24 days after waking up
Vera had quickly established a routine.
He always woke up early, his body sore and his mind sorer. He walked to the sink, which he quickly learned was his only water source. Drinking from it before he settled, his hands resting on the sides of the sink as he looked into the mirror and began his daily ritual.
"A puppet..."
Vera would fall under his little spell, retreating into his mind so he could handle what was coming next.
"Just a puppet."
Vera would stand in front of the mirror until he was numb, falling into an emotional coma until the doctor arrived to take him to the lab. Taking practiced steps down the halls, every turn measure, every step memorized.
"Begin the experiment."
The following hours would be bitter and lonely, each moment hell in a way he couldn't put into words. The machine rested over him as it dissected him and flooded his system with something he quickly learned to despise.
"Increase the Ethernano contents."
Vera could only grit his teeth as he was burned from the inside out, his body trembling in agony as ethernano flooded his system. It blew up his magic container like a balloon, letting it expand until it was an inch from popping and then halting to let it deflate. Just so the machine could repeat the process over and over and over again until Vera wanted to die from the process. Die from incisions that the machine healed by the end of the experiment, leaving with no choice but to survive the hellish pain and watch as the blinding light above him blinked out and the machine thrummed to a stop. The scribbling of notes from the white robes signaled that his daily session had ended.
"All right, that's enough for today. Come on, 17, let's go back to your room."
That signaled Vera to nod, watching with dead eyes as the white robes unhooked his wrists and legs. Vera shakily moved his body and stumbled silently behind the doctor, who guided him to his room through the twists and turns that seemed to change every day without fail.
"You did well today, 17..."
The doctor's voice fell on the silent journey; Vera knew better than to say anything, so he silently nodded, glancing at the doctor and noting how he held himself, his posture tall and proud like always, but this time with a bit of lightness in his step that wasn't usually there.
He seems in a good mood today...
Vera had watched the doctor more than anyone else while he was here, noting everything he could and couldn't see about him. The small details, the thinly hidden emotions, and most importantly...
Maybe...
The little things that made the doctor tick.
I can get something out of him today.
The most straightforward tick was the doctor's pride in himself and his research, which Vera learned to play on whenever the doctor walked him back to his room. He would give a slight nod he wouldn't usually give, a small glance he might not have traditionally done, a slight increase in his pace—anything to make the doctor think that he was interested in what he was saying.
'Step'
A tactic he employed immediately, giving a small, minuscule hastening of his pace to catch the doctor's attention. The doctor noticed immediately and flicked his head back to Vera with an amused drawl, "Oh? Are you curious..."
It took all of Vera's might not to shiver at the doctor's words; instead, he gave a nod, less than a centimeter of movement, as he looked up at the robed man.
"You're curious?"
Vera watched with a practiced gaze, controlled and unmoving; the robed man took a hand from his sleeve and placed it on Vera's head.
"What's even left in that empty head to be curious about?"
Vera refused to flinch as the robed man increased the pressure, almost as if to see if his head would pop if he gripped hard enough.
"Hm... well, I suppose such a good test subject should be given a little bit of appreciation."
Vera only blinked as the doctor released him and walked forward, his voice smug as he spoke over his shoulder, knowing that Vera had followed him like the good puppy he was supposed to be.
"Your magic container is still growing, albeit slowly. Usually, the tests don't work past childhood, but thankfully, you are turning into a good investment."
Vera walked behind the robed man, letting the doctor guide him as he never let a single thought show on his face. His eyes went straight ahead as he heard the doctor's tone dip into something more cruel and bitter. "It's a miracle that your container is still able to grow, especially since you don't have any magic to work with... Well, the tests have never worked past 13, so I doubt it'll last much longer..."
Vera hid a flinch as the doctor sighed, the two getting to his white room before the doctor opened it with a wave of his hand. The doctor only gave a single word before haphazardly grabbing Vera's neck and harshly shoving him into the room.
"Pity."
Vera didn't relax until the door shut, and he was sure he couldn't hear the footsteps on the other side. Vera gave a relieved breath as he crumbled onto the mattress, ignoring the bowl of a slob in the corner that would be his breakfast, lunch, and dinner until tomorrow's experiments.
"That was helpful..."
