Archive of Our Own

The first time Wilbur Soot met Tommy they were in chains.

Or to be a little more accurate, Wilbur was in a straight jacket and a muzzle while Tommy was tripping over his own feet due to the rubber restraints that limited his limbs movement. Kind of fucked up in Wilbur’s humble opinion.

Then again, one ever accused Pandora’s Vault of being kind to its prisoners.

The day had started like any other, which was to say, shitty. Wilbur's entire life for the last…however long it had been was contained solely in one room of the prison. He spent nearly every hour of every day strapped up in a straight jacket and muzzle, being tube fed just enough nutrients to keep him alive while he stared at the three dark, reinforced walls that surrounded him. The most exciting part of the day was the bathroom breaks where he got the immense pleasure of getting to see the hidden fourth wall that usually stood invisible at his back.

Once again the solitude had left him to spiral in his own mind. Like it did every day.

The logic of his imprisonment never really seemed to outweigh the cruelty of its execution whenever he let himself consider it. Wilbur wasn’t some kind of supervillain who murdered every person that looked his way. 

Was he a criminal? Yeah, sure. He broke the law every once and a while as a favour to his friends that ran in those more illegal circles. But his official reason for incarceration wasn’t even about Quackity’s drugs or Punz’s mercenary services. He was here for the simple crime of public endangerment , and even then nobody was even hurt.  

But Wilbur was powerful and that’s what Pandora's was for. Keeping the scary, powerful people away from all the little weak civilians and heroic special asset officers that defended the city. It didn’t matter that Wilbur was only 19. It didn’t matter that his mother and father were both allowed to walk free in the city, despite each sharing half of Wilbur’s powers. All that mattered was Wilbur accidentally damaged a train track when someone tried to mug him and somehow he was the one getting arrested.

He wanted to laugh so he just did, breaking the never-ending silence of his little life in a box with the muffled sound of his vocal cords straining behind a shut jaw. It was a little funny honestly. If Pandora’s Vault wasn’t the strongest prison in the world it would be a fucking breeding ground for so called supervillains. Wilbur was certain that if he ever had the chance to escape back into the world, he wouldn’t hesitate to go and destroy every damn legal and police building in the city, consequences be damned.

At least if he died in a firefight, he would be dead. If not he’d just end up right back here, no worse off than before.

It was a little too nice to imagine it sometimes.

But when the alarms suddenly went off, Wilbur was almost sure he was hallucinating. His cell was in one of the deepest solitary parts of the prison, he rarely got to see another human or hear anything to break the silence, so the auditory hallucinations were more common than he would have liked to admit.

It wasn’t until the heavy metal bands keeping him restrained in the middle of the room clicked open with a rapid warning beep that he was sure the sound wasn’t just in his head. His internal clock was good enough to know it would be a few more hours until his bathroom break, and they always put up the timer above the door beforehand.

Not a second after he took a cautious step out into the rest of the room the sound of a heavy lock sliding open reached his ears. He watched with wide eyes as the cell's reinforced door swung open automatically, revealing a chaotic scene in the hall beyond.

Red lights flashed at even intervals, offset by every other beat of the alarms. Outside he could see other prisoners in uniforms like his battling against armed guards like their lives depended on it.

It took Wilbur a moment to get over his own shock to realize that their lives did depend on it.

This was their only chance.

Despite both facets of his power being restrained by the straight jacket and muzzle, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. So Wilbur ran.

Wilbur sprinted on shaking legs, clumsily dodging around guards' attempts at grabbing him and praying that their bullets missed when he ignored orders to freeze. He made it out of the hall in no time, following the sounds of fighting and explosions through layer after layer of open doors between twisting halls. 

There were prisoners and guards everywhere, though it became obvious as Wilbur ran through increasingly crowded sections of the prison that the guards were far outnumbered. After all, who could have imagined that the infamous prison, built by Archimedes himself, could have such a failure so spectacular?

