Optimus/Kid, thanks so much for the suggestion~ :D I love you, no srsly. You're fabulous. About the typos, I'm rly blind. I wear glasses and I have poorer eyesight than both of my glasses-wearing parents combined. Please forgive me. I try to spot them, but my blindness is in the way. = w = Thank you for being understanding and using context clues to know what I'm babbling about. Now read and review, plz~ :3
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He was strapped down to an iron board with brown leather belts. He couldn't move. He couldn't writhe or squirm. His feet, knees, waist, wrists, torso and neck had all been belted down to this flat, cold surface. He couldn't wriggle free at all. He was trapped, and his heart raced insanely. He felt something warm dribble out of his eyes and trickled into his mouth, but he couldn't wipe the tears away. His tears stung, but he didn't know why. His breathing was frantic and with that belt crushing his trachea, it was rather hard to breathe as well.
"F—Father!" He screamed. "Father, what are you doing to me!?"
It was a young Stein, only 13 years of age. His father had summoned him into his lab to conduct further research, but wouldn't tell Stein exactly what kind of research it was. 'It's something you need to help me with, Franken', his father had said on the way there. 'It's something very important, and regards your future as a technician.'
His father held something metallic in his hands. It looked like a charcoal-colored metal rod of some sort. What was its purpose, and why did it involve Stein being strapped down? His father had a warped grin on, unable to control the small stream of laughter that escaped through his teeth. "This'll greatly improve your abilities as a technician, Franken, don't worry." His father explained. "Haven't you ever wondered why there's a giant nail lodged into my neck?"
Stein froze for a moment. Yes, he had noticed it there countless times, but had never said anything about it. Knowing his father, Stein didn't want to ask. He didn't want to know the horrors behind that dreaded tale that he could only imagine. There was a giant nail, a big bigger than an inch thick, lodged into his father's neck. One tip was sharpened, the other quite rounded. What use was that to him? How did this improve his abilities as a technician? How did it get there? So many questions formed in his adolescent mind as he cowered in fear.
"My father put it in my neck when I turned 13, Franken, just as you have only a few short days ago. He discovered that greatly heightened the ability to resonate and it will perfect that 'Soul Purge' attack I taught you."
"I—I don't want it!" Stein yelled back at his father. "I don't! I don't want that thing to be in me!"
His father's manic expression drooped, "Why not?" He said through gritted teeth.
"It's unnatural!"
His father scoffed, "Pfft, that's all?" He tightened his grip on the rod and took a step closer towards his son, who cringed. "You're afraid of a little power? YOU'RE the unnatural one, Franken. All of us Steins are…We're descendants from a Kishin who lived more than 200 years ago. The insanity still hasn't left us, and this'll be your mark to prove that you're a Stein. You won't need to depend on anyone with this, Franken! You'll be ahead of everyone else, you'll be incomparable. Why would you want to reject superiority?"
"You're insane!" Stein protested, screaming as loud as he could muster with that strap tightly pressing against his windpipe, like hands forcefully clutching his neck to choke him. He could see that certain vicious glint in his father's dark grey eyes. He started to walk slowly around the metal board Stein was strapped to. With each step, Stein's heart raced a little faster.
His father smirked, "So are you." He said in a sort of malicious whisper.
Stein didn't have enough time to breathe in before his father quickly lodged the rod into his brain. Two areas in his skull had been broken, and his brain had been pierced by this metallic rod. Blood spurted out rather quickly, seeping into his dark grey hair. Thick and sticky from fresh blood. And that sound that he had heard. Oh, that horrid sound. It was his skull cracking. It reverberated in his head, and he only heard the sound of his heart in his ears. Thum. Thum. Thum. That heightened sound screaming at him wildly. He knew this would be how he'd die. He couldn't have any hope of living with THIS thing in his head…But then, how did his father manage to survive with that nail in his neck? That must have gone through his windpipe and esophagus, and not to mention many important arteries and veins connected to his heart and brain.
Stein's brain was completely overloaded with pain, though he hadn't passed out yet. All he could do was scream his lungs out and let waterfalls of tears erupt from his eyes like blue volcanoes. Involuntarily, his limbs started to flail around as his screams continued. His father knew beforehand that he'd need to be strapped down. He couldn't break free. Still struggling, though it was entirely useless.
His father was far from finished with this 'operation' though. There was also a head to the screw, but his father hadn't bothered to fuse the two just yet. His father's bloody palm held Stein's head to the back of the board, preventing him from moving too much and further damaging his tender nervous system. In his right hand, he held the head of the screw, and while Stein was rather still at this point, connected the two pieces. With quick reflexes, his father had placed a hand on the new screw and used his wavelength to fuse the two pieces together.
