this fic is loosely set before the events in my other fic "something they can't take away", but can be read as a stand-alone. warnings for mentions of past rape and implied child abuse.
Foxy has learned—mastered, even—the art of being invisible. She stands with her back to the wall, hearing conversations she's not supposed to remember, guarding the back of some of NESTS higher ups, walks through the labs following her superiors like a dog with her head down, pretending not to care when she sees the horrors of the experiments.
When curiosity does get the best out of her, she tries not to look for too long; the experiments are cruel more often than not, and Foxy can't afford to feel pity for whatever poor soul ended up in the lab as a guinea pig. Sometimes, she sees young people enter those doors she's grown to hate with a myriad of hair colors, from brown to red to blonde. They always come out with white hair.
Foxy's not sure what exactly is the chemical that causes the hair change, but it occurs to her, as she stares at her reflection and runs a hand through the arctic white strands, that she'd never like to find out.
It had been nine years since she'd turned to the wrong people desperate for help. Her health was deteriorating, her family had died and with her eighteenth birthday approaching, she had no hopes of being adopted if she entered the system.
So she decided to believe the man that said he and his team could restore her good health as long as she worked for them as a bodyguard; Foxy used to be a fencing champion—when her hair wasn't falling in chunks and her parents were alive to support her career—; she could be an useful pawn once she gained back her health. It was only for two years, at first, but soon two turned into five, and five into eight, and now she's nearing the ten year mark.
Foxy stayed, partly because she knew there was no one she could turn to for protection, partly because she feared what would happen to her if she left.
So Foxy killed, tortured and turned a blind eye to the many horrible things NESTS scientists did with their guinea pigs. She kept her eyes on the ground and pretended not to listen when the scientists talked about upping Angel's memory serum dose, lest she'll keep remembering about her past. She nodded solemnly when a higher-up—whose name she didn't know, only that he was powerful enough to dispose of her as he liked—tasked her with taking care of a child with strawberry blonde hair they had recently kidnapped for a new branch of experiments. She said nothing when she saw how, day after day, new clones came to this world gasping for air and confused beyond words.
The child with strawberry blonde hair was renamed Kula Diamond. She didn't talk much; it seemed as if the poor thing was living in a constant state of shock and fear.
"She watched her parents' get killed by our men." She hears a scientist comment. "Hasn't said a peep since. It's better this way, though, isn't it? Makes her more docile, unlike Angel when she first got here. George still has a scar where she bit him."
Foxy knows George is a depraved man who tried to rape Angel as a still young kid, so she keeps Kula closer to her and doesn't leave her out of her sight during her medical check ups or training.
She tries—and fails—to convince herself she's just following orders, but really, does she care about Kula because of the orders of someone she despises, or is it because this is the first time she's witnessing NESTS atrocities up close and personal?
It was easy to ignore the kidnappings before, when she wasn't directly involved in them. She could ignore the little kids, teens, babies, that were kept as guinea pigs to test on because she only could see them if she entered the labs.
But now, it's different; Kula clings onto her hand for dear life, looking at her with her terrified hazel eyes every time she has to get into those tubes where they stick tubes in her and pump weird substances into her major veins and arteries. She's the one that massages her arms and legs after each session, with her stomach revolting at the sight of the wounds inflicted on her.
Foxy wants to act unaffected, but seeing NESTS kill this little kid slowly and painfully makes her question everything she's ever done.
It all comes to a head when one day the scientists take Kula from her for an 'impromptu training session'. Kula looks at Foxy like she knows this is bullshit, that they probably have obscure motives for doing this.
"No!" Kula says, loud and clear, and it's the first time she speaks ever since she was brought here. Soon she's yelling no over and over again, her voice drills a hole in Foxy's chest and her hands grab chunks of her clothes, sinking her claws in through the fabric like a wild animal. Foxy can't will herself to get Kula off of her
When one of the scientists tries to drag her by taking her arm, she screeches and things happen in a flash: suddenly, in a flash of blue, the scientist whose name Foxy does not know ends up impaled on the wall by a big ice stick. Kula's hands are frozen to the tip of her nails.
"So you have powers," one of the many white coated men says. "You just didn't want to show us, huh?" The euphoria in his eyes repulses her; she's seen it before, in the eyes of all the replaceable men who liked to play god around here.
Kula looks up at her, with her hazel eyes full of pain and mania, and right there and then she decides fuck this, she's not letting them hurt this child, even if t kills her. So she bares her teeth, wraps her arms around Kula, and vows to do whatever she can to keep her safe.