Warning: Yaoi (Bran/Will) (Rider/Will)
Author's Note: The plot bunny bit me. Hard.
"Welcome, gentlemen." Greeted Mr. Charles. His charismatic hazel eyes twinkling, he gestured for them to sit. "I'm pleased to meet you. You realize that you guys passed with flying colors on the recruit test?"
"Thank you sir." Bran said stiffly.
"Anyway, we have a small assignment for you. It's not very challenging, but it's perfect for helping you gain experience in the field." The Director of Operations paused as he took a quick sip of his coffee, the aromatic scent calm and soothing as it wafted throughout the room. "Will, from your file here, it says that you're from the Buckingham area?"
Will nodded.
"Excellent." The man smiled, pleased. "Then you ought to find little trouble in navigating the territory. There's a suspected drug ring in the area, and I thought that you two could go in and check it out. You will go under these aliases."
Bran looked at Will, gave a small, almost unnoticeable shrug of his shoulders, and took the two wallets from Mr. Charles, tossing the silver marked black wallet to Will, after briefly glancing through the contents.
The Old One studied his new ID, a small quirk of his lips indicating his amusement at his new identity.
"I hope these fit you two. If they don't we can always find another identity for both of you." Mr. Charles said eagerly. "But for now, Bran is Mr. Daniel White, a troubled and wealthy heir on vacation, and Will can assume the identity of Mr. Michael Rowan, a paid bodyguard."
"These are fine." Will said calmly, looking at Bran, who nodded his head in agreement.
"Wonderful!" Mr. Charles beamed, standing up to shake hands with the two new agents. "Mrs. Carson at the desk will hand you everything else you need, and your flight to Buckingham can be booked anytime between now and the end of next week. It's been a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you a successful mission."
-------
The limp bodies floated eerily in the vertical, cylindrical tanks filled with a glowing green liquid. Numerous monitor attached to their bodies showed that the people within were barely alive, only a brief flicker on the screen indicating that the forms were not corpses.
"As you can see," Wasp said with a frown, "Normal people simply can't withstand the treatment. I've tried from babies to seniors, wealthy to slum people, but the super-soldier enhancements simply cause their bodies to overwork so much that they end up no more than a shell of what they use to be."
"What happens when you remove their bodies from this fluid?" The red-haired man asked, intrigued. A shiver of delight ran down his back as he thought of his most hated enemy helpless and suffering in one of those green tanks.
"This." Wasp said simply, and he hit a button. Immediately, a tank containing a young girl started draining. The figure inside did not react at first, but once the liquid moved below her head, a terrible shriek clawed its way up her lungs. Her veins suddenly started bulging, as her body started thrashing desperately. By the time the liquid had drained to her knees, she went into a spasm, her body shuddering like a ragged doll before a red light flashed on the screen of the main monitor.
"So they die?"
"Yes." Wasp said, his long, tapered hands tapping thoughtfully on the drained tank now containing the dead girl. "They can't adjust to the sudden change quickly enough. They need the liquid to keep themselves alive. You could compare it to a drug addict who needs his drug, but is forced to go through withdrawal within less than a minute."
"He can go through this." The red-haired man almost cooed. His dark sapphire eyes flashed with a disturbing look, of insanity, of hatred, of lust. For a moment, Wasp felt a chill as he stood in the red-haired man's presence, the tattered remains of his soul suddenly realizing the infinite and malevolent darkness that made up the soul of his companion.
"Come to me." The Black Rider whispered, a terrible smile on his face. "Come to me, Old One, and suffer under my hand for all eternity."