Vera's sarcastic voice reverberated across the room, teasing his ears as it echoed and eventually faded. All the while, Vera lay flat on his back, the dingy mattress under him, as he looked up at the ceiling. Vera voiced his thoughts, even though no one could hear them, a habit that had become part of his daily routine.
"13, huh..."
Vera clenched his fists, feeling the tiny fingers digging into his palms. Vera's mind whirled as he tried to guess when his new deadline would be.
"I'm probably eleven, maybe ten if I'm lucky. Either way, the most I can hope for is two years..."
If he wanted to escape, he had to do it before the tests even had a chance to start failing.
The reason for that was simple...
"They'll kill me the second the tests stop working."
Vera had initially entertained the idea of them wanting him as a weapon or a slave, but he knew better than that now. The doctor didn't care about enslaving him; the white robes were already slaves in everything but name.
As for the weapon part...
Vera had a good reason to believe they didn't want him as a weapon.
"Noise Magic: Silence"
Vera waited a second after saying the words, feeling something in him thrum but never leaving his skin. Then he looked around, seeing no magic circle or sign of anything relating to a spell. Finally, he snapped his fingers, sighing as he heard them loud and clear in the quiet room.
"Still nothing, huh..."
Vera sighed as he plopped his head back down, looking back at the ceiling with a hooded gaze. A mixture of annoyance, dread, and despair washed over him as he failed to use any spells...
For the hundredth time in a row.
"Ha... weapon, my ass..."
That was the main reason Vera knew they didn't want him as a weapon. He couldn't use magic or change his vast magic power into anything special. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it to leave his body, almost like it was trapped under his skin, unable to pass the barrier that separated it from the outside world...
Which meant, for all intents and purposes, Vera couldn't use magic.
Vera was in Fairy Tail, the story of magic and adventure...
And. He. Couldn't. Use. Magic.
"Yeah... I'm definitely not meant to be a weapon."
Weapons were supposed to be efficient, strong, and unthinking. So far, Vera only had the last part down. That meant he was a defect, and the doctor knew it.
"He'd teach me magic if they wanted a weapon."
It wasn't a tricky jump to make; Vera hadn't blown his little charade, so the doctor honestly thought he was just a brainwashed shell of a child. There would be no reason not to teach him magic, especially since the chance of him rebelling was nonexistent.
"He just wants me to see if the tests work..."
That was his best and most plausible theory at the moment. The doctor kept him around for as long as the tests kept working.
After the tests stopped working, his use would be gone...
It didn't take a genius to figure out what would happen to him after that.
"I have to get out of here within two years..."
The only problem he had was how to make it happen. He had nothing going for him...
His body was one lousy meal away from dying...
His mind was one bad experiment away from breaking...
His magic...
Well, it's not like he had any magic to complain about.
"Maybe I used to have it..."
That was a possibility Vera considered, but sadly he didn't have a way to test that theory. His memories were shot, and nothing worked, no matter how many spells he tried from Fairy Tail. They all failed, and his magic never left his body...
Not even once.
That only left him with one option.
"I need my innate magic..."
That was Vera's only chance to get his magic because while he didn't have the... constitution, he guessed, for regular magic, that may not be an issue with innate magic.
"Every wizard has an innate magic..."
Innate magic was something that all wizards had; it was a magic they gravitated towards. They could use magic as quickly as breathing, as if it was an extension of themselves. Magic that encompassed their will and molded it into something incredible.
Gray's ice magic, Ezra's telekinesis magic, and Lucy's celestial were all innate in some sense. If it weren't, then the variety of magic in Fairy Tail wouldn't exist because if anyone could learn any magic, they would all learn the strongest.
That wasn't the case because inmate magic was a factor. It made it so that it was easy for people to learn a single type of magic, as well as magic similar to it. While also making it harder to discover magic different from it, sometimes impossible if it was an opposing element like Fire and Water.
That didn't mean mages couldn't learn multiple types of magic; they just couldn't discover any magic they wanted at the drop of a dime. They had to study and practice to learn anything that wasn't innate, which took time...
Time Vera didn't have.
"I need to find my innate magic."
That was Vera's only option because he didn't see a way to escape this place without magic. From what he saw, there were at least ten white robes every time he was experimented on.
"They're all wizards..."
