Chapter Text
Chapter 17
Sirro
Sirro creaked his eyes open against the blazing lights ahead.
His body spasmed, before he threw up blood onto the shining white floor beneath him.
Getting up, he wiped the blood off his cheek.
“SUBJECT 32 HAS AWOKEN” blared a metallic voice throughout the expanse.
Sirro was stuck in a glass cage.
He couldn’t break it, he tried.
Multiple times.
And paid for it too.
They had the Watchers on him at all times because of it, always staring at him with those strange white eyes of theirs.
A Valir tapped on the glass, waiting for Sirro to make eye contact.
He barely did.
The blood loss was getting to him.
The past day they’d been taking his blood, and muttering and staring at him with disgust.
It made Rouge look like a damn saint, compared to what the Valir did to him.
The Valir at the glass seemed to converse with a ghost.
He couldn’t see whoever the hell he was talking to, but he did that enough to tell Sirro that the Valir probably had some sort of contraption to talk to others over distances.
The Valir tapped on the glass again.
Sirro spat some more blood on the floor, before getting up to face him through the glass.
The Valir held his gaze for one bored second before moving away, unperturbed by his state.
Then, through the entrance of the hallway that connected several of these glass cells, came the one dragon Sirro didn’t want to see.
She stopped halfway, panting, as though she’d been running the entire way.
When she arrived at the door to his cell, it opened on its own.
The Watcher outside stared at him.
He made a face at it as Rouge stepped inside his cell.
The door abruptly closed.
“Hi,” She said nervously, seemingly oblivious to how dead Sirro looked.
Even he could tell from his own scales that they made him into practically a living ghost.
Perhaps it was normal around here, though that would be worse.
“Why are you here? Go away,” Sirro told her, sitting down heavily.
She bit her lip. “Uh. I can’t do that.”
“And why’s that?” Sirro sighed.
“Cause I feel guilty? Besides, I have to escort you out.”
Sirro perked up. “Where?”
“Since it can’t absorb you, it might as well let you help some other way.” Rouge said, not at all thinking at how horrifying the implications of her sentences were.
“I’m not helping it.” Sirro said plainly.
Rouge raised an eyebrow. “Even I can’t protect you from what happens after that decision.”
Sirro furrowed his brow. “Why aren’t you in trouble for helping me, earlier?”
“Oh, I am.” Rouge said cheerfully. “But the Entity couldn’t really care what I do. Not really, anyhow.”
The Entity.
Who was this Entity?
Rouge kept on speaking about it, it’s all anyone here cares about.
What’s so important about it?
Rouge beckoned to the now opening door, and whisked herself quickly out of the cage.
As though she didn’t trust it to not shut closed on her suddenly.
Sirro sighed, and tried to walk out the door.
However each step drained him, and pulled at his stitched side.
At the door he was gasping a bit.
Rouge looked expectantly at the Watcher.
Suddenly, it let out a very dragon grumble, and hauled Sirro up, supporting him with its wings.
Everywhere the shadow touched him, he froze a little.
But it was sustainable.
“Thank you?” Sirro said, shivering a little.
The Watcher helped him through the endless twisting and turning hallways, till Rouge reached a random door that looked identical to all of the others.
“Here goes,” She mumbled, before bursting in, and saying brightly, “Hey everyone!”
Sirro gritted his teeth, as the Watcher hauled him inside and dropped him on the floor.
Grumbling, he got up.
Rouge blew a kiss to the Watcher who snorted and whisked itself away.
“So, I got him here. What else?” Rouge asked snippily to a hardened looking Valir at the front.
The room itself was filled with Valir, all tapping away at strange machines with stranger runes on them.
The room overlooked a much larger containment facility ahead of them, that was visible through the glass.
In the centre of the containment facility was a large glass cylinder with a shadow-like material pulsing in the centre.
The Valir beside Rouge beckoned Sirro to come stand beside him.
When it was clear Sirro couldn’t make it on his own, the dragon cleared his throat.
A Valir next to him stared at him with disgust, then hauled himself out of his seat to support him.
With the help of that very disgusted Valir, he managed to get beside the important Valir.
“You know what this is, boy?” He grumbled, voice gravelly.
