Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Agent Gray hadn't been around for very long. Had this place been at all normal, that is. As it was, she had survived the entirety of her first month in Site-17 and that alone made her a veteran.

Still, surviving for that long didn't really make her feel at home all that much. Her training in the military had prepared her for the physical demands of the job and she had a good enough head on her shoulders to not break down at the sight of the things in the halls, but she still hadn't really earned her place amongst her peers. 

It's been about a week since they stopped outwardly expecting her to drop dead at the next breach, but they still haven't warmed up to her. 

She gets it. It's hard. Making connections, keeping people close, it can get so difficult. It's harder to do your job when you think that you may lose something more than just a colleague.

Because you do lose people.

A lot.

And it doesn't get easier.

Gray was lost in thought, sifting through her things at the empty barracks, before her teammates flooded in for the small break they got before training and took her peace away. She sighed in defeat when she heard the door slide open, thinking her time was up.

To her surprise, she didn't recognize the man that greeted her.

"Oh, hey!" He seemed surprised, but not in a bad way, "didn't think there'd be anyone here by now…"

She didn't know how to respond. He was a mountain of a man, twice her size and easily three times her shoulder length. Messy brown hair tied in a loose ponytail, with curls halfway falling over his vivid green eyes and tanned skin. He wore an MTF uniform, but it looked slightly different from hers, more robust. Definitely more weapons, but she couldn’t see them. She was shocked at how light his tone was. And even though his actions didn't give it away, she had a feeling he wasn't supposed to be there.

"I'm sorry, are you… meant to be here?" Was the best she could come up with

"Right, sorry! Didn't think I'd have to introduce myself to anyone!" He gave her a nervous smile and raised his hand out. "Draven Kondraki, Alpha-9. I used to live here."

Kondraki? Alpha-9?! 

Now, Gray hasn't been here for very long, but Kondraki was a legend and Alpha-9 was insane.

"Right…" she didn't shake his hand.

"You're… not the Kondraki everyone talks about, right?" Wasn't he dead?

"Oh, no, no." He shook his hands dismissively. "He was my dad. Guess his reputation's still going strong, huh?"

"Guess so… sorry for your loss."

" 'S alright. Been a while anyway. And you are?"

Right, introductions…

"Karolina Gray, site security. First responder. Security Clearance Level 2." She straightened up and addressed him as a superior, which he was, she supposed.

He didn't seem to notice her efforts. For all his name and title bring, he was a lot more laid back than she expected. Absent-mindedly nodding at her titles, he glanced at the bed above her own.

"Oh, hey! You got my bed! Man, I can't even remember how many times I fell from it!" He smiled fondly

"Oh, no, mine's the one under it. That one's Troy Baxter's, same titles."

"Oh. Well, good to know I'm not talking to the owner of the MAGA hat then!"

Ugh, that… "Yeah, he's an asshole. Hope he gets his neck snapped off," she muttered, before catching herself. She hadn't meant to vent to a superior like this, but she'd been dealing with Troy's bullshit since the day she got there. Gritting through uncomfortable comments, glaring through pointless arguments, if she hadn't been so scared of being thrown to the keters for stirring the pot, she would've pummeled the jackass by week one.

Draven seemed to agree with the sentiment, though he showed no signs of irritation. At least he didn't reprimand her.

She noticed the patches on his sleeve as he inspected his old bunk. A rainbow flag and a bisexual pride flag under the Foundation logo. Definitely a dress code violation, but who would be stupid enough to fight any Kondraki on something as small as that?

Gray cleared her throat, curiosity getting the better of her.

"So, what'd you do to get assigned to Alpha-9 anyway? It's Last Hope, right? The last line of defense for the Foundation?"

"Uh, kinda. Light wanted me to lead, since I'm pretty much the only non-anomalous person that can wrangle the difficult ones." He spoke as if every word coming out of his mouth wasn't a baffling concept.

