The First Subjects

[Spectre of the Fade]

The seconds between Leon throwing the knife and Shade's reaction to it were easily the longest seconds Marcus had experienced in his short, sheltered life. The knife was metal. He could have stopped it. Could have tried to stop it, at the least. But he'd been staring at Subject 2, just a bit awestruck by the first boy he'd ever seen who was his age. He didn't wonder why the other subject had the knife. He didn't even dream what the other subject might do with it. Then, the knife was flying through the air. He felt it, flying through the air. He felt the cold tingle that indicated steel move across his perhiphery at the same time as he saw the knife flash across his field of vision.
Maybe he could have stopped it, if he'd been focused, but regardess, a man was dead. A man was dead because of someone like him.
He had never been so angry before in his life, but Subject 1 reacted before he even decide how to deal with that anger. Her reaction was scary. She was not someone who's bad side he wanted to be on, that was for sure. He didn't really take the time to think on it, though. There were still three more subjects, and he wasn't going to leave until he'd found them all. So he picked up the dead guard's gun and closed his eyes for a few seconds, charging the metal in his hands with magnetic energy. When Shade looked at him, he gave her a nod and set his jaw, stepping past Leon and over to the door to the first floor. There was a small group of guards on the other side, headed outside. Six or seven of them, maybe.
Marcus opened the door right as the group crossed in front of it, tossing the magnetized weapon right in the middle of them. It yanked the weapons from their hands and even managed to pin a couple to the floor by their body armor.
"Okay," he murmured, turning back to the other two. "That should last for a few minutes. I'm going to go find the others. Don't," he said, pausing and making a quickly aborted gesture with his hands, "leave. Or hurt more people. That wouldn't be right."
With those words, he did as he'd said he would and dashed back up the stairs, hoping the other three were okay and hadn't been recaptured or anything. He stopped dead when he heard a voice coming from above. It sounded feminine, but he couldn't make out the words. Was it another subject? A scientist? A guard? Someone like Subject 2? He'd have to risk it.
"You aren't going to kill me, right?" he asked when the footsteps above sounded closer. The pounding of his heart increased the pounding of the headache he'd gotten courtesy of Subject 1 and the stairs. "Or lift me in the air and drop me? Again?"​

 

[Victor Markov]

Leon felt the gravity increase around him and fell to his knees. "I'll help you if you want me to or not. You think I like killing people? Think again. I'm reacting on instinct. Instincts given to me by my powers! I take no pleasure at drawing blood and ending lives. The idiot scientists that gave me my powers added the subconscious desire to kill. By the time I realize that the place I'm aiming is for a vital organ or a major blood vessel, the bullet is already flying, the knife left my hand or the sword already completed its journey through the unfortunate person. My saying bullseye was not out of pride or joy, but out of sorrow because I just added more red to my ledger. My powers even remove the desire to end my own life. I will try not to kill anyone else, but I don't make any guarantees that anyone will be unscathed or left on death's doorstep. My powers made me the ultimate weapon. Undetectable, untraceable and unstoppable. It would take another humanoid weapon to stop me." the second subject snapped at subject one. "I'm after the people behind the projects too. Now that the knife is gone, let me up. I'm not that aggressive outside combat situations. The people I've killed will haunt me for as long as I live. The scientists sealed me away in a blast proof room to keep me from escaping and shacked my hands and feet to keep me from running or fighting when they came to get me. I'm not heartless. I'm not consciously aware of killing anyone until after it's happened. And almost all of the people I've killed were accidents." Leo walked over to the fallen guard and pulled the hood of his suit off his head and said "Henry Anderson. Married, two kids both girls and three dogs. He was ten years from retirement and the only guard who would come into my room to talk to me unarmed. He seen what I could do and thought he could preserve my humanity. He was a father figure to me and it pains me all the more to be the one to kill him."

 

[Nad]

Evan | Subject#4

She had a point, although taking a badge from the unconscious guy wouldn't take them long. He was only a few meters upstairs, after all. But, yeah, it would definitely be faster to make their way down fighting any enemies. And if things got difficult her way, they could try something else. Evan only nodded and took the point, descending as fast as he could. He heard the end of it as he moved, trying to not lose anymore time.

