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Collateral Damage, Chapter 1

First Chapter Next Chapter Masterpost

Summary: Four test subjects have lived inside of a lab for as long as they can remember, with barely any memory of who they are or how they got there aside from what they've been told. When they start suspecting things might not be exactly as they seem, they see no option other than escaping into the outside world to find answers despite knowing close to nothing about life outside the lab. Meanwhile, four completely normal teenagers just out of highschool find themselves wrapped up in a mystery involving shady organizations and illegal experimentation.

POV: Finian de Seel

Pairings: Aurora O'Malley x Kaliis Gilwraeth, (Eventual) Scarlett Jones x Finian de Seel, Zila Madran x Nari Kim, and Tyler Jones x Saedii Gilwraeth

Word count: 5,343 words

Author's Notes: It has been ages since I've written anything! Bet a couple of you forgot I was even a writer. But I am, and I have returned, please hold your applause until the end. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this! I'm also working on getting an AO3 account, so I'll be putting this there too when everything's all set up.

He's fiddling with a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt, an idle task with the sole purpose of keeping him occupied. Just as he starts to feel like he's about to lose his mind, the door beside the mirror on the right wall opens. In walks a middle aged man in a very plain-looking shirt and tie, a look on his face not unlike what one might see when they're about to be sent to detention by their high school principal. He sits down in the steel chair opposite the similar one the boy is in, and folds his arms on the table. He places a recording device between them.

~~~

A teenage boy sits at a flat metal table in a dark, otherwise empty room. There's a mirror inlaid in the wall to the right of him that he's pretty sure is a window on the other side. The room is cold. A weird sort of dry cold that, in his opinion, is colder than any room should be. But he isn't exactly in a position to complain. He's already been sitting there for what has to have been about a thousand years, and he's just about at the end of his rope. His shoes are heavy, his whole body is sore, his exosuit is getting uncomfortable, and he needs a break. He has a feeling he's not going to get one, though. Not for a while.

"Hey, son. Sorry for the wait, we're pretty backed up with all of this." The man explains, tone apologetic. "Hopefully you haven't been too bored in here."

"Well, I haven't exactly been having the time of my life." The boy sighs. He quits messing with his sleeve to rest one of his pale white hands on the table, tapping his silver-tipped fingers in an indiscernible rhythm.

"Again, really sorry about that. But I'm here now, so we can get started..." The man trails off, glances down at the boy's fidgeting hands, then further down to the shoes he's wearing. They're clunky and metallic-looking, with a number of industrial strength buckles that go up to around his mid-shin. "What're those shoes for?"

"They keep me on the ground, sir." The boy answers simply.

"Alright then." The man purses his lips, not fully satisfied with the answer he got but not willing to push it. He presses a button on the recording device, causing a small light on it to start blinking red. "I'm Detective Adams, but you can just call me Adams if you want. You'll have to answer a few easy questions for me, tell me a bit about what happened to you, then you're free to go. So, can you tell me your name?"

"I'm Finian de Karran de Seel. But you can call me Fin, if you don't feel like saying all that." Fin answers, focusing on the blinking red light rather than on Adams. A small red dot is reflected in the black lenses in his large eyes.

"Got it. How old are you?"

"19 years old."

"And how long has it been since all of this started?"

"I… I'm not sure. I wasn't keeping track. I was sort of preoccupied."

"That's just fine, we're talking to your friends too so you don't have to remember every detail. Now, I want you to tell me as much as you can remember about what happened to you, starting from the beginning."

"The beginning like the very first thing I can remember, or the beginning like when we escaped?"

"Let's go with when you escaped." Adams decides, evidently not interested in hearing this boy's entire life story.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do…"

~ ~ ~

The four of us- Kal, Auri, Saedii and I- were sitting in the cafeteria of the GIABSA. Crazy long acronym, I know, but it was quicker to say than the full name. The Global Intelligence Agency for Beings with Superhuman Ability. Much worse, right? The GIABSA was a real hoot. It was the type of place where, if you got bored enough, you'd keel over on the spot. They called us 'students', and I guess there wasn't a better term since we were technically learning. The place was all plain metal floors and dull steel walls. The lights were artificial, but reasonably bright, especially since there were no windows. Not any that I'd seen, anyway. At least the cafeteria had those little round tables you usually find in places like that. Despite being almost completely irrelevant, that was fun.