Wilbur laughed maniacally to himself as he avoided tripping over the fallen bodies of guards. Serves the fuckers damn right for all the shit they did to people like Wilbur. If nothing else he hoped some aristocrats' lives were ruined by this fuck up. They deserved a lot of suffering for how they decided to run their country.

After a bit, Wilbur realized that running towards the more crowded areas might not have been the best idea. He just needed to get somewhere quiet, somewhere to figure out how the hell to get that damn straight jacket off. He didn’t need his voice to get a chance at freedom here when his hands would do just fine.

A sudden weight barreled into his hip as he turned to course, taking a sharp left into a different hall and away from the brunt of the fighting. Wilbur tried his best to catch himself but with how his legs were already burning after so long without use and his pinned arms he crashed hard against the metal floors.

He groaned, ignoring the way his body was already protesting his short run and rolled onto his side, coming face to face with a wide pair of blue eyes.

It was startling, to say the least, as he took in the person's face.

Wilbur knew that they sometimes incarcerated children in Pandora’s Vault, everyone knew that logically, overpowered kids had to go somewhere too. But it was so different to see such a young face dressed in prison orange that fit his shoulders just a little too well.

Wilbur was gonna fucking kill someone once he got his hands free. If he thought his treatment here was unjustified he was completely beside himself as he took in the dark grey and black restraints that bound the boy's arms up to his elbows and chained them to a collar around his neck and bands around his ankles.

He didn’t miss the sight of ruffled black wings strapped tight against the child's back either. Depriving a hybrid of something so basic as wing health and hygiene? Of course, why wouldn’t they.

The boy's eyes widened almost comically before he shouted something that was lost under the sounds of fighting and lunged at Wilbur. He flinched back but the kid's weight settled against him, pinning them both flat to the ground in time for Wilbur to watch as a guard flailed in the air above them, thrown and landing by their feet with a pained yelp.

Then the weight of the boy was gone as soon as it came.

“Come on!” his high voice shouted over the noise, a hand wrapping around Wilbur’s biceps and encouraging him to sit up and stumble to his feet.

The fighting and screaming and alarms continued on around Wilbur, making his head spin after so long in isolation. But he found it easy enough to ignore it all as his attention locked on the golden mane of hair weaving through the halls like he knew where they needed to be. 

Eventually, the crowds of guards thinned out until it was just fellow prisoners arguing in the halls and not a few turns later he and the boy were on their own.

They both came to a stop, the boy panting with heaving shoulders as Wilbur tried his best to breathe slowly and deep through the muzzle digging into his jaw and face. Part of him was convinced he was suffocating while the other tried to be rational, knowing he could breathe without the use of his mouth just fine.

“Here,” the boy said, startling Wilbur. He wondered how long it would take for him to get used to the sound of people talking again. He could hardly believe how he had gotten so used to the silence.

The boy stepped towards Wilbur, watching him with narrowed eyes. “You’re not gonna like, eat me if I help you out of that jacket, are ya?” he asked, looking slightly more wary as he studied Wilbur’s face. “I know we’re in prison but you’re not that much of a wrongin’ are ya?”

Something in Wilbur couldn’t help the way his lips twitch and his eyes crinkled at the kids' behaviour. He reminded him a lot of that kid Schlatt had picked up a few years back and something about it just made his heart ache for home.

He shook his head as earnestly as he could before slowly kneeling down so the kid could reach the locks on the back of the jacket easier. The boy seemed to accept the gesture with a nod before vanishing behind Wilbur.

After some shifting and quiet muttering, Wilbur could feel the binds of the jacket loosening until he uncrossed his arms and shrugged the cursed shirt over his head. He breathed as much of a sigh of relief as the muzzle still on his face allowed and turned to look at the kid over his shoulder. He was met with another wary look as the boy held out his bound arms, revealing a strangely shaped plastic key clutched in his small hands.

