The doctor just kept on talking, his tone all the more causal and heartless in the face of Sechs' torment. He growled out curses at the doctor's murky form, snarling at him to stop talking to his damn recorder. He wasn't some mindless, unfeeling creature with no awareness of being used! He may have come into the world by unnatural circumstance, but he deserved just as much acknowledgment and respect as any other person, even his Original! He knew he was entitled to such a right, he needed it! Yet like the shrieks of tortured lab rats, his demands went unheeded by the doctor.
Sechs strained his yellow eyes towards the unnerving smile that hovered within the darkness above him. Despite the agony and humiliation he was experiencing, Sechs' determination to survive managed to flicker through the oppressive darkness. "...You'll never break me...!" he hissed through heavy breaths. "I have my own purpose. One that I chose myself, and I won't let you take it away from me...!"
The doctor retreated back behind the chair once again. Knowing that another injection was sure to come, the Replica's body tensed and trembled in exhausted desperation. He had to hold on! Persevere even when all seemed lost. That was one quality of a true warrior, right?
The fourth needle drove into the upper part of his spinal column; the injections were fast approaching his neck while the freezing substance gained ground inside his struggling system. He couldn't give in to the pain, his body's cries for the agony to stop; a powerful warrior never begged for mercy, even when such relief was far due. Yet the icy tip of the syringe drove out a single word amongst his bestial wails. "NO!!"
The darkness was closing in on Sechs, threatening to choke his vision and even his mind. The faint echoing voice he heard earlier grew to be a harsh whisper whose location was as indistinct as the shadows surrounding him. Ice seemed to envelope most of his back, sending an uncontrollable shiver throughout every limb and sinew of his body. He clamped his jaws together to keep them from loudly chattering, nearly biting his own tongue off in his efforts to repress his weaknesses.
Sechs always wielded near perfect control of his past cyborg bodies, but he was now trapped in an organic one that was under siege by an unknown poison. Everything was spinning out of his control! His mind hopelessly raced in circles for answers. When was this torture going to end? More importantly, how long could Sechs himself last?
"Purpose, choice?" The doctor laughed and discarded the fourth needle the same way as the others. Best to tidy up the tray as well, he thought, and clink clink clink clink the four used glass bottles fell into the waste bin as well. Hazardous waste should be disposed of properly after all. "What purpose do you have here, AR-6? What choices do you have? Nothing but what we've given you."
The doctor felt his own pride swell at that statement and he smirked, preparing the fifth needle. There was no way he couldn't be feeling the effects by now. The way the man's eyes darted to the corners of the room, the shakes and tremors he was experiencing were classic signs that his darling experiment was progressing perfectly. Just as expected, just as intended.
"You're still the same lab rat running circles like always. It's just a different maze now. We don't need to break you, Clone. You're already broken to fit the mould," he said, his voice hissing out the last words with arrogant self-satisfaction. Now all that remained was to see how his experiment ran in a humanoid test subject. "And soon enough, you won't even be unique anymore. Not that you ever were. A copy is a copy and making another print off that is simple. It's like..."
He paused and shoved the needle harshly into Sechs' back, releasing the second to last of the fluid that would sustain his growing child. "...like making a shadow copy of a person. Turn on a light and there they are pressed in black against the wall. So simple."
The syringe was dislodged just as roughly from Sechs' back and the doctor capped it, tossing it into the bin. "Now the hard thing is giving that shadow substance, to make that complete copy real. Or...that's what my colleagues thought. A replica of a replica - I wonder which will win."
Sechs cringed with each strident clatter of the needles being tossed away. He wasn't sure how much he could take of this anymore. The Replica was desperate to block out the scientist's merciless words, to lift his hands and clamp them firmly over his ears. Yet the Replica could do absolutely nothing to stop the physical and mental torture. "NO! Sh-SHUT UP!! You're FULL of it! You hear me?! FULL OF IT!!" he shouted, hoping to drown out the doctor's voice, but the words kept crawling into his skull.