While he couldn't use magic yet, he still had it. His magic container was overflowing with it. That's most likely why he could tell that they all practiced magic of some kind. It felt like a little fly that hovered around them, although he was pretty sure the more experienced ones could hide their magic presence if they wanted to.
"I'll need magic to escape."
He didn't have a chance if he didn't have magic; he was too small to fight them off physically. He would lose if even one of them caught him on the way out.
"As for the way out..."
That was another thing Vera needed to find because one of the first things he realized after following the robed man to the labs was that it was impossible to memorize a way out.
"The path changes."
Every day it was a different path; the first day, it was three lefts, a right, then another left. The next was two left, a right, a set of stairs, and another right. It kept changing like that every day, and the only hint he ever got was when he forced himself to stay awake, feeling a faint thrum in the walls of his room that suggested something was happening the outside of it.
"It must be magic."
Vera was sure that magic was at play, probably activating every night to change the way to the lab. He had to figure out how that worked; that way, he could find his way out without getting lost or instantly running into a dead end.
"It'll take a long time..."
Vera was prepared for that, but his heart sank at the thought. He knew that even if his deadline was two years, there was a chance he'd have to use all of it to get his magic to work. To have an opportunity to escape this place, this hell that he'd woken up in.
"Just one day at a time..."
Vera forced himself to believe that he could take it one day at a time.
"Even if it hurts..."
Vera forced himself to believe that he could continue to rely on the numb sensation that he had adopted far too quickly for his liking. The numbness that kept his mind sane and his body operational...
Vera figured he had drowned in that numbness before losing his memories.
Vera believed he had probably grown numb before he lost his memories, his will broken after months or maybe years of torture. That's why he could adjust so quickly, even if his mind had forgotten his body never had...
It never forgot the pain inflicted on it, day after day after day after day after day after-
"Day after day after day after day..."
Vera murmured those words to himself like a mantra, probably reaching a hundred or so before he closed his eyes. The words died out as he drifted to sleep with an empty stomach and a single promise. A whisper of a promise that he told himself every night, even when no one else was there to listen to it. A promise he always said before he drifted to sleep...
"I won't give up."
A promise which seemed to shatter his heart every night, and he could never figure out why.
107 days after waking up
The days had slogged by before the routine changed.
He woke up, did his ritual as always, played his role, and followed the doctor.
"Come 17, the recent results have shown you're well enough to begin the practical tests."
Except this time, the doctor told him something new, and it took all the experience Vera had accumulated not to break character.
Practical tests?
Vera hadn't heard of them before, even from the doctor, who loved the sound of his own voice. The most he'd gotten was basic information on magic.
Nothing about any practical tests...
Vera hid his anxiety as he followed the doctor through a route he didn't bother to memorize. His steps were quiet until the doctor reached a small door, opening it to reveal a large, rectangular room.
This is new...
Vera could spot the white tiling across the room and the built-in ceiling lights before he was shoved roughly into it. The door shut behind him, giving Vera a second to look around the room and see an entry on the opposite end that he had missed. He also noticed a blacked-out window on his left that took up the length of the wall.
One way window, probably so they can watch me...
Vera had to keep himself from flicking them off out of spite, his attention snapping away from the window and towards the door as he heard it slide open. Vera's heart pounding as his body tensed in anticipation of what was coming from the other side of it.
"Try to last longer than last time 17."
Vera instantly recognizes the doctor's voice through the window; no one else would sound that smug.
Dammit...
Vera kept his gaze dead on the opposite door, crouching as he prepared for whatever would come through it. His heart was pounding and his mind racing as he heard a growl from the other end. His hair stood on its back as he watched a white dog-like creature walk through, it's head empty of eyes and ears, with only its nose to guide it. The white-plated body it sported made it look more machine than a monster if not for the drool dripping from its open mouth and large metal collar around its neck that signified it had an owner.
What the...
Vera tensed as he watched the monster sniff around, the monster's nose flicking towards his direction as the door behind it closed and the match officially began.
"Be grateful, 17; it's not easy to get our hands on D-class monsters out here."
Vera only had time to curse the doctor before the dog bolted towards him. Vera could only run and dodge as the monster tried to rip him apart. His only chance at escape was to outlast whatever time limit the doctor had given him.
Don't think.
Vera played a deadly game of tag with the dog as his breath was stolen from him. He was running and dodging desperately, ignoring every small nick of the monster's claws that accumulated on his body. He could only run and try to extend his life for as long as possible.
