Captivity. (Part Four) (FINAL)

(Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three)

The moment all of us woke up and realized Billy was gone was... special to say the least.

All of us knew it was inevitable, it's the reason why we were brought here, but Billy's disappearance just cemented how useless we were at this moment.

Not to mention how much it reminds you that Billy isn't the only kid who was taken and tested on.

Even Axton, always screaming and kicking in response to everything, was completely silent in response to Billy's absence.

Axton's sitting on a corner of his cell looking at the stub he once called an arm, his face looks grim and sometimes he takes glances towards Billy's cell. I think that, for the first time, the gravity of the situation finally got to him. He hasn't made any noise since waking up.

Legate's on the center of his own cell, legs crossed and taking deep breaths, probably nursing all of the bruises his body received. Like usual, he's silent, but a part of my mind imagines that he's thankful Axton isn't causing a ruckus. It was obvious that he didn't care much for Billy, or any of us for that matter, but it still felt weird to think a person could just not feel anything at the thought of what awaited a small child at the hands of those “doctors”.

I didn't mention anything about it, there's not much you can do to change the mind of a person like him, instead preferring to remain silent and not do anything but remain in my own head, like always.

It gave me some time to think about what had happened to my own powers, to try and keep my mind away from thinking on Billy, or something worse. By now, the fear of the differences was gone and as far as I knew these changes weren't completely bad.

I mean, technically my whole body is on fire and I can't seem to stop being ablaze, but at least the fire doesn't seem to hurt me at all, like if there was no damage being done to it from exposure. I still felt sore all over, thanks to whatever they did to me, but at least the headache was gone.

All I can do for now is to mess around with my powers, put a small fire on my hand, make it stronger and then dim the fire, play around with it for a while. Small things to test out how much control I still have, just like when I was a young boy figuring out my powers for the first time.

It could be worse, I guess. I could have it cook me up from the inside out, or maybe have it actually hurt so that every second feels like I'm burning up again. It's weird, but I'm somewhat thankful it hasn't done anything worse.

Unless they intend to do something worse after this…

…Great. My distraction turns out to be just as unsettling as my other ones. Good job brain. Wish I could still talk to Axton or Legate but neither of them looks like they want to speak again.

All we have to do is wait until the heroes save the day, but now I find myself asking, more than ever, when will they get here? Once everyone is dead? Once there are no more people to be taken? Once these people are finished and leave with no trace?

One needs to remain positive in these kinds of situations, but it's already taking its toll on me, on everyone here. I don't know how more of this I can take, how many more times I can handle them. It's infuriating.

I try to focus on my powers again, try and pass the time just doing anything over and over again but my thoughts betray me easily and bring me back to my worries.

When several hours pass, and we're still awake, we realize that Billy just hasn't come back.

When I fall asleep to my worries and nervous thoughts and wake up again, I'm still in my cell and Billy hasn't come back.

When several more hours upon hours of maddening silence pass, we're about to fall asleep again, and not even one of us are taken with sleeping gas, we realize that Billy isn't coming back.

Axton notices first, despite his usual character, the man just looks distraught and chooses to not do anything else beside sitting and looking at the now possibly dead boy's cell.

If Legate noticed, he doesn't mention anything, instead choosing to remain seated. I do notice however, that we've been left to our own devices for so long that his bruises don't look as bad, that my body doesn't feel as sluggish, that Axton's scars seem to be healing as much as they can.

I couldn't take it anymore.

I went right on to my cell's door and threw the biggest ball of fire I could even muster at it. The bars in front melting slowly inside the inferno I just created. Axton's voice being the first thing I hear in response to my action.

Immediately after that I hear the familiar hiss of the sleeping gas coming from the vents, but I refused to be put down without putting a fight.

I make another fireball, putting more strength behind than before, probably enough to kill a person and throw it at the door again, both fires combining and melting it even faster.

But that isn't enough, in my anger I rush at the door, I can feel the fire around me burn even hotter, and bash it with my own body. The door breaks out of its hinges and hits the cell in front, Legate's, with a resounding clang.

This was as far as I had ever gotten before.

I didn't even bother opening the other cells and just ran out of mine. I didn't even look back at Legate or at Axton, I simply ran in one direction, the cells in front of me leaking gas as I ran through more and more of them, intending on taking me down again.

I ran until there weren't any more cells at my sides, until the only thing remaining was a large hallway, until the gas was just too thick for me to keep running, until it forced me to slow down and I started growing weary, until I felt my flames growing weaker despite my anger.

In the end I couldn't stand anymore, falling to my knees right in front of a locked door, consciousness drifting while the door in front opens, the last thing I see is several armed figures come from the other side of the door, weapons aimed at me until I completely crumble on the floor and lose consciousness completely.

The second I fall asleep I could swear I saw their weapons aim at something behind me.

…

…

…When I regain my consciousness, I find myself laying in front of the same door from before.

As I drowsily try to stand from my position on the floor, I immediately freeze in shock at the image in front of me. Bodies strewn all over the floor in different states and positions, each of them dead and surrounded by small pools of blood.

