Generator Knight / Obligations, Obligations (2/2)
Summary: Providence has the cure under 'control'. He's kind of a jerk.
Ships: None
Verse: Generator Knight (AU with roleswap elements)
Characters: Rex, Holiday, Six, Knight
Warnings: Some blood
A/N: this concludes the first two chapters in the Obligations-verse! Next few are probably going to be something different. who likes rocks.
everyone started off the same as canon (Six was a mercenary being trained by One, Rebecca Holiday was getting her PHDs, Rex was at the Nanite Research Facility, and Knight was...you know, whatever he was doing), but a few events changed them early on (Six joined Providence a little too early, Holiday's hasn't been revealed, Rex never got injured so he never got the first nanite batch + he volunteered to be bleached out of a sense of duty to fix what his family did, and Knight's hasn't been revealed but has been hinted at)
YellowAngela: Yup, some of them will have multiple chapters because sometimes I can't stop thinking about them. And some of Knight's motives are revealed in this chapter (TL;DR: instead of hating EVOs like in the show he hates humans. Rex is the most human-like human on Earth since he has no nanites)
Consciousness crashes down on him with the force of a feral EVO; quick, brutal, headache-inducing. Rex regrets lowering the tint on the visor to see the sky better — the bright walls and lights pierce his skull and blur his surroundings. A twitch in his index finger later, the room turns from a white, shaky blob to something bearable to look at.
He's lying down on a bed in a corner of the lab. Not that it helped much, his suit had enough cushioning by itself.
The exosuit's power readings are low, but nothing too dire. Nanite shielding integrity was still at 100%. All systems functional. The digital clock being turned off to conserve energy was a bit of a bummer; it was difficult to tell the time deep in the bowels of headquarters.
Dazed, he stares at the ceiling of the lab. He was just at the skatepark, wasn't he? With Noah. Who left, and he was waiting when someone walked up to him —
The pistons react to his will and he snaps up, eyes wide and hands shaking.
Knight.
His heart's hammering against his chest, there's beads of sweat rolling down his face. His back's lit up with pain from the sudden movement, but all he can think about is the laughter and the screaming and growing prickle of electricity dancing across him —
"Are you alright?"
Rex swallows, and breathes in deeply. His heart's beating in overdrive and his mouth feels dry. No, absolutely not.
"What happened?" he doesn't want to admit he's scared, he doesn't want to think about the events that occurred yesterday (or a few hours ago? Two days ago? The temptation to flick open the digital clock just for a second is tangible) but curiosity gets the better of him.
"Holiday interrupted a poor assassination attempt," Six is organizing something in a drawer, facing away from Rex — taking out a few bottles, examining them, and putting them back down. There's nobody else in the lab but them, and the Petting Zoo's dark. Nighttime or a power failure. Rex decided it was the former.
"I probably could've guessed," Rex replies, trying to keep his voice from wavering too much. It's not the answer he's looking for, and he doesn't like the implication that he's too weak, but it's technically correct, "The specifics?"
"She wants to talk to you first."
Rex huffs. Typical. Maybe he should assign mandatory reports to her.
"Here," Six throws something towards him, and Rex catches it without really thinking, "Antibiotic ointment and some dressings. Just follow the instructions. You should probably lie back down now."
Does cream really need instructions? Rex keeps the thought to himself, instead focusing on the sting on his back and the ache on his shoulder as he lowered himself; he trusted Six to tell him if he had any major injuries, so he supposed he got off easy.
"Did they catch Knight?"
The change in the mood was swift as Six jerked upwards and tensed. One of the bottles fell from his grip as his hand moves towards one side of his jacket, but he stops himself.
"...Knight?"
It's the side of his jacket with the dagger.
"Yeah, the person who, you know, tried to kill me. Didn't Holiday mention him?"
"She wasn't in the mood to talk," Six's sunglasses are pointed at him, scrutinizing him. His hand clenches and he wrests it away to shove it in his pants pocket, "Didn't catch his name before she knocked him unconscious. Are you sure?"
"I mean, I don't know if it's his first, last, or nickname," Rex shrugged and made note of Six's jilted movements — this was the most emotion he's seen on Six in months, "But that's what he introduced himself as."
Hesitation. A rarity from Six; he usually moved with a purpose, as if he was reading lines from a script and playing his part on a stage.