Then again, this is the SCP Foundation… Can't let something like this surprise me…

At that, the door slid open again and both turned to look at the now familiar faces of her crewmates. 

Her sector leader stopped wide-eyed at the door, seemingly recognizing her strange company. Troy, apparently, had not.

As Draven turned towards the door, it seemed the first thing the loudmouth agent saw were his badges. From this side, she could see the Alpha-9 insignia on his other arm, but she was betting Troy hadn't.

"What, is this a joke or something?" He sneered, seemingly not intimidated by Draven's massive form. "This must be your first day. What, you think you're oh-so-special that you can ruin the uniform just to shove that in people's faces?"

Holy shit, this idiot's being homophobic to the leader of Last Hope.  

She could only hope he'd get a swift death.

Draven put his hands in his pockets and leaned on his bed with a lazy grin, "what's it to you?"

He's leaning on Troy's bed… this is gonna get messy.

Gray skirted around an increasingly more spiteful agent to lean in closer to her supervisor.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Should we warn Site Command?" She tried.

The senior agent at her side gave a long, suffering sigh, "they can tear each other to shreds for all I care, I'm not gonna bother Kiryu with this."

"Alright, jackass," Troy continued, "clearly you're new to this place, so lemme tell ya a little something. This ain't no joyride, got it?"

He closed the distance between them, glaring up at the offending target.

"Ya think flaunting that shit's gonna get ya anywhere? We veterans can smell weakness from a mile away." Gray couldn’t help but scoff at that. He was barely there for five months. "We smell it on you? We throw ya to the keters. Heh. Probably don't even know what that means yet." He smiled, brimming with undue confidence.

Kondraki's grin just got wider and more defiant with every word. He wanted to see how far this guy would take this. Like he was toying with him. Waiting for him to realize.

Gray started to understand how he could lead Last Hope, now that she could see beneath his good-natured first impression.

Not realizing this, Troy continued. "So don't go thinkin' ya can get away with defacing our uniform. If you can't even follow that rule, who knows how many more yer gonna break."

At that, Draven finally laughed.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the situation.

"I've been breaking the rules of this place since I was like, ten! What makes you think I'm gonna stop now?"

Seeing Troy's lost expression, he continued: 

"I was just on a nostalgia trip," he pointed to his old bunk, "Didn't think Kiryu would be that desperate to keep up numbers since I left. A loudmouth like you wouldn't make it past the first week in my time!"

He bent down to be at eye level with his challenger, his voice lowered to a whisper, expression calm and defiant.

"Do you know why the Foundation doesn't like rulebreakers? Most of us either die and mess up their research or leave and have to be hunted down. They tend not to last very long. But the ones that stay and survive? Those become legends ."

The room fell into a tense silence. Troy seemed paralyzed in the middle of the narrow hallway, possibly realizing his mistake. The sector leader just studied the situation with attentive eyes. Gray and her other bunkmates stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

Draven Kondraki sighed and leaned comfortably into his regular stance, watching the aftermath of his exchange. He moved to say something else when an angry young woman's voice sounded through the intercom of the barracks.

"DRAVEN! Why in the hell is your boyfriend bitching to me about not getting through to you ?! Pick up your phone, goddammit!"

He sighed and moved to the barracks landline, dialing the comms center. The fact that he knew to do that so seamlessly proved he'd at least been there enough to be familiar with the place.

"Can't do that," he shrugged. "Threw my phone in the lake half an hour ago."

There was a pause.

"Why?" The voice sounded exasperated, but not surprised.

"So you wouldn't track me," he explained. "How'd you find me anyway?"

A hand materialized itself, eye-level with Gray and a few steps away from her bunk, facing it. It threw a middle finger in the general direction of where Draven had just been, then promptly disappeared.

"Why'd you have a picture of my old bunk?"

"Get back on track before I throw you to the lizard!"

He shrugged and dropped the phone as the line went quiet, turning to the group and waving his goodbyes.

