Chapter Text
Michael
✦ ✦ ✦
Don’t speak. Don’t react.
"Do you know," Lucas begins, low and threatening, "how much I've done to build your reputation? How much of your wellbeing, as well as mine, that I've sacrificed to get people to love you?"
Don't speak. Don't react.
"I wouldn't want that all to go to waste," he continues, then breathes a slow, heavy sigh. "But because of your actions, I don't know how much of a choice I have."
Don't speak. Don't react.
"You have no idea how tempted I am to stoop to your level and do away with you myself."
My jaw clenches. I dare to make eye contact with him, and he pins me down with his furious, conflicted, grief-stricken gaze.
"The only thing stopping me is the revolt that would most definitely follow your departure. But it'd be stupid to let you go without punishment." He rests his forehead in his hand like he's having a migraine. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
I take a shaky breath, barely able to tear away contact from his piercing green eyes. "My actions were wrong," I say monotonously.
"Well, yeah, everyone and their mother knows that," he replies, borderline snapping. "You know you're lucky, right? Ninety-nine percent of the aliens that pull the same stunt as you meet an untimely fate. You're getting off so, so easy."
I swallow and nod, unsure of what to say, pulling my knees up to my chest in the seat across from him.
"But you've never killed before," he says, almost softly, propping his head against his hand. "Not like everyone else. What was the tipping point?"
I meet his eyes again, so tempted to shake him by the shoulders and scream at him about everything that’s bothering me. He wouldn’t listen anyway. "I've been stressed," I murmur.
"Everyone gets stressed." He waves his hand dismissively, then props his head on it again. "They don't normally kill someone over it, though."
"You don't think they'd do something drastic after being weighed down by that stress for their entire life?"
Lucas fixes me with a hard stare. I have a feeling that he'll smite me down if I ask this, but I continue on.
"Tell me," I say, barely keeping my voice steady enough, "why have those other aliens met an untimely fate, and not me?"
"You're an experiment," Lucas replies, motioning to the necklace hanging from my neck. "The facility can't afford to lose you."
I tighten my jaw again.
"Also, your mother would kill me," Lucas adds quietly.
I don't get to question him about it before one of the facility staff knocks urgently on the door. "Come in," Lucas calls, glaring at me one last time before the door flies open.
"Sir," says the staff member, a tall redhead walking urgently over to Lucas with a tablet in her hand. "We've received a report that one of the aliens involved in an escape four years ago hasn't been detained."
"What?" He sits up, bewildered, staring at the screen with a furrowed brow. "How is that possible? I thought the officers neutralized the entire threat. Did they miscount?"
"They must have, sir."
Lucas sighs, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead exasperatedly.
"Should we send a search party after it?" the staff member asks.
"I don't know, is the Pope catholic?" Lucas grabs the tablet and looks closer at the screen, like he still can't believe what he's seeing. "It's been up there for four years? Wreaking havoc who-knows-where? Of course we need to send a party, we may as well send the whole damn agency--"
He cuts himself off, leaning back in his chair again. The staff member takes the tablet, letting Lucas free his hands to rub his temples.
"You need fresh air," he says. I realize he's addressing me. He takes the tablet again and turns the screen towards me. "Do you recognize this individual?"
The face on the screen is hard and fiery, their brows set, citrine-colored eyes fixed on the camera, deep scowl, cream-colored hair--
Oh--
Oh my god.
Oh my god, of course I recognize them. How on this godforsaken planet could I forget?
Don't speak. Don't react.
I shake my head, keeping my face as placid as possible, which is proving to be very difficult when all I want to do is rocket up to the surface and find that person and barrel into her with a hug and jump around like an excited rabbit and--
"Right, well, remember their face," he tells me, handing the tablet back to the staff member. "I'm sending you on a mission to find them."
Don't speak. Don't react.
Don't speak. Don't react.
Don't speak. Don't react.
"Shelly, gather a group of officers to accompany Michael, please," he says. "Gather as many as it takes to neutralize him if he goes rogue."
"Yes sir," the staff member--Shelly, I suppose--dips her head respectfully and whisks herself out of the room.
Lucas fixes me with the hardest stare he's given me thus far. "It'll be the last straw for you if you disappoint me," he tells me. "Get out of my sight."
I nod hastily, unfolding myself to stand up from the chair, nearly stumbling over my feet as I leave the room.
✦
The officers don't know what to do with me.
Well, they do. They were sent specific orders by Lucas outlining what their duty in the mission is: to keep me in check, and to not give me a weapon.