"He," Six starts, and pauses as if looking for a direction, "Probably needs medical attention, right?"
Rex turns his head to face Six and stares. "Uh, sure?" that certainly wasn't a question he was expecting from him, "Though he's probably got EVO super-healing or whatever. Remember the one time with the frog?"
"The one that woke up mid-dissection and kicked Dr. Fell in the face. Yes," his voice sounded hollow as he wandered around the lab, picking up miscellaneous items — a bottle of painkillers, some white bandages, more antibiotic ointment. Notably, one item was a glass of milk that another scientist had probably forgotten about, held firmly in his right grip while his left arm held everything else.
"Oh! Speaking of him, Knight was biomechanical!" there's only been one other biomechanical EVO, and that one disappeared in thin air before any agents could stop its rampage, "Dr. Fell would have a…field...day…"
They've dissected human-like, sentient EVOs before (He couldn't watch. He couldn't even read the report. Holiday was similarly shaken up, and Six was a bit snappier that week — his higher-ups, the people truly running Providence, repeated to him that they were dead, they were dead when Providence found them, but Rex heard them shouting for help and sometimes he still heard them late at night) but Knight looked strikingly like a normal human when he didn't have metal fists out.
Six started walking out faster. Rex pushes himself up to follow, but Six abruptly stopped and turned to him. "Stay here. You need some rest."
Oh. I'm not going anywhere.
The laser turns on, and it cuts a circle in the glass like a hot knife through butter. He's careful to pull the glass away towards the lab, as opposed to chucking it outside to the Petting Zoo — Six would notice. Six would always notice. From his vantage point, he can see Six stride towards the cages right underneath the observatory; it was eerily quiet, no crocodile EVOs growling or bird EVOs squawking.
It works to Rex's advantage. His sound receptors are turned up, until he can clearly hear Six's steps through the undergrowth and the clattering of plastic against plastic.
The footsteps stop, and he's standing right before a medium-sized cage moved away from the rest. Six kneels down to look inside.
A sharp exhale.
That was definitely Knight's cage.
"Knight —" it seems like the words are caught in Six's throat, and he instead thrusts out the glass of milk, "Here."
A hand reaches out from the bars and hovers over the glass, and Rex can imagine Knight's face reflecting his own confusion.
"This isn't drugged, right?"
"No."
"Nanites'll probably break them down anyways. It's useless."
"I know."
Shuffling inside the cage before an empty glass is presented. How fast can a guy drink milk?
Six grabs the glass, his gaze still fixated on what Rex assumed was Knight.
"So, I assume you're Dr. Fell, then?"
The glass shattered in Six's hands — did he just crush it? What were they made of? — and he's standing up all of a sudden, pose rigid. It doesn't even look like he's noticed the blood on his hand, the scars on his fingers, the glass shards embedded in his palm — he's looking down at the cage, completely absorbed in his own thoughts.
Rex was glad Knight was apparently as jumpy as he was — Knight's yell of surprise masked his own yelp.
He's also glad that he was winded, because in one fluid motion Six brandishes the dagger right at the cage, unsheathed and gleaming.
There's movement in the cage that Rex assumes is Knight frantically pushing himself backwards.
"Do you remember this?"
There's a gap between Six's question, asked with an unwavering voice despite the knife shaking in his hands, and Knight's answer. Rex didn't blame him; that was unexpected, even for the enigmatic Six.
"That's —" Knight swallows thickly, "That's a tantō, right?"
"With the bushido symbol of loyalty engraved on the hilt," the tantō's lowered, but he's still shaking, "Whether for good or ill, our fates will follow the same path."
"Our?"
"You gave this to me," Six's indifferent expression is strained, bordering on a scowl or a hysterical smile, "Right before you left. It's been four years, Knight, where the hell have you been?!"
The last few words were roared out, and a flock of bird-bat things shoot out from a tree, screeching. The audio receptors similarly screeched and his ears rang as they approached overload, more and more noises being added on as the residents of the Petting Zoo stirred.
"We're suppose to be partners," it's quiet, with raw emotion leaking from the cracks; Rex is vaguely surprised he can even hear it at all, mixed in with the cacophony of EVOs and the indistinct shouting of newly awoken agents.