"Well, this has been fun, but I have some butterflies to move, so I should get going before the queen finds me too." He turned to agent Gray and gave an honest smile. "Thanks for letting me poke around and good luck with MAGA over there! Hope you make it past your first year!" 

She chose to take that as an honest wish for her wellbeing and reluctantly waved as he turned to the door.

Only for it to open on its own.

"Heeey, Dr. Kiryu!"

Chapter Text

"What did he do?"

Kiryu addressed the sector leader, ignoring the hulking mass trying to make himself look smaller in front of her.

"I would say he broke into a restricted area, but it looks like he had a key, so… As it stands, all he did was defend himself against an idiot."

Kiriyu glanced at Draven, then at the barracks, then briefly at a still-stunned Troy Baxter. "Well, there's no blood, so it can't have been that bad." She shrugged and moved to leave.

"WAIT A SECOND!" Came an indignant cry from the aforementioned idiot. "YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT SHIT?!"

"Believe what, exactly?" Kiryu questioned calmly, turning to face him again.

"That this fucker's so high up in the food chain that he can just get away with all this shit?!"

How ironic that he would yell at his superiors after so thoroughly boasting about rules and hierarchy.

"And that was SCP-105, wasn't it?!" He continued, "Why the fuck are you just letting a dangerous SCP object walk around and invade our comms system like that?!"

Kondraki scoffed. "Calling Iris 'dangerous' is very generous."

"Why is nobody sounding the alarms?" Troy looked around, searching the faces of his peers for the same apprehension he felt. "There's a rogue SCP out there! Why aren't we moving in to capture it?"

His bunkmates stood quiet, while his superiors gave him a quizzical look, as if not understanding his reaction. Suddenly, a dawning look of realization crossed his face and he moved to once again metaphorically stare down at the perceived intruder.

"It's because of you, isn't it? You're doing this," he accused.

The man scoffed.

"What, making you look like an idiot?"

"I know what you are."

Draven tried and failed to suppress a smile.

"Say it. Out loud."

"You're a reality bender."

Gray didn't think he got the reference. She was enjoying this confrontation more and more by the second.

"No, but my boyfriend is." Kondraki couldn't suppress his laughter anymore, doubling over at his own joke. As Gray looked beside him, she could see her site director was also trying to bite back a smile. Troy just stared in indignant confusion.

She didn't really get the joke either.

"Okay, okay…" the man tried to recompose himself, still giggling through his words. "Hey, Kiryu… any chance you could let me oversee their training for today?"

Her lips curled up in a tight smile and that was all the answer he needed.

                        _________

As they walked out towards the training field, Gray's stomach churned with gnawing apprehension. She really hoped Troy hadn't just put all of them in danger, but this is the SCP Foundation. Danger is everything. One month and she was already paying for someone else's stupidity.

They were being led by their sector leader while Kiryu and Kondraki walked ahead. They met up with an angry-looking blonde girl that Gray assumed was the same one from the intercom earlier. She had her arms crossed and wore a chunky Polaroid camera strapped around her neck. She wore the same kind of MTF gear as their unexpected visitor, though seemingly modified to hold less weapons and more pouches with what she assumed would be photographs.

"Do you even remember what we're here for, Draven?" She glared at him as he approached.

"Vacation, my dear Iris!" He raised his arms in a wide, open arch. "Remembrance! Lighten up a little!"

"Ah, yes. A two-day vacation to the prison I used to call home. How great," she sneered.

Gray figured she should at least try to lighten the mood a little. They were already doomed anyway. So, she walked to the agents and tried to get their attention.

"So, uh…" she started, "if I may ask… what brings you to Site-17? Or, back, I guess…"

Both agents glanced at Kiryu, taking her apparent indifference as answer enough.

"We're transporting 408 to Site-171," the woman shrugged.

"Finally convinced our site director to let me have 'em!"

"408? That's-" she didn't have a chance to continue as a loud whistle sounded off.

"Alright, children, line up!" Her sector leader called out. "Your executioners for the day will present themselves and give you the rundown. Meaning as of right now, I am officially on break, so don't bother me!"

