Chapter Text
Blue slipped down the wall, carefully landing on the edge of the window. Blue? Hmm. The name worked, but honestly he could have probably picked a better one. He kept going, bouncing carefully off each window sill, or ledge, or something. He wasn’t sure what they were called, not that it stopped him from slipping down them. The moment he hit the lower level of roof he ran forward toward the next drop, this one luckily led to an alleyway, somewhere he was significantly less likely to be spotted by Parrot. “Or any of the heroes really.” He thought to himself.
Bounce? No, that one was bad too. He did think of himself as a pretty bouncy guy, or as bouncy as any human could be, of course if he was a different person maybe he could have been bouncier. Maybe a rabbit person? There was a hero that was a rabbit person, maybe a hare? He couldn’t remember. Not that he had to remember it wasn’t like he was ever going to meet them. Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t
He slipped down the wall again catching himself in the windows as he went down. Other name ideas…Person. That's stupid. You don't just name yourself after people. That’s like a city named City City. But then again the name Blue was just naming himself after his hair.
He glanced down, calculating the drop– and “oh my gosh.” His legs shook, that was a tiny bit farther down than he had realized. He immediately slowed down, slipping slower from each window’s outcropping. Luckily the building across from him. No the alley was just wide enough he wouldn’t catch himself on the parallel wall. He breathed allowing himself to go through the motions without thinking about it. Or at least he was trying not to think about it. “RIGHT ME??”
Self criticizing was not going to be helpful when fighting gravity. He got down faster than he expected, pausing one window up from the ground. Hopefully less likely to be noticed up where he was in comparison to if he was on the floor, or at least that's what he told himself. It’s not like he had any way to prove it. Blue? Blue. Leaned back against the window sitting on the concrete outcropping beyond it, city code for whatever reason had added it to law at one point that all windows had to have foot long sills. He was just lucky they did, because without it, he had no clue how he would have survived on his own this long, that and the ladders everywhere.
He could just go with his actual name. David wasn’t a bad one, but there was no way people wouldn’t put two and two together and report him to the police. So stupid names it was. The alley was a surprisingly big one all things considered, He was right on the edge of the building and to his right there were several Massive tank sized garbage cans, the kind that kids in schools would lie about saying people hid bodies inside them, before proceeding to either climb the thing or hide in it. Experience taught however that nobody actually hid bodies in them. Racoons however had probably a fifty percent chance to be in one at some point. The hiding in it part though, that actually did work. They were positioned one against the wall across from him and one against another wall attached to it, right around the corner. Above it was an exit sign pointing right beyond where he could see. Exit was a cool name, still weird but it also wasn’t him naming himself after his hair color.
He leaned back, resting his head against the dark window behind him. The air was cold, soothing if not for how horrible it smelled. He wasn’t surprised honestly though the twinge of sulfur was…strange. Exit looked up immediately. The sky seemed clear, but if there was a bomb, something…no it was coming from below him. He glanced down instead looking for the source of the smell, a small cube was below him, yellowish, it was shaking.
Scared? He assumed so, he didn’t know any other reasons it would be shaking, unless, does it explode? Like a creeper, or something like that? Another cube appeared, this one from around the wall’s edge, near the garbage tanks. He wasn’t gonna call it a can; it was way too big for that. The second cube was a bright happy green, a slime, or at least he guessed it was he hadn’t run across many. It looked young now that he thought about it, both of them did. Normal slimes would normally come up to half his height at least but these guys were tiny in comparison. He held his breath watching closely as the slime approached the sulfur cube. It looked so nervous. Exit pulled himself up into a ball, leaning as far forward as he felt was safe to continue to observe the slimy creatures.
The slime bounced compressing up and down repeatedly, before bouncing one final time with a slower more dramatic squish and stretch to its movements. Once it finished it started again, up down up down, five or so times each time getting faster and faster, like a little kid who just discovered sugar, until it switched emphasising its squish and stretch, like it was suddenly in slow motion. The sulfur cube slowly started to bounce as well copying its movements. But also severely messing them up. Every time the slime started the pattern over the sulfur cube would attempt to copy but mess something up, it was too slow and then too fast at the end, too slow for all of it, perfect start timing but horrible end timing, until bam, perfect.