A rhinoceros EVO barrels into the clearing, ripping apart the cage, and whatever answer was planned falls silent.
The blood drew them there.
Six was shouting for him to move, but Knight's staring down a huge horn inches away from his chest — A bit more and it would have pierced me, he thinks, as the horn's wiggled backwards and out of the cage, What an unsatisfactory way to die.
He looks around, at the artificial nature enclosed by the white walls in a false sense of order.
What an unsatisfactory place to die.
It's Six that pulls him out of his stupor, along with pulling him out of his cage — the dirt's soft beneath his shoes and the air's somehow fresher not being caged in. High above, the windows to Providence's hallways lit up, bright white LEDs interspaced with the red flashes from alarms.
It was chaos and he hated it.
"We have to move. More are coming," Six's stoic expression returned to his face, no sign of his weakness from before. Knight nods and follows along, at a loss on what else to do. Six's steps are light and quick, contrasting against his own lumbering, heavy steps —
Six could've just abandoned me. He's fine on his own.
"I'm unsure of how the rhino EVO breached the wall between the cages and the Zoo proper, but," Six ducks under a branch that hits Knight square in the face; he doesn't mind, small scratches healed quickly, "We're heading in the opposite direction. There should be an exit in front of us."
Whatever his trick was, luring him in with the promise of his past, forgotten self, he was sticking to it. Knight had to give it to him, he was determined.
Or maybe, a part of him whispers, He's telling the truth.
He's vaguely aware of his own steps cracking twigs, his own heavy breathing, all the noise originating from him.
He's more focused on the emu-like creature that's jumped out from the bushes and leapt, beak open, at Six's face, and how Six wasn't fast enough because he was still holding on —
Six's hand holding his fell limp. Knight jerked forwards in an attempt to grab him, but him and the emu EVO rolled a few feet away.
"Let him go!" he spat out the words, enraged, and he sprung upwards, hand outstretched. He couldn't build his mechanical claws, and he wasn't sure why he was putting himself in the path of danger for someone he just met (he did give him milk though. Did he know his favourite food? Was it the truth? He didn't want to stay here) but it felt right.
His hand met the feathers of the bird, pushing it off of Six somewhat. What was he doing? He prided himself in having plans. This was not a good plan.
There was a strange sensation in his left hand, and he watched, bewildered, as white lines travelled from his palm up to his elbow and down onto the EVO.
White light bloomed from where his hand met feathers, and he squinted — Six didn't have a problem with his sunglasses. Maybe he could borrow them later.
The monstrous features melted, jagged features turning soft and eyes disappearing until two were left. The EVO became smaller, and smaller, and the legs were becoming really short, until a normal chicken remained in its place.
"Did I do that?" Knight checked his left arm, if there were any features or eyes or extra EVO bits that happened to crawl up. Nothing. Not even the white lines. The realization hit him a second later — somehow, he cured it.
They would make him cure more. Even the sentient, strong ones. Especially the sentient, strong ones.
Six's mouth was agape.
Half of his face is smeared with crimson — Knight doesn't waste a second and slaps his hand on his forehead to try and staunch the flow. Six is leaning onto him, dazed; he's grasping at his back for something that isn't there, mumbling incoherently and wobbling.
"It's - it's a head injury," Six lurches forwards, and Knight loops around his waist to hold him up, "The cut bleeds a lot, but I don't have a concussion. It's probably fine."
Knight's other hand remains on his forehead anyway.
"How do you deal with it?" Knight's the one dragging Six along now, wishing that the damned collar would be removed so he could protect him better — the claws were bulky enough to act as a shield and a makeshift stretcher. Or he could build the boots and rocket off. Or rappel upwards using the cords on his shoulder build. Or pepper the non-sentient EVOs with gatling gunfire — instead he was stuck with sparse options, stuck in unknown territory with someone who claimed to know him from before, stuck in his weak, weak, body.
"With what?"
"Being so fragile," it's frankly disgusting, seeing filth running the world when some were evolved and superior, "I don't know how you folk handle being on the brink of death all the time."
"You've called me a lot of things," there he was, reminiscing on times Knight would never remember. He wished Six would stop doing that, it made his chest feel odd, "Never fragile, though."
