"The tears are falling freely now, and I don't care if he sees them. They're tears of relief for my nephew, worry for my grandfather and my brother, and shame for my mistake. I figure I earned them."
― Theresa R. Funke, V for Victory
Dan let out a pained yelp as Mylene rubbed his arm furiously with a washcloth soaked in antiseptic. His eyes sparkled, but no raindrops fell. He hissed as the burns split and blood gushed forth, staining the already crimson cloth even further.
"Damn that hurts," he hissed, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes shut. Shadow was holding onto Dan's uninjured arm while Hydron kept his hands clamped around Dan's left wrist, keeping his arm extended. Mylene, who had somehow gotten her hands on medical gloves, was now wringing out the washcloth again after dipping it in a basin of cool water. On her other side, she had a bottle of what Dan assumed was alcohol from the way it stung.
This was the second session they had had to try to disinfect his burns after they found him unconscious on his bed. When they woke him up, he had no idea how he had gotten into the bed when he was still soaking wet and not wearing any clothes, but the first thing he had done was scream from the pain in his arm. That was when Mylene noticed exactly how swollen it was and started to get as much of the burned, dead skin off as she could. After that, it had felt much better, and Dan was able to get some sleep. Now she just wanted to minimize infection and forced him into these sessions.
He groaned as she raked the washcloth up and down his arm again, and squirmed to try to stop the pain. "Agh!" he yelled before ripping his hand from Hydron and Mylene, both of who shot him a glare.
"We're trying to help," she snapped before grabbing it again. Dan gave her a look.
"Yeah, and I appreciate that, but god, that freaking hurts!"
"Yeah, we kinda got that idea when you kicked me in the face!" Hydron shot back, rubbing his darkened chin before tightening his grip on Dan's wrist. Dan sighed.
"I already apologized, but I'll do it again: I'm sorry. It hurts!"
"We get it," Shadow sighed. "Mylene, can we please shut him up? Pretty please?" She sighed.
"Dan, if you keep complaining, we'll get one of Shadow's socks and stuff it down your throat. It'll go a lot faster if you quit interrupting us."
"You say that now, you'd agree with me if you were the one that got branded," Dan grumbled, but shut his mouth anyway.
"Do all humans do this?" Myriad Hades, who sat on Shadow's shoulder, asked. The three Vestals turned their gazes to Dan, but then Mylene dragged the washcloth up and down his arm again. He hissed, but tried to find Myriad Hades so he could answer.
"Do what?" he asked through clenched teeth. "Ow, ow!"
"Shut up already! Don't make me gag you!" Mylene growled. Dan stiffened and hissed as she rubbed the alcohol along the wounds, then yelled out in pain.
"Stop people when they're trying to help because of pain?" Hades continued.
"Probably! AGH! Shit, Mylene!"
"Lync!" Mylene shouted. "Get something to shut Dan up!"
"You know, you seem to be really angry today," Hydron muttered as he pulled back on Dan's wrist, trying to keep it in one spot as she mopped up the blood that was seeping from the wound.
"I am not," Mylene denied, shooting Hydron a malicious glare. "I'm just getting really annoyed by Dan stopping me all the time."
"No, Hydron's right," Shadow agreed. Mylene glanced at him, wringing out the washcloth above the reddish water. "You're much more angry than normal. Kinda like the way you used to act."
"Can we talk about my personality issues later? Lync!" she yelled. "Get in here!"
"Geez, calm down, Mylene," the pink haired teenager muttered, holding a towel. "You might be interested to know that I was monitoring something on the computer."
"Is it more important than getting this guy to shut up and let me help him?" Lync blinked.
"What's eating you?" he asked, a trace of his old way of speaking leaking into his voice. "And yes, it is more important than getting him to shut up." Mylene and the others glanced at him weirdly, and Mylene's alcohol-soaked washcloth stopped just shy of Dan's arm.
"Thank god," he sighed. She shot him a glare, but then turned her attention back to Lync.
"What's going on?"
"We're getting signal readings that seem to be originating from Earth on the computers we protected!"
"What?" the four brawlers in the room exclaimed. Dan scrambled from his position on the floor to his feet and ripped his arms from Shadow and Hydron's grasps. He sprinted from the room into the computer room, followed swiftly by the ex-Vexos. He skidded to a halt behind Volt's computer, making him glance up at Dan in mild surprise.