“The lock for the restraints is in the middle of the forearms,” he explained, shifting to show off the lock binding his arms together. “Get me out and I’ll see what we can do about that ugly muzzle or whatever it is.”

Wilbur nodded, slowly extending a hand out to accept the key without startling the kid. Blue eyes narrowed at his face one last time before the boy tilted his hands to drop the key into Wilbur’s own.

It took a little bit of fiddling and twisting in order to get the key to fit but once it did the lock twisted open with a series of smooth mechanical clicks, all sounding like hard plastic instead of the metal one would expect. With his arms now free the kid pointed out the matching locks on the back of his collar and the ankle restraints, which they’re able to do away with quickly.

The restraints around his wings, however, were not quite the same. The key they used to unlock everything else didn’t match the shape of the smaller locks on the side of the restraints. And sadly, even if they had something to pick the lock with, Wilbur wasn’t actually any good at it and it was in a place where the boy couldn't reach it himself.

Wilbur could try using his powers but he didn’t want to scare the kid without explaining what he was doing first, so they left it and moved on.

Just as the boy was moving to examine the cage locking Wilbur’s jaw in place, a new voice echoed over the alarms from the end of the empty halls.

“Mister Wilbur Soot, Decommissioned Asset Zethes,” a cold, metallic voice said, sending a shiver of fear up his spine. “You are both breaking protocol and are required to return to your cells immediately. Any resistance will be met with force and will result in disciplinary action upon your return to solitary confinement.”

Wilbur slowly put his hands over the boys, lowering them from his face as he turned to see their warden himself.

Archimedes stared back at them, as cold and hard as the first time Wilbur laid eyes on him the day of his sentencing. His heavy, gold-plated armour clicked mechanically as he shifted, warning of the danger of all its reinforcements and upgrades designed especially to keep the officer safe from any kind of damage an inmate could throw at him.

His haunting black eyes narrowed as they met Wilbur’s, the rest of his expression hidden under his heavily augmented gas mask.

Wilbur could feel the way his hands grew hot as rage and hatred sparked in his chest.

Despite only being a few years older than Wilbur himself, Archimedes was the reason this entire prison complex existed. He was the one that designed their personal little hells and pushed for innocent people like Wilbur to suffer just because they could pose a threat.

He’d show this monster just what kind of threats he was really breeding in this desolate pit.

“Mister Soot, you’re a smart man, you know that there's no way to escape this place,” Archimedes continued like he had nothing to fear from the two prisoners in the hall with him. “Just surrender peacefully and when we return to your cell, we can discuss…looser accommodations. You’ve been very well-behaved in the last few months and that behaviour deserves a reward, so long as you prove you can continue it.”

Months of isolation wearing down Wilbur’s mind make it impossible to keep himself from laughing at the proposition. He laughed through a forcefully closed mouth hard enough that he struggled to breathe through it. It burned him up inside that he couldn't speak, that he couldn’t tell the officer off and gloat right before he made every piece of metal on the man's body explode in his face.

“Fuck you!” a voice that wasn’t his shouted, making Wilbur grin as his laughter died down. He glanced down to see the boy--  Zethes?-- step up beside him, practically snarling at their warden.

“There’s always a way out and we’re gonna find it!” the child declared loudly. “So either get out of our way or we’ll make you.”

Archimedes tilted his head curiously like he was trying to analyze the boy. 

He sighed, metallic and inhuman through his mask. “I think I can see why they decommissioned you Zethes,” he said slowly. One of his arms moves slowly upwards, reaching for something slung across his back. 

“All those years in the training program and it still wasn’t enough to teach you some respect. That’s alright though,” a harsh jerk of his arm followed by metallic clicking as the thing in his hand unfolds into a wicked looking trident, sparking with electricity, “there's a reason they left you under my care specifically.”

Zethes stepped forward almost eagerly, the room filling with the strange feeling of static in the air as the boy grinned.