For a long time, none of us had questioned anything about the place. But we'd noticed a while back that things were really weird there. Not even just the odd choices of decor, either. Every so often, people would disappear. We never really knew any of them, or at least I didn't, but we definitely noticed they were gone. Because once people left, they never came back. And the crowds had really started thinning. That didn't mean much, because there was a serious number of people in there, but the point was that there were a lot less than there had been. No one new was coming in, people were just leaving. So we started planning. We came up with something we were about 60% sure would work. We slowly learned the quickest path from the cafeteria to what we were thinking was probably an exit. We needed to get out of there, and fast, before one of us got picked off.

That was… yeah, it was a couple months ago. I remember that bit now. But anyway, back to that table in the cafeteria. It was the day we planned on escaping. None of us actually had any food. We couldn't eat then, not with the nerves we had.

"So, remind me again. How are we doing this?" I steepled my fingers on the table, turning my gaze from Aurora to Kal to Saedii.

"When everyone leaves the cafeteria, we deviate from the pack." Kal explained, admittedly being quite patient with me. There were a couple times, when we'd gone over this, that I hadn't been listening. "Hopefully the rush will be able to distract the guards long enough for us to make our escape."

"Really, how many times will we need to explain this to you?" Saedii hissed. With her in particular, I was pretty positive that she'd leave me behind if I even so much as blinked the wrong way. She might even kill me herself if she got the chance.

"Don't be so hard on him, Saedii. We're all freaking out about this." Auri’s brow furrowed, her mismatched eyes fixed down on the table. Saedii responded with the loudest eye roll I'd ever seen in my life.

"Agreed." Kal reached over to take Auri’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. Remember when I mentioned that if you got bored enough in the GIABSA, you might die? Well, it was either that or you'd end up dating your friend. Kal and Aurora had started dating a little while before we started noticing all the weird goings-on. I'm pretty sure they would've gotten together eventually anyway, even without the blandness of our humble abode. I unfortunately hadn't gotten the romantic end of the bargain, so I was just waiting on the organ failure. "Although, I will say that it would be helpful to all of us if you could commit this to memory, Finian."

"Alright, alright. You've got it." I waved my hand dismissively. Truth be told, I was already trying my best to not fuck this up for the lot of us. But staring in the face of the most terrifying thing you've ever done in your life, you tend to start shaking in your lead boots. I was just trying not to make a big deal about it, despite the fact that it was a very. Big. Deal.

Just then, the obnoxious buzzing sound signaling the end of our lunch break rang out. No matter how many times I heard that thing, it always made me flinch. But that obviously wasn't the most important thing going on at the moment. All the other people in the cafeteria got up and filed to the doors in a steady river of plain gray jumpsuits. My exosuit hissed as I stood up with my friends. And Saedii, of course. We barely spared glances for each other as we made our way to the exits.

GIA agents in charcoal grey uniforms lined the crowd on either side, any bit of identification that could've been placed with them hidden by their armor, helmets, and mirror masks that covered the lengths of their faces. Not to mention the spooky, mechanical distortion that was put on their voices. They didn't appear to be armed, but I knew they were. They always were, just because of the batshit crazy things they had to deal with. I'm positive there was at least one person at the GIABSA who could pop those guys like water balloons. So the soldiers stayed armed, even if they weren't openly holding weapons. No one said a word as we marched down the hall. It felt like we never could unless we had time free from training, like when we were supposed to be sleeping. Who knew why the GIABSA worked us to the bone, but it couldn't have been anything good.

Speaking of things that weren't good, our plan definitely didn't get off to a fantastic start.

Almost immediately after we had enough time to survey our situation, a look passed from Saedii to Kal to Aurora to me like a game of telephone. We all got the silent message that went along with it. There seemed to be more agents watching us than there usually were, which meant we pretty much had no way of slipping past them, which meant most of our plan was for the birds. So much for committing it to memory, I thought, half-bitter but also half-smug. We had to come up with something else, and fast.