"Lync, I thought I told you not to tell them until-"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I thought this was more important than ripping skin off Dan's arm and hearing him yell from down the hallway," Lync muttered, cutting Volt off. The larger male sighed as Lync took his seat nearby. Dan followed Lync and stared over his shoulder at the pulsing circle in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
"Is that the transmission?" he asked. Lync didn't respond at first, instead took the time to divert the image on his screen to the screen on the wall. Dan quickly moved to the camera in the wall and stood in front of it, hoping to conceal what they were doing from the Gundalians. If he got another branding, he knew he'd regret doing that, but at the moment, he needed to see if they could contact his friends. If they could, he'd take whatever punishment they gave him with a smile.
"I was analyzing it for video when Mylene yelled at me to get something to shut your mouth with." A window came up with a streaming bar on the bottom, and Dan's fists clenched. Immediately after that, he let the fingers on his left hand unfold. It was almost like something inside his arm was pushing at the skin, and the pain was rather intense.
Thirty seconds later, the entire screen was filled with random text, Vestal symbols, and numbers. Dan stared at it in confusion while Lync bit his lip, typing seemingly random commands into the computer.
"It's not video," Sid said from where he was sitting at the table. He was watching the text scroll down the screen with disinterest. "Is that a beacon?"
"A probing message?" Shadow asked. He looked up at the ceiling and rubbed at his hair. Dan was beginning to suspect that Shadow saw things on the ceiling from the number of times the guy did that. "Again?"
"Again?" Dan repeated, shooting a hopeful glance at Shadow. "You mean you've gotten these signals before?"
"We got them once, a little over a month ago," Volt said.
"That was before these freak shows showed up, but a little before Sid did," Shadow smirked.
"I'm glad to see that I'm not included in the,"freak show" description," Sid muttered, but still sported a small sneer.
"Well, we know that they have to be real freaks if Shadow's calling them a freak show," Hydron pointed out from where he was leaning against the other camera. Shadow gave him an insane grin before jumping up on the table and sitting there.
"What can I say? I'm one of a kind!" he cackled. Dan stared at him.
"I guess that's one way to put it... What's a probing message... uh, beacon, anyway?"
"It's a message that can be accepted on any computer server that is able to intercept signals like them," Mylene explained, pulling the bloodied gloves off her hands so that they were inside out inside each other. "Basically, if someone wanted to see if a planet had the technological capabilities to harbor life or aid them, they'd send out a signal like that. Distress signals work in a similar manner, except with a specific purpose."
"So, if we send out a distress signal, they'd be able to pick up our signal?" Dan asked. Mylene gave him a hardened look.
"We tried in the beginning, but our signals were blocked. We also didn't have specific coordinates or a signal path to lock onto and hijack. We could try again, since they protected the computer from complete shutdown and now we have this signal, and maybe we'll get lucky, but the odds aren't very good."
"Well we have to try!" Dan exclaimed. "We have a path we can use! What's the simplest message we can send?" The others stared at him for a moment, surprised by his insistence.
"Um, it would probably be a distress signal," Volt stated, still looking a bit taken aback. "Do you think the Brawlers found our location?"
"I don't know, maybe they did," Dan shrugged and made a fist with his right hand. His expression hardened into a glare, which he swept around the room. "We can't just pass up this opportunity, regardless of whether or not it was Marucho!"
The computer beeped, earning a "Huh?" out of Lync, who hurried to type commands into it. A new window popped up on the screen in the center of the room, featuring several more lines of seemingly random text, numbers and symbols. This time, though, another window popped up, this time sporting a video clip. His jaw dropped, as did the jaws of all the others in the room.
The video showed Keith and Ren standing in a metal filled room, screens rotating behind them. The computer-table was in the center of the room, and Mira, Alice and Dr. Michael were punching keys on it. "Greetings," Keith said.
"Spectra?" Mylene breathed.
"You have received this message because the signal of a black Dimensional Gate has been traced to this planet," Ren announced. Dan's mouth dropped open.
"We know for sure that two Vestals have been transported to this location via this Dimensional Gate, and it is of our concern whether or not they are alive," Keith stated. His expression was completely serious, just as serious as it had been when he told the Brawlers about the Alternative. Dan pursed his lips. "Their names are Mylene Farrow and Shadow Prove."