“I’d love to see you try it, pussy, ” the boy cursed, spitting at the floor for emphasis. 

Archimedes slowly tilted his chin up, looking down his nose at them with an air of irritation. “Your discipline will require some serious corrections, they will be highly unpleasant I assure you.”

The electricity buzzing in the air around them seemed to take on a physical form, sparks of white and blue light dancing across Zethes’ skin and feathers as the lights above their heads begin to flicker violently.

“Sucks you’ll be too dead to see it then, bitch.”

Wilbur didn’t wait for either of the titans before him to throw the first blow, instead raising his burning fingers and focusing all his energy on Archimedes' chest plate and sparking his own powers with a single snap of his fingers.

The metal of the armour vibrated for half a second before spontaneously combusting in an explosion of tiny metal shrapnel and carbon as Wilbur’s power forced its way between the very molecules of the item.

Archimedes grunted, stumbling back as the lights flicker one last time, going painfully bright before the bulbs explode and plunge them into darkness.

Wilbur wasn’t able to see how fast Zethes moves until he was already on top of Archimedes, bathed in lightning like it was nothing more than a fancy light show in the centre of a dark stage.

The sound of the electricity flashing between the boy and the warden made it feel like a million bees had taken up residence in Wilbur's ears, but it was still leagues better than the alarms that had gone silent with the death of the lights. He backed up as far as he dared towards the hall's dead end, hands raised to throw his own attacks in where he could.

Zethes fought like a demon, running circles around his opponent and striking him with blinding bolts of pure energy that should have fried any normal creature to a crisp when it landed. Archimedes was obviously equipped to handle it though, his trident somehow absorbing the brunt of the strikes no matter which side the boy struck from. Those stray sparks that weren’t absorbed by the weapon seemed to have no problem landing on his armour only to be dispersed across its surface moments later.

His only weak point seemed to be the front of his chest where Wilbur had destroyed his chest plate. All of them knew it but between the officer's combat skill, his weapon acting as a lightning rod, and the rest of his armour, it was doing Zethes little good.

Wilbur could fix that.

He waited, both hands raised as his powers rushed to his fingertips in the form of little red sparks of energy racing across his skin.

This wasn’t something he had ever trained for, but somehow it felt right. His whole life had been one big exercise in control, in holding back. He only ever let this part of his go in smaller, safe amounts no matter how hot the energy burned under his skin. 

Years of blowing off steam by using old pop cans as target practice across a dusty dumping ground and the rare few occasions he needed to destroy a lock on a door or car were the only practice he had. But somehow it was just enough.

He grinned as Zethes led the hero around so his back faced Wilbur.

Wilbur snapped with both hands, letting double the energy fly right for Archimedes' heavily armoured back.

The red sparks struck, dancing over the gold and lighting up the dark just enough for the hero to turn and meet Wilbur’s eyes over his shoulder as the metal fractured and burst with enough explosive force to send him flying forward onto his knees.

Wilbur wished there wasn’t a bulletproof protective layer underneath the metal, saving the hero from the shrapnel that tried to bury itself in his back. 

Wilbur wanted to see the man bleed.

Zethes didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity, trying to rush behind the hero in a flurry of electricity and ratty blond hair. He was damn fast, his hands reaching to try and lay even a single finger on the unprotected expanse of his back.

But Archimedes was faster.

Whipping around like a shot, Archimedes was suddenly on his feet trident in hand. Zethes was either too tired to dodge or too surprised to see it coming when the trident suddenly turned on him, following his momentum and pinning the child to the wall.

Wilbur shouted in muted shock, thinking for a moment that Archimedes had just killed the boy until he spotted him breathing shakily, his neck just thin enough to fit between two of the trident's prongs without piercing his skin.

The boy cursed and swore, more electricity coming off him in waves only to be absorbed by the trident that he pulled at in a vain attempt at escape. 