"Still doesn't answer my question," Knight states a bit more light-heartedly, and hobbles away from the sound of gunfire and roaring. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings when he was ferried in and now he was paying for the mistake — he couldn't tell where any of the exits were, or where the cages were located, or the direction of the EVO enclosure.
He decides being close to the wall is the next best thing, and places Six down. Six's expression doesn't change, but somehow it's apparent to Knight that he's lost in thought — or his memories. The blood's almost dry on his face and clothes, and it doesn't look like any more was spewing out, so Knight considered it a job well done.
"You've never called me fragile because you've never beaten me in a fight."
"I find that somewhat hard to believe," Knight's focus is drawn towards the other's features. Certainly not as muscular as he was, but nothing to scoff at. The image is ruined by the various scrapes on his skin and clothes.
The gunfire was dying down, and the roars became more and more infrequent. Either the Providence goons were successful in pushing the EVOs back or the EVOs were content in their share of food.
Knight hoped it was the former.
"Battle's almost over," Six said, mirroring Knight's thoughts, "You should probably leave."
"Don't you work for Providence?" Knight isn't about to give up a shot at freedom, but he's curious enough to ask.
"Trained as a mercenary. Old habits," there's a hint of a smile on Six's face, before it turns solemn, "I'll catch up later. Go."
Knight turned around, about to run, before realizing he had no idea where to go.
"Any tips?"
"Maintenance tunnel to the left. Don't remember the code. You'll figure something out."
Rex moped in his room. Since the alarm started ringing, he was ordered to remain in his room — no more spying, although things started to get a bit intense at the end.
He never knew Six was capable of complex emotions like that!
A thought made him grin.
Everyone that normally worked at the lab was currently working in the Petting Zoo, cleaning up the carcasses and debris from the stampede.
Which left the office exit unguarded.
Meaning Rex could sneak out without being reprimanded.
He couldn't use the main hallways, agents were given instructions to report any sightings of him to Holiday and they couldn't just refuse orders. The skatepark incident was still fresh in their minds, and they couldn't allow him to leave out of pity anymore; Providence was control, control was security.
Right outside of the lab, though, was a hidden door that led into the maintenance tunnels — claustrophobic, perhaps, but it was a small sacrifice for freedom.
Hopefully Noah would be waiting at the park. Rex owed him an apology for distrusting him; the curfew was totally justified if Knight was any indication.
There's nobody in the hallway right outside of the lab, and Rex holds in a whoop of excitement before he dashes towards the entrance. The blueprints didn't lie; a combination of presses on the wall and it slid away, revealing the dark grey interior of Providence. Pipes travelled along the length of the walkway, with tiles that hid wires acting as walls. His boots clanged against the metal but there would be nobody to hear it — Rex double- and triple-checked the date, no maintenance was scheduled. The hallway's barely wide enough to fit Rex, and he wonders if the workers climb on the pipes to move around quicker; it would be a fun experiment, if he wasn't scared he'd fall on or crush an important pipe.
Now, if he remembered the blueprint correctly, the closest maintenance hatch that led to an exit was just a few turns away —
He bumps into something while turning left.
Rex looks upwards and backs up. That definitely wasn't a pipe.
Just his luck that he'd run into Knight in the vast sprawl of the maintenance hallways.
"Aren't you suppose to be in a cage?"
"I could say the same thing to you."
They spend a few seconds in the same position, tense, staring at the other. Both of them don't know what to make of the situation — fight, or flee? The tension in the air was almost tangible as the two recalled their first meeting. Not that that could happen again, Rex smiles inwardly, Unless he wants to be on the receiving end of a beatdown.
Knight moves first.
He's barrelling straight at Rex, and Rex couldn't feel any more confident — Knight was collared while his own exosuit was at full power, the hallway was narrow and Rex could get a good punch in, and besides, any injury would be healed up by the other's nanites anyway. Holiday or Six couldn't get too angry if he very temporarily broke Knight's nose.
He puts himself in a fighting stance, feet apart and gauntlets up.
Knight's a few feet away now, arm raised and fist clenched.
Rex decided defending his stomach would be for the best; the armour was weaker there so he could bend, and one strong punch would knock the wind out of him.
Knight…wasn't in front of him anymore.
There's movement on the ground, and Rex snaps his head downwards to see Knight attempting to slide between his legs.