The fifth insertion of the drug (which was now even closer to his neck) dove in with barely a warning or care, making its impact no less agonizing than the first four. The chair's restraints continued to uphold their merciless purpose and the impossibility of escape finally dawned on Sechs' adamant will. Trapped and roaring in pain, the Replica's fingers dug deeply into the chair while his toes tensely curled inside his shoes. He had to hold on! He couldn't give in to the doctor's experiment, he just couldn't...!
Once the syringe withdrew, Sechs opened his eyes to find that his vision was blurred by something watery... Were they tears? He didn't want to know... Blinking the wetness out of his strained eyes, Sechs felt his body's trembling intensify as the heavy liquid inside his spine gorged on its newest batch of substance. The once small weed had now grown to be a massive form of vines that tied and twisted and tangled themselves throughout his back. His organic body violently rejected the drug, but was losing the fight against it. Now it was Sechs' psyche that was under attack by its hungry roots.
"Shut the hell up! I'm not a copy!" he wheezed, hell bent on fighting back despite how terribly drained he was. The doctor's taunting was like a flurry of punches that Sechs had no more energy to dodge or block anymore. As each word struck him down, all he could do was tiredly snap and snarl back while his self-doubts ganged up on him. "I don't give a damn about what you say! I'm my own self! So you can go to hell for all I care! I'm sick and tired of your bull...!"
However, what acted as one of the final punches did not come from the doctor, but from something else. The mysterious voice that seemed to faintly echo from all directions had now attained enough volume and form to be distinguishable. Yet Sechs couldn't believe it once he recognized it... The voice sounded unnervingly like his own! A sinister laugh, akin to the same, low growling tone that Sechs himself used, emerged before him like it had a life of its own.
Then there was the darkness. The creeping shadows that assaulted his vision were now taking on a discernible mass as well. Like the toxic liquid forced into his body, they wormed up from underneath the chair like thick globs of black paint dripping upwards instead of down with gravity. Slowly they grew in mass and fluidity as they surrounded the startled android. While the all too familiar voice's laughter grew louder, terror and bewilderment surged into Sechs' paling face.
If this was what Sechs thought it was... No... It couldn't be... NO! NOT AGAIN...!
"Like the death throes of a fallen beast," the doctor commented, laughing to himself a little. He turned his head toward the recorder and continued spouting off data that would mean little to the panicked clone on his table. Numbers, figures, observations for later; all things necessary if he should ever need to repeat the experiment. Something told him he wouldn't though. The way the replica went silent in the midst of his threats was unnatural and his eyes were focused on something that wasn't there.
The doctor smirked and prepared the final needle. "I see you've met your dark passenger." He tapped the syringe and moved forward, pressing the tip of the needle against the base of Sechs' neck. "Or rather, should I say, your new pilot? We'll see which he becomes soon enough. Deep breath."
And in comparison to the last injection, the doctor pushed the needle through with almost surprising gentleness. This last injection, dark as all the others, was the most important. This would lead his creation to the host's brain, and from there? Well, that would depend upon the will of the subject. "Easy..." The word was said less to the patient and more to the creature in the tube, to the last breath for his child.
The plunger descended slowly and the doctor eased the syringe out, capping it and throwing it away, along with the bottles. It was over. Taking out the metal swatch again, he pressed it against Sechs' neck and for one tense moment, said nothing.
Then, slowly, he began to laugh. "I've done it. I've done it! Now the rest is up to you, AR-6. Prove to me you're not a copy or your own replica will run the show for me. Enjoy fighting yourself for that 'control' you seemed so desperate for!" The laughter grew louder, almost deafening in the room. Moving around, the doctor shined the penlight into Sechs' eyes. He smiled and clicked the light off, including the one overhead. "Enjoy your so called choice, your control, your 'purpose' while you still can. You've at least a minute before the drug takes effect."
Moving away, the doctor picked up the disposal bin and grabbed the rolling tray. The recorder switched off and the doctor's footsteps faded into the darkness, disappearing just as the door unlocked and the straps holding Sechs in place slid away.
The darkness and its disturbing voice swiftly closed in on the Replica. He knew another injection was sure to seal his darkened fate. "No...! St-stop it...!" was all he could moan before the final needle sank into his neck. No shouts or screams left him. While his mouth was gaped with agony, only a hollowed groan escaped him.
