Chapter Text
Santana was having an odd day, to say the least.
The primitives had finally awoken him after god knows how long, but it seems as if they had adapted beyond what he could have imagined. He had only seen such things like what he held in his hands in sketches in Lord Kars' workshop and yet, proof that humans had created weapons on equal level was right before him.
He took apart the cold metal object -("A gun," crowed the small voice at the back of his head that was allowing him to rapidly learn the language, although not as fast as he would have liked, as the language the primitives were speaking (English,) made absolutely no sense, as if it were an amalgamation of several contrasting dialects.) viewing every seperate piece, learning how the humans had managed to create such a weapon. Crude, yet ingenious.
One of the humans remaining in the room that he had not cared for killing was approaching him, tapping him on the shoulder. He stilled. It would have been easy to preform a technique he had created during his time alone, to use his ribs as blades, especially with the distance the primitive was towards him. And yet-
The human appeared to be in absolutely zero pain. He wasn't as unobservant to his surroundings at the moment as to miss the fact that he had strode through the other's leg merely a few seconds ago. He had met those with great resolve before, but this man hadn't reacted to his anything to do with his leg at all. It was as if he were -a quick glance down confirmed it, he was- uninjured.
This was the same human that had used the hair of that Stroheim to deflect the metal projectiles, (Bullets,) Santana suddenly recalled. He hadn't payed much heed due to spending most his brainpower on trying to learn the language (slowly, not fast enough never fast enough-) that he had disregarded it shortly after.
The human was talking.
Should he pay attention?
"-nd don't just give me that weird look, dude! Pay attention!" The shorter man cried out in exasperation, odd accent that Santana had never encountered before twisting oddly around the syllables of the language. (twenty,- Accent similar to bound human dissimilar to Stroheim different locale, -army, containment, fruit, grenade, red, yellow, sev-)
His voice sounded oddly pleasant, with that accent.
"U-uh-" the odd human started again, and Santana abruptly realised that he had leaned in close towards the other man's face, looming a scant few- (centimetres, inches,) away. He could feel the other's breath lightly against his face, but his eyes remained locked to the blue-green ones below him.
"Repeat that?" He asked in a flat tone, leaning in closer so that he was almost touching the other man's face. He briefly recalled how he was always told he had no sense of personal space, but he could not remember who had said that to him, whether it was one of his- his family?- or another entity all together.
The human flushed red as he stuttered through a sentence. "I said that you uh- should stop ignoring- holy shit." He ducked down and tried to back away, but Santana quickly caught him by the wrist before he could succeed.
"Joseph," the elderly human (Speedwagon, speed, to go fast move rapidly, wagon ???) called out towards the odd on- Joseph, "Get away from him!"
Santana ignored the old man, his mind almost finished extrapolating off what little scraps of language were avaliable to him, leaving more of his mind avaliable to other tasks. Such as observing the way the Joseph's pulse quickened when he leaned in close, how his pupils dilated slightly as he looked him in the eyes.
He had questions, and he was going to get his answers. Best to start with the most pressing, however.
He directed his full attantion to Joseph, unblinking gaze boring into him much more forcefully than he had been when distracted, and he opened his mouth. "What exactly are you?" He asked.
.....
..........
.....
Rudol Von Stroheim put his head in his hands as he slid down against the containment chamber's outer wall with a groan. It had been five fucking hours since the subject- Santana, as he had named him- had escaped.
But not actually, oh no, it would have been so much easier for the pillar man to have simply killed everyone and then made his escape. That wasn't what happened.
Instead, he had to listen to the most irritating Englishman he had ever met prattle on with an Aztecian demi-god about the state of the modern world, about linguistics, about literally every goddamn topic under the sun, up to and including the sun.
To make matters even worse, in thirty minutes it had quickly gone from terrifying to surreal, and then to downright boring when it became clear that the Man in the Pillar would only listen to what Joseph had to say, disregarding both other humans in the room.
It was because the fucker used Hamon, wasn't it. There were no Nazis that could use Hamon, which meant that Santana would prove to be a useless fucking venture.
"Not to mention the other three," he muttered sourly to himself. He needed to get word back to Europe, about how the Pillar men wouldn't listen to commands, about how they would kill indiscriminately, but every time he tried to leave the fucking bunker through the singular exit that was installed, one of the two supernaturally powered gossips stopped him. It was humiliating.
"Repeat yourself." Santana said in the slightly raised tone he used when he didn't understand something, and Rudol didn't even bother lifting his head, because they were probably talking about the difference between coca cola and pepsi, only to find himself choking as he was slammed against the viewing glass, seven feet of angry aztec power glaring dead at him.
His hands shot to his throat to try and pry the tight grasp away from his throat, but it was little use to try and combat the superpowered vampire with only regular human strength.
"Repeat yourself." Santana ironically repeated himself, grasp on Rudol's throat loosening just enough to let the man speak and not much else.
"The- the three-?" Shit. He shouldn't have said that, not in front of three definite enemies, not about a project even more classified than this one- "N-Never."
"Three? More like me?" Santana narrowed his eyes, searching Rudol's expression for something he obviously found. "Yes. Where are they?"
"I-I'm not going to..." he wheezed, "tell you."
Santana leaned in close, and Rudol felt the exact same fear of holy-shit-I'm-going-to-fucking-die that he had felt when Santana first got into the control room.
"I," the vampire spoke, slowly like he had been previously when he was first grasping the language, "will destroy, everything, you stand for if you do not tell me."
"Whoa, Santana, think you're getting a little intense there buddy?" Joseph asked as he casually slapped the literal fucking super-vampire on the shoulder like he was an old friend. Rudol heard Speedwagon make a slight wheezing noise at the sight.
Santana looked over to Joseph, the same deadish look he had sported when he had first awoken. "My family can, and will, kill you." He paused, slightly thoughtful look on his face, "extremely violently." He finished with a nod.
"Ah."
"Yes. Ah."
Joseph turned to Stroheim, slightly strained expression on his face. "So, Nazi man, you mind spilling where those others you mentioned are? Pretty please?"