Oh look an update.

Buffer has definitely run out now, the next chatper is half complete, but I have work ful time to Sunday and LLaL to work on, so it could be a while before it goes up.

Enjoy x

Chapter 9: The Favour

Despite himself, Fang was feeling nervous.

Walks through Rapture with Ari were rarely full of lively conversation, and today was no different, but the preteen could feel the weight of the silence pressing on his shoulders as they crept from room to room. The pistol felt heavy against his right thigh, the curve of his hook hard and cold against his stomach where it had slipped under the hem of his shirt; even the dilapidated rooms felt smaller and colder than before.

Where are we going? He wondered as they climbed over a pile of rubble. The bricks were damp and slippery, and he wondered why until he noticed the wall used to be the back of a bathroom stall. A broken pipe was trickling water from the ceiling, another where a toilet used to be trickling onto the already sodden floor. Fang jumped the puddle before following his partner into the unknown.

Beyond was another foyer, as disused and crumbling as the last three they had encountered. Broken signs that no longer lit up hung from above doors at peculiar angles, some of the letters occasionally flickering into life before dying a second later. Most of them were unreadable and, after attempting to decipher two with no success, Fang stopped paying attention to them and instead watched Ari more closely.

The usually confident wolf boy was walking with a hint of insecurity; he kept glancing over his shoulder as if afraid of a surprise attack, clutching the pistol on his belt at the slightest noise. Though Fang wasn't entirely sure if this was his imagination or not, the fur that covered the boy from head to foot seemed to be raised slightly, like a threatened dog.

He'd never seen Ari so unsettled before.

Recently, Fang had hypothesised that Ari was lying to him. While he could not deny that the boy had been in Rapture for years before his own arrival, he had doubts, both about the kid's backstory and his reasons for being in Rapture. Most importantly, he no longer believed that Ari was a failed experiment but one still in operation for The School. That would explain how he always knew where for food and ammo stores were, though Fang had never seen him store anything in his time here. It also explained why everything felt so staged.

Either he, or the School, could control the splicers.

But, if that's true, the preteen mentally debated. Why is he acting so nervously now?

Something in his gut told Fang that while he had control over most of the splicers in the area, Ari's influence didn't spread to the whole of Rapture. He had no idea how far this influence could reach, or if some splicers were immune to it, but this had been a part of his theory only because of their first interaction with a Spider splicer – Ari had seemed honestly shocked at its appearance and, while he recovered fast to shout instructions, it had been the first time Fang had witnessed real fear on the wolf-boy's face.

Fang glanced about discretely. Until now, that is, he reminded himself. This area was certainly not familiar, and the caution in Ari's step told him they could be in some danger here. His own hand went to the pistol in his pocket and closed around the handle as his eyes darted about the dimly lit room, yet there appeared to be nothing dangerous in sight.

That was when he heard it; a soft childish voice humming to a tune Fang recognised. Without meaning to the teen stopped dead, his hand loosening on the gun handle, his eyes unfocused on the back of Ai's head. Had he been paying attention he would have noticed the boy pause too, but instead he was lost in his own private flashback, the sights and smells of Rapture enveloped by a memory.

Four-year-old Fang was curled up at the back of his dog crate, legs tucked to his chest and arms wrapped around them, silent tears trickling down his face. Due to his advanced aging it was decided that the boy was ready for his first endurance and puzzle solving tests, since he was physically seven or eight years of age.

Now, minutes after it was all over, the events of the day refused to leave his head. Jeb had been there for some of the tests but he'd had to leave him in the care of another scientist to do something and, despite his promises, never came back. Fang had spent a day being hauled from room to room either in a crate or in the arms of an Eraser and forced to run test after test.

First came the puzzle solving tests; mazes and logical conundrums where he was required to think of a solution within a given time limit, or be shocked by the electrodes attached to his forehead. The scientist told him it wouldn't hurt, but it did. The shocks made the tears on his cheeks prickle and burn.

Next came the physical trials, requiring him to run, jump, and attempt to fly until every muscle in his body ached. Even then they forced him to continue until he could only collapse and let himself fall from the end of the treadmill, the pain caused by such an action drowned by the pain he already felt.

The door slid open, allowing a small slither of orange into the room before they closed again, plummeting the child and the other dying experiments back into darkness. It was supposedly night-time, the time for rest. In most other rooms the lights were left on at all times, but Jeb had convinced his boss to turn the lights out for him, hoping it would help him sleep better.

Fang still spent most nights awake, drifting in and out of a doze, unable to relax.

He knew what would happen before it actually occurred: The front of his crate opened a crack, and a hand found the boy's head, slipping warm fingers into his greasy hair. Jeb had returned too late, and Fang couldn't tell if this visit was in regret or to see how he'd dealt with the tests. Four-year-old Fang didn't even care; the hand extracted a soft whimper from the child, who curled up in a tighter ball, sniffing into his knees.

The man began humming softly as he stroked the back of the young boy's head, something Jeb had done to calm him for as long as Fang could remember. He continued until Fang was in a deep sleep.

A hairy hand smacked the preteen on the back of the head, jolting him back to the present. He glared at Ari, but the kid ignored it, instead pointing at the doorway and motioning him for him to be quiet. Placing a hand on his pistol he crept after Ari into the next room.

Given his partner's unease, Fang expected the room to be filled with splicers. Instead it was mercifully empty, and he dropped his to his side before he noticed the two occupants to the far left, by a window. Leaning slightly against a wall was a single corpse in a pool of deep crimson. At his feet, much to Fang's surprise, was a little girl.