"Looks like I've got something else out of you, after all." commented, giving her a fast glance with a smirk, to quickly look at his front once again. When he wasn't paying attention, he was a little clumsy as a human, so it wouldn't be a surprise to fall from the stairs if he wasn't looking. "What about your nickname? I'm Evan, in case I didn't introduce myself." said, believing it was pretty weird to think about people by a number. It made him feel as they were nothing else than the experiment they were supposed to be.

Anyway, he didn't have any more time to chat before he heard someone downstairs. He was already getting mentally ready to shift his shape, together with every one of his organs, into a wolf''s. But, luckily, it hadn't been necessary. The question sounded too honest, and weird, to be from a scientist or a guard. "Uhm, no... never done any of those..." answered as he approached, slowly showing himself at the man who just spoke. Seeing his gray clothes and young aspect, it wasn't hard to assume he was another subject. Anyway, if he wasn't, he still had the backup of the girl behind him. He started getting a little comfortable as he wasn't being attacked.

 

[Kanma]

Element regretted not using the treadmill much in her rooms in the facility. She also regretted her current decision, which was turning out to be one of the worst she'd ever come up with. She'd been assuming that the other subjects were on their way to making it out, but now wasn't so sure, as the only people who were pouring out the door were scientists and guards. From her view of the windows she could also see guards from other floors running around like busy little bees. If anyone was caught on the upper floors, guards coming down to get her would get them instead. It had been stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But there was no turning back now. She had stopped circling the building and throwing rocks because by now if anything she'd CAUGHT too much attention. There were a lot of people and they were headed straight towards her.

This is not the time to panic, Element, she told herself. This is not the time to panic. But despite her reassurances and admonishments her feet felt rooted to the spot, her eyes glued wide open with fear and uncertainty, her breath belabored without her moving a muscle. What was she supposed to do...? They had all of their weapons trained on her, most likely set to stun rather than kill, but who knew? Plexiglas. What was Plexiglas made of? Maybe it would help her. Uhmm... Uhhhmmmm.... A shot rang out and she yelped, ducking, even though her logical brain knew it would be useless if the guy had aimed right. Thankfully, he hadn't, and missed her altogether, but in a panic, she threw her hand out, trying to turn the air into Plexiglas. It didn't work. She wasn't concentrating hard enough, so instead of turning it into Plexiglas, the air solidified into Nitrogen ice - thee last thing she'd transformed. A cube of it hit the ground in front of her, utterly useless.

The yells of the soldiers blended into the distant blare of the sirens, and she could feel her strength leaving with her concentration. She'd used too much of her power too quickly, today. They were getting closer and she didn't have any ideas, or the means to carry them out. She looked around frantically, trying to find something, anything, and that was when the second shot rang out. Apparently they were willing to kill her, because this time the projectile hit and pain exploded in her left shoulder, almost blinding her. For a second, her body was too shocked to do anything at all, but then someone grabbed her injured arm and the contact brought the pain howling back into reality. So, she did what anyone would have done in her situation. She opened her mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream that put the sound of the alarms to shame.

 

[Nad]

Shade - Subject#1


Shade could only clinch her teeth at the answer of the murderer. Was he telling the truth? For all she knew about body language, he seemed sincere. Even regretted of what he had done. And if that was the case, she couldn't blame him. No matter if his hand had been the one throwing that knife, the people behind that project were the real responsible. They had made him into a killing machine without his consent, just like they had genetically manipulated every one of the six subjects. She started to release the pressure on him, not because she was already at his side, but it was starting to be tiring to keep him on the floor. Marcus had given them more time against the guards downstairs, and he left to find the others. It sounded as a good plan. She could keep an eye on the killing machine until they were all together, and they should be able to fight their way out after it. Hurting guards would be a must if they wanted to see the outside world, but she'd made sure no more wives and kids were given any more funerals to attend. They would fight without killing anyone else.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were such a poor and misunderstood murderer with guilt issues." told him, with a huge amount of sarcasm in her voice. "Maybe you are speaking the truth and actually killed him out of instincts, I don't know. But I couldn't care less. If that's the case, you are going to fight your instincts the whole time we are running away together, and you are not going to take anyone else's life. Unless you want something else than guilt haunting you. And, believe me, if that something else is a lab mutant able to compress gravity enough to create a black hole that could make all the matter of your body disappear, you should seriously consider listening to my words." told him, looking straight at him with her new threat. She was bluffing, since she was far from creating a gravitational field strong enough to become something similar to a black hole, but she knew how to sound confident. And she assumed he'd need some good incentive to try hard to not kill anyone else.