The moment it succeeded the slime bounced everywhere jumping around the cube in circles and then attempting to even bounce off the walls, though that didn’t do much. Then as if something shifted in the air it stopped turning, back toward the tank cans.
It must have heard something, but Exit didn’t see anything, until yes, he did, there in the corner, where the front of one trash can met the side or another there was a gap, big enough to slide back behind it. Big enough to hide a slime he had to assume was the parent. It bounced out considering the smaller two. The smaller slime bounced toward the adult and into what he assumed was its home. Exit paused. The big slime compressed down and lifted the Sulfur cube up, before sliding it down its top into the space behind, as if to welcome it in.
“There, it’s right back there.”
Exit and Slime spun toward the sound. It was just beyond where he could see around the corner of the wall he was on. He braced, holding onto the edge or the wall, and carefully swinging part of himself around the corner, holding to the wall for some semblance of grip. A man stood below him. He was tall and muscular, hair covering everything he could see from above him, but more importantly he was holding out a taster. The slime stretched, extending upwards in an attempt to tower over him, but the man just chuckled.
He was going to hurt them, he was going to hurt them, shoot. What was he supposed to do? He was half the guy’s height! Probably, depth perception was a little weird from above. Exit slipped down another window, he could probably safely roll–the man jabbed the slime. It crunched inward around the point of contact moving backwards away from the man.
Exit hit the ground.
Arm shot out wide, He stared down the man in front of him. He was in fact absolutely twice as tall as him. He had a furry beard, with piercing blue eyes. Angry blue eyes.
“What do you think you're doing?”
Exit growled, not that it was going to mean anything to this guy, but there was no going back now. Something moved to his right, quickly catching the man’s attention. He took his opportunity, opportunity for what he had no clue, but he was sure to come up with something. Exit’s fist flew aiming toward the hand with the taser. He struck hard, knocking the taser out of his hand and onto the floor.
“Excuse me.”
Exit dropped reaching for the taser as fast as he could, the man now fully paying attention dropped with him reaching to grab the fallen taser before exit could. Unluckily for him the man was faster. He grabbed the taser spinning, quite literally spinning around in a circle before tasing Exit in the stomach. His body seized inward crumpling him to the floor. Shaky breaths escaped as he desperately tried to reset himself.
“Thats what you get for messing with us!”
“Sausage, leave the kid alone, we got what we wanted, let's just go.”
“Ha, That what you get, for messing with the great and powerful Sausage.” Exit looked up to see sausage flexing toward the wall before turning around and strutting off. Beyond him was another man, holding what seemed to be the sulfur cube from earlier. They were after the kids. He knew it. Exit forced himself upward quickly following after them, though quieter now, if he couldn’t take them head on maybe…?
They continued down the alley, turning right, once before the space in front of him opened up into a semi secluded parking lot, the kind where he would typically expect employees to park for the day. Rather than employee vehicles however there was a small semi truck. Sausage quickly disappeared into the front of the truck, but the other man, the black haired one, pulled up the back of the truck taking the slime inside.
Exit quietly dashed forward, slipping up against the side of the truck, where he noticed a side door, those weren’t meant to be there–Well he wasn’t going to let that take away from his opportunity. He slid over to it, unlocked, He creaked the door open slightly, peaking in. It was filled from wall to wall with cages, each holding various different animals, rabbits, dogs, phantoms, slimes, lots of slimes, and now the sulfur cube. The man turned away from him, stepping down from the back. He slipped in softly, closing the door behind him, and crouching down. The cage lock systems looked simple, rather than actually keys they were latches, just enough to keep the animal from being able to get out from the inside but not enough to be a major hassle. Luckily.
The man walked around the corner, leaving the back door wide open. Exit crept forward, sliding the latch to the side.