Through the heavy shroud of foreboding that clouded my vision, I spotted someone I'd only ever seen a few times before. A GIA agent in all white, standing out among the rest of them. Princeps. I'd gathered pretty early on that Princeps was the leader of the lot. As I said, I'd only ever seen them a few times before, and that made their presence much more startling because I knew why they were here. Someone else was about to disappear. My fellow students stiffened as they walked past the head of the GIABSA, hoping beyond hope that none of them would be the one to leave. I almost closed my eyes as the four of us passed, and I probably would've if not for what happened next.

"Stop." Princeps commanded just as he saw us. Everyone went as still as a paused video. A moment later, the robotic voice started up again. "Aurora O'Malley. We require your presence elsewhere."

Directed forward by their boss, a pair of GIA agents approached the crowd of students. My peers parted to allow the agents access to our group, and I silently cursed their apparent lack of empathy. The agents took Auri by the arms and began swiftly leading her away.

"Please, please don't take me, I don't want to go-" Auri pleaded with them quietly, trying to shuffle backwards to no avail.

And finally, as if things couldn't get any more complicated, shit hit the fan. As it became evident that Auri wouldn't be coming back from this, Kal began pushing through the flow of students to get to her. Saedii hurried after him, grabbing at his arm. But before she could do anything, he was swinging. He was lucky to have enhanced strength, because when he landed a hit on each of the agents, that was all he needed to knock both of them out cold. The two of them slumped to the ground, but Auri managed to stay upright. That was when the chaos really started.

Students broke into shouts, cheering Kal on as more GIA agents started ganging up on him. Every time he managed to get rid of one, another came to take their place. Saedii attempted to assist him, though her tactic of fighting seemed as much against him as it was with him. Aurora was helping Kal, one hand covering her right eye as if it was hurting her while the other one threw soldiers against the walls without even touching them. At that point I figured there was nothing for me to do but throw myself in the ring too. I ran forward, boots making the floor ring like a bell. I threw my arms out in front of me, and a few of the agents floated slowly upwards, floundering to find purchase on some kind of surface. Meanwhile, my knees bent involuntarily, and my exosuit buzzed with the stress of keeping me from folding in half.

"We have to get out of here, now!" Kal shouted over the commotion, tossing a few more soldiers off of himself.

"They're going to send for backup any moment!" Saedii growled in response, sending an elbow into an agent's ribs. "If we are to leave at all, we will fight our way out."

"Okay then, whatever, we will!" I squeezed my eyes shut, keeping the agents suspended. "Can someone get these guys?"

"I've got them, Fin!" Aurora called out to me. I let my arms drop and felt a wave of relief and familiar weightlessness wash over me. She sent them into the wall, and when she released them, they dropped like rocks.

"Now run! Before more of them arrive!" Kal waved Auri and Saedii down the hall, opposite the way we came. Saedii made her escape as soon as she could. Aurora was more hesitant before she took off, not wanting to leave Kal for too long. A few new GIA agents were already attempting to quell the roaring of the other students, and I had a feeling a few would be coming for us in a minute too. I wouldn't be able to run fast enough to get away from them, thanks in part to my unconventional attire and in another part to my physical condition.

Lucky for my chances of getting out of here in one piece, Kal seemed to pick up on my issue. He let me sling an arm around his shoulders and supported me as we ran through the halls. I was just glad the one who'd stayed behind long enough to help me was the one who could probably carry two cars on his back if he wanted to.

We caught up with Auri and Saedii pretty quickly. My guess was that Aurora had convinced Saedii to wait a second for us, because as I mentioned previously, Saedii would've had absolutely no issue leaving me in the dust. We didn't really have time to talk, and at that point I was glad we already had a path planned out. Getting to the door was easy enough. The guards were mostly occupied with the commotion a few halls over, so whoever we did run into was easy to deal with. But there were alarms going off now. More agents would be on us in a minute or two.

