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pilot-boi · 4 years

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Missing In Action: Chapter Five

Grace Is Wasted

Take all the courage you have left, and waste it on fixing all the problems in your own head.

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It’s day three. Or four, maybe. It’s the third time he’d woken up, at any rate. It was hard to tell how much time had passed without windows, and Commando and his lackeys would punish him if he asked any questions.

That didn’t stop him from asking. The lack of information was driving him crazy. Although the fact that the torture wasn’t slowing down was probably also a major contributor to that. Not that they were any closer to getting answers out of him.

Every muscle ached. He’d had more trips to the Tub than he could count, and he was becoming concerningly used to the feeling of water in his lungs, and of waking up in places he didn’t remember traveling to. The lack of autonomy wasn’t helping things, but his legs weren’t really working properly. He couldn’t focus as well as he should be able to, and the general fuzziness in his brain was affecting his coordination.

That was probably the lack of food’s fault.

Jaune’s stomach rumbled in response, as if sensing that he was thinking about it. He glared down at it, silently willing it to shut up. Not that he could really see it, his cell was pitch black after all.

The food was messing with his perception of time as well. Jaune wasn’t too proud to admit that his life was regimented into time before a meal, and time after a meal. He was a growing boy, food was a must. A requirement. And the lack of it was taking him out of the real world more than he’d like to admit.

The first day or so he’d been able to tell how much time was passing by when his stomach would grumble and protest or ache from lack of food, but now all of him ached and he was always hungry. So that was no help anymore.

Commando at least was providing him with water. Sour, mildewed water, but water nonetheless. So he was unlikely to die anytime soon. Just suffer. And wasn’t that just dandy?

Light peeked into the room as the door creaked open. Jaune squinted into it, wincing after the hours of darkness. “Is it morning already?” Jaune rasped, trying to sound casual. “I thought you guys might’ve forgotten about me.”

The tall man didn’t respond, he never did, but his companion chuckled darkly. That was all the response he ever got out of these two. Fear of Commando kept them from saying anything more to him. Honestly Jaune couldn’t blame them, he’d be scared of Commando, too.

Not that he was scared of the man. Nope. Not at all. And it wasn’t like he was likely to have a meaningful conversation with Rando and Blondie, but he was starving for human interaction. It was just another thing they were depriving him of.

Jaune had taken to talking to himself, if only to make sure that he still could talk. He was certain that that was perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about there.

Rando unlocked the chain from the wall and let Jaune drop onto the ground. Every time he’d see it coming, and he’d try his hardest to catch himself, but after who knew how many hours not using his arms… Well it would be easier to compare his arms to limp noodles than to actual arms.

“Aw come on guys,” Jaune groaned, attempting to push himself back up off the floor, “Didja have to drop me? Every gods damned time.” Rando hefted him up from the floor and yanked him towards the door, perhaps more roughly than he normally would’ve done.

The barely healing bruises and scrapes on his wrists flared with pain. His shoulder wasn’t pleased either, and was telling him so through a morse code message of lightning bolts and pain and throbbing. Fun stuff! Good stuff. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today,” Jaune grumbled, and got clubbed in the side of the head for his trouble.

Blondie led the way down the hallway, twirling the keys on his finger and whistling merrily. Jaune glanced around the dark hall, trying to see if there was some sign posted to explain why Blondie seemed to cheery. Maybe it was the man’s birthday. Well too bad, Blondie, you weren’t gonna be getting a present from him, no-sir-ee bob.

Jaune belatedly realized that he was muttering this all under his breath when Blondie chuckled again. Dammit Jaune, keep it together. Can’t crack this early, he had a responsibility to everyone to keep it together.

Tensing against his will as they approached the now too-familiar door in front of the room with the Tub, Jaune dug in his heels, anything to stop them from going in the room. And then they were passing by the door. Jaune sagged in relief, feet stumbling over themselves when Rando yanked the chain to get him moving again.

A new torture then? Jaune dreaded to think of what Commando could’ve come up with now. Lasers? Sharks? Laser sharks?! The possibilities were endless.