Just run.
Yet even he couldn't do that forever, and eventually, he got hit in the chest by the dog's heavy paw. The force of the blow sending him flying into the wall, his head dizzy and his breath gone as he watched the approaching monster with lidded eyes.
Shit...
Vera felt his consciousness fade as the dog bolted towards him, its razor-sharp fangs aimed at his throat before something stopped it. Vera saw a glowing symbol on its collar that seemed to paralyze it, holding it back like an invisible shackle.
What the...
Vera didn't know what that was, but he couldn't think too hard about it.
Hell...
He was unconscious less than a second later.
Vera's mind was muck when he woke up, and his body was in constant agony. The stinging in his arms and chest was unfading, even if they felt slightly cleaner than usual. Almost like they were...
Did they heal me?
Vera forced himself to sit up, ignoring the stabbing headache and looking at the areas where he was injured. He was greeted by a canvas of pale skin where new scars and cuts should have been. The only sign of his injuries was the slight tenderness felt whenever he touched the spot a cut or bruise should have been at.
So they did heal me...
Vera bit his lip at the thought, looking back to his arms with the tiny painting of misery on them. His mind whirled until he forced himself to focus on all the new information he had gotten from the event.
They must have healed me when I was asleep... did they use the machine? They had to, right? This wasn't part of the experiment, though... does that mean they only heal me if I pass out? Is there a limit to how much they can heal me? Does the doctor choose when he thinks I deserve a healing session? Is that why...
Vera looked down at his arms, the thin scars still present. He gritted his teeth as he forced himself to look away from them, knowing that if they had healed the injuries the monster had given him, they could have healed his arms. The fact that they chose not to was something he'd have to attribute to the 'accident.'
Okay, calm down... let's think about that later... go over what I have now...
The doctor had given him a lot of information, whether he realized it or not, and Vera wasn't about to let any of it go to waste.
Those three things were the most important.
Vera took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he recalled every word the doctor had said, running it over in his head as he listed them in ascending importance.
Okay, first of all, I probably used to do that often, and I probably didn't do well going off his enjoyment.
Vera recalled the doctor saying he should try to 'last longer than last time, ' which Vera knew meant one thing at the very least.
"The tests are part of the routine, so maybe I would've become a weapon if I had shown any talent in magic..."
Vera didn't know how likely it was, but he wasn't willing to test it now. He was still in this facility because he was an 'anomaly.' The fact that he had no usable magic yet still had a growing magic container was likely the only reason he was still alive.
If he suddenly unlocked innate magic, his use as an 'anomaly' would plummet.
"I'll keep that in my mind for now; it isn't that important anyways..."
What was important was the magic he saw during the practical, the glowing symbol on the dog's collar. The one he could use to figure out what was going on in this shitty building every night...
"Their using runes for the hallways..."
The story didn't thoroughly explore Runes, but he knew Freed used them. He also knew they worked by creating rules for whatever they were inscribed onto.
"Assuming the monsters have a rule that they can't 'kill' their opponents, then that would mean the hallway has a similar one..."
Vera could think of a few options; a few were memory related, another was physical, one was focused on his door, and another on the halls themselves.
There could be hundreds of ways they used the runes so that he couldn't memorize the path toward the lab, but he didn't care about them.
The only thing that mattered was the runes themselves.
"I could try to learn rune magic..."
It was a passing thought, an idea that could keep him entertained for a while. That way, he could try to develop himself while stuck in this never-ending cycle of torture and misery.
"Even if I don't have the talent for it learning to read it will be useful..."
Vera wasn't delusional; he couldn't use the most basic spells from the story; he didn't think complex magic like rune magic would click. However, If he could learn to read it, he could figure out a few things. He could figure out what they're using on the dogs. He could figure out what they're using in the halls. He could even figure out if they used any on him that he didn't know about...
And once he knew what they used, he could work on how to find loopholes in those rules.
"I'll add that to my list of options... besides that, there's only one thing I need to remember about what he said..."
Vera sighed, lying on the mattress as he looked up at the dull ceiling. The words sounded in his mind in all the doctor's smug confidence as he memorized it down to the last syllable.
"It's not easy to get our hands on D-class monsters out here..."
Out here...
The doctor had said out here...