The door we'd mapped out was hidden behind a false panel of the wall that looked pretty much exactly like all the other ones. Just as heavy, just as metal. Your average Joe might not have suspected it at all. Scoping it out for us was one of my proudest moments. We hadn't been able to find any visible exits, so I started thinking that maybe a door to the outside would've been more hidden than we thought. It had taken us a couple tries to figure out where it might be hidden, and a couple more to actually find it. Since the fake wall didn't have solid architecture right behind it like the rest of the walls, hitting it hard enough would make a different sound. Kal had helped me with that part. He was also the one to move the wall aside for us now. Just as I'd predicted, there was an alcove behind it that ended with a thick, steel, probably airtight door. There was a keypad next to the door that was lit up from the inside, which we obviously didn't know the passcode to. That would've made things a hell of a lot easier. Trust me, if there was another option, we would've chosen it.

"What do we do now?" Auri asked, slightly breathless from all our running.

"I don't know. Break it? You've got your crazy mind powers, Kal's got his whole super strength thing." I gestured vaguely to her, then to him.

"Ah, so I'm not included in this at all?" Saedii raised an eyebrow at me.

"I'll be honest with you, Saedii. I don't even know what you do aside from being scary."

"We don't have time for this." Kal reminded us, stepping away from me. I was fine on my own, now that we weren't moving. He tried to stick his fingers into the spot where the two sides of the door met, to get as much leverage as he could. He then attempted to pull the doors apart, the muscles in his arms straining with the effort, but the doors weren't budging. When he realized that he wasn't going to be able to do it, he stopped and turned back to us, finding Aurora's eyes. "I don't think my ability is going to help us. Is there anything you could do, be'shmai?"

Auri shook her head. "I don't think so. A blast big enough to break through these doors would probably hurt you guys too."

The two of them kept trying to come up with a solution, and Saedii joined in, but I was completely checked out. I stared slightly slack-jawed at the keypad. After lights out, I had a habit of not sleeping. Instead, I'd study things that no one else seemed to want to teach me. It had started with my exosuit. It was standard issue, emphasis on was because I'd been fixing it up since I learned how. I didn't think anyone knew, and if they did no one said anything. But the point was, I'd gotten pretty good with machines over the years. I'd call it natural talent. I could figure out how things worked just by looking at them real hard for a minute. Which was exactly what I was doing with the door.

"Hang on," I spoke up, drifting to the keypad. "I think there's something I can do."

"Do it, then," Kal encouraged me.

I nodded, and extracted a multitool from a small compartment in my exo. That was something I'd added, I doubt I would've been allowed to have it otherwise. I found the flathead screwdriver extension of the multitool, and it flicked out like a switchblade. I held that with one hand, and with the other I put gentle pressure on each of the buttons on the keypad in turn, careful not to actually press any of them. It only took me a couple seconds to find what I needed. I positioned the end of the tool in the space between the 4 and 5 buttons. I held it steady, then closed my other hand into a fist and brought it down on the end of the tool with as much strength as I could, effectively jamming the screwdriver into the keypad. The whole thing sparked, and the light inside flickered and died. A prolonged hiss came from the door as the keypad settled into smoking.

"Try it again, Kal." I tipped my head towards the door, putting the multitool away. My brawny friend did as I instructed, and with the satisfying creak of success, the door slid open.

I heard my friends run out the door, and a victorious cheer that I was sure came from Saedii. But at the moment, I was frozen in place. As soon as the sun hit my eyes, I was in a great deal of unexpected pain, so my reflexes told me to close them as tight as I could.

"Shitshitshitshit-" I clamped a hand over my eyes too, because just closing them wasn't proving to be enough.

My friends came back to me, and I felt Aurora's hand on my shoulder. "What? What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" There was a note of panic in my voice that even startled me a little. I spoke through gritted teeth. "Something about the light out here is hurting my eyes!"

A silent beat passed where, just over the sound of blaring alarms, I could hear rapid footsteps coming closer to us. We were running out of time, fast.

Somehow keeping his cool, Kal made a split second decision. He took a deep breath. "Alright. We'll solve this problem when we come to a safe place to stop. For now, Finian, I hope you don't take issue with me carrying you."

