Chapter Text
Approximately 1 month, seven days since Lee Felix’s recovery.
“Felix.” A pause, “We’ve been given the all clear to commence training for you again.” Minho’s soft voice broke Felix (He loved the feeling of having an actual name, the pleasure of yet had yet to wear off) out of his stupor. They boy glanced up at Minho, who tilted his head, strands of ashen hair falling out of his face as the elder boy stared back. Minho had dyed his hair a week earlier and as far as Felix could see it seemed to be staying for a while.
“What do you mean?” He asked quietly, still as unsure as ever ( --- “We don’t talk back, or ask our superiors questions Nines, that just---” ). Minho shrugged at him, opting to pass him the small black box he was carrying to Felix. Felix stared at him blankly and, when Minho motioned to open it, carefully pulled the lid off.
Inside, nestled in the black silk like fabric, rested a hilt. And rather than the normal black and grey colouring you’d normally find on the tech, this one was dull purple on the power lines, and baby blue on the main body.
Strange. Like the ones the rest of Chan’s squadron carried with them everywhere.
He brushed his hand over the hilt - Weapon really - and as if waiting for him, the power lines glowed, brightening to a lilac and reacting to his touch. It felt… As if a piece of him that had been missing for a long time had finally returned.
Like he was whole again.
“Ah, now that’s something I haven’t seen in a while.” A honey sweet voice - Woojin - murmured from the doorway. Felix glanced over, looking startled at the honey blonde as he watched with a soft smile.
“What do you mean?” He placed the box on his lap, as Woojin pulled away from the doorway.
“That’s your old weapon Lixie.”
Maybe a week had passed since that moment and still, Felix couldn’t let it leave his mind. It was proof -- This hilt was proof that he’d had a life. A life before the B company had found him. Proof he was someone.
Someone had been lying to him, he had known that from the beginning. Rumors of an enemy soldier being reconditioned were all over the B company’s base back when he’d been LFD900 or Nines or whatever.
Hell, it was even the original reason he had run away from them. But it still hurt to find out.
Maybe he should get back at them. Who knew, not him. For now, of course, he couldn’t. Not yet. For now he had a home. And a slew of people who loved him unconditionally even though he barely knew them.
For now he felt safe.
He twirled the hilt in his fingers like he’d twirl an actual knife and stood waiting, waiting for more instruction from Minho. His training was supposed to start now. Which… Was rather irrelevant. He knew how to fight (It was one of the only things he remembered from his old life), but he supposed they just wanted to push him through their modules and see how much he remembered.
They’d picked Minho to teach him for some reason unbeknownst to him. And while the man was a good teacher for the most part, he sometimes got lost - Felix often saw him staring into space, or occasionally at one of the women who walked through the grounds.
“Alright Lixie. Run through Module SO4 for me again.” Minho’s voice cut trough his thoughts, dragging Felix out of his head.
Maybe he was just as bad as Minho was at that honestly.
Felix nodded, letting his hilt flicker into the shape of a handgun. The shape and weight was a comforting feeling for him. He took a step towards the middle of the room, glancing at Minho for his starting signal, and took a deep breath.
Minho nodded and stepped into safety as the sim room flickered to life.
1.
Blue holographic figures appeared around Felix. Instinctively (even though he already knew) he glanced around to count the number of figures.
2.
The figures became more solid, faceless fighters with all the latest weapons.
3.
Minho gave him a nod, and all hell broke loose in the small room.
Go.
All at once, the figures started moving, starting to run or shoot at him. Felux turned to shoot at the gunner behind him, stepping to the side as they fell with a thump. He turned again, raising his gun.
The module said to shoot the gunmen first. Instinct told him to shoot the closest knifeman. He didn’t. Minho would make him redo it. He’d done it before after all.
So Felix stepped back, ducking away from someone’s blade.
He stood straight again, shooting at one of the remaining gunmen. Module SO4 contained eight figures, four of them gunmen, the other four with varying melee weapons. The module was so much easier than many of the other modules.
He stepped around the side of someone else and took another shot, then another. The gunners fell, leaving him with about four knife men.
He reloaded quickly, turning, and shot at the closest knife man. He stepped back, holding his hilt to chest height and taking a deep breath before he turned to aim at the knife man now in range of striking distance of him. One, two. Bang.
Two left. He narrowed his eyes before pulling the trigger at the next. One. He narrowed his eyes before he shot one last time, avoiding the last man’s knife. The figure hit the ground with a thumb. A moment passed and Minho stepped over with a nod.