At last, the needle withdrew and the experiment was finally over. Drained and defeated, Sechs limply sat against the straps as he listened to the doctor's laughter harmonize with the dark cackles that mimicked his own. He shut his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth in despair. He had lost the fight. Every effort he had ever made was all for nothing. He was doomed to fail from the very beginning. If he was an Original instead of some Replica, would things have worked out differently?
As the doctor made his exit, the lights went off and the binds that held Sechs so tightly finally slipped away. Yet Sechs didn't move. He only wearily slumped to the side, panting heavily as his eyes widened at the disturbing sight brewing around him. The wiggling tendrils grew as the doppelganger voice laughed on, its source followed by a murky face that materialized before him. Sechs could only wearily shake his head as the face took on familiar shapes. The metal plates connected to the cybernetic eye, the long gnashing teeth, a single yellow eye and the bold metal six on the forehead... His "dark side of the moon" had returned...
It was the same shadow that the hypnotist Whophon summoned to torment Sechs not so long ago at the Z.O.T.T. But how could he be seeing that damn... thing again?! Whophon was dead, and Sechs was sure as hell that he and the doctor were not the same man! How could the scientist's drug bring it back like this?!
"So you're still alive and kicking, huh? You little fake freak!" the shadow sneered as two blackened hands appeared above Sechs' bruised wrists. "Didn't I already tell you to do away with yourself before? Or are you just too stupid to know you've far outlived your time?!"
Suddenly the hands clamped down around Sechs' wrists. Sechs let out a gasp from the surprising chill, he tried to wrench away from the ghastly hands but they proved to be as firm as the chair's metal cuffs. Wheezing with panic, Sechs' eyes darted between the impossible apparition and his mirroring face. Was this real?!
"Just give it up already!" the shadow continued, "Let me take ya outta your misery! No one's gonna notice that you're gone!"
"Maybe he's right..." Sechs thought as familiar faces flashed through his mind. Would anyone he knew notice his disappearance? Alita probably would have been glad to be rid of an annoying copy like him. No one else gave much of a damn about him either, not that he ever cared about that before. ...But then what about the people he got to know here at Landel's?
"Forget them! No one here cares about a scumbag like you either!" the dark voice interrupted Sechs' thoughts with a snap. The cruel mask leaned in closer to Sechs while the twisted hands dug deeper into his skin. "Don't bother fighting me! You can't kill a part of yourself without destroying your very being, remember?"
Then it all dawned on him. All of Sechs' efforts to be unique had just been trampled by the doctor's cruelty; he had no more reason to bother with his undeserved life anymore. He was nothing but a weak copy! Sechs wanted out of this agonizing darkness and back into the peaceful unconsciousness he rested in before waking up to this nightmare... He was so tired...
Yet before Sechs gave himself up to his shadow, a new face appeared in his mind. Pale skin, white hair, pointed ears and eyes that glowed with warm compassion. Kibitoshin! "There's no way you're worthless. No way..." echoed the Kaioshin.
Just that small memory was all his warrior spirit needed to fight back. "NO!!" Sechs cried out as he made one last struggle. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE ME!" With his last ounce of strength, Sechs tore his arms away from his shadow's steely clutches. Once freed, the Replica finally gave in to his exhaustion and passed out on the chair.
Meanwhile, the shadow cackled as it faded off into the darkness, leaving the Replica in peace -- for now...
ZEX felt a chill when he entered the room, glimpses he caught of the equipment inside bringing back all too recent memories. His hallucinations definitely weren't helping, giving him the illusion of motion all around him, and he looked back at Donna, almost so he wouldn't have to look at the room around him anymore. It looked too familiar.
"Do you see anything?" Her eyesight might be better in the dark, and ZEX tried to suppress a shudder. Memories of what had happened to him were rising up quickly and it was difficult to fight them back. His difficulties discerning reality from the lies the Institute constantly fed him weren't making this much easier for him. He could see that shadowy form, feel the restraints, that buzzing as he cut through his skull, and he felt sick and it hurt all over again, like he was there again and trapped, and...
ZEX shut his eyes and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, squeezing in an effort to refocus his thoughts. This was not the time... if this was indeed one of those rooms, then that meant that there might be someone inside that needed his help. He had to focus, but his human mind wasn't giving him an easy time of it.