Archimedes stepped back until he was in the middle of the hall, his eyes locked on his trapped opponent as he took deep steadying breaths. Slowly the cursing and shouting died out alone with the bright light given off by the electricity as it too tapered off.

Wilbur should attack. He should send wave after wave of destructive energy into the monster's armour until his vest was a pincushion of metal shards and he was free of any weapons or protective layers. Even if it was for nothing. Even though Wilbur was too weak to even stand a chance at challenging an unarmed special asset officer, even though this only ended with him going right by to his existence of three and sometimes four walls.

He should take a last stand. Make it count for something.

Zethes went completely silent, the last sparks of light dying out with the sounds and plunging the hall into darkness.

Wilbur swallowed around a knot in his throat as he heard Archimedes shifting in the darkness, his armour clicking ominously in the silence. 

He wished he could talk. Wished he could beg for mercy. Talking had always been Wilbur’s real talent in life, powers or not.

The sound of something cracking was quickly followed by the sizzling sound of fire and low red light. Archimedes held out the red emergency flare before dropping it on the floor in front of him, bathing the hall in its red glow.

“Have you reconsidered surrendering yet, Mister Soot?” the warden asked as Wilbur’s eyes widened. “As it stands now I’m comfortable returning you to your original accommodations in solitary. It should suffice to keep you contained until we can reevaluate your behavioural correction plans.”

While the words the officer spoke made Wilbur’s stomach turn with nausea, he couldn’t help the way his heart fluttered with dangerous hope as he locked eyes with one of the figures creeping in the darkness of the warden's shadow.

Of course, Archimedes hadn’t become such a famous tactical asset officer at such a young age for any lack of skill. He turned almost casually, putting his back to the wall Zethes wasn’t trapped on and following Wilbur gaze to the two men now on his right instead of behind him.

“Mister Philza Craft, Decommissioned Asset Diomedes,” he greeted in more of a robotic statement. “You are both breaking protocol and are required to return to your cells immediately. Any resistance will be met with force and will result in disciplinary action upon your return to solitary confinement, as both Mister Soot and Decommissioned Asset Zethes have discovered.”

Both of the men stood up straight, glancing between the warden, Zethes and Wilbur. The taller one frowned, though it was more of a sneer as he spoke.

“Funny, I didn’t realize they committed to decommissioning them so young,” he started, jerking his head at Zethes.

“Assets can be decommissioned at any point it is deemed necessary,” the warden answered with a tilt of his head. “They can also be fully terminated at the discretion of their supervising operators or guardians. I recommend standing down if you do not wish to test my patience with your status.”

Wilbur could feel his head start to pound as a headache makes itself known. He has no idea what kind of fucked up history or relationship had led to this conversation or what the hell made Archimedes address Zethes and Diomedes as ‘decommissioned assets’ instead of ‘mister’ like he did with Wilbur and Philza.

Then again, weren’t Zethes and Diomedes both Greek names? Archimedes definitely was. Was a decommissioned asset referring to, like, tactical asset officers? Were Zethes and Diomedes failed versions of supercops like Archimedes?

But Zethes was so young.

“You know my friend Philza here, right?” Diomedes asked as though the warden hadn’t just threatened to ‘terminate’ him.

“I do,” Archimedes replied evenly. “According to security data, his cell was the first to suffer a security breach despite his records having him down as one of our best behaved inmates. His accommodations will have to be heavily altered once this disturbance has been resolved.”

The other man laughed heartily before looking up with a smile. “Well then,” he said in a cold tone, “I suppose you’ll have to subdue us before I can get a hit in. It’s possible, but unlikely.” He tilts his head slowly like a bird of prey as the shadows around him shift, revealing a large set of black wings stretching to take up the length of the hall.

Once again Wilbur doesn’t wait for someone else to throw the first hit, his eyes locking on the series of armoured pouches on Archimedes belt.

The sound of his fingers snapping makes the hero's attention jerk back to him, his nearest hand pulling a gun from the belt and aiming it at Wilbur just in time for the weapon to explode in his hand along with everything on the belt at his waist.