It had solidified after a minute or so. Stein's father removed his hands and stared at his son for a moment. Stein was shaking hysterically and his bottom lip quivered constantly. His eyes were wide and pupils contracted in pain and fear. Tears were still streaming from his eyes. His father stared at his only child like a lab rat who was given the duty to determine whether or not something was fatal.
"You turn it like this," Father instructed the unresponsive son, taking the grey screw in his hand and twisted it back, sending some of the electrical currents in his brain to other parts of his body and to his soul. Stein's clawing hands buzzed a bit like a shorted out electrical appliance, and bits of static traveled and darted around. "See?" He smiled.
Stein did nothing at all to respond.
"I'll come and get you in a few hours," His father said carelessly, turning towards the door, "You're already strapped there, so it's not like you'll be moving anytime soon. Try to tell the rest of your body not to reject that new foreign object in your skull. It could get pretty messy in here if you do." He smirked deviously and shut the door to his lab, leaving his only son held down on that board in the dark, feeling as though he'd die from the pain alone at any moment.
Stein's felt like his throat would collapse. He used all the remaining energy he had just to keep breathing. Everything hurt so much. He was mystified as he hadn't passed out. Maybe there was something his father had given him previously. A drug? Perhaps, it sounded like his father. "F—Fa…" Stein tried to utter, "Fa—…ther. He…He…Hel…Help."
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"Modi!" Stein called loudly, trying to locate the son that he never wished had happened. He didn't see any children at all. While he had been gone who-knows-where for six years, Death City had become sort of a rundown place. Of course, he could still see Shibusen in all of its prestigious glory not far away, but the suburbs were most of the students lived looked shabby and neglected. Litter and rats collected up in alleyways and he could hear the shrieks of mangy cats as he passed them.
There! He saw two little blurs cross his path. Both were of children, one that was obviously female, and the other a male. The little girl had dark black hair and a pale face. The boy he recognized to be his own son. The two were holding hands in an effort to stay at the same pace while running quickly.
"C'mon, Esuba!" Modi yelled at the little girl. "He'll catch us if we're not fast enough!"
"Modi," The girl cried rather helplessly, "You're hurting my wrist!"
And the two ran off into an alleyway. For being as small as they were, they were strangely speedy. Stein took off after the two, running quite briskly himself. He rounded the corner to the passage that the two children had managed to slink off into. "Modi!"
Instead of the two children he had anticipated seeing, he saw a young man of about 16 or so with dark blond hair and malicious brown-grey eyes. Beside him was a feeble girl with her dark hair pulled into two big pigtails on the back of her hair that stuck out wildly. Stein assumed that the two were at least relatively close in age, but this girl seemed so much younger than the boy, maybe 12 or something of that sort. Her eyes were strange, very strange indeed. One eye was of a milky-white variety, while the other was a turquoise blue, though the white eye was slightly covered by her long black bangs.
"What do you want?" The boy seethed angrily. Between his lips was a thin cigarette gently hissing with smoke that curled around his head, floating about him like some sort of divine halo.
Stein was at a loss of what to say. This boy looked remarkably like Modi, though couldn't have possibly aged 10 years in the time Stein managed to turn a corner. Stein opened his mouth to say something, but closed his again. He eyed the small girl beside him who shrank behind him timidly. The boy clicked his tongue, and within a flash of red light, his right arm turned into a rounded blade similar to the head of a scalpel. "Get the hell away from her." He said forcefully, gritting his teeth.
Stein took a step back, surprised at how quickly this boy overreacted. He should get to the point; he wouldn't want Marie waiting (for him to return with Modi) endlessly. "I'm looking for a six-year-old named Modi."
"Why?" Was all the weapon replied with, keeping the blade raised high.
"He ran away from me; I'm his father."
The boy grinned wickedly, "You've left us yet again, eh, Dad?" He chuckled, his arm warping back to just a regular limb.
Stein blinked, "What?"
"Some 'Father' you are to me, Stein." Modi spat, "You've ditched us again. This time, it's been ten years. Where the hell do you go? And how have you managed to not age? It's been a while, ya know."
Stein blinked stupidly again. What? Ten years? He had done another 'evaporation' which he had no memory of doing so? All he did was turn a corner, but somehow he had managed to skip ten years of his life? HOW!?
Stein said nothing and tried to regain a serious expression, "So you're a weapon I see…" His eyes darted over to the girl, "She's your technician, I assume?" The pair seemed very unlikely. Modi seemed too overpowering for a frail little thing such as her.
"Yeah," He replied, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her close, "She's my technician, Esuba."
"What's with her?" Stein asked, "Can she speak?"
The girl nodded once, though Modi spoke for her, "She doesn't like to talk much. She saves her voice for her singing."