“You can close the back now, Sausage.” The voice was coming from the side wall of the truck, moving along the edge while he spoke. “I got him settled.” The voice paused next to the door, Exit felt his heart drop, The voice moved again, this time toward going all the way to the front.
Then the back door started lowering. Exit quickly pulled the little sulfur cube out of the cage, The truck started moving. He carefully tossed him out of the truck onto the asphalt before they picked up too much speed, The truck smashed to a halt sending exit careening backward and to the floor.
“I told you not to drive while the door–”
Exit pulled himself up, he stumbled forward toward the door, just as the light of day vanished sending him into darkness.
Frick.
Door, door, the side door. Where was it? I knew roughly where it was meant to be but now that he was completely engulfed with darkness… He felt around carefully guiding himself while also trying to avoid any animals that may or may not be aggressive.
Floor, floor, metal, cage bar, ok, more floor; His hip touched the side of the cage wall now, he crept forward, his head hit another cage bar. To the right then. He reached out pulling himself up to feel for the handle, solid wall and there, the handle.
Exit pulled down, it didn’t budge.
He was trapped.
The truck didn’t take long after that before it started moving again, this time more smoothly. Not that it did much to calm his nerves, yes he was less likely to end up careening against the wall, but that didn’t stop him from being taken to who knows where.
Maybe he would have been better off if they hadn’t seen him, but he had punched the guy driving this thing, he couldn’t in good faith expect anything positive coming from it. Would he get tased again? What would he have done if someone stowed away in his truck? Called the police probably. He couldn’t let that happen. Goodness knows he couldn’t let that happen.
David, Exit curled in on himself. His hands clenched onto his legs, as he tried to keep his breathing level. They were poachers, or something like that, which as far as he knew was illegal, maybe they wouldn’t call the cops or the heroes. Not that heroes dealt with this kind of thing. Then who would they call? Villains? Oh great! Now he either ended up with the worst people possible if these people did follow the law, or he ended up dead.
How the heck was he going to get out of this one. The floor below him bounced upward, knocking him out of his curled up position. He needed something to ground himself against. The walls of cages weren’t particularly helpful at that. He was honestly surprised these animals were doing as well as they were. It wasn’t like there was anything preventing them from careening against the walls of their cages if the driver even just breaked a little too hard.
The truck started to seriously accelerate around him. He quickly reached out bracing against the cages. Screw what they would do, he was going to die before he even got there. Wherever there was.
He took a shaky breath. His eyes slowly were starting to adjust, finding specks of light seeping in from small holes where the metal walls weren’t sealed perfectly, or where the rubber seal of the door hadn’t lined up perfectly. It wasn’t enough to really get a good idea of the space around him but it was just enough…
He looked up directly into bright wobbly eyes. They glowed slightly and were watching him.
He had heard once that animals could feel people’s emotions. Especially people who were in a similar strain biologically. Mobs however had always seemed like an exception and yet… the phantom’s eyes blinked quickly continuing to watch him. He felt fear? The phantom clawed its way forward not unlike a bat might. A tiny winged claw reached out resting against his nose. Its voice scratched softly. A small droplet of water slipped down David's cheek.
It reached out another wing claw grabbing his nose and guiding his head against the cage bars. He felt leathery skin rest against his forehead, just slightly touching due to the bars blocking most of the contact.
It wasn’t fear he was seeing…it was…understanding, comfort?
He couldn’t do much, frick he was probably dead, but maybe he could at least make it slightly better before the end. At least for the animals and mobs.
Exit backed off from the cage slightly feeling around for the phantom’s latch. The cage slid open easily.
The phantom trilled or that what he guessed it was doing the scratchy voice made it hard to tell the difference. It crawled out carefully looking around the dark room before immediately taking flight. It didn’t have far it could go, but that didn’t change anything; it was free, or at least partially free.
He smiled. And moved onto the next latch. There was a total of thirty cages he opened, four of which were empty. Meaning the main truck space was now filled with twenty six frightened but grateful animals. The surprising thing was the fact that all of the animals were babies. Good, because it meant they were either too scared or too tired to attack each other. He hadn’t realized until he opened most of the cages that there were both predator and prey animals and mobs in these cages.