But they're so used to gunning down people like me. They have no experience having an alien on their side for once.
(I mean, I'm not necessarily on their side. I'm planning on making a run for it once we make it up to the city. Not sure how, but I'll just play it by ear.)
"You, uh... you got experience with that thing?" asks one of the officers cautiously, motioning vaguely at the necklace hanging from my neck, the glowing purple stone at the end pulsing in sync with my heartbeat.
"For longer than you've been hired, probably," I murmur in response.
The officer chuckles weakly, then resumes suiting up in his armor.
The other four officers are suiting up as well, awkward silence permeating throughout the room. To identify me (and to disarm me easily if I go rogue, but they won't say that outwardly), I'm the only one without armor, and therefore the only one sitting on a bench with nothing to do, trying my hardest to look anywhere but the changing officers. I've never studied the greyish tiles of this locker room harder. This floor is in dire need of a janitor.
"Hey, kid," says a voice above me, large, armored feet coming into my view. I lift my head to find the five officers standing over me. "You ready?"
"Sure," I respond.
"C'mon, then," says the officer, motioning with their head. The other officers start moving towards the exit, seeming anxious to leave. "We gotta get our guns n' stuff."
I rise to my feet, following the group out of the locker room and down the hallway. A few of them look at me over their shoulder occasionally, and I wonder if they'd be more comfortable with me at the front and within their line of sight, but their pride won't let me lead them.
They stop in front of a booth near the final exit, producing their IDs to show the clerk, as well as the printed orders as to why they're bringing me up to the surface with them, signed by Lucas himself. The clerk takes their IDs and the instructions and puts them in some processing doohickey, the officers' faces and information showing up on a monitor at the desk.
Once the order paper processes, the clerk looks towards me and flinches, then hurriedly hands the officers' IDs back through the slot at the bottom of the plastic screen separating them from the outside world.
The officers retrieve their IDs, and I follow them over to one last small, enclosed room where rental guns rest on hooks and shelves. They retrieve the guns of their choosing, then march out, with me following closely behind them, unarmed and unarmored.
There's a van waiting for us outside. The officers all climb in, with me coming in last. There's a noticeably empty corner where the seats are all vacant, greatly contrasting where the officers have all bunched up on one side. Taking the hint, I clamber over to the space and sit in the furthestmost seat. The officers seem to sigh with relief once I settle. They act like I want to kill them personally.
I wonder if they know I've killed.
Would I do it again? Maybe out of necessity... Not like I'm itching for some more blood on my hands.
Though maybe these idiots deserve it for willingly taking part in violence of their own--
The van driver slams the door shut, making me flinch out my thoughts.
I lift my head, and the officers quickly look away from me.
The ride up to the surface is bumpy. They can't seem to bother repairing the potholes littering the road, or replacing the lightbulbs in the tunnel that have gone out, or painting over the graffiti, or repairing the bits of the wall that have peeled off, revealing the brick underneath like muscle in an open wound. Too much effort for an already-decomposing place.
I occupy myself by staring out the window and studying the flaws in the tunnel, resting my chin on my fist and trying to ignore the officers glancing my way and gossiping. While I'm right there. I don't think they know I can hear better than most, either. They seem to have lots of questions about me that they'd rather ask each other instead of the person a few feet away who actually has answers.
The tunnel starts brightening the further we ascend, and soon enough, the van levels off into horizontal land, the tunnel giving way to a sky overshadowed by an impending storm looming over the city. The road smooths out, no longer riddled with potholes, grass flailing along the edges of the road, the trees dotting the landscape and bending under the weight of the wind.
I continue to stare boredly out the window, having to act like I've been to the surface before. But they don't have to know my heartbeat is roaring in my ears, or that my leg isn't bouncing because of nerves but because I'm itching to run.
Eventually the van slows to a halt and pulls over on the side of the road, and I furrow my brow in confusion. We're still a ways away from the city. Maybe the driver was hired and ran out of paid time for driving. Maybe they just really don't like the officers. Maybe they don't want me in their van. I wouldn't know, and I don't plan on questioning it further.
The officers turn to me slowly, and the one closest to me says, "Uh, this is our stop, bud."
I glare slightly at the patronizing nickname--I'm a grown-ass man now, there's no need--but the officers are scrambling out before they can see. Begrudgingly, I follow them, climbing out of the van.
"Over here," says the officer, motioning for me to follow them and the rest of the group into the trees.