Blondie was coming to a halt by a door now, and pulling it open to let Rando drag him in. Jaune followed cautiously, eyes roving the new space for any way to escape, or for any hint of what was coming.

It was a small room. Concrete walls, not a crack to be seen, and a single chair. The chair looked like one of those ones he’d seen in the hairdressers his mom and then his sisters would drag him to, the ones with the big globe thingies over them. This one looked far less welcoming though.

The straps on the arms, legs, and headrest would do that. Fat black wires were running to it from a metal rectangle of a machine in the corner. Commando was standing by the machine, fiddling with dials, flipping switches, pressing buttons.

Jaune tried not to think of how much this set up looked like the vault in Beacon. He wouldn’t be able to help anyone if his mind got sucked back into the past.

Rando shoved him into the chair, and got one of the manacles locked over Jaune’s arm before he could jump up. Blondie got the other arm locked in, and then fastened the ones around his chest. “So, Boss Man, what’s the plan for today?” Jaune called over to the man, doing his best to ignore what the two men were doing.

He couldn’t move again. Great. Just dandy.

“Tsk, tsk, Jauney,” Commando chided him from the controls, “What have we gone over about asking questions?” The helmet thing was lowered around Jaune’s head, where it sat menacingly. Or as menacingly as a helmet thingy could sit.

“And the nicknames, those have gotta end, kid.” He pressed a button and a pair of somethings detached from inside the helmet and spiked into the skin at his temples with a sharp sting of pain. They...They actually broke through the skin! How the hell did they do that? What happened to his Aura?! “Insubordination is a big no-no around here.”

Commando pressed a button on his console, and sparks of electricity arced from the machine directly into Jaune’s scalp.

Now, Jaune had been electrocuted before. He’d been an idiot teenager, and zapped his fingers with batteries. Once one of his younger sisters turned the lights back on while he was changing them and he fell off a ladder from the shock. And with being on a team with Nora the human lightning bolt, electrocution was an occupational hazard.

This was nothing like that.

He jumped as the electricity seemed to short circuit the neurons in his brain. His muscles spasmed and contracted involuntarily, receiving too many signals and too few signals simultaneously. And he could feel the skin around the electrodes burning and blistering.

Jaune was used to passing, accidental charges. He was in no way prepared for a focused shock, meant to stun and hurt.

The shock only lasted a second, but even that was one second too long. Jaune sagged against his restraints, glaring up at Commando when the man chuckled. “Yeah that stings a bit doesn’t it, boy?” Commando took up the now familiar spot in front of Jaune and the shorter of the two henchmen took his place at the controls.

Jaune pulled against the restraints experimentally, but he couldn’t budge them an inch. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew what was coming now. Question time.

“Let’s begin,” Commando said, standing at attention before him and crossing his arms behind his back. “Where is the Relic of Knowledge?”

“Like I’d tell you that,” Jaune scoffed, and strained against his bonds when a jolt of energy shot through him, frying his nerve endings.

“What have I said about back talk, kid?” the man tsked, and nodded to Blondie at the controls. Blondie changed something, and the machine he was strapped into hummed a little louder. Jaune grimaced nervously and glanced over at the man. “Don’t worry about him, worry about me,” Commando interrupted, snapping his fingers. “Now, where is the Relic of Knowledge?”

“I don’t know-” he started, getting cut off by a longer, and somewhat stronger jolt of electricity. Jaune yelped in pain, biting his tongue to keep from crying out more, his muscles going rigid and his head pounding. His eyes were wide open, and he couldn’t close them if he wanted to. After a second that lasted an eternity, the pain stopped and he slumped against his bonds.

“Don’t lie to me.” Commando was speaking before the aftershocks even got out of his system. The machine hummed a little louder, and Jaune shifted in his restraints as well as he could. He squeezed his eyes shut, relying on years of doing that and having his headaches lessen. It didn’t help this time, but it had been worth a try. “Let’s try this again: Where is the Relic of Knowledge?”

Jaune just shook his head, not trusting himself to not mouth off again. Commando must have given the signal, because his world exploded in pain again. Behind his closed eyelids, Jaune could swear he could see bolts of lightning shooting across his vision.