The other surprising thing, or element he hadn’t considered was that babies pack bond easily.
Not all the animals, a couple birds were perched on various shelves and the sides of closed cages. Along with the phantom that was circling the ceiling above him. Coming down to sit on his head every so often.
Everything else was crowded around him. Or hiding in corners. His lap was filled with various animals, a few slimes cuddled up on his shoulders, fighting with a cat who also wanted to claim the same space. His lap had several dog shaped creatures. Or what he assumed were dog shaped. Somehow a baby wither had crawled up into his shirt peeking out of his neck hole. And on the floor beside him all the other animals curled up against him as if trying to greedily suck up the heat from the mass of life now clustered in the center of the truck.
Exit honestly had no clue how he got here, but he was here now. The next few hours consisted of him trying, and failing, to not slide or move from either his legs falling asleep or the truck moving suddenly. He may have even fallen asleep at one point, because he did not remember the phantom curling into his hair, but he didn’t know if it would ever untangle itself from his curls again.
So at least that meant they couldn’t kill him immediately, or, actually he didn’t have to be alive to pull the phantom out. He knew he was supposed to be more scared, but after two hours, it felt like the fear just couldn’t stay as consistently as he assumed. That or animal therapy had a good reason for existing. Maybe they were also getting some human therapy from him too. Goodness knows they had every right to be just as scared as he was.
The truck rattled around, knocking one of the slimes off his shoulder and onto an unsuspecting dog curled almost into his leg.
The truck groaned, slowing to a stop.
All the tension he had felt the whole ride came crashing back onto him with the sound of a garage door closing beyond the truck’s back door. Light grew and the back door slid open revealing three people standing in front of him.
The tall man from earlier stood in the center, on his right the black haired man, and on the other a dark shorter woman with aggressively curly hair. They all stood slack jawed staring in at Exit and his cluster of creatures.
For a moment the world stood still, the outside people staring at the creature cluster, and the creature cluster stared back.
Exit dived, animal and mob exploding off of him, the light being the freedom each and all of them had begged for, for hours.
Someone shouted something as creatures ran everywhere, the phantom dislodged flying up into a rack above him, slimes jupped every which way, dogs, cats mice, rabbits, a small bear, everything scattered.
Exit’s eyes darted quickly examining the room. A massive garage door was directly behind the three people. In front of the truck sat several stacked cages, replacements likely, the wall to his left was covered in every tool any car mechanic would dream of, to the right a desk, door, and more cages. He booked it toward the door.
“Are you guys stupid!? Target the kid, not the animals!”
Exit heart pounded, the door swung open without a moment of hesitation. He sped down the unfamiliar hallway. Footsteps followed behind him, pounding heavily after the hall took a quick left turn, giving him a little space. In front of him the hall split off in two more directions, he turned right hoping he had enough distance to slip past without them seeing which direction he went.
“Sausage you go straight, I’ll go right!”
Frick.
The hall ahead of him ended a door blocking him from continuing. He swung the door open, shutting it quickly behind him.
“He’s over here!”
His breaths rasped against his will. The room was a storage space. Various containers and boxes covered the wall to wall shelves. Gamers don’t look up, right? He scaled the closest shelf, curling against the wall next to the door.
“I saw them go into the storage room. It has no exits so they should still be in there.
Exit’s breath hitched.
“Did you get him?” Another voice showed up sounding tired. It was more feminine than the other two, likely belonging to the curly haired woman he had noticed earlier.
“Not yet.” This voice was calm and strategic. “Sausage, do you want to grab some rope or something we might need it.”
“Do you want my taser?” He sounded way too happy about that idea. Sweat pooled on Exit’s arms.
“We don— actually sure. Thanks Sausage.”
The heavy footsteps sounded getting a bit quieter as Sausage walked away.
“I was able to get a large majority of animals back into cages, I couldn’t get a few but they should still be in there.”
“How are you so fast?”