My necklace starts pulsing adamantly, trembling slightly against my chest. I clutch it and continue marching suspiciously on, into the trees, following.
Eventually some of the officers split off amongst themselves and go their separate ways into the woodlands until there's only one officer in my field of vision, directly in front of me.
"We, uh, gotta check all our bases," he says. "The alien coulda been camping out here all this time. Gotta search..."
"Should I split off as well?" I ask.
"No, no, you're good," the officer replies, shaking his head and waving his hand dismissively. "You don't gotta do anything."
"So... what's my job here?"
He doesn't answer.
Anger sparks in my chest. "If I have no reason to be here--"
The officer whips around suddenly, and instead of looking at his face, I'm looking down the barrel of his gun. I flinch back instinctually, sucking in a breath, only to feel another barrel against my spine.
I'm frozen, one gun pointed at my brains and the other pointed at my guts.
"Don't. Move," says the voice behind the gun pointed at my head. In my periphery, the other three officers creep out of the trees, keeping their weapons pointed at me from a distance. "We'll make this as quick and painless as possible."
The gun is shaking.
My necklace is blazing with light.
"You won't live much longer, so I'll let you in," rasps the voice behind the gun. "You're not on a mission. Mr. Castor told us to do away with you quickly and efficiently as punishment for what you've done. It's how it is in the real world. Proportional crime, proportional punishment, all that fun stuff."
Doesn't sound very fun.
"Any last words for yourself?"
I swallow. Feels like a knife down my throat. "What about Ta--the--the alien? The one... up here?"
"We'll get 'em too, don't you worry," says the voice with a dry chuckle. "You won't disappoint the big man, don't worry at all."
My hands are shaking. They think it's nerves. (Well, yes, partially.)
"Now, close your eyes." The gun on my back presses closer as the one in front of my face clicks. "You won't feel a thing..."
I squeeze my eyes shut, the barrel pressed to my forehead. But before either trigger can be pulled, I extend my arms in an arc, releasing what I've built up in a wave.
I find my throat hurting once my eyes open and I blink away the static, seeing all the officers knocked onto their backs in the grass, writhing, confused and groaning.
Taking the chance, I bolt.
Having almost no weight on my bones makes for quite the advantage when I'm very literally running for my life. I'm practically flying, weightless, the wind roaring past my ears and through my hair as I glide back through the forest, eyes wide and lungs burning.
"GET--*cough*--GET HIM!" one of the officers bellows from the ground back in the clearing. They must've regained their bearings. Sure enough, a few ways behind me, the frantic thumping of armored feet comes crashing in through the forest. The ground is uneven and covered with twigs and branches, but once I get out onto the main road to the city, it'll be smooth sailing for them. Maybe I should just stay in the forest...
A gunshot cracks though the air, a bullet zipping past me and hitting the ground a millisecond after, sending soil jumping up and earning a yelp from me. "GET BACK HERE!" I hear one of the officers shout, followed by another gunshot and another bullet getting too close to my shin for comfort. I've had a bullet wound in my leg before, and right now I want to do everything in my power to avoid getting another one. I mean, of course the priority is avoiding any bullet wounds above my hips, but no bullet wounds at all, especially on my legs, which I'm using to escape, would be ideal.
The trees thin out until the road appears through the wooden trunks and leaves, and I make sure to skirt along the boundary where grass gives way to asphalt.
As I'm running like the wind, the wind itself starts picking up, and a drop of rain hits me square in the eye, making me blink and curse and stumble a little.
An officer sees this opening and takes the opportunity to lurch forward, getting ahold of my shoulders and nearly tackling me to the ground, yet I somehow manage to stay upright out of pure rage and terror.
Although I'm still upright, it slows me down to a near-full stop. The officer holding me yanks me back, attempting to pin me to themself, but their hands are shaking and they're grabbing me in a way that I essentially still have full range of motion in my arms.
As some of the other officers start to file in, pointing their guns at me, a jolt shoots out from my heart and up my shoulder and down my arm, making me shudder until purple tendrils trail from my palm and manifest in the form of a purple glass spear. I grit my teeth and elbow the officer behind me in the stomach--the one part of them that isn't protected--earning a breathless oomphfrom them. Free now, I whirl around, swiping my spear through the air and aiming for their stomachs, and they have the audacity to look down all bewildered at the cuts on their torsos and the sudden bleeding.
The rain has started coming down now, washing away the blood, chilling the officers to the core. They hold their hands to their wounds, gasping out swears at me, but I'm already making another run for it as they collapse, my spear still in hand. Not my fault their armor was designed with easier mobility in mind instead of protection of their vital organs.