His mind was on fire, too many thoughts shooting along his neurons. Somebody was screaming, it might even be him. In an effort to stop, he bit down on his tongue until the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, decided that he would rather lose his vocal chords than his tongue, and went right back to screaming.

“Okay, that’s gonna start to hurt pretty soon” Jaune stuttered, the aftershocks of electricity making the words feel sharp and pointed in his mouth.Or maybe that was from all the yelling. Who’s to say.

An image of the lamp sprang unbidden into Jaune’s mind. He could see it now. Intricate twirling gold framework like lace holding a softly glowing blue lamp. It would be on the table in the living room, or hung swinging from Ruby or Oscar’s belt.

Jaune hesitated, pain pulsing in his head like a jackhammer. It would be so easy to just say where it was.

But he couldn’t. If they knew where the lamp was, they would know where his friends were. And he couldn’t risk their safety for anything.

“Go to hell,” he spat as defiantly as he could while strapped into an electric chair, delighting in the way that smile finally vanished from Commando’s face.

The two electrodes pressed into his temples and all thoughts fled his mind as the pain in his head increased a thousand-fold. Next thing he knew, he was screaming. His world blotted out, and all he could feel was the tormenting feel of mind-numbing agony. It hurt, oh gods it hurt. Stop. Stop it. Please just end it!

He’d answer any question they gave him now. Anything at all just to get out of this.They were still asking him things, he could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t hear a thing over the world-ending mind-shattering pain. The knight couldn’t even bring himself to stop screaming long enough to beg for them to stop.

Jaune was dying. He was already dead. He’d always hoped that death was painless, but there was no way this much pain could exist in the living world.

Unable to bear the pain any longer, Jaune’s world went dark.

Commando stopped his line of questions when the boy went limp in the harness. Hm. How typical. But they’d found the upper limit of the boy’s pain tolerance at least. That would prove useful in the coming days, if the boy even lasted that long.

He had to admit, the boy had lasted longer than he’d expected, and had refused to give them any answers to boot. But no matter. He would break in time, they all did.

Jaune woke up again in his cell, chained to the wall. It was definitely colder than it had been before, his breath was fogging up in the darkness in front of him. His muscles were stiff with disuse, and his stomach ached with hunger.

The last thing he could remember was his insides singing.

His eyes were barely blinking open before he was being dragged back out of his cell. Jaune’s feet didn’t want to cooperate with him, but he did at least manage to stay upright.

Then he was back in the Chair. And it all started again. He managed to last a little long this time, because he knew it was coming, but eventually darkness covered his vision again.

The next time he woke up, he was already being dragged down the hallway. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get his legs to support his weight. His vision was blurred, and hunger was stabbing at his insides like hot knives. Or maybe that was just the after effects of the shocks.

And then the shock treatment again.The session ended sooner than usual that day. He mustered up the strength to throw a couple stinging insults back in Commando’s face. The man did not like that..

The third time he woke up already in the Chair. Maybe it was the next day, maybe it was still the same session. Jaune had no way of knowing, and what was the difference either way? The end result would be the same, none of it mattered.

Gods he was so tired. The weight of his hunger and exhaustion weighed down on his bones like a lead blanket.

Jaune learned pretty quickly that speaking out would only get him more pain. Nicknames would get him smacked hard enough that stars would blink into existence in front of his eyes.

A few sessions in the Chair and many repetitions had him realizing that it was better for everyone if he just kept his mouth shut. Wasn’t like he was going to answer their questions anyway. Giving in and calling Commando “Sir” earned him the meal they’d been denying him, even if it turned his stomach to show that man anything even approaching respect.

Didn’t help him at all that he wolfed down the food so fast that his starving body immediately rejected it.

It became a routine. Wake up in his cell or already in one of the other rooms, pain and questioning, passing out, questioning and pain, and then back to his cell. And if he was especially good, then he’d get a scrap of food. Like a dog.

A poorly treated, blatantly abused, grossly underfed dog, but a dog nonetheless.

#rwby #mine #my writing #jaune arc #missing in action #chapter 5

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