Sirro stared out at the strange containment cylinder.
“What creates your Watchers,” Sirro said.
The shadowy material inside was like that of the Watchers.
“Rouge said you were smart. But no.” The dragon said.
“Then what is it?” Sirro asked.
The dragon sighed. “That, boy, is our future. Something to evolve our greatness to a higher plane.”
A dragon near Sirro lifted his snout a little higher.
Sirro scoffed, “The Valir are already the most advanced tribe in the world. What is there more to achieve?”
“There is always more to achieve, boy. We were only able to get this far because of our superiority.”
“I see nothing superior about you. You look the same as me.” Sirro snarled.
A pulse echoed through the area, flooding in from the containment chamber.
The few Watchers hanging around shrunk away from it, as though they were scared of it.
A few gasps and laughs echoed quietly through the room somewhat strained.
The dragon waited a minute, before continuing, “You see, boy, the Valir have what your tribe would call magic.”
A cup of some brown liquid started floating, and glided gently into his claw.
Taking a sip, he said, “We are the most powerful tribe in Pyrrhia. If that isn’t superior, I don’t know what is.”
Every Valir around him, even Rouge stood a little taller, sat a little sharper.
Sirro looked at him with condescension. “Animus dragons have infinitely more power than you. With one word, our animus dragons could wipe out your civilization.”
A few scoffs here or there echoed throughout the chamber.
He chuckled into his cup, “And you don’t suppose we have our own animuses, don’t you?”
Sirro gave him a look, “With a tribe like you, there’d be no other tribe than Valir in this world. You’d wipe us all out.”
He frowned. “Smart dragon.”
“Which is why you're trying to be even more ‘superior’.” Sirro realised.
Sirro glanced to his left.
A small incision knife, the kind used for cutting paper sat on a desk.
The dragon nodded. “Imagine a tribe, with the power of an animus. A tribe who cannot die.”
Most of the dragons grinned.
I cannot help them.
“What makes you expect me to help you?” Sirro snapped.
“Oh, I’m sure we have several things you want. But we’d only need you for a short period of time.”
They’re going to kill me anyway.
Arrrrgh, dammit it!
Sirro suddenly gripped the knife and held it to his own neck.
The room went dead quiet.
The dragon turned his head and nodded.
“And if I don’t want to be your test subject?” Sirro said, voice only quivering a little.
He smirked. “You see, boy, you understand nothing. You weren’t given a choice.”
He looked pointedly at Rouge.
Rouge looked conflicted for a second, then sighed.
And took a step toward him.
“Stay back,” Sirro warned.
He wasn’t ready to do it, but he wanted them to think he would.
Rouge sighed, and stopped right beside him. “Don’t do this. I don’t need your blood too.”
Sirro hesitated for a second, just for a second, but that was all Rouge needed to stab her talons into Sirro’s wrist, forcing him to drop the knife, then shoved her elbow into his head which threw him against the floor.
Coughing, he barely got up.
Who’s blood?
Who’s blood was on her talons?
He saw Rouge holding the knife with a frown.
Noticing him, she gave him a faint smile, and shrugged.
He didn’t a get a chance to continue that thought before rage flooded through him.
She tries to help him and then betrays him again and again.
What was wrong with this dragon?
“You’ll regret that,” He snarled, stumbling a bit as he tried to move toward her.
“Show him to his new quarters,” the important dragon said. “Oh, and get him neatly acquainted with his new friend, Rouge. I’d hate for him to be alone.”
New friend? Sirro barely thought as someone stabbed something sharp and cool into his side.
Immediately he could tell it was an anaesthetic, from the way the walls were swaying, and the black spots covering his vision.
Sirro could barely watch as he was dragged by Valir, or Watchers, he didn’t really see.
Not even when they threw him against a stone cold floor.
And shut the door.
Darkness flooded the room, with Rouge lingering at the entrance.
“Sorry,” She whispered, before quickly running back to the light.
Coward.
Sirro looked to his side, spotting a pair of blue eyes, then looked away again.
Blue eyes.
Sirro looked again.
Blue blood covered her almost tip to toe, but was still somehow recognisable.
How?
She lifted her snout, and in a cool, sharp voice said, “Who the hell are you?”