find the way out, the more stressed she was getting. A more extended corridor she was traversing was another promise of escape. And there they were: the doors at the end of the passage that could be the exit.
She dashed forward when suddenly she felt a strange sting in her right arm. An odd numbness started spreading across it, slowly engulfing her entire body. She fell to the ground, unable to move or to use her semblance. Soon after, the face of Korin Sepia showed in her peripheral vision.
"You're a troublesome one," he stated and shot a web at her leg and started dragging her behind himself.
While she was pulled by the Faunus, she tried to gaze at the door behind her. If that was the exit, she was really close to getting out. She was angry at herself for that failure. Another kind of drug that made the target paralyzed wasn't so farfetched when she was put to sleep when he first got her here. She should've considered that possibility.
Vivian was thrown into her cell again. The Faunus took back his key card and locked the glass cell when the two scientists she saw earlier entered.
"Why aren't they in the laboratory?" The silver-haired woman boomed with anger.
Korin stood up straight in a militaristic manner. "She broke free and tried to escape," he said, looking at the woman with a calm eye. "That's why the alarm went off, ma'am."
Blaine raised his eyebrow, looking amused. "It seems you were right about there being something about her, Aria."
"What happened?" The woman asked, still aggravated.
"She must be a Huntress or some kind of bounty hunter," Korin stated. "She used an unusual semblance where she created Grimm-like tentacles and attacked us."
The demeanor of the woman changed wholly after hearing that. "Grimm-like, you say?"
"That is most peculiar," blondie added, looking at paralyzed Vivian. "Maybe she's the link we were missing?"
"Can I be dismissed, sir?" The Faunus asked.
"No," Aria answered first. "I want to make sure that an idea of escaping will never come to their little head again."
Sepia was a little rattled by that statement. "Is this really necessary, ma'am?"
"I gave a precise order," she glared at him. "Now deliver her punishment."
With a sigh, he opened the door to Vivian's cell and kneeled before her. "I hope you won't take it personally."
Korin raised his left arm, and she noticed a strange contraption strapped to his forearm. It seemed like a dart launcher with an automated loader. A pretty hefty device that could be used to shoot poisonous darts at a distance. That must be how he got me right before I got to the door, she thought. The Faunus took out one of the darts and injected the girl with its contents.
Her heart started to beat faster, her mind spinning. An unexplainable terror started to cloud her judgment. The adrenaline pumped uncontrollably through her system, activating her fight or flight responses. However, she could not move because of the previous toxin. The feeling of powerlessness empowered the sense of fear, which in turn made her want to run even more. A vicious circle that intensified her fear with every second that passed. She tried to scream, but the only sound that came out was a muffled sigh. It was a vivid nightmare she could not wake up from.