I actually didn't try to hit their vital organs. Their abdomens were just the most available for an attack to disarm them and make them lag behind. They won't die. Hopefully. Maybe the other officers will come and get them.
Not that I worry for them or anything. I'd just rather not be blamed for their deaths, especially when they were sent to kill me first.
I pick up my feet again and book it, rain pelting me in the face and soaking through my clothes. Some soil and wet grass squelches beneath my feet. It's not the most pleasant sound, but I can't care when the remaining two officers are thundering a few ways behind me, shouting orders to stop and get on the ground and put my weapon where they can see it.
Of course, it'd be suicide to listen. So I keep running through the trees, the road curving towards the city. God, I hope humans don't have an equivalent of the AEA to deal with on the surface. I wouldn't wish this shouting and desire for a power trip on anyone.
Is she really here and alive? Is she well? Is it possible to thrive on the surface without law enforcement breathing down your neck?
Is she really, truly alive? Or was it a--
Making the fatal mistake of getting lost in my thoughts makes me lose track of the ground beneath me. My foot catches on a protruding root, and I trip and fall to my demise.
It's just a fall, of course. Not like I'm careening off the side of a cliff to my actual death. Sure, when I fall I sort of land on my face and scrape my knees and get the wind knocked out of me a bit, which is hardly reason to panic.
But the officers must've been closer to me than I thought, because they're on me in seconds.
I quickly gather my bearings and roll onto my back. There's an officer directly above me, gun held by both hands and pointed at my chest. I muster up my strength and send my leg shooting up, ramming my knee into his unprotected stomach, but considering he has a lot more mass and muscle than I do (not hard for that to be the case), he just grunts and stumbles back very slightly, his gun staying pointed steadily and waiting to break my ribs open.
He pulls the trigger. I try to move, and I do, and the bullet doesn't hit anything vital. It does, however, hit the meat of my shoulder, right above my collarbone.
Amidst my swearing and gnashing of teeth, the officer points his gun at my head and places his finger back on the trigger, but I manage to gather my bearings again in time and smack the barrel to the side, the bullet shooting into the soil beside my head instead of my skull.
Then, fingers grasping tight, I thrust my spear into his stomach.
He gasps and splutters, looking down at the object that's suddenly through him, and it must be enough of a shock that he doesn't fight it when I take out the blade and kick again, sending him stumbling back.
I rise to my feet, holding my bloody spear in one hand and my wound in the other, the officer trying to stop the bleeding of his own wound with his own hands. It's not very effective, as it's leaving his body at an alarming speed, trickling through his fingers and dripping onto the grass.
He falls to his knees, then his face. I let him.
I turn around and see the remaining officer standing a few ways behind me, their gun pointed at me and shaking wildly.
"G-get down!" they stammer, shouting the order through the dingy speaker on their helmet. They haven't shot me yet, which is a little puzzling considering I'm standing perfectly still in front of them, visibly injured, and not making a move to run yet.
I stalk towards them, taking the slowest steps imaginable, and their gun starts shaking harder.
"Don't get any closer," they quaver. It's supposed to be an order, but it sounds more like a plea.
I grab the barrel of their gun and tug. They tug back, but another yank from me is all they need to let go.
I raise the gun and bash their head with it. The first hit makes them splutter in surprise, then the second one has them stiffening and falling to the ground, right on their face. I throw the gun at their head for good measure, watching it bounce off their helmet (which I guess wasn't adequate enough protection) and land in the grass.
The forest goes silent, save for the rain pitter-pattering through the leaves.
Chest heaving, I lift my head, looking through the wet hair falling over my eyes at the officers strewn about the ground, following the blazing path I took through the forest. They're all in a prone position, two of them clutching their stomachs, the other three just laying motionless, the rain washing away their blood and hopefully my fingerprints.
I clutch my injured shoulder, letting out a shuddering sigh. Part of me is tempted to go and check their pulses for signs of life to assure myself that I haven't killed again. I did say I'd only do it out of necessity, and it seems pretty damn necessary when they were literally sent on a mission to do away with me first.
Still... is this what it has to come to just to get a fighting chance on the surface?
My spear disappears in a small purple burst, and I start making my way back to the road, trudging through the grass and keeping a hand on my shoulder. I think I'm crying, as my eyes are burning, but I can't tell my tears apart from the rain.
With heavy breaths and slow steps, I march onward.