Even if she could continue reproaching Leon about what he had done, a scream that came from the outside distracted her. It was a scream of pure pain, even though she didn't know how she was so sure about that. So, it was either a female guard getting attack by someone like the subject number 2, or another subject. Either way, she needed to go and see what was going on. Shade even forgot they were supposed to wait for Marcus and rushed through the door to the first floor. "You are coming with me." ordered as she left, knowing she couldn't leave that guy on his own. The guards between Shade and the exit were still struggling to get their weapons from the floor and standing up thanks to Marcus' ability, and that was why she could throw them to the floor once again without much effort. Using gravity to keep them on the floor for a few seconds had been enough to allow her to run to the exit, and hopefully enough for Leon to do so as well. Of course, she hadn't thought things through. She had only followed her instinct to run over to the scream. And, once she was outside and found another group of guards firing at a young woman, she had no idea what to do. Shade couldn't lift all those men to the air, since she was running out of energy herself. But, still, bullets weren't that heavy. A small increase of gravity would make them lose their direction, and so, when they fired once again, she prevented another projectile from getting inside the girl's body.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

"Oh, good. My head hurts enough already." Marcus relaxed and let out a breath of relief at the response, but relief quickly brightened into happiness as he took in the drab clothes the pair were wearing. Other subjects, then! Finding them had been easier than he thought it would be.There was still one more subject to locate, but she didn't seem to be higher up in the building. If she were, then she'd have been with these two. Maybe... maybe she already got outside, maybe she was the reason the guards he'd stopped were headed that way. That was good, then. Subject 1 would find her and protect her. And keep Subject 2 from killing anyone else.
Marcus jogged up the stairs to meet the two, a bright smile spreading across his face. Once he reached them, he planned to introduce himself, but was woefully unprepared for the shock of facing a couple more people that were as young as him. Instead, he froze and stared in shock with his mouth hanging open just a little. One of the pair was a beautiful boy and the other was a girl who looked as intimidating as Subject 1. He wondered what they could do. He wondered how they'd gotten out, and if they'd fought guards. He wondered how old they were. He wondered quite a lot, really, wondered about what their training was like and if they remembered anything before the facility and and and. But he lacked the luxury or time to waste thinking or asking about any of it.
After a couple of seconds, he snapped out of his distracted state, pushing a hand into his hair before speaking. "I'm Marcus. Uh, Subject 5. The rest are all downstairs, I think. We should-" Marcus cut himself off, eyes snapping upward as he felt metallic objects moving in the stairwell above them. The objects were too far away for him to pick out specific shapes, but what else could they be but guards?. "There's guards," he warned without looking away from the direction of the movement he could feel. "We need to get out of here." He jerked his head downward, trying to communicate without speaking that the two were to go down first. He planned on acting as a rear guard of sorts, since he could sense the guards' weapons and all.​

 

[Victor Markov]

Leon rolled his eyes at everything she said and muttered "you make it sound so easy." as he charged after the first subject. One indicator his killer instincts were kicking in was that his eyes would start glowing red. Leon was told he had demonic eyes when he was about to kill someone. Probably a little intimidation factor the people in charge of his particular project cooked up to help win the war that was coming. The second subject summoned a pair of handguns as he ran and shot anyone that got too close in the legs as he ran past. One bullet per target. The report was heard over the sound of the alarm. When subject one shot him a look he snapped "they'll live. It's just a flesh wound. And the pain will keep them from hindering the others." he then seen the crowd of guards around a girl and said "gimme a boost. She needs help and I'm the perfect guy for the job. The guns are out of ammo, but they still can be useful in this circumstance." Leon planned on dishing out one hellluva beating with the grips of the guns, thus knocking out the group of security guards "there's no time to argue the matter. You have to trust me."