"Just... give me a moment..." A bit labored as he struggled to fight back his flashback. "Go on ahead..."
Donna was surprised when Zex made the first move, but hoped it meant he was feeling more confident now. She followed in after, saying a hushed, "Not yet" to his question since it was pretty dark there, even with the light. She'd been about to flash her torch around for a better view when she noticed Zex acting strangely again. "Hey, you all right?"
His words said otherwise and although he wanted her to continue, concern had Donna staying back with him instead. "I'm not just gunna leave you, silly," she scolded him, giving his back a rub in hopes that it might help.
Weakened and unconscious, the Replica sat limply on the tainted chair for a long time that never seemed enough to quench his fatigue. Yet slowly, a new set of sounds and lights pulled him from the shadows of his mind and back to the pitch black of the room. Some people had arrived, but who? Sechs' mind was too delirious from exhaustion to think of the strangers as anything but good news. He ordered his muscles to move, but every limb, particularly his back, felt as heavy as lead.
Meanwhile, the dark side of Sechs' psyche kept a distance, deciding to take advantage of the situation and toy with its vulnerable host, making itself known only through a faint but powerful thought.
"Well whaddya know? Looks like our good doctor just called in for the garbage disposal team!" the voice chuckled in Sechs' head, "Too bad it had to happen now, the Deckmen back at the Scrapyard factory would have been more than happy to do that job a long time ago!"
Sechs winced at the thought. Was that true? Had Sechs' time finally come? What was left of his adrenaline flashed through his system, but his body just couldn't fight anymore. Groaning, the defeated Replica weakly lifted his head up from his shoulder and peered towards the beam of lights and their unknown users.
"Who... Who's there?!" he called out to the strangers, only to hear his voice croak out as an incoherent grunt instead.
ZEX didn't really want to get into the details of what had happened to him, or why this room bothered him... he needed to support himself in times of duress. Years alone had taught him that that was the only option, and relying on a human didn't seem fair to them.
Although he did like being touched.
"I'm alright." ZEX could make out some kind of motion in the dark, no doubt his mind playing tricks on him again. "I just feel like I've been here before..."
He stiffened when he heard something in the dark, something that definitely hadn't come from one of his hallucinations. Someone, or something, was there!
"Did you hear that?" ZEX took a few steps towards the sound. "Hello? Who's there?" A moment. "Sechs, is that you?" He hoped it wasn't... maybe Sechs had just been otherwise occupied that night and hadn't been horribly tortured, as ZEX had been, but he doubted it. There was not a lot of mercy to be found in this place. "Sechs?"
An examining chair, much like the one he himself had been bound to not long ago, with a human sitting in it. There was nothing holding him there, but, as far as ZEX could tell, he didn't look to be in the best of shape.
Asking if he was alright would have been redundant. Looking at him brought on a cold, sinking feeling, like danger was near. No one had come for ZEX when he had suffered here; the door had not unlocked, his restraints had not gone loose. Which meant there was a reason Sechs' door had opened to let them in, and ZEX could only think of bait. For that reason, he kept his distance for now. "Sechs?"
Donna went from being concerned to being on edge from the sudden vice in the room she did not know. Her hand paused on Zex's back and she looked up. "Yeah," she said, giving a soft nod that Zex likely didn't see. How could she not have heard something with how silent the rest of the room was?
She lost the feeling of Zex's back as he moved forward and brought the light up to help. As he called for an answer, Donna noticed the chair and the person, but instead of simply speaking to it moved forward quickly, passing the man and getting to the person. She wasn't much for asking questions first.
"It doesn't matter who it is, now does it?" Donna snapped back at Zex, maybe a bit upset that he wasn't acting when he thought a possible friend was in trouble, and propped the torch next to the chair so that she could see. "Name's Donna, and that's Zex unless you already knew that," she told the sitting person, "But like I said, doesn't matter. Point is we'll be getting you out of here one way or another."
It didn't take a genius to realize that the guy had been taken. Just who would have been sitting in a chair up here on their own for the fun of it? She started checking the chair for restraints and found a few to begin pulling at. Of course that would be the setup. Landel so did not get points for originality, that was for sure.