This time the explosions are far more effective and volatile, the ammunition stored in the weapons and pockets adding a real force of heat and destructive power while eliminating more of his armour and resources.

Archimedes cursed and hissed in pain, turning back to Wilbur with a withering glare. Wilbur, however, was saved from any retaliation as the other prisoners descended on the warden.

Where Archimedes' fight with Zethes had been fast-paced and full of acrobatics and glancing hits, this fight was a brutal and slow one. 

The power dynamic of the fight was easy enough to see, with Archimedes doing everything in his power to get away from Philza’s long nailed hands and Diomedes seizing every opportunity to land a bone-crushing blow.

As they fought it almost seems as though the shadows begin to grow and twist in the low light of the flare. It was only once Wilbur met a glowing pair of red eyes in the darkness that he realized that the shadows were moving. 

More eyes appear by the second, taking on twisted shapes of animals and people and simply writing masses of darkness. The shadows whispered incomprehensibly and forced Archimedes to move, taking the fight away from Zethes’ motionless form and further from the light.

Wilbur didn’t try to follow this fight, content that the other pair of prisoners can handle themselves without Wilbur drawing more attention by occasionally destroying a piece of the warden’s armour. 

Instead, he waited until the trio had moved far enough down the hall before racing to Zethes’s side.

From the looks of it, the kid wasn’t exactly unconscious, but he was definitely out of it. He groaned weakly when Wilbur’s hand brushed his shoulder, blue eyes rolling as they tried to focus on his face.

“The tri--dent,” Zethes said as Wilbur was already examining where it was sunk at least a few inches into the solid steel wall. “Get it-- it’s-- draining--” he wheezed loud enough that it made Wilbur's chest twinge in sympathy. “My powers…” 

Oh. Wilbur thought, jaw clenching a little tighter. That would be why they left him with Archimedes then.

Of course, the prick had figured out a way to literally drain a person's powers, why not?

Though he knew it was probably a lost cause, he gave his best efforts to try and pull the trident free from the wall. On his own he doubted he would have the strength, considering he had just spent the last few months of his life locked up and unable to move. But adding in the fact that both the trident and Zethes kept shocking him at random intervals? It was impossible for Wilbur to accomplish on his own.

He glanced back in the direction of the fight, wondering what it was going to take to get the other inmates to help him. Despite his frustration, he felt a small spark of satisfaction when he turned just in time to witness Diomedes body check the warden into a wall of writhing shadows that reached back with claw-tipped hands, digging into any exposed piece of him they could find. Archimedes screamed and Wilbur smiled as he raised a hand.

Screw watching the man bleed, he wanted to make him fucking beg.

At this distance, his power was much harder to aim but it hardly mattered when literally anything on or near the man was his target. Red sparks lept from the tips of his snapping fingers and landed at Archimedes feet before climbing up his armour and spreading out over the walls. Wilbur could sense the very molecules vibrating at his powers dug in, but he forced them to hold just a little bit longer than usual before letting go.

While the light from the following explosion chased away the writhing, red-eyed shadows, it also did so much more damage than any explosion Wilbur had ever created. The four inch steel walls were instantly shredded to pieces, throwing fist-sized chunks of shrapnel in every direction. The concussive sound was nearly deafening for a moment and left Wilbur’s ears ringing once the debris and smoke cleared.

Blinking the black spots from his eyes, it took a moment to readjust to the low light of the emergency flare. Chunks of shrapnel had embedded themselves in the floor, walls and even ceiling all the way down the hall. Archimedes was somehow still at the centre of the blast zone, collapsed motionless on the demolished floor in a slowly growing pool of dark liquid.

Something odd settled in Wilbur’s chest as he realized watching the man bleed wasn’t quite as satisfying as he thought it would be.

Diomedes was, thankfully, nowhere near Archimedes as he crouched over Philza’s crumpled form on the floor. Which probably wasn’t a good thing.