 

[Nad]

Evan | Subject#4

Evan was trying to be nice to subject 6, but it seems he shouldn't be expecting the same thing back. He could understand why someone in their situation would have trust issues, but after he asked for her name, she insisted in being called for her number. And that was a little annoying. He even got to know guards that were keeping him from his freedom that were friendlier than his company. But Evan was quite perseverant, so he knew he'd get that girl to trust him eventually. Or at least to tell him a better way to call her. Her attitude made a huge contrast with the smile of the other subject that approached after he assured him they weren't a thread. Thanks God not every subject was as reserved as the first one he met.

So, he had already met the others. It was great hearing about them, and he smiled at the huge possibility that they were all alright and running away. "Evan, number 4. And she's 6. So you've seen the other three? Are they alright?" he asked, talking fast only for the lack of time, clearly curious about it. He was also curious how they were like. He hoped all the awful things he had heard about one of them were just overstatements of the guards.

The shifter didn't question Marcus' way of detecting the guards. They all had their abilities, after all. Abilities he hoped he'd get to hear about soon. Evan nodded at him and gently placed a hand on the girls back to lead her downstairs. He hadn't thought about that, but as soon as he did, he removed it. Probably avoiding touch would be a better idea. Evan had felt her presence inside his mind before, and now, there she was again. Anyway, he wasn't opposing any resistance. Maybe that would get her to trust the ones trying to work with her. Lori was following, cooperating, but she was making sure things were alright by getting inside the two boys' minds. They passed through a guard's body with a knife wound between his eyes, but neither of them wanted to ask about that. It didn't take them much longer to get to the lowest floor, and even if it was crowded with guards, they were all running to the exit, and didn't even notice their presence. "It's clearly our lucky day." the boy commented, although he knew there was something going on out there, or there was no way they'd be leaving their positions.

 

[Kanma]

Should she have passed out by now? After Element had started screaming, the person who'd grabbed her arm had let go of her, and a couple more shots were fired. It seemed kind of strange. They'd already caught her, why were they firing more at her? It didn't make sense. Friendly fire? Were they scared of her? Her vision was blurry and all she could seem to think about was the pain, though, so maybe there was some logical reason they were still firing. It didn't make sense. Her free hand clutched the wound tightly, but she knew it wasn't fatal. She stood up shakily, and realized why there'd been more shots. The guard hadn't let go of her. He'd become insubstantial. His entire body quite see-through, and when she looked at the others, they seemed to be doing the same thing. Strange, she shouldn't have any power left. How utterly, exceedingly strange. More shots. None of them hit her, to her great relief.

She couldn't bring herself to try to run. It felt like an effort just to stand. She could only stare at the guns and pray none of them hit as, one by one, everyone in her sight began to become less and less solid. Go away, go away, go away, go-. She caught sight of a girl and the boy from earlier, rushing towards her, trying to help. "GO AWAY." She shouted out loud, staring straight at them, accidentally making them slightly insubstantial as well. Several of the soldiers turned to see what she was looking at, and caught sight of the other subjects, but she didn't feel bad about it. What's done was done. She took a couple steps back, then tripped over her own feet and went toppling into the ground, landing hard on her butt. This time, she didn't bother to get up. She just closed her eyes and pressed her face into her knees, whimpering slightly, as if that could make the pain better.

 

[Nad]

Shade - Subject#1

Shade didn't trust him. She probably even trusted him less than those white dressed scientists that experimented on her. But she just saw him sticking a knife inside a man's brain, so it was normal to feel that way, right? Anyway, even if her instincts wanted to stop him, she did't have the strength. Maybe she could do something about him, but how would she deal with the guards later? Shade sighed, and didn't do anything about the non lethal shooting other than hope his targets wouldn't bleed out later. She even nodded when he spoke, suggesting to take care of the rest of the guards. The girl that could manipulate gravity wouldn't have much trouble covering his back as he fought, so they could even make a good team together. Anyway, before anything started, she started to feel... odd.