One of the figures approached Sechs in a dizzying motion that warped in his blurry vision. The stranger's muffled words sounded close to a Deckman's monotone confirmation of a criminal cyborg's remains being processed into Factory 33 for complete disposal. Even the dark form before him seemed to have a robotic figure to it, along with fat organic hands attached to scrawny metal ligaments that reached out to grab Sechs' remains...
Within that deranged moment, Sechs' struggled to lift his bruised arms in a last ditch attempt to protect himself. "No...!" he wheezed out, his voice hoarse from all the screams and shouts he uttered earlier. "Don't throw me out! I'm not finished living...!"
Suddenly the threatening figure's beam of light pointed away from his eyes and in an angle that illuminated the true identities of the two strangers, snapping the Replica out of his delirious state.
"Huh?"
Sechs furiously blinked the watery shadows out of his eyes to find a red-haired woman instead of a factory worker standing before him. Meanwhile the dull ringing in his ears finally calmed down enough for him to catch the stranger's name and...
"ZEX?" Sechs squinted towards the second stranger and spotted the single eye and the greenly tinged hair. He tried to sit up on the chair but slumped back down into it with a fatigued grunt. "What? Why are you--"
Did the ex-VUX go through all this trouble to find Sechs? But why would he and the new woman do that? He and ZEX barely knew each other! ...Wait ...was this supposed to be like one of those friendship things that Kibitoshin tried to explain to him a few nights ago...?
"Don't even think about it," the living shadow suddenly hissed in Sechs' head, "If these two knew what you really are, they wouldn't have bothered wasting their time for the likes of you!"
It was hard to take his eye from the chair itself. It was a different design than the one he'd been trapped in, but that didn't make it any more difficult for his mind to imagine himself trapped there, screaming...
He wanted to shake the intrusive thoughts away, memories that kept echoing and amplifying one another, but they wouldn't stop. This room, this place, this chair... he'd been here or someplace much like it before, what if they were luring him here again? He couldn't let it happen to him again, lose his other eye, go completely blind, he couldn't...
"Uh..." Donna was moving forward, and ZEX struggled through his flashback, his human body's aversion to the chair, to do the same. His body might have been malfunctioning for some reason, but he had to rise above it. The socket where his eye once was was hurting, he could feel it-
He heard his name, and his voice matched his memory. It was Sechs after all. So he hadn't been spared... so much for mercy.
"You don't think I'd let you miss our appointment together, would you?" With a very weak smile. "I'm just sorry I couldn't get here sooner... it must have been terrible..."
He was trailing off, easily lost in his thoughts. Why couldn't he banish these memories? Why did they keep intruding on his thoughts? This didn't seem normal... he'd have to ask someone later. He moved to Sechs's side, reached out and touched his arm hesitantly. Touching always made ZEX feel better, after all, so surely it'd do the same for someone else. "Do you think you can walk?"
Sechs still had both of his eyes... he hoped this wasn't a trap.
"Hey? Apologize later, all right?" Donna snapped lightly as she finished with one of the restraints, "No telling what might try and get at us up here. "Work on getting that side free, would you?" If Zex had time to touch the man, then he had time enough to help her get the remaining restraints unstrapped as well.
Donna had no idea if this Sechs guy was an alien or human or whatever. Aside from knowing that Zex knew him, and that their names would have definitely gotten them some questions where she came from, she knew less to nothing about the guy. But he had been taken as a patient like the rest of them. That was reason enough not to just sit around and let him figure his own way out. If they didn't help each other, who would?
Finishing with the last strap she could spot, she grabbed her torch back and looked across to Zex, "You got that side done?"
"Ah right..." Sechs tried to chuckle, but the hollow laughter came out as a hoarse cough instead. "I... I almost forgot about that..." ZEX really wanted to talk and exchange battle techniques with him, didn't he? That helped Sechs feel just a touch less worthless...
Sechs flinched at the touch. His body was still associating such feelings with the approach of a needle. Reassuring himself that it was just ZEX and that no syringes were going to invade his system again, Sechs managed to relax, or at least as much as anyone could after going through what he just did. He could still feel his body tremble out of his control...