Stein rolled his eyes and decided that she was unimportant, and switched topics of conversation, "What bout Marie, is she waiting at Patchwork Laboratory for me?"
Modi shook his head twice and blew out a cloud of smoke from his cigarette. "Nah, she left three years ago to continue patrolling Oceania. Shinigami-Sama said it was about time she went back there. She just got sick of waiting for you to show up, but you never did. I live there now, with Esuba."
Stein let out a sigh. He was asking too much of Marie to keep waiting for him, even if he didn't know how or why he left. He felt sorry for her; deep down, she was probably resenting this child. She probably never wanted him to happen either, at least, not like this. An abortion for someone like Marie was totally out of the question. She could never live with herself if she had.
Stein's train of thought changed again. He lives with his technician? Well, that wasn't all that uncommon, now that he thought about it. The pair of weapon and technician usually live in the same house or ridiculously close to one another. What slightly annoyed him though is that they had decided to live in his house, Patchwork Laboratory. Couldn't they've picked some other location? There were some things and places that Stein didn't want Modi tampering with. This little bastard proved to be more than Marie could handle, and Stein could only imagine what kinds of trouble he got into.
Though he would admit he started smoking at an early age, he was rather put off that his son had picked up the nasty habit as well. Had Stein been a short influence, or was his son like a mirror of himself?
Modi looked displeased, "So do you actually plan on staying in one place now, or are you going to disappear for another five to ten years again?" He breathed out another cloud of smoke, acting all superior and smug in front of Esuba. "Personally," He said with a cackle, "I don't care if I ever see you again. You've not been much help to me or Mom anyway. It's best you just get the hell away from us." He said, glaring at Stein, then pushed him out of the way, their shoulders ramming against each other roughly. Esuba trotted after Modi like a lemming, "Wait, Modi." She squeaked. "He may be able to help us."
Modi glared back at his technician, ripping his wrist free of her delicate grasp. "Help us with what? He couldn't help Mom, what makes you think he can help us?"
Esuba paused for a moment, and sighed a little. "I researched your family like you asked me to a while ago," She said lightly, in her feathery voice.
"And what? What did you find?"
"He's not as useless as you say he is," Her thin lips curved upwards to form a faint smile, "He dealt with the witch, Medusa. Remember her?"
"Of course I do!" Modi said in a huffy tone. "She keeps invading my thoughts."
Stein looked a little confused, "What do you mean by that?"
Modi looked at his father like he was some kind of village idiot, "While you where who-knows-where, Medusa came back a few times to look for you. She needed you for whatever reason, she'd never tell me why. She never talked to Mom, but she'd come and ask me things. She still has that child's body, you know. She used magic to prevent the girl to age. Quite an advantage, actually." Modi shrugged lightly.
Stein glared angrily at Modi, "You should never have talked to that witch!"
"Mom always told me 'make friends'," Modi smiled arrogantly. "It just happened that one of my friends was a witch." He glanced in Esuba's direction for just a moment, "No, I take that back, two of my friends are witches." He laughed lightly, "Have a problem with that?"
Stein put two and two together. He smiled lightly as well shaking his head twice, "I should have known. That eye was rather suspicious. So your technician is a witch?"
Modi didn't reply to Stein's question. "We're taking our own path, Stein. I don't need parental approval for me to choose my own path in life. I'm using this witch as my technician, because no one wants the kind of power I seek but her."
Esuba smiled rather eerily, her eyes closing half-way and looked remarkably like a life-sized doll. "The power of a Kishin." She whispered to herself, "I'd be a commonplace name in the witch world if I held a Kishin at my power, you know." She said rather calmly, nodding once at Stein.
"Modi, no!" Stein roared at his son, grabbing him by the shoulders and shook him vigorously. "Did your little witch there do any research on my great-grandfather? Hmm!? Does she know what happened to him!? Do you know that WE are direct descendants of a Kishin!? If power is what you desire, I'll pierce your heart with a pin like my father impaled me with a screw! Like my grandfather did to him with a nail!" He continued to shout, clearly enraged by his son's poor choices.
Modi laughed haughtily, "You're a little late for that, 'Dad'. I've already eaten more than seventy human souls. Only twenty more and I will become a Kishin."
Stein relaxed, and released his grip from his son. He stood there stupidly. How warped his son had become. Marie raised this child? How? Marie would have been the perfect mother, and maybe there didn't even need to be a father for her to raise the perfect child. How did little Modi Stein, timid and distant, age to become this monster?
This boy continued to remind him more of himself. If he was a weapon, he probably would have sought to become a Kishin. But Spirit was the weapon, and was a pretty good-natured guy. He'd never agree to become a Kishin. But here was his son, using his witch of a technician to become a Kishin.