"If you are aware of the whereabouts of these individuals, please contact us," Ren said in his calm, soft spoken manner. "And please contact them."
"Thank you," Keith said, and then the screen closed.
The group stared at the message in a dumbfounded silence for a moment, then Lync and Volt turned back to the computes. After trying to punch in several commands, Lync gasped and Volt let out a sigh. Lync ran a hand through his hair and licked his lips before trying to hit several more keys, but Dan and the others had already sensed that something was wrong.
"What's the problem?" Hydron asked as he twisted his a lock of hair around his finger. Dan tensed at Lync's lack of response.
"What's wrong?" Mylene questioned.
"Our SOS won't go through," Lync replied, sounding nervous. "Do you think-?"
"Nice try, brawlers," Kazarina's voice filtered through the intercom. Dan flinched, as did some of the others. Mylene growled and Sid looked absolutely murderous. "A futile attempt, I'm afraid."
"What do you want, Kazarina?" Volt asked calmly.
"I'd watch your mouth if I were you," Gill muttered, and then a screen appeared in the center of the room. Gill, Kazarina, Stoica and Airzel were all standing together, along with a young man with light brown, unruly hair. Dan stared at the teen in confusion and fear. This was a human... and he looked familiar!
"I think you know who this is, don't you, Dan?" Stoica snickered. Dan stepped away from the camera, keeping his right hand over his still bleeding arm, and toward the screen. The teen, who was being held between Gill and Airzel, smiled weakly at Dan.
"Hey... sorry about this," he said. Dan's eyes widened.
"J-Joe?!"
"H-hi..."
"Wha-how-what are you doing here?!" Dan demanded, slamming both hands down on the table. Immediately he regretted it. He yanked his left hand off as though he had been burned, grimacing at the pain that shot up his arm. Airzel and Stoica smirked in satisfaction as Dan returned his bloodied hand to the wound, and he hissed.
"I'm sorry, Dan. They tricked us."
"Us?" Dan's face contorted into anger. "Barodius! What the hell are you trying to do? You already have me, why do you need him? Joe has nothing to do with his!"
"I beg to differ, Kuso." Barodius's voice filtered through the room, but the puppetmaster himself was not on the screen. Dan was so angry, though, that he missed the guttural, echoing edge to his enemy's words.
"What the hell is your problem?!" Dan demanded. "I understand taking me, but Joe and Mylene and the others? They have nothing to do with this! Let them go!"
Kazarina chuckled before wrapping her arm around Joe's shoulders. The teen stiffened, then gasped when she pressed her index finger against his jugular. Dan and the others in the room hissed while she slowly stroked his neck. "Now now, Dan," she taunted, pulling him close to her. Joe winced and held his arms out to keep his balance. Kazarina sneered, then lifted her free hand so that it rested just above Joe's shoulder. "I suggest you hold your tongue. Otherwise, Joe will find himself in a rather... painful situation." Electrical charges at once began to course down her hand. Joe gasped and jerked backward, but the witch kept her in place. Kazarina chuckled maniacally.
Dan growled. "Leave him alone!" he yelled. "I don't care what you do to me, just leave Joe and the others alone!"
"Quiet!" Gill warned. "Listen to what we have to say, and he won't be harmed." Dan hissed, but held his tongue this time. "Good."
"Dan, we have taken two important things from you," Airzel said. "Joe here is one of them. The other is not your immediate concern."
Dan's mind raced in horrible fear. What-or who- else had they taken? His fists clenched, even his left. The pain, which was like a raging fire, was the only thing keeping him sane. All eyes in the room were on Dan as the Gundalians continued.
"Unless you cooperate, those things will be harmed," Gill said. "But in a few days, they, and your friends with you there, may just have the opportunity to escape."
"What?" Dan and the others exclaimed.
"Did he just say what I think he said?" Shadow cried.
"Are you toying with us or are you actually serious?" Hydron asked, coming away from his position on the wall to stand beside Dan. He was twirling his lock of hair absently and rested the elbow of that arm in his right hand.
"Oh, we're deadly serious," Stoica snickered. "But on top of that, we have a deal to offer you! What do you say, Dan?" Dan hissed, his yellowing teeth clearly visible.