She stepped away from the agents as Kondraki and the blonde girl stepped forward.

"Heyo!" Kondraki began, "I'm Draven Kondraki, leader of operations for Mobile Task Force Alpha-9, Last Hope. This here's Iris Thompson, or SCP-105," she rolled her eyes at having her number called out. "She's mostly our site photographer, but sometimes she shoots at stuff… badly." She elbowed him at that, barely reaching his ribs. "Ow, okay! She's in charge of our Special Operations Protocol– and a decent shot!" He relented after getting elbowed again.

Iris sighed and continued "Apparently, one of you idiots managed to challenge him, for some reason, and now we all gotta deal with that. I'm hoping this is gonna be just a standard trial and not anything too crazy." She punctuated each statement with a glare and a snarl.

So much for respecting your superiors…

Gray glared at Troy one last time before finally trading her anxiety for the cold dread of adrenaline. Whatever this was, she could only hope it wouldn't be her end.

"Why, it is a trial, Iris! How'd you guess?" He smirked, she snarled.

Draven ignored his teammate's unvoiced grievances. "Here's the gist of it. We're gonna pull a monster from a pocket dimension and you guys gotta survive it! Standard training for both Alpha-9 and Home Base, you should be fine."

One of the agents raised his hand. Draven shot finger guns at him and smiled to let him speak. "Excuse me, sir, but wouldn't this classify as a security breach?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it. Did you know my dad once freed the lizard so he could ride it? Wild times. I had to shoot him for that. Anyway, Iris, you got a picture of locker D-20?"

"I'm scared to ask, but what's in D-20?"

"A surprise!" He smiled

She shook her head, but pulled out a stack of Polaroids from one of her side pockets, sifting through them until she found what she was looking for. With one last raised eyebrow at her still-smiling leader, she reached for it. 

Seeing that for the first time was unnerving, but not as impossible as it would've been a month ago.

The girl reached for the photograph, then her fingers reached through it, disappearing into the paper. Then her hand, then her arm, then it stopped. She slowly pulled her arm back, dragging with it a small, black metal chest with some unreadable label on the lid. 

She handed it to her leader, but he just pointed back to the open field. Iris eyed the man suspiciously before moving to place the chest a little ways away from the group.

Finally noticing this strange behavior, Dr. Kiryu called out from her supposedly safe distance.

"Baby Kondraki, what exactly are you planning to do?"

"Releasing a reality bender for training purposes!" He answered earnestly.

"Real- Draven!!" Iris yelled.

"Relax! I beat this guy singlehandedly before! They'll be fine!"

"You know, if the O5 don't kill you for this, James definitely will."

"Yeah, but I'll live!"

" Kondraki …" Kiryu interrupted in a sharper tone than before. " Don't make trouble for me."

"Wouldn't dream of it, my queen! Iris!" He turned to the girl, ignoring the glares both women were giving him, "Open up Pandora's Box!"

Iris rolled her eyes at the order, but took aim with one of the smaller guns from her holster. She shot at the lock, hitting it dead on.

The lid shot back on its hinges as the box shook and jerked with unstable motions. Whatever was being kept inside was eager to get out.

Dread spilled across the crowd, apprehensive expectation tampered down by the uncertainty of just how real the danger was. What did these people consider training? Was this a breach? Who would be responsible if it were? None of their training covered this, but this was supposed to be training. How much danger were they really in?

A swirling mass of red and brown and black spilled out of the open box as it warred with its confines. It took no shape, only spreading ever closer. She could almost taste the fear weaving through her teammates. None of them had ever come face to face with a reality bender before and none would know how to respond.

Gray looked to her superiors, her site director and sector leader stood a good distance away, faces stern, but unreadable. She looked to the visiting agents, but they were locked in a wordless conversation, unconcerned for the growing mass of impossibility sprawling at their feet. 