"So you really do side with the witches, hah?" Stein muttered to himself.
He imagined his son would be something like Chrona. Poor little Chrona. Because of her mother, she had stepped onto the path of the Kishin, but had tried to amend her ways when she became a trial student at Shibusen. She had Maka to help her, like there was Spirit to help Stein. Modi didn't have a person to help him. By the sound of things, the only friend he had was this weakling witch. But then again, maybe looks were deceiving. Stein didn't know any of her powers, but her Soul Protect must have been honed over time. It could be that protecting her soul was her only strong suit.
Medusa was an immensely powerful witch, but Stein could still feel traces of that aura that only a witch possessed radiating out of her like the sun. Although, if it was Modi that had decided to make her his technician, she'd have to be stronger. Stein knew first-hand that both technician and weapon want their other half to be powerful. Spirit had a rather weak personality, but what he lacked in social relations, he make up for in endurance. Pathetic as he was, Spirit was a reliable weapon.
He cringed to see the kind of power his son held within him. He knew that eating innocent human souls could make weapons stronger than eating the eggs of a Kishin, though Shibusen considered it to be a sin. Haven eaten more than 70 souls, Modi was probably unbelievably strong for his age.
Stein didn't like this reality. As curious as he was to see his son's power, he didn't want to hear that his son joined the witches' side. This all had to be a dream. Or at least something of the sort. Maybe Stein should leave this life behind and move to Australia, where he could at least apologize to Marie. Modi was old enough to take care of himself, and if he wanted to become a Kishin, then Stein decided it was his choice to. Arguing with him would be useless, Marie already proved that.
He just shook his head once and turned around on his heel, trying to leave the alley. He felt a hand on his shoulder, "Just there the hell do you think you're going?" Modi asked him in a snide tone.
"Home," He glowered, pushing Modi's hand off of him.
As he walked away, he could still hear Modi and Esuba chatting. "Though he will protest, he seems to know a lot. We should keep him around. He said something about a pin, do you know about that?"
"If you impale vital your vital points with a metallic object, your abilities strengthen. I found one of Ein's old books in one of Stein's rooms. It doesn't matter if you're a weapon or a technician, it does more than triple your power."
"You might want to arrange that with him, Modi…"
"Tch. He probably was just talking to shut me up. I doubt he'd keep his word. He never does. "
Stein retraced his steps to Patchwork Laboratory. At least the exterior of his house hadn't changed any. The dead trees were still uncared for and make his house look ever so ominous. The gloomy atmosphere that had enshrouded his house hadn't left one bit. Thick clouds almost always seemed to be gently hovering over the roof. He clicked open the door, it wasn't locked. He figured that since Marie left, Modi would never lock the door. The bastard was too conceited, it'd all eventually come back to him.
He sighed a great sigh and ruffled his hair, taking of his rimless glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes. Today had been unbelievable. All he wanted to do was just pass out on a couch and fall into a coma. He walked into where his office had once been; maybe the room had reassembled itself when Marie had left?
He flicked on a light, gazing at the room. All of the picture frames had been taken down. In their place were the same old books and scattered papers that Stein remembered. The bookshelves were depleted and rather disheveled by this point, but it had, after all, been 16 years.
Everything was fine and dandy. Well, not quite. His grey-green eyes floated over to a woman sitting in this green-and-white stitched chair with her legs crossed and a sly smile on her face. Panic surged through him as he saw a child's body leaning against the edge of the desk.
"Medusa!?" He shouted, entirely appalled.
"Ah," She smiled lightly, "You remembered me, that's good."
"What the hell are you doing in my house, Medusa! Get out of here." He shouted through gritted teeth.
"Ahw," She sighed playfully, rising to her feet and wandered over to him, pressing herself against his chest. "Is that any way to treat an old friend?"
"We were never friends." Stein replied coldly.
One of her black-nailed hands gently caressed his face, "My, Stein, you haven't changed a bit." Her golden eyes flickered for a moment. "It seems that hammer woman…Maria was it?"
"Marie," Stein corrected her.
"Yes, her," Medusa said calmly, taking Stein's glasses off as to see his eyes clearly. "She's out of the picture now. You've got no one here. Why not come with me? After all these years, I'll still welcome you." She smiled gently, giggling lightly.
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Bahhhhh. D: Oh yeah, little kid body in the corner is supposed to be that Rachel kid. FYI. Oh, and Ein is Stein's dad. Lol, Ein Stein. You knew it had to happen. ;D So yah, some SteinxMedusa happening here, though I don't really like the pairing. Just deal for now. Geev me more ideas? D: Running out soon, MAN. So yeah. Peace out.