There was something about her body that wasn't right, but she couldn't tell what it was. It wasn't exactly pain, although it was definitely an unpleasant feeling. She looked straight to the Subject that had been shot as she heard her voice telling them to go away. Was she the one doing that...? The guards had already spotted them, but Shade could sense something strange about them as well. Were they... were they becoming transparent? Well, it was clearly possible. Anything was possible from those young people that the government decided to turn into mutants. "I think we should listen to her..." commented to Leon, still staring at the situation in front of her eyes. The guards were starting to freak out, so they shouldn't be a problem. But the girl... the girl might be. It didn't look as if she could control her powers under those circumstances, so they were all in danger. Anyway, if they escaped, what would happen with her?

It wasn't until she could see - or at least she believed she did - her hands changing into something else, something that didn't even look like matter, that she knew they couldn't help the other girl. Not for the moment. "Leon, we really need to leave until she calms down." added, hurrying to take a few steps back. Most of the guards were already running away from the girl on the floor. Looking over her shoulder, she could see an empty street that would finally lead her to her freedom. It was a perfect chance to stop being an experiment, but she'd need to leave the rest behind. Shade didn't actually know anything about the others, so why was she even thinking about it? Still, the seconds she took to consider her options were enough for a guard to grab her arm. Not everyone was running like chickens, after all. Instinctively, she punched him on his face with her free hand, but it hurt her more than him. She didn't know a thing about fighting, and anything she could do to him about gravity would affect her as well due to the short distance. Besides, her body was turning less solid every second. Awesome.

 

[Victor Markov]

Leon let out an irritated sigh and was about to fall back when a guard grabbed experiment number one, which he Buffaloed with both berettas and turned to the girl holding his hands up with his fingers spread. "I'm not here to hurt you or the others. I'm experiment number two, Leon. We're all getting out. Please come with us. The fighting is over." he said calmly as the sidearms vanished in a flash of crimson light. "You're safe now. I have no intention of fighting you." he added with his hands still raised up by his head with his palms facing the frightened experiment and his fingers spread. Not once did his eyes glow red during the time he shot the guards or pistol whipped the one guard. His tone was soft and kind, not to mention patient. His body language was that of a friendly, relaxed person who meant nobody any harm. He only hoped that she would calm down and join them.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

It felt like there was something in his head. Something that definitely was not him. Marcus gave an involuntary shudder at the alien feeling, but didn't try to fight whatever it was. He just kind of assumed it was one of the other subjects; if he could move metal with his mind and Subject one could do some crazy gravity thing, why shouldn't a different subject be able to read minds? "Uh, yeah, they're fine," he responded to Evan's previous questions. "I think. I didn't see Three, but I'm pretty sure she's downstairs." He paused for only a split second on a stair, considering telling the two that Subject 2 had already killed a guard. Then he realized that by thinking about it, he'd already informed whichever of the pair could read minds, so there was no reason to keep quiet. "Subject 2 killed one of the guards already."
When they passed the guard with the knife in his forehead, Marcus swallowed hard and made a pointless gesture toward the body. He couldn't stop the memory of the event from replaying in his head. "That one."
He lifted his eyes upon hearing Evan's voice, his eyes widening at the sight of the guards rushing outside. Lucky day? That wasn't right, couldn't be right. He'd left Subject 1 and 2 here, where could they be? Unless... "No. No, everyone else is outside, everyone else has to be outside," he said in a fast and nearly panicked tone, gently pushing past the two and picking up a gun dropped by one of the guards he'd immobilized before. He didn't repeat the trick, as there was too little time, so he pointed the end of the gun up at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The shots were louder than he thought they would be. He hadn't hit any of the guards, though, just the weird looking wall and the ceiling. That was good. But he'd drawn the attention of the guards. That was the whole point of the action, but being the center of that attention was more terrifying than he thought it would be. The fact that he lacked a plan for what to do now helped exactly none.​