“You did good, a little slow near the end but… Congrats on finishing the module,” He said with a hum, “I want you to practice this more when you can though. Get Youngjae to help you maybe.” Felix nodded as he pocketed his hilt.
Minho nodded at the door.
“Off you go Lix, Youngjae sunbae will be looking for you soon if you don’t go.” There was a snort and Felix darted out the door. The training facility around the room was full. Of course they were. People were sparing, shooting, practicing - That sort of thing.
Felix had yet to actually do anything more than sim rooms, but he was sure that at some point Minho would allow him to spare with the others. The boy took a deep breath and started running.
The grey halls he ran through were boring, empty and bland, and he was still finding his way around the facility. He was aware of how to get to his rooms though, luckily. He just had to find where his team was sleeping.
He was pretty sure he knew his way there.
He knew that spending time with Youngjae was supposed to be apart of Felix’s recovery but Chan really didn’t trust it. Why would he? Youngjae had been barely cleared himself after all.
So he thought it was understandable that he was rather weirded out when the elder man came up to him one afternoon asking for Felix’s family records.
“I want to show him something!” The elder had said with a big grin. Show him what? (Probably his family but Chan knew there was more than just family in those records) Chan tilted his head at the elder.
Still, there wasn’t much ground to deny Youngjaw access to them so he’d nodded when asked and explained where they were kept for his unit. Which was where his next problem came in.
Youngjar had taken Felix out of the compound - On permission of himself, Jaebum and Jinyoung Sr - And while he had technically granted permission, it didn't mean he was any less worried. Quite the contrary as a matter of fact.
He wanted Felix and Youngae to be alright, of course he did but, that didn't mean he trusted Youngjae. Sure his last relapse had been months ago but there was still the very real threat of one.
He couldn't reasonably use that as an excuse against Felix leaving. And in all honesty it was probably just him being paranoid, which he didn’t think he could help. After all the thoughts of ‘what if’ kept running through his head.
Right then, he was seated at his desk, staring worriedly at Felix’s report. Woojin said everything was in the right, save for memories. So they were pushing him through the simulations as fast as they could.
Chan sighed, pushing himself away from the desk. He could only hope they figured out what was wrong with Felix. But the likelihood of that was zero to none.
So all he had was hope.
“Have we found where Lix was hiding yet?” Changbin asked, as he dropped onto the next next to Seungmin and Jeongin as the pair frowned over various papers and reports. Seungmin glanced up and over, pushing himself from the desk.
“No.”
Jeongin glanced up himself, his eyebrows furrowing as he joined the conversation.
“It’s like he just disappeared off the face of the universe. All I’ve managed to get is reports of a man of his vague description appearing in multiple different systems like some sort of hit man.”
Seungmin sighed, pulling a report onto the screen floating in front of him, “He’d appear out of literally nowhere, unmarked ship and all that. Then just disappear after the job was done. It’s odd. Even freelancers would have a mark on their ship but he just… Didn’t.”
Changbin hissed as Seungmin nodded and pushed away his screen.
“Not only that but any attempts on tracking his ship failed. Sort of like he was some sort of ghost, you know.” Jeongin continued. A moment passed. “It’s clear whoever had him didn’t want him to be found.”
Seungmin nodded as Jeongin spoke before Changbin sighed.
“That’s… Really annoying.” A pause echoed.
“We’ll keep searching but ah… I think we need a break honestly. We’ve been at this too long and it’s digging us into a hole.” Seungmin said, pushing himself away from the table and standing.
“This is it?” Felix asked, seated on a box as he watched Youngjae. The elder nodded, placing his tablet down.
“You wanted a list of all B company bases and officials, right? This is it.” He responded, leaning back against the wall. Felix frowned down at the tablet with an almost contemplating expression. He could get back at the company with this list, yes, there was just still the tiniest part of him that still resisted the idea.
“Who do you think I should target?” He asked after a moment, picking up the tablet to scroll through the list of names. Youngjae offered a shrug.
“All of them, of course; They hurt me a lot, they’ve hurt you a lot. I would suggest hitting as hard as possible. Right where it hurts.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard, I reckon they’d welcome me back with open arms pretty easily.” Felix hummed as he tapped on a couple names. “How do we feel about Kim Jongho, lead scientist for their soldier project. Or perhaps Bae Kihyun, commanding officer?” Youngjae nodded at both suggestions.
“Those both work pretty well, the only problem being, of course, the level of security surrounding them both.”
Felix grinned.
“Well then. We should get planning then.”