"We're somewhere far from other people..."
Vera figured that much should have been obvious, but he hadn't had any contact with anything other than the doctor, the machine, and his room. Nothing to indicate anything outside, nothing about where he was, nothing of the outside world except the story he had woken up with.
There had never been any indication of anything outside this white-walled prison...
Until now.
"Probably not Fiore... where else could we be? Middle of a forest? It would help get the monsters if they were around... no but he said they were hard to deliver... an island? Maybe a desert..."
Thousands of options ran around Vera's head, and he filled the room's silence with them until he could sleep.
Just so he could wake up and start the routine again.
213 days since waking up
The days had passed and passed and passed and passed after the new change in his schedule, and it never got any easier.
He would still have the experiments, and he would still have the tests; they would just alternate days. The experiments usually ended with him drained mentally and physically; phantom wounds from the machine littered across his body since the device wiped any physical trace of them before the experiments ended.
On the other side, the practicals usually ended with him unconscious, covered in burns or cuts that would be healed by the machine by the time he woke up in his room.
He didn't know which days were worse, if he was being honest.
"The machine sucks, but at least I don't have to run during it..."
Vera was lying in bed after a particularly bad practical, his head throbbing from where the D-class monster's tail had smacked him and sent him to the ground. The glowing symbol on its collar was the only reason he wasn't dead as dinner and instead, had to deal with a minor headache.
"Thank goodness for those runes..."
Vera chuckled at his joke, recalling the rune inscribed on the dog's collar.
"Restraint"
Vera tried to move magic to his finger, feeling the buzz inside him that never seemed to leave the surface of his skin. His attempts were the same as all the others, as the symbol was traced in the air...
'Poof'
And burst into a puff of smoke.
"Dammit."
Vera slammed his hand on the ground, his body aching as he watched his newest hope at using magic fail spectacularly. The hope that he could find a way to reverse-engineer the rune he saw in the dog and use it to escape...
The hope that died instantly since he still couldn't use magic.
"I fucking hate this..."
Vera had tried everything; he'd scoured every inch of his fucking room.
Every inch of the fucking hallways.
Every inch of the fucking lab.
Every inch of the fucking arena.
All he got from it was an idea of why the path changed every night, but even then it didn't matter. He couldn't escape with his battered and broken body, barely above the threshold of starvation.
He couldn't do anything against the mages that ran this place and manipulated everything inside it.
He couldn't do anything with the vast magic power inside him that refused to leave.
He couldn't do anything without magic.
"This is hell..."
Vera was convinced he was in hell because how else could he describe this nightmare of a facility?
He was tortured every other day and beaten half to death the next. Any ideas he had for escape were useless because he didn't have the strength to pull them off.
"Maybe I should just die here..."
That didn't sound like a bad idea; dying was better than whatever he had been doing these last 6... or seven months, maybe...
Vera wasn't sure; the days had blended together since the practicals started.
"What month is it anyways..."
Vera wasn't sure, so he sluggishly stood up and went to the broken mirror. Not so much as a flinch as he slid his finger along the edge and picked a piece off of it, getting a cut on his fingertips and a tiny shard for his efforts. He held the small mirror shard before setting it carefully on the sink. Repeating the process with the other fragments until the mirror was removed and revealed a background of dirt and dust on the wall...
As well as nail-sized scratches that marked the days for him so he wouldn't forget. Lined row by row, taking up three-fourths of the board and covering a map he had abandoned early on in his stay.
"Looks like it was the seventh..."
Vera chuckled defeatedly as he took a shard of glass in his hand, carving a thin line next to the others. Glazing over the canvas before placing the chips back in their rightful place, piece by piece. The mirror was eventually recreated in its entirety, with the only indication that it had been tampered with being the missing pieces that were too small to fit snuggly back together and the blood left from his fingertips.
"I've been here for seven months..."
Vera said many things to himself, but that may have been the worst sentence he had uttered since he got here. It was a sickening realization and a painful reminder that he was stuck here...
He was trapped, with no way to get out.
"I'm so tired..."
Vera chuckled softly, his eyes softening as he drifted to sleep. His mind is tired, and his body even more so, as he forces himself to say the words he struggles to care about anymore.
"I won't give up..."
The words that still shattered his heart for no conceivable reason.