He almost bursts out laughing at Knight's shoulders being too wide to fit through before he realizes oh yeah, those are my feet he's knocking over, and he topples downwards as all of Knight's forward momentum is lost.
Rex felt something collide with his stomach and the wind's forced out of his lungs.
Knight felt armour crash onto his head, leaving him dazed and reeling from a headache.
Rex flailed his arms wildly until he got his balance back and pushed upwards, struggling to remember the command for communications. He's rarely opened it himself before, just receiving and ignoring calls that came in. Comms? Communications on? Comm-on I really need to talk to Holiday right now please?
After pressing the manual button inside his helmet with his tongue, the beep confirming his voice is being transmitted finally sounded.
"Rex to anyone listening in Providence, I've got Knight! He's escaped but, uh," he accidentally bumped into him while sneaking out himself? He dealt with him by accidentally falling on him? A little white lie wouldn't be disastrous, "I saw him and chased him down in the maintenance passages, Sector 5-J, fifth layer."
"You did well, Rex," Holiday places a hand on Rex's shoulderpad, and he smiles sheepishly. The truth could wait. Knight was handcuffed to the bed to the opposite of him, scowling and giving him dark glares every once in awhile. He replied by sticking his tongue out.
"Just doing my job here at Providence," Rex preens, smugly grinning at Knight. Knight looks away.
Rex was sitting in the lab bed, waiting for Six to come around — apparently he was injured in the stampede by an EVO that had gone missing afterwards. Not as bad as other wounds, but enough for a checkup in the hospital wing.
"Although, I'm very curious to hear how Knight got out in the first place," Holiday stands up straighter as her voice turns sterner, "The maintenance tunnels aren't exactly the very visible. It's almost if someone told you."
"Yes."
"Who was it?" Holiday snaps, and she glances towards the rest of the lab before quickly adding, "Six?"
"The building," Knight's answer was smooth, but Rex can catch the slight hesitation in his voice after Holiday mentioned Six, "I wanted to escape, and the computer gave me the blueprints."
"Technopathy?"
"If that's what you want to call it."
Holiday taps her cheek, thinking to herself.
Her eyes widen.
"The technopathy's not blocked by the collar. Or you could resist the shocks," Holiday starts, circling to where Knight is, "You could've escaped the cage any time you wanted to."
"A moot point, considering I had ten minutes of spare time before the rhinoceros EVO tore it open."
Rex winces — he doesn't like Knight, at all, but when the EVO shredded through the metal he looked away.
The spray of blood and flesh, screams cut short, he never wanted to experience that again.
"And can you talk to nanites?"
It's a loaded question, Rex realizes; and Six's words echo in his mind.
That jerk can't be the breakthrough we're looking for, right?
"Can I deactivate nanites?" Knight licked his dry lips, eyes darting around the lab, "Yes."
Holiday stared at him. Rex stared at him. It was so casual, so flippant, "Sure, yeah, you guys can't? This is special? Well, why didn't you say so?"
He's expecting Knight to grin and reveal a cruel prank, giving them hope and yanking it away, but he doesn't.
The cure was right in front of him, and he was obnoxious.
"We should start off by making sure Providence can track you," Holiday's stepping around the big point, probably saving it for a later meeting, "Headquarters is a big place."
"Tracking devices will be disassembled by my nanites," it's Knight's turn to smugly smile at Rex and Holiday, but the smile falls after he tries to shrug and his hand's pulled back down by the handcuff.
Holiday smiles back, and Rex can feel the air turn colder.
A cowbell.
Rex turns on the surveillance cameras, and sees a cowbell attached to Knight's collar.
Stark white to match with the rest of Providence, probably the most high-tech they could make a bell, but it was a cowbell all the same. It rang whenever the new agent walked, sometimes even when he was shifting around, and Knight gave the most indignant glare towards anyone staring at him — even Six had a medium-sized smile when he saw Knight walk in.
Soon after, he turns off the feed so he can laugh in private.
The news of a cure sparked a new hope in everybody; his higher-ups reported increased funding and more recruits in Basic. They even acknowledged Rex's budding initiative and leadership skills — first setting off the alarm and then catching Knight.
The Consortium were sometimes hard to deal with, but this was the start of a good future.