Looking to ZEX, the Replica gave the VUX a wary nod. All his limbs felt heavy and numb, like they were miles away from his brain. It took a moment for the sluggish muscles in his legs to lift through what seemed more like thick water than air. "I think so..."
Once the straps were out of the way, Sechs heaved himself off the chair and unto his wobbly legs. For a second, he felt like he was just born mere minutes ago, reminding him of the moment his newly loaded brain chip worked to get accustomed to a fresh cyborg body. To think that happened only two years ago...
Suddenly he lost his balance and dropped back into the chair's possessive arms. Groaning, he glanced between ZEX and Donna, "Uh... I... I think I'm gonna need some..."
He trailed off and dropped his gaze, not wanting to say the word that felt so humiliating for a warrior like him to utter. Hopefully his two rescuers would know what he was talking about and respect what was left of his dignity...
"We'll just have to reschedule our appointment then." Humor tended to help a bad situation... that was something that their two species seemed to share, if nothing else. Although technically, Sechs wasn't exactly human, but for ZEX's purposes he was close enough.
ZEX watched Sechs move to stand, and when he fell back he reached out to try and catch him without success. If he'd gone through anything like ZEX had gone through, he wouldn't be surprised to see that he was unsteady on his feet. Although, Sechs still had both his eyes and it didn't look like his hair had been cut anywhere... what had they done to him then?
"It's alright," ZEX tried to sound reassuring, although his voice shook itself. His hallucinations were making the darkness around them seem alive, and it wasn't helping calm his fears about this being a trap. "I don't think I could have walked much myself after..."
Not that he would have had much cause for it... no one had come for him, after all. He hadn't been released, and he still couldn't shake the suspicious feeling that came with the fact that Sechs had been. What was the staff here playing at?
Either way, he reached out to help Sechs up. The sooner they got out of this room, the better.
Sechs strained his yellow eyes towards the unnerving smile that hovered within the darkness above him. Despite the agony and humiliation he was experiencing, Sechs' determination to survive managed to flicker through the oppressive darkness. "...You'll never break me...!" he hissed through heavy breaths. "I have my own purpose. One that I chose myself, and I won't let you take it away from me...!"
The doctor retreated back behind the chair once again. Knowing that another injection was sure to come, the Replica's body tensed and trembled in exhausted desperation. He had to hold on! Persevere even when all seemed lost. That was one quality of a true warrior, right?
The fourth needle drove into the upper part of his spinal column; the injections were fast approaching his neck while the freezing substance gained ground inside his struggling system. He couldn't give in to the pain, his body's cries for the agony to stop; a powerful warrior never begged for mercy, even when such relief was far due. Yet the icy tip of the syringe drove out a single word amongst his bestial wails. "NO!!"
The darkness was closing in on Sechs, threatening to choke his vision and even his mind. The faint echoing voice he heard earlier grew to be a harsh whisper whose location was as indistinct as the shadows surrounding him. Ice seemed to envelope most of his back, sending an uncontrollable shiver throughout every limb and sinew of his body. He clamped his jaws together to keep them from loudly chattering, nearly biting his own tongue off in his efforts to repress his weaknesses.
Sechs always wielded near perfect control of his past cyborg bodies, but he was now trapped in an organic one that was under siege by an unknown poison. Everything was spinning out of his control! His mind hopelessly raced in circles for answers. When was this torture going to end? More importantly, how long could Sechs himself last?
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The doctor felt his own pride swell at that statement and he smirked, preparing the fifth needle. There was no way he couldn't be feeling the effects by now. The way the man's eyes darted to the corners of the room, the shakes and tremors he was experiencing were classic signs that his darling experiment was progressing perfectly. Just as expected, just as intended.
"You're still the same lab rat running circles like always. It's just a different maze now. We don't need to break you, Clone. You're already broken to fit the mould," he said, his voice hissing out the last words with arrogant self-satisfaction. Now all that remained was to see how his experiment ran in a humanoid test subject. "And soon enough, you won't even be unique anymore. Not that you ever were. A copy is a copy and making another print off that is simple. It's like..."
He paused and shoved the needle harshly into Sechs' back, releasing the second to last of the fluid that would sustain his growing child. "...like making a shadow copy of a person. Turn on a light and there they are pressed in black against the wall. So simple."