396 days after waking up
He had run out of space behind his mirror by the time there was another change to the schedule...
Although he only realized it after they got to the arena.
"Get in ring 17; your opponent this time is special."
Vera only glanced at the doctor before entering the room; his footsteps measured as he walked inside. He ignored the sound of the door shutting behind him as he looked toward the door on the other end. Waiting for his opponent that would probably hurt him in 'an enjoyable way' if he was going off what the doctor had gleefully told him.
Great, I wonder what it is this time...
Last time, a robed scientist wanted to 'test' his reaction times. Before that, the mutated dog almost ripped his throat out.
Now it was something 'special,' and he knew that meant one thing.
Painful...
Vera felt his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch as the opposite door opened, resigned to his fate as he prepared himself for what was to come. Vera settled in a way he knew would help him run before he paused, seeing the figure of a girl that looked maybe a year older than him walking out of the other door.
What the...
Vera hadn't thought there were other test subjects here; from how the doctor talked, he was the last one. The doctor made it seem like he was the only one the tests still worked on, and all the previous experiments had already reached their expiration dates.
There's another person here? Who the hell is she? And why does she look familiar...
Vera was sure he'd never seen her before, but she looked familiar, like he had seen her in a dream. She had short dark purple hair and a matching gown to him, and the only thing he could focus on was her red eyes...
Her dull red eyes.
Huh...
Her eyes were dead, eerily similar to his. Quiet and muted, the only difference being that his were dulled by resignation and despair...
Hers seemed to be dulled by boredom.
Who is she...
Vera wasn't sure, but he knew he couldn't ask.
Talking to anyone but himself was taboo, and even if he couldn't see them, he knew the robed scientists were watching every second of their interaction from the other side of the wall.
Where did she come from...
His curiosity was intense, but he would be punished if he spoke, so he kept his mouth shut and settled himself, preparing for the girl to attack him with whatever magic the robes wanted her to show off. Vera had gone through so many of these trials that he wouldn't be shocked by anything she threw at him.
"So..."
Except for that...
"You're still alive."
He was prepared for everything...
"I thought you died..."
Except for the idea that she would do the one thing he had learned on day one never to do.
"I thought I killed you."
She talked, her voice dead and robotic; the only thing given away in her words was a hint of curiosity, like she was truly curious as to why he was still alive and why he was still staring at her like she had dropped the moon from the sky.
"How'd you survive 17?"
Vera could only watch with wide eyes as the girl tilted her head, seemingly uncaring for the robes watching them from the other side. Vera could only gulp as he reached for his voice, deciding that he would take the risk and talk since she had done it without a care.
"I don't know..."
Vera watched as the girl eyed him like a hawk, his words falling like a stone in the nearly silent room.
"I don't remember what happened..."
Vera gulped, his words shaky as he spoke them into existence. The curiosity hidden in the girl's eyes drew him in, the first eyes he had seen since he woke up, the first voice he heard that didn't make his skin crawl since he lost his memory...
It was almost impossible not to say anything.
"I don't remember anything from before then."
Vera watched as the girl let out an 'ah' in understanding, her voice more assured than before, like she was glad she had gotten the answer to her question.
"Huh, that makes sense..."
Vera could only watch in stunned silence as the girl turned around, walking towards the door without hesitation. Her foot tapped as she stood in front of it, only looking towards the window when she heard the doctor's voice from the other end. He no longer held his smug arrogance but was more calm and controlled, like he had to choose his words carefully.
"32, your opponent is 17 today... You have to beat him to leave."
Vera paused as the girl looked toward the blackened window, only giving a small huff before she looked back at him. Her eyes were uncaring as a cold breath escaped her lips; Vera could only watch in shock as the room's temperature dropped to near freezing.
What the...
Vera trembled as he felt a swirl of magic power, the sense of dread hitting him as he saw the girl put her two hands together in a move he instantly recognized. The memory of the mage it belonged to slapping him in the face as he finally remembered why the girl looked so familiar.
That's...
"Ice-Make: Rosen Karone"
Vera could only watch helplessly as the vines and flowers of ice charged at him, trapping him in a garden of freezing ice that took his breath away. He could only watch as the vines wrapped around his throat and squeezed until he ran out of oxygen.
Ultear.
He could only watch the dead red eyes that matched the lost girl from the story.