She spared one final glance at her colleagues but saw exactly what she expected to see. The same fear and worry and uncertainty that she herself was so desperate to push down.

The thing began to rise from the ground, forming walls around them, separating them from the world, from reinforcements, from each other. As the walls began to rise between them, she saw Troy on the verge of tears. He might've been crying. 

They all might've been. 

She couldn't tell.

She steeled herself as the darkness engulfed her. Taking a shaky breath, she decided. If this was a test, she wasn't going to fail.

After all, she still wanted to see the result of that little battle.

She didn't think Troy was right about Draven being a reality bender, but she was beginning to think he was a lot more dangerous than that.

She stepped forward and in a moment, she stood before an endless hallway. She couldn't pinpoint the change, it just came around her when she decided to move.

So, agent did as agent does and kept moving forward. Dwelling on the confusion would only leave her vulnerable. 

They really didn't get any training for reality benders.

Hell, a level 2 agent barely had access to any files regarding them.

So, she watched.

The hallway changed again and she studied it.

It had doors now, different colors and shapes and sizes and patterns, interspersed at odd intervals. It gave her a headache if she stared at them for too long, so she kept her eyes forward and kept moving.

At some point, she took a turn. 

It felt instinctive, it felt right. She wasn't sure if it was her own intuition telling her that, or if it was whatever was controlling the maze, but she didn't question it. She had her gun ready. If this thing led her straight to it, good. If it led her outside, better. Either way, she wasn't backing down.

After walking for a little while longer, she could hear what sounded like muffled sobs coming from one of the doors. She trained her gun at it and carefully moved to hold the doorknob. If this was a trap, she'd be ready for it.

She swung the door open and scanned the room as quickly as she could. Nothing jumped out at her, so that was a good sign.

At the center of the empty room sat a lone figure, hunched over themselves with their hands on their head, audibly sobbing. The figure shook violently, their breath choppy and uneven as they moved to face her.

It was Troy.

He was crying.

He opened his mouth, dropping his hands to his sides. His jaw quaked as he tried to breathe. He sucked in a breath, clearly bracing for a scream. But before he could, a wall of black and red liquid shot up between them, leaving her alone once more. 

And the scream never came.

She kept moving.

You lose people on the job. It never gets easy, but you have to move forward. Don't let it weigh you down, or you could be next. 

Even if this is a bit much for training.

She could feel the pull of the spiraling maze and chose to follow it with cold determination. Whatever stood at the center, she'd be ready for it. It would've been nice to have someone there to rely on, to have her back, but if all her teammates were in a similar state to Troy, well… she could only hope they were surviving out there.

The pull was getting stronger and she finally recognized it for what it was.

Fear.

The maze was using her own fear to guide her through it and it kept the others away. Maybe it was her need to "get the job done and panic later" that kept her from breaking down in terror. She had no choice, now, but to face it, staring down the impossible pedestal holding the still-twitching black chest. 

Resigned to her fate, the agent took a deep breath and trudged through the pool of squirming, unidentifiable matter at her feet. Keeping her gun trained on the chest and glancing around the room every few seconds to look for signs of incoming danger, she approached.

Now she stood over the twitching box and glared at the lid for failing to keep its contents contained. She could finally see the label properly.

It read:

"IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, 

HOLD DOWN LID."

A wave of indignant confusion mixed with relief and bewilderment hit her. For as bizarre as it seemed, this really was just a standard test.

Pulling a new pair of gloves over the ones she was already wearing (as added precaution,) she let her gun hang by its holster and carefully touched the lid. 

Immediately she felt the pressure increase. The world shook around her as she pushed the lid on its hinges, struggling against it as it fought back on its invisible restraints. The walls melted and crumbled with an indescribable texture and fell with uneven weight on the liquid floor around her. Some of the stuff slid back into the box, but most of it seemed to just dissolve away into nothing until she could finally see the sky above her. The sudden light almost made her lose her balance as she further pushed the lid down. It finally angled in a way where she could just shove her entire weight down on it, sinking with it to the barely-visible ground.