Before I had time to protest- which I probably wouldn't have anyway- Kal lifted me off of the ground in what I could only describe as an impromptu bridal carry. Then we were right back to running.

My eyes were still closed, so I don't really know all of what happened next. But from what I've gathered since it did happen, Auri took a second to use her powers to close the door behind us again. Obviously that wasn't going to keep the GIA goons back for very long, especially with the way I'd broken it, but it was better than nothing. We weren't out of the woods yet, though. For a couple reasons. Firstly, if I knew anything about the GIABSA, I knew that they weren't going to quit until they found us. They wouldn't have put that much effort into their security if they didn't want to keep us there.

Secondly, we had absolutely no clue where we were going. None of us had ever been outside of the GIABSA, so we didn't know where any towns or cities or anything were. We were just running as fast and far as we could and hoping we found something. Not to mention that even if we did somehow come across a town, it would be a real miracle if anyone would actually be willing to give us a hand.

I couldn't hear any footsteps other than our own anymore, so hopefully that meant good things and not GIABSA-assassins-hiding-in-the-woods things. Oh, and speaking of the woods, I was pretty sure that was where we were. It seemed like my eyes had adjusted a little more, so I took my hand away from them, but still kept them closed. I could tell that I was too close to the precipice of feeling that crazy burning thing again, so I wasn't going to risk opening them. But I could see the sort of erratic patterns of the light around me from behind my eyelids, which told me the sun was probably coming through some leaves.

Suddenly, we stopped. I tried for a second to think of why it might've been, and all I could come up with was that they'd found something. "What are you seeing?" I nudged Kal's side with my boot.

"A road." Kal muttered.

"A real one. Paved." Saedii supplied. What struck me about it was that for a second she seemed to lose that facade she had where she acted like she was so much smarter than everyone else. She sounded really, genuinely… confused.

"We should follow it." Aurora decided. "A road probably means a town, right? Whoever's there might be able to help us."

"Or turn us in to the authorities." I shrugged.

"Now is not the time for a devil's advocate, Finian." Kal said gravely.

"No. He's correct." I almost didn't believe my ears when I heard Saedii say that. But there wasn't any time to fire the confetti cannons before she kept speaking. "We have to go into this with caution. We've made ourselves fugitives. Simply talking to people and hoping they will listen isn't going to work."

Aurora's voice came next, slightly timid. "Do we have another choice, though?"

"Always."

"But this isn't like always!" Auri pointed out. "We don't need to isolate ourselves again, we need help."

"We need no one but ourselves, and if you're unable to see that then you won't last long in this world." Saedii snapped. See what I meant about her acting like she was smarter than everyone else?

Auri seemed to give up then, knowing Saedii was too stubborn to be convinced. "Fine, you can do whatever you want, but I'm following this road." Based on the footsteps I heard after that, she was doing exactly what she said.

And obviously Kal was going with her, which meant I was too. I probably would've gone anyway, even if I wasn't being carried. Which reminded me- "I think I can probably walk on my own from here. Just, you know, lead me a little."

Kal responded with an affirmative, and put me back down. If I didn't know any better, I almost would've called the ground beneath my feet familiar terrain. It was just as solid as the floors of the GIABSA. But it made a different sound, and I knew the rest of my surroundings would be really different if I opened my eyes. I was still wrapping my head around that.

A couple seconds after I got my feet back on the ground, I heard another set of footfalls behind us. I couldn't puzzle out why Saedii had chosen to come with us after all, but I didn't have the energy or confidence to question it. She worked in mysterious ways, and I was used to it by then.

It took a while for us to find anything interesting. Saedii and Aurora didn't have anything else to say to each other, Kal was more the strong-and-silent type, and I do my best work bouncing off of other people, so there wasn't much conversation. But my first indication that we were getting somewhere was when I heard Auri gasp and announce the presence of houses. It sounded to me like we'd gotten to the edge of a town. I couldn't hear much of anything else, though. There probably weren't many people out and about. Maybe it was just a smaller town.