"You have to give us your full and utter cooperation until we receive the powers of the Sacred Orb," Barodius growled. Dan's nails dug into his hands so hard that he could feel the stickiness of his blood wetting his fingertips. "And you will give us the powers of the Sacred Orb."
Dan growled, just as his shoulders began to shake from his anger. Stoica and Kazarina chuckled, Gill and Airzel smirked, and Joe had a murderous expression on his face.
"Don't do it, Dan!" Joe yelled. Kazarina's hand began glowing with electricity again, and Joe's eyes widened slightly, but he continued with a strong voice. "I can only speak for myself, but I don't think whoever was with me would want the universe to fall into the hands of these psycho's!"
"Shut up," Stoica snarled, elbowing Joe as hard as he could in the stomach. The teen let out a grunt of pain and grimaced, but still raised his defiant gaze to fix itself on what Dan couldn't see.
"He doesn't remember?" Shadow muttered softly to Mylene. She gave the screen a confused look, and Dan let out a yell, making her and the others start. "Huh?"
"Dammit!" Dan's voice cracked. "Dammit! Why are you doing this to us?"
"Heh, what do you know? King Kuso looks like he's gonna cry!" Stoica jibed. Dan let out an animalistic snarl and slammed his left fist down on the table. The agony that shot up his arm like a cannonball made him scream out, dropping to his knees as he clutched his arm. Pain shot up his legs and back as well as all the other bruises on his body. His eyes stung from an alien wetness, but when he opened them, the liquid that he had expected to be there was gone.
"I'll give you a little while to think it over," Gill said, and the connection closed. Dan stared up at the place where the screen had been, conscious of the gazes of his allies as though it was a physical sensation.
"Dammit," he hissed. "Dammit! What the hell? What the hell do they want from me?"
"Dan," Lync said quietly. The Vexos and Sid all watched him silently, either with sympathetic eyes or angry ones. After a moment, Dan slowly got to his feet, his eyes devoid of emotion.
"Dan?" Volt asked. Dan didn't acknowledge his call. Instead, he slowly and painfully made his way to the door. Before he could make it out, though, Hydron's hand closed around his right wrist. Dan stopped, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground below his feet.
The teen watched him for a moment with serious eyes before Dan began to sway. Hydron's eyes widened as he quickly moved to support the injured seventeen year old, pressing one hand around Dan's left shoulder. Lync started to get up to help when Hydron shook his head, and the pink haired teen stopped.
Slowly, Hydron helped Dan leave the transmission room and make his way to his own room. Each step seemed to be a great feat all of a sudden, and Hydron was surprised. This Dan was the complete opposite of the one that had been with them ten minutes ago, grinning even though he was a captive at the mercy of ruthless freaks of nature. Now, each movement seemed to bring this teen pain, no matter how small or slight. Hydron wouldn't admit it, but the feeling that was growing in his stomach seemed to be returning from three years ago.
Gently, Hydron helped Dan sit down on his bed. The door closed behind them, preventing any sound that might leak out from doing so. Dan nodded up at him silently, and when Hydron got a look at his eyes, he was shocked by the sheer and utter hopelessness that lurked there. It was like nothing he had ever seen before.
"Dan, are you okay?" were, ironically, the words that poured from his mouth. Dan averted his despondent gaze, and Hydron put a hand gingerly on his shoulder. "Hey. Come on. I know it's a stupid question, but are you okay?"
"Hydron, what do you think?" Dan asked, a small spark of anger showing through his expressionless mask. "Of course I'm not okay! They could have hurt him, and whatever else they took... What if they took Runo?"
Hydron's gaze had been serious and concerned, but now morphed into surprise. "That blue haired girl? So she really was your girlfriend?"
"Why 'wa-oh... yeah, she was..."
Hydron's eyebrows creased. "What happened?"
"It's nothing, really," Dan said quickly as he tried to avoid the question. "But-"
"Dan, what aren't you telling me?" Hydron prodded. Dan's eyes narrowed. "Its obvious that you don't want to talk about it, but it's important that you say what's wrong if you have the opportunity."
"How would you know?" The hard, steely edge to his words was clearly meant to slice through Hydron's persistence, but he wasn't fazed. "It's not like you've ever been in this position. You were a prince."