She closed her eyes when she felt the box close with a click, kneeling over it and trying to steady her breath.

Gray sat there for a long while, feeling the sweat drip down her face, counting breaths and trying to ignore the pounding of her heart inside her skull, refusing to open her eyes. She sat there. And she huffed. And she kept her weight firmly on the now-locked chest, having never moved to lock it in the first place.

She finally dared to open her eyes when a voice, much softer than it had been before, called out to her.

"That was impressive."

She looked up to see Iris, a startled expression looking down at her own trembling figure. Then looked past her, at Kondraki. His was the face of someone who had just won the lottery, without ever buying a ticket. Her superiors were also impressed. And her teammates…

They were alive

Chapter Text

Troy looked terrible .

He was slumped next to Draven against the chain link fence, trying and failing to make himself look alive.

Draven chuckled, "still think I'm a reality bender? " He asked the man on the ground 

"No," he grimaced. "I think you're worse…"

"Well you're not wrong there."

Her other teammates were scattered about, most clinging to the chained wire of the fence, trying to collect their own pieces of scattered mind. They looked to be in all different states of fear and disarray.

Gray was feeling it too, of course. Numbed by confusion and relief, but fear wasn't one to fade so quickly. She steadied her breathing and got up, still clutching tightly to the box.

Draven motioned something at Kiryu but her attention was caught by a hand reaching out to her. Small, with painted blue nails chipped at the edges, wearing a padded, fingerless glove and outstretched, palm facing upwards.

Iris was asking for her box back.

She didn't want to give it away. Her trembling hands betrayed her, however. Moving without a command to the blonde girl's reach.

"You know, that really was impressive!" Draven had gotten closer and was now patting her lightly on the back. "I didn't expect any of you to intuit your way out of a reality maze! Did you manage to figure out how it works too?"

What an odd question… Could someone actually escape without figuring it out?

She looked at the box, now in the blonde girl's hands, "it's- Uh… it's fear, isn't it? It uses fear to guide you?"

Draven's face sparked with an emotion she couldn't pinpoint. "It feeds on fear. Uses it to keep people away from its centerpoint. Luckily, you got there before that happened, but if it had emerged fully, it would start giving you visions when you got close to its heart. Other than that, it's pretty harmless, though."

"Harmless?" Iris questioned, arm halfway into a photograph and box nowhere to be seen. "Didn't that thing give you flashbacks to the worst moments of your life?"

"Oh, it did worse! It went full Talloran and put me in the center of everything! Me shooting my dad's brains out, me ripping James' jaw off… But I was paying attention! The plan was for me to get there before it could even get close to emerging and shut this whole thing down in typical Kondraki fashion. But hey, you beat me to it! Any chance you wanna switch sites?"

Iris crossed her arms. "Ignoring the fact that you just admitted to becoming your own worst nightmare, and by that I mean your father , is this really the best way to give someone a job offer?"

"I'm sorry… what?..." Gray stammered out.

"I'm inviting you to move to Site-171. Kiryu already gave the okay, but I need your confirmation. It's more confusing maze, less death trap, if that makes it better."

"That's true," Iris supplied, "people do tend to die a lot less often than in most Foundation sites. 17 especially."

"So, I'm getting transfered?" This was still a bit too much to process. "Why me?"

Kiryu interjected, walking up to them. "Site-171 is located within a powerful reality-bending spatiotemporal anomaly. It's steadily increasing in size, so the site constantly requires new qualified personnel to manage and maintain it. It's not easy to find people that can traverse reality mazes, but it is a necessity for all those working at their site. Hence why I stand here today, yet again losing a very valuable agent to the treacherous baby Kondraki." She sighed in resignation.

"So, you're still mad about me taking the butterflies?"

"The king is dead," she retorted.

"And I-" 

She didn't really pay attention after that. There was a hand at her back, guiding her away from the noise and the talk of… whatever a booterfly was.