Hesitantly, Wilbur glanced between Zethes and the other inmates before slowly stepping away from the incapacitated kid towards the others. He was pretty sure he already knew why the avian had collapsed, and he was pretty sure Diomedes might be pretty pissed at Wilbur because of it.

“You couldn’t have at least tried to control that blast?” Diomedes snapped, head whipping up to glare at Wilbur as he came to a stop just beside them. “You were doing much smaller attacks when we were way further away before,” he practically snarled.

“Cut him some slack mate,” the older man coughed with a light chuckle. “I’ll be fine and he saved us a lot of trouble so I’d say it was worth it.”

“You’re not gonna be fine if you bleed out,” the other argued.

At just a glance it was hard to tell how bad Philza’s injuries were, but the most obvious issue was probably the large chunk of metal sticking out of his leg that flashed in the low light as he moved to sit up.

“Well then we better get out of here faster,” Philza said, suddenly turning to look up at Wilbur with a strange glint in his eyes. “You think you could do that again to that outer wall?” he asked, gesturing to the dead end of the hall.

Wilbur pursed his lips, studying the desolated remains of his last explosion before turning his attention to the blank surface of the wall in question. A small flash of movement caught his eye and drew his attention back to Zethes, still pinned by the trident against the wall.

Of course, he was more than willing to try, but first things first.

He turned back to Philza with a nod, then lifted his hand to point at Diomedes, then Zethes down the hall.

Diomedes followed his gesture, gaze landing on the child with a sad look. “Yeah, I’ll go get him down, you take Phil around the corner so he’ll be safe from the next blast.”

It took a bit of maneuvering to get Philza standing, but once Wilbur was supporting most of the avian’s weight with his arm around his shoulder it wasn’t hard to get him to safety. Once he had the man settled around the corner of the adjacent hallway, Philza directed Wilbur on how to rip the overshirt of his jumpsuit into strips of cloth and tie them to keep pressure on Philza’s wounds.

By the time they were finished, Diomedes had joined them in the still dark hall with a groggy but conscious Zethes in his arms.

“Wait,” Zethes called weakly, eyes flashing in the dim light as he raised his head to watch Wilbur walking away from the small group. “Where are you going?”

Once again, Wilbur was painfully reminded of the muzzle digging into his face. He had never dreamed that there was something that could somehow make him hate the damn restraint even more, but the expression of concern and fear on the child’s face was more than enough.

How he was already so attached to the strange violent child was beyond him, but he didn’t really have time to consider it as he saw lights already flickering back to life in distant halls.

“He’s going to get us out of here,” Diomedes reassured, hand dwarfing Zethes’s shoulder as he gave it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry.”

Zethes glanced between Diomedes and Wilbur before settling back on Wilbur’s face.

“Don’t let him get you,” he said quietly, his tiny voice the only sound echoing through the dark corridors. 

Wilbur tried his best to smile as he nodded in reply, unable to do anything else.

The idea of Archimedes' unconscious body on the floor didn’t scare him, but the notable lack of any sign of him, when Wilbur returned, was more terrifying than anything else he had experienced today. He risked a cursory look around, unsure if he even wanted to find anything, before giving up and praying the warden didn’t jump him from the shadows.

He move to the middle of the hall and turned his attention to the dead end that was supposedly an exterior wall.

Wilbur took the deepest steadying breaths he could manage as he tried to collect his focus.

Beyond this wall was the rest of the heavily fortified island they would have to fight their way through in order to escape. Then beyond that island were the churning, icy ocean waters that stood between them and the city-state Wilbur had once called home.

And beyond that state was a world where Wilbur would never have been considered a criminal, would never have been given prison for life just because of the power he was born with.

A world that never stopped that state from imprisoning him.

A world that some deep, vengeful part of him wanted to see burn.

With one last deep breath, Wilbur raised his hands--

And snapped.