"You had no idea, did you?" Anger had fixed itself in the former prince's voice. "Everyone assumes I had it so great. 'You were a prince.' 'You had everything you ever wanted.'" Dan glanced back at his bitter tone, a trace of surprise glimmering in his eyes. Hydron scowled. "Tell me, Dan, did you ever expect that I had to put up with what you're going through now? Except my father was the perpetrator?" Dan stared at him, at his dark facial expression and fists that were clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white. He lifted his gaze in astonishment.
"There's no way," he began, but Hydron whirled around and ripped off his vest, then the white and orange shirt that had replaced the black, white and orange outfit he had worn before. He yanked the fabric over his head, and Dan's eyes widened in recognition of what he was seeing.
Raised, thick scars criss-crossed all over Hydron's pale back, and when Dan glanced at what little arm he could see, he noticed a scared ring around his bicep. Then, his eyes returned to the scars. The mind-boggling, horrible discolored marks. His back was full of them, and they ranged from where his shirt was wadded up against the base of his neck to the rim of his pants. Some wrapped around the side of his body and faded from Dan's view, and that was when he noticed that Hydron was shivering a bit.
Dan couldn't speak for the disbelief that choked him. His lips were parted in an eternal expression of that speechlessness. He thought that his own burns, bruises and whip lashes were bad, and the burning on the backs of his legs from Sellon's whip suddenly grew more intense. He was conscious of every wound on his body, from the bloody welts in his palms to the healing lacerations on his wrists, the burns on his arm to the whip lashes on his shoulders and legs. The bruises all over his body pulsed. And yet, the knowledge that Hydron had endured all this from someone he should have been able to trust made his wounds seem like bee stings at worst.
"I..." Dan's feeble attempt at words made Hydron chuckle, and he lowered the shirt easily. He tugged it over his belt and then reached down to where his brown, furry vest laid on the ground.
"You don't need to say anything." Even though he was smirking and his voice was nonchalant, his eyes were still cold. Dan didn't fail to miss that. "I hated you." Dan blinked. "I hated you and I hated Spectra more than you could possibly understand." Hydron's cold eyes had dropped even further in temperature, now rivaling the icy sting of liquid nitrogen. He kept them averted, though, as though aiming them at a person would cause immediate frostbite so severe it would kill. "You and the Brawlers kept me from doing what my father asked, and he blamed me for failing to colonize New Vestroia. He blamed me for losing every battle, and when Lync managed to give Alice the Alternative Data, I was punished. I didn't even get a single word of gratitude for all my work for him, either."
"That's horrible," Dan breathed as he reached for the bloody washcloth, which was floating in the bucket of water on the floor. He watched Hydron glare into the corner with a look of sympathetic sadness on his face, which then contorted into anger. "How can someone do that to their son?" Hydron glanced at him in startled surprise. Dan's loud voice must have bothered him. The grip on the washcloth tightened. "It's just... that's not right, not at all!" Dan looked up, his eyes sparkling. "How can someone do that? A parent is supposed to love their child with everything they have! How can they just shut themselves out of that love and turn to hatred like that?"
"I don't know," Hydron mumbled. He had looked away again.
"Why did you keep fighting for him?" Dan's voice had softened, and Hydron's shoulders stiffened.
"He was my father," he whispered. "And my mother died when I was young. Her last words to me were, "Support him." Thinking about it now, I guess my actions couldn't have been what she meant." Dan shook his head slowly and sighed.
"I guess even on Vestal, people are suffering..." Hydron nodded silently. "And on Gundalia... and I guess Nethia as well." Hydron looked at him as he suddenly rubbed furiously against his burns. His jaw dropped at the force Dan used to wash the blood away, and how he didn't even hiss in pain. His jaw was simply clenched against any sound, and his eyes were narrowed in a wrath reserved only for his enemies.
"What are you doing?" Hydron asked, looking disgusted.
"You told me about your past even though it was painful," Dan said through clenched teeth. Even though he was good about not uttering sounds of his discomfort, the pain still leaked into his voice. "So I think it's only fair I tell you mine. That was your plan from the beginning, wasn't it?" Hydron said nothing, but the answer still hung in the air, as clear as day. Dan smiled vainly as the fading tan color of his arm reappeared.