He needed a plan. The door opened. He waited counting to three and—
He dropped nearly hitting the woman and he sprinted out the open door. He ran across the hall, straight into another room. This one was full of gadgets,
His face was on the floor, his arms pinned to his sides. His back felt like it would fracture from the weight pushing uncomfortably onto his ribs.
“I got him!” The man, sausage, called out almost like a little kid. “Thats right, little buddy. I always win in the end.” The innocent act vanished in a moment, Sausage's voice dropping into a growl. “You don’t mess with us and get away with it.”
“Good, good job Sausage.” The man from earlier wheezed.
David, Exit’s vision blurred. He hadn’t been breathing. Crap, breathe he had to breathe. He gasped, nothing came in.
“Coul—- “
Black fuzzes spotted his vision.
“—th—“
He was so tired. He couldn’t be tired.
“—ope—“
But it was sooo—
“I—-might—-killed—.”
His body gave in.
Everything was tight and stiff. His jaw ached.
“What are we doing,” The voice sounded frantic, he had heard this voice before. Maybe? Maybe he had heard this voice before? He didn’t know who she was…
“We need to let him go, this isn’t right. It’s just not.”
Footsteps paced, probably, He thought so at least his head was spinning.
“We can’t just let him go Shan, we don’t know what he overheard, or saw on the way over.”
Eyes, right he had those. They were in fact a thing.
“Kiddnapping is a crime Abolish, a crime.”
“Technically speaking we do crimes all the time. Stealing, stealing animals, tax fraud, I mean what's a good life without a little bit of tax fraud.” The man giggled at his own joke. That one was the… oh right eyes.
His vision was so hazy, three figures were in front of him all facing towards each other. The room was completely unfamiliar. Where was he?
“This is different. He’s just a kid!” The woman gestured toward him.
“A kid with incriminating information.”
“And what are we going to tell her, huh? We picked up a kid off the street now, don’t mind him?”
The other man stuttered. “We can figure out something.”
They were talking about.. Him? Wait…
“I say we kill him.”
Oh frick. David’s eyes shot wide, He was sitting. Wet fabric filled his mouth, more pulled tight around his head, making the skin in his cheeks cry out from the unusual pressure. Something cold was hard against his back, sucking any warmth in his body directly into whatever the thing behind him was. His chest strained against ropes he could now feel holding him against it. He now recognised the three people in front of him as the poachers, Sausage, shan, and whatever they had called the last guy.
“You know what, I’m calling her.” The woman pulled out a phone dialing a number as the other two stared at her in shock.
“Excuse me?” Sausage gaped before grabbing out at Shan’s phone. “Give that to me, give that to me! She can’t know.”
“I can’t know what?” The voice on the receiver was calm.
David wanted nothing to do with that. He strained. The ropes which he could see were wrapped around him at least twelve times, did not in fact want to budge, they stood stubbornly in place, the rubbing only serving to give him minor pain.
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing at all. We didn't accidentally bring a stowaway back to the lab and it totally didn’t free all the animals, but we caught him! Yes we did, so there is nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.”
David grimaced, pushing harder, He had to get this to work, somehow.
“You had a stowaway.”
“We did or do, Abolish and Sausage didn’t see him when he got in the truck, so they don’t know what he has heard. We did re-capture almost all the animals and mobs though.” Shan clarified, from sausages ramblings. The voice mused softly at the information.
He only freed one of the mobs, others escaped?
“I said we should kill him. But the others didn’t seem to like the idea very much.” Sausage commented, as if to imply he was more loyal for it.
David pushed harder, his arms cried out at the strain.
“You lost several test creatures then?”
“We did unfortunately," Sausage continued talking, "but we will get them back! Do not worry we will get them back even better than before!”
Was there something else? Something he could reach? The floor around him was barren; all the equipment had been safely placed on tables and shelves, all out of reach.
“Keep him then.”
Cold ice ran down David’s veins.
“He can replace the creatures you lost.”
David stared at them.
Shan stared at the phone. “What? We can’t do that he’s just–”
But the phone had already hung up.
The black hair man, he didn't remember his name, turned, he saw David.
“He’s awake.”