He had yet to meet a child other than Ari within Rapture, let alone a single person that still possessed some rationality. Confused, he threw a look at Ari, but the boy had pressed himself to the far wall and was motioning for Fang to do the same. Still confused, the bird kid complied, keeping his eyes on the little girl as Ari gave out instructions.

"That's a little sister," he whispered harshly, loud enough that he'd expect the little girl to notice, but she seemed enthralled by the corpse before her. "If you can get close enough, she'll have more ADAM on her than half of the splicers in this place."

Fang turned to Ari, wondering how it could be hard to get to a little girl, before turning back and watching in a sick fascination as the little girl extracted a syringe attached to a needle as long as her forearm from her dress and plunged it into the corpse's neck, humming all the while. A shudder went through him.

Maybe that's what Ari meant?

Ari gave him a little shove, making the preteen stumble away from the wall. When he turned to confront him, the hairy kid put a finger to his lips, before pointing to the little girl. Fang looked back at her again; she was still humming that familiar tune, slipping the needle out of the corpse with a slick, wet sound before shoving it back in a new place.

Glancing back behind him, he saw Ari motion to the pistol at his own belt, before aiming two fingers at the back of the girl's head. Minus the needle, Fang was still having trouble contemplating how this girl could be dangerous. He could grab the contraption she was using and hurl it across the room; then what could she do? Did she have a plasmid?

Shrugging, he slowly withdrew his pistol from his pocket, checking he still had a full clip. He hadn't used a gun since he'd gotten a plasmid, and briefly he considered simply using electrobolt to take the girl down instead. But Ari was supposed to be teaching him, right?

This had to be the best way.

He advanced on the little girl with gun raised, aiming at the back of her head. He noticed when he got to within twenty feet of her that his arm was shaking, and raised the other to steady it. At least everything else in Rapture had been trying to kill him.

This little girl, despite being a little dirty, still looked like a little girl from behind; she had greasy hair hanging in down her back in knots and her dress was ripped and stained in only God knew what fluids. But as far as he could, tell she was still just a girl, and shooting her felt wrong.

The girl stood, and Fang paused, watching in disgust as she tilted back her head and poured the deep crimson contents of the syringe into her mouth. The thought occurred to him that maybe this is how she got her ADAM. He had no idea how that worked, but if she could steal the ADAM from dead slicers it made sense she had more of it than anyone else in Rapture.

Then the girl turned and the teen froze in place, gun still aimed at her head. Her eyes had no pupils, the entirety glowing a sickly yellow that glowed in the dim lighting. Her skin was the pallor of the blood-drained splicer at her feet, the red around her lips making her look white as a sheet. She was barefoot, and was hugging her now empty blood-collecting device to her chest, the fear evident on her face.

Then she screamed.

Fang pressed his palms to his ears, the shriek so shrill he couldn't tell if she had screamed actual words or simply cried out. His head had a high-pitched ringing sound echoing behind his eardrums and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could help ward the noise – and the associated pain - away.

It was only a few seconds before she stopped and, opening his eyes, Fang was curious to see that the girl hadn't moved. She'd taken a few steps backwards, but she was still watching him intently, her face creased in fear. He heard Ari mutter a curse but when he turned around, the kid was nowhere in sight.

Where has he gone? Fang wondered. And then he heard it.

The crashing started a few rooms over, behind him, and he span on the spot and took a few steps back, now oblivious to what the girl was doing. Whatever was coming towards them sounded terrifying, and a part of him was telling him to protect the little girl he'd been about to kill. He turned to see she had scuttled into the corner of the room.

That's probably the safest place for her, he thought, just as the noisy offended burst into the room.

Without the time to study the creature, the only thing Fang had time to comprehend was that it was huge. On reflex he spun around and ran for it, allowing his full mutant-enhanced speed to take over and propel him into the next room, leading the monster away from the kid.

The next area was mercifully empty. He still had no idea where Ari had gone, but with no sign of him in this particular room he didn't have to worry about him. A quick glance over his shoulder showed the monster to be almost as quick as himself. With the metal beast on his tail, he had no chance to study it; he needed to find some higher ground and take a second to get his bearings.

Two more rooms went by before he found what he needed; a dilapidated central hall covered in staircases and balconies. With as much force as he could muster, Fang ran across the room and launched himself as the nearest balcony, leaving all faith in his mutant genes to allow him to jump that high.

His hand caught the base of the balcony, and he swung the other up to grasp a banister, climbing until he reached the rail at the top. He threw all his effort into hoisting himself up and over, landing with a thud on the carpet. He rolled over and peered through the banisters down at the creature that had been chasing him.

It was definitely nothing he had seen before; it appeared to be clad in a heavy diving suit, the holes in the visor glowing a deep red. The suit was rusted and worn, but seemed to be in working order otherwise. What sent a flutter of concern through Fang's stomach was the replacement of the hands of the suit with a massive drill on the right hand, and a large piece of machinery on the left that looked suspiciously like a gun.

A gun that was currently raised at his face.

He rolled backwards, hearing the gun fire, and kept rolling until he hit the wall behind him. Using his elbows to sit up a little, he noticed that the banisters of the balcony had been speared with large metal rivets. Just a foot above his head, one was embedded in the wall.

Reaching for his own gun, Fang shuffled along the wall on his stomach and elbows, hoping his progress would be unseen from the ground. A few seconds later, the creature opened fire at the balcony where he had been just moments before, confirming that it hadn't noticed his movement.

He got right to the end of the balcony and stopped. No plan had formed in his head yet, but there was no way he was getting out of this without taking the creature down. He looked down at his pistol, aware that it would barely make a dent, before cursing silently and pressing his forehead to the sodden carpet he was resting on.

There had to be a weakness. There had to be.