"I wrote a letter to Runo the night before I was taken here," he grimaced. "I had just gotten back from Gundalia without telling her I was going. The same way I left her when I came to New Vestroia the first time." Dan's expression darkened. "In it, I wrote that I thought we should break up, and I was going to send it the next day. But even as I went to sleep, I was thinking about it and worrying about how she'd take it."
"Then why send it?" Hydron asked. Dan didn't answer at first, instead dipped the washcloth in alcohol this time before wringing it out and wrapping it around the wound. This time he hissed, obviously trying to resist the temptation to fling the bloodstained cloth across the room.
"I decided not to," he growled, his shoulders shaking. "It was in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep. And after I made that decision, I fell asleep. And then I woke up to the nightmare that landed me here."
"But you didn't send it." Dan shook his head.
"No, I didn't. But the fact that I even considered it disgusts me. And now I might die here, and that letter is still there. I regret it now, and I can't tell her. If I die, then they'll find it for sure, and she'll think that all she ever was to me was some passing thing, and oh my god, she wasn't!"
Dan's eyes, for the first time since he battled against Spectra and Drago, sparkled with tears in the midst of enemies. The enemy was Hydron no longer, but the eyes in the walls, the ones that followed him almost everywhere. "And, god, these bastards are taking the people I love, and they're going to hurt them because I'm trying to do the right thing. That's just..." Dan pursed his lips, his voice breaking, and Hydron stared on in amazement. He never thought Dan would break like this. Dan was falling, and falling hard. "That's just too much, you know?" His voice had suddenly softened, and Dan's fingers tightened around the washcloth.
He wiped his eyes with his undamaged arm, careful not to get the alcohol on his eyes. "I'm not crying because of the pain in my arm," he said. "I'm not crying because these people are hurting me. And I'm not going to deny that I'm crying, because denying it is the weakness, not the tears. I'm crying because I know if I give in, and I really, really want to give in, I'm putting everyone, the people I love, the people fighting to redeem themselves, and all those people with their lives ahead of them in jeopardy! And I don't know if I have the strength to hold up!"
Dan's voice cracked, and Hydron turned his head away. Here was a pure hearted seventeen year old kid, a true hero, the one who had had the strength to pull through every obstacle Hydron and the Vexos, Masquerade and Naga, and all of his other enemies had thrown at him. And now, after being thrown to the ground a million times and getting back up a million and one, the hero was slipping. Dan held the key to salvation in his hands, and it looked like he was losing his grip on it.
"I'm sorry," Dan said quietly after a moment passed, and Hydron was amazed at how he managed to keep his voice mostly steady. "I'm sorry to have to put all that on your shoulders." Hydron stared at him.
Dan had fixed his gaze on Hydron's boots and looked up when they were obscured from his view by his knees. Hydron looked up at Dan from where he was down on one knee on the ground. He reached up, placing one hand on Dan's shoulder. Dan's unusually wet eyes, though dryer than a moment before, opened a bit more.
"Dan, you don't have to apologize," he said, sounding nothing like the snobby, spoiled prince Dan had known at one point in time. Hydron smiled. "In situations where you think you have no one and the world is crashing down, you need to talk about it. You need to know you have friends to lean on." Dan gaped at him, and the blond smirked. "I won't tell, but you know, you can lean on us now. We're not the same people we used to be. We can all kinda tell that you're nervous about trusting us after all we've done, even though it's barely noticeable." Dan gave him a sheepish grin and slight, nervous laugh. "Trust us. We'll help. I mean, to the best of our ability."
"Thanks man," Dan whispered, forcing a smile. Hydron smirked, lowering his hand so that it was poised in front of him.
"When we get out of here, I have first dibs on a brawl." Dan took his hand.
"Fine by me, pal!"
Man, it feels SOOOO good to be back! Writing has never felt this good ^_^ I hope I can write like this for a while longer. For the next few weeks, I'm going to be getting freaked out by school starting (I go back on the 29th or 30th or something of August, which is really annoying) and scrambling to do my summer reading, because I haven't done it yet... You know, just classic teenage procrastination for ya!
I hope I didn't make the Vexos and Dan seem to OOC, please tell me if that's what it seems like. It's kinda hard to figure out exactly how he'd react to this situation...
Review!