It doesn't take long for me to realize these people are the same guards I saw before falling unconscious. There's more of them too, the trail of blood and destruction being obvious evidence.

Despite any better judgement, I decide to follow said trail. Breaking into a sprint again – and stumbling a little, given I'm still half asleep – a dozen more corpses appear in my path, pieces of equipment I don't recognize and computers either stained by blood or broken.

Lights broken and walls cracked by whoever is responsible for this carnage show up and, eventually, corpses belonging to people other than guards show up as well. It looks like the doctors of the place, judging by the red stained lab coats.

The less said about the state they ended in, the better.

Eventually, I start to hear screams and gunfire, the sounds of fighting. My heart almost leaps out of throat as I get closer and closer to the source of it all. Once I make a sharp turn, I can finally see what the chaos is all about.

There, standing in the center of a large room, stands Legate, atop a mountain of scattered and broken corpses. There are even more dead people across the room.

I hear the throat of a man crack as Legate tightly holds the man by it with one hand and while that person suffers, he effortlessly throws a different one with his other arm right into the wall next to me.

He didn't put any effort in it and yet the man crashes with a horrifying sound into the wall, I'm pretty sure both the wall and his bones broke as a result.

Legate's eyes quickly move towards my position, he probably realized I was standing there after throwing that man.

To my own surprise, the anger in his face dissipates as he sees me.

“Ah Jackson” He says, his voice is stronger than it ever was before, when we were inside the cells.

“I was wondering when you would wake up” He continued – While dropping the now lifeless body of the man he was choking on the floor.

Before, when we were powerless in our cells, the idea of speaking with him wasn't so intimidating on the account of him not having all of his strength. But now? The man standing in front of me was fully capable of killing me without hesitation and, despite my own powers, Legate was just a man on a completely different level than most superpowered people on the planet.

But despite my own fear, I found myself asking one question before I could even realize I had opened my mouth.

“Since when?”

I saw one of his eyebrows raise questioningly, the man putting his arms behind his back as he stared at me.

“You'll have to elaborate on that.” He said.

“Since when -” I began, only to choke halfway through my sentence and gulp before continuing.

“- Since when, could you do this?” Gesturing to the bodies lying across the room. “Since when could you just… escape from all of this?”

“Ah.” Was his response. “I take it you didn't believe the whole ‘salt’ incident?” He shakes his head at my silence, but continues.

“Since the very beginning.”

Now's my turn to remain silent, my mouth betraying me again at the last second.

“…So why didn't you?" Why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you save Billy? I wanted to ask, but didn't.

He hums.

“Because I wanted to know why, Jackson” He says, while gesturing to the carnage in the room.

He elaborates further, before I can ask.

“I needed to know what or who they kidnaped people for, I needed to know the reason for such… procedures.”

I shake my head at his explanation “And you just… let them play with you like they did everyone else?”

He chuckles at that “All I had to do was to spin a little lie about a weakness and feign a lack of strength, the rest they did themselves” He lets out a sigh “It's not like they can wound me, and even if they did, I would just easily break free, all their time was spent trying to pierce my body.”

“But in the end, all of their testing was worth nothing.” He exhales.

I can't help but scream at him “What does that even mean? You expect me to believe they just cut open people because they could!?”

“I can see the doubt in your face” He says “But you can see the truth for yourself -” he turns around and gestures to the door behind him, pried open by his own hands, probably.

“In that room lies the fruit of their research, the result of months of never-ending pain and testing.” He continues.

“I've told you before I tried to understand their motivations, but-” he walks towards me and speaks, softer this time

“Whatever they are, all I see in the end, is a waste of time and resources.”

I can only stare at him, as he retreats through the same path I came from.

I start walking to the other room before I can realize, my feet slowly carrying me over that distance, nervous for what I was about to find out.

Legate's voice cuts through my hesitation. “I do recommend you make it quick though.”

The entire place shakes, as if an earthquake just hit, the lights flicking on and off until the rumbling subsides.

Legate continues, unaffected by the event “I believe your little show just so happened to coordinate with the actions of our so-called rescuers…”

He looks at me from over his shoulder “Whatever you wish to do after entering that room… I'd make it quick before they can start asking questions.”

The man walks away and not a second after I'm moving too, as if his words managed to break me of my trance.

When a familiar smell of decay breaks through my nostrils, I find myself moving even faster towards my destination.

When I'm standing on the frame of the door, the smell becomes unbearable.

Once I'm inside and I can fully see everything in the room, my entire body reacts in anger, the fire surrounding me becoming brighter in response.

My body knows and understands what's in front of me, the emotional feedback from it is the only clue I need and my understanding of what exactly Legate's last words meant hits me just as my brain processes what lies in this room.

Despite that, I can't really help myself but ask, mostly to the room rather than myself.

“…Billy?”

There we go, the end of the first one. As soon as I'm done with Pursuit I'll see about tying up both stories and giving a more complete ending to everything.

Don't really like how this one part ended, but my mind couldn't come up with something better...