A few moments passed and all of a sudden I heard Aurora take off, then she started yelling. "Hey! Hi! Can we talk to you for a minute?" Either she'd seen someone, or she'd finally snapped. Based on the way my other friends picked up the pace too, I was guessing it was the first one. I stayed put where I was, given that I had only a vague clue of where my friends had gone, and I wasn't looking to wander aimlessly until I found them.

Whoever it was that they'd seen, though, they didn't seem eager to talk to us, because the conversation Auri had initiated didn't continue. But we wouldn't be deterred so easily. My friends came back to get me after realizing I'd been left in the dust, and we moved right along. Every so often we spotted someone on the street, but when we went to talk to them, one of two things happened. Either they took one look at us and decided to bounce, or they stuck around for a minute and only left once we started explaining things. It was me doing most of the explaining, only because I knew someone had to, and no one else was doing it. We also stopped by a few houses, and it was a similar situation. Sometimes people didn't even answer their doors, and I guess there wasn't much we could do about that.

After a few dozen times of trying and failing and trying again, we spotted someone walking back to their house. We caught up to them before they reached their door.

"Wait! Wait, hi, sorry to bother you but do you think you could help us out with something?" Aurora asked the person, having gotten significantly less timid than the first time she'd done it.

Then there was the voice of a very concerned and bewildered boy.

He's probably trying to figure us out.

He sounded young, probably around the same age as we were. "What… what do you need?"

I took that as my cue to give this guy the run-down. If anyone in my group was good at talking fast, it was me, so it was actually kind of convenient that I'd taken up this job. "Well, we need help because we just got out of a pretty intense situation that can be expanded upon later, and we're kinda on a time crunch because we're being chased, so we'd really appreciate it if you could kindly direct us to your local authorities or anyone else you might deem helpful, please and thank you."

When I was done explaining, a good few seconds of silence passed where I could only imagine this guy staring at the four of us with a cartoonishly dropped jaw.

"I… I'll be right back." I heard him speed-walk away, followed by a door closing.

Saedii groaned. "How much longer are we going to continue this? We've had no luck, and if you would simply stop and think for a moment, maybe you would see that we aren't making the correct decision."

"He said he'd be back." Aurora mumbled, daring to be hopeful in a situation that definitely wasn't looking too good for us.

"I doubt he plans to stay true to his word, Aurora." Kal told her, trying to be gentle in breaking the news. "No one else has returned, even if they told us they would. Why should he be any different?"

"No, he'll be back." Aurora insisted, sounding like she was trying to convince herself as much as us.

"And why do you so stubbornly think this?" Saedii challenged her.

"I'm not positive, I just... have a feeling."

"It's not the end of the world if he doesn't come back, either. I don't know how many houses there are around here, but we've already been to a couple. I'm sure there are other people we can catch the attention of." I gestured widely, but carefully, to our surroundings. I didn't want to hit anyone.

"Maybe we would have better luck if you didn't immediately divulge our situation to complete strangers!" Saedii growled.

"What else am I supposed to be doing?" I was, admittedly, getting a little defensive. "I don't know if you all have noticed, but we're not exactly a classic group of picture-perfect modern teenagers."

"Which is precisely why we shouldn't be here in the first place!"

"We have nowhere else to go, Saedii!" Kal shouted.

"How quickly you switch sides, Kaliis. Just when I thought you had some sense about you!"

"Saying something that aligns with your thoughts doesn't mean I think you are entirely correct! You have no better idea of what you're doing than the rest of us."

Based on the stunned silence that followed, Kal's sister was absolutely seething at that point. Just as she started speaking, and I came to terms with the inevitable triple murder she was about to commit, a real miracle happened. I heard the door creak again.

The boy from before opened with a simple "Okay," seeming about as unsure as a person could be. But if just his coming back wasn't good enough, then he spoke again. "I talked to my friends in there-" I guessed that he gestured back to his house- "and they were both pretty opinionated. But the details aren't important. Long story short..." In five simple words, I could almost feel some of the tension being released from the air. "You guys can come inside."

~~~

Taglist: (Ask to be tagged!)

#i-#speachless #the concept?? flawless #the execution?? even better #not a quote #fanfiction #auri o'malley #tyler jones #scarlett jones #fin

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