A choice had to be made here… The Foundation had taken up so much of her life so quickly, but it's not like there was anything tying her down to Site-17 specifically… Besides, some twisted little part of her actually liked running around in those nightmare hallways. It was an odd sort of adrenaline fueled by confusion and the distinct knowledge of being lost that somehow filled her with a sense of adventure and the need to know…

Yeah, Gray wanted more of that.

Her teammates scowled at her when she got close. As if she had put them in this mess.

"So… what happened in your end?" She tentatively asked.

"Oh, like you care," one of them muttered.

"Clearly we were just too scared to keep going," said another, the unlike you going unspoken.

" She saved us," a calmer colleague nodded towards Iris.

"Draven and I were rounding up anyone too affected," she supplied. "We got to the last one just before you found the center."

Another wave of relief washed over her, the knowledge that they all had been okay the whole time finally registering.

She couldn't ignore the animosity, though. 

I mean, it makes sense, she thought the newbie beating them in front of the Alpha-9 leader and the site director? Yeah, I'd be upset too… I should've tried to earn their respect sooner….

"So…" The agent startled. She hadn't noticed Kondraki coming up to her. "Have we come to a decision yet?"

She sighed deeply and nodded at him.

"I'll take you up on your offer."

__________

Her teammates were not happy about it.

Kondraki, Iris, Gray and Kiryu had all been discussing moving arrangements. They would spend the night at the base then move out the next morning. Everything Gray had was already packed and waiting. She was just talking to her new superiors about the more practical aspects of her moving when her bunkmates approached her.

Or more accurately, approached Kondraki.

"Sir," Troy called. "Forgive my disrespect earlier, and you'll forgive me for speaking out of turn now, but I have to say something." Draven just raised an eyebrow at him, but let him speak. "If that was a recruitment test, then I apologize for our underwhelming performance, but you have to consider your options better! There are more things that make a good agent and we've been here a lot longer! We know the Foundation a lot better!"

"Sorry, man!" Draven shrugged without looking the least bit apologetic. "But if you can't make it outta small fry like that, you're definitely not surviving Home Base."

"But-" Troy pleaded, "but it's one of the lowest mortality rates in the whole Foundation! Tha-"

"Yeah, if you pass preliminaries! You wouldn't last a week . And besides, the whole point of this little test of mine was to show you that if you're gonna talk, you better have the strength to back it up. Getting another agent for Home Base was just an unexpected bonus! So don't think she stole something from you just because she won something none of you knew you were competing for."

And with that, he apologized and turned away from them. He refused to even look at her until she left the site.

_______

The next day had been uneventful. Gray woke up, her bunkmates ignored her. They had breakfast, her bunkmates ignored her. She picked her bags up and left her bed pristine.

Her bunkmates didn't bother with goodbyes.

Her old sector leader saw her off, so it wasn't all bad.

She went in the back of a Foundation truck along with Iris, Draven, and a giant metal crate labeled "live specimen". Butterflies, if she were to guess.

The ride was long and quiet and Gray took the time to catch up on some reading. After a few hours, the truck slowed down and a terrain shift indicated they were probably entering a forest. A little while later, the truck slowed almost to a stop, and as it moved, it felt like she was going through an invisible barrier of some sort.

Seeing her face, Iris explained. "The site is surrounded by two separate walls of reality anchors. One is an intermediate between the real world and the base, the other keeps all the stuff in. The double layers also help if something gets too close to freedom-"

"-not that any ever crossed the first wall." Draven interjected.

"We just crossed the outermost wall. Shouldn't be too long before we get to the other one."

Sure enough, there it was. The truck slowed down again and again she felt the world change around her. She wondered what that would look like from the outside.

They stopped for good only a few moments later.

Leaving the truck, Gray took a moment to appreciate the sheer size of the base before her. Sure, Site-17 wasn't small , but the main entrance to this place made it look like a fortress. Behind her was a ridiculously tall chain link fence with what looked like star-shaped barricades interspersed at its base. There stood a sentinel tower next to the spiked gate they had just come through.

A small team of MTF agents approached to take the container housing SCP-408 out of the truck and moved to stand behind her and Iris. Kondraki was the last to leave, as if bracing himself for something.

"Think he's gonna make an entrance?" He asked Iris.

"With the stunt you pulled yesterday? Definitely."

He scoffed. "You seriously don't think he's overreacting?"

"It's not just about the phone, Draven. You know that!" She glared at him.

He opened his mouth to respond, but instead, turned to look at the massive steel doors that Gray figured were the main entrance.

Then, the ground started shaking. A low rumble that she could feel in her bones. Once again, Iris and Draven looked completely unconcerned in the face of something that should definitely be at least a little concerning. 

Then, it opened.

Not the doors , no. But a giant tear in what seemed to be reality itself, splitting through the solid wall and bending outwards to reveal rows upon rows of massive, uneven, sharp teeth. Those then spread apart further to reveal a black stone staircase leading down to what could easily be called a lake of blood.

The figure climbing up those steps was nothing short of unexpected. A short, scrawny scientist, with a lab coat and square glasses. Straight hair falling haphazardly across his face and a frown like he'd been working all morning without his coffee. But for the life of her, she couldn't figure out where he could've gotten that scar . 

It tore at the corners of his mouth in jagged branches that reached across his cheeks towards his ears and down his neck. It made it feel like his jaw wasn't really connected, like it could fall off at any minute.

Well, that's an unsettling image…

He glowered at Draven and the massive man stepped forward, arms raised in surrender.

The floor shook harder still and in a move that felt oddly petulant, Draven made a show of losing his footing and fell back on a cross-legged sitting position. He still didn't have to look up by that much.

"Before you say anything-" He addressed the shorter man, "I was trying to avoid her , not you." He nodded towards the "her" in question.

"And what was I supposed to think?! " The short one bit out. "Every time you don't pick up, it's because either you or someone around you is doing something stupid ! And outside the base? Without A9? Without a way to track you down? That could be downright suicidal! I thought you had your head halfway down the Lizard's throat , for crying out loud!"

"Fair point… do I get the chance to defend myself?"

" No, Draven. You don't. Because I'm right and you know it and we both know you'll try this again, so don't even try to apologize because we all heard it a million times! And don't think I've forgotten about locker D-20 either!"

Draven flinched at the accusations, but gave him his best puppy dog eyes and in the most earnest voice possible, said tentatively "I love you."

The scientist sighed and fixed his glasses. He muttered "this really shouldn't work on me anymore," but his face told Gray it clearly did.

He then snapped his fingers and the ground below Draven disappeared into white tiles and fluorescent lights. He didn't even have the decency to look surprised when he fell.

As the ground returned to normal, the man sighed again and trudged towards where her and Iris were standing. Getting close, he looked at the senior agent beside her.

"I imagine the butterflies are in the box. Who's the newbie?"

"Well, hello to you too, Dr. Moody!" Iris said indignantly. "Karol, this is Dr. James Talloran, our resident Fun Police."

"I'm not-"

"-And James, this is agent Karolina Gray. Draven adopted her."

" Of course he did…"

"You're a reality bender," was what escaped her mouth.

"Yeah. Welcome to Site-171. It's a reality maze with a mind of its own that I can control at will. I'm an Apollyon class reality bender that only follows orders from the Site Director, so be afraid or whatever." He turned around as he spoke, speaking louder to give orders. "Butterflies take the maintenance route to the patio, greenhouse is ridiculously labeled, can't miss it. You two come with me, apparently I'm giving introductions today."

He walked towards the doors, now open to show a well-lit white hallway. There was no sign there had ever been a tear in reality. Iris followed and the agents with the crate walked away instead.

Begrudgingly, she followed Iris and the reality bender that was apparently, now her boss…

If this was her life now, she could say goodbye to any sense of the word "normal."

There was no way she could've predicted this .