The syringe was dislodged just as roughly from Sechs' back and the doctor capped it, tossing it into the bin. "Now the hard thing is giving that shadow substance, to make that complete copy real. Or...that's what my colleagues thought. A replica of a replica - I wonder which will win."
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The fifth insertion of the drug (which was now even closer to his neck) dove in with barely a warning or care, making its impact no less agonizing than the first four. The chair's restraints continued to uphold their merciless purpose and the impossibility of escape finally dawned on Sechs' adamant will. Trapped and roaring in pain, the Replica's fingers dug deeply into the chair while his toes tensely curled inside his shoes. He had to hold on! He couldn't give in to the doctor's experiment, he just couldn't...!
Once the syringe withdrew, Sechs opened his eyes to find that his vision was blurred by something watery... Were they tears? He didn't want to know... Blinking the wetness out of his strained eyes, Sechs felt his body's trembling intensify as the heavy liquid inside his spine gorged on its newest batch of substance. The once small weed had now grown to be a massive form of vines that tied and twisted and tangled themselves throughout his back. His organic body violently rejected the drug, but was losing the fight against it. Now it was Sechs' psyche that was under attack by its hungry roots.
"Shut the hell up! I'm not a copy!" he wheezed, hell bent on fighting back despite how terribly drained he was. The doctor's taunting was like a flurry of punches that Sechs had no more energy to dodge or block anymore. As each word struck him down, all he could do was tiredly snap and snarl back while his self-doubts ganged up on him. "I don't give a damn about what you say! I'm my own self! So you can go to hell for all I care! I'm sick and tired of your bull...!"
However, what acted as one of the final punches did not come from the doctor, but from something else. The mysterious voice that seemed to faintly echo from all directions had now attained enough volume and form to be distinguishable. Yet Sechs couldn't believe it once he recognized it... The voice sounded unnervingly like his own! A sinister laugh, akin to the same, low growling tone that Sechs himself used, emerged before him like it had a life of its own.
Then there was the darkness. The creeping shadows that assaulted his vision were now taking on a discernible mass as well. Like the toxic liquid forced into his body, they wormed up from underneath the chair like thick globs of black paint dripping upwards instead of down with gravity. Slowly they grew in mass and fluidity as they surrounded the startled android. While the all too familiar voice's laughter grew louder, terror and bewilderment surged into Sechs' paling face.
If this was what Sechs thought it was... No... It couldn't be... NO! NOT AGAIN...!
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The doctor smirked and prepared the final needle. "I see you've met your dark passenger." He tapped the syringe and moved forward, pressing the tip of the needle against the base of Sechs' neck. "Or rather, should I say, your new pilot? We'll see which he becomes soon enough. Deep breath."
And in comparison to the last injection, the doctor pushed the needle through with almost surprising gentleness. This last injection, dark as all the others, was the most important. This would lead his creation to the host's brain, and from there? Well, that would depend upon the will of the subject. "Easy..." The word was said less to the patient and more to the creature in the tube, to the last breath for his child.
The plunger descended slowly and the doctor eased the syringe out, capping it and throwing it away, along with the bottles. It was over. Taking out the metal swatch again, he pressed it against Sechs' neck and for one tense moment, said nothing.
Then, slowly, he began to laugh. "I've done it. I've done it! Now the rest is up to you, AR-6. Prove to me you're not a copy or your own replica will run the show for me. Enjoy fighting yourself for that 'control' you seemed so desperate for!" The laughter grew louder, almost deafening in the room. Moving around, the doctor shined the penlight into Sechs' eyes. He smiled and clicked the light off, including the one overhead. "Enjoy your so called choice, your control, your 'purpose' while you still can. You've at least a minute before the drug takes effect."
Moving away, the doctor picked up the disposal bin and grabbed the rolling tray. The recorder switched off and the doctor's footsteps faded into the darkness, disappearing just as the door unlocked and the straps holding Sechs in place slid away.
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At last, the needle withdrew and the experiment was finally over. Drained and defeated, Sechs limply sat against the straps as he listened to the doctor's laughter harmonize with the dark cackles that mimicked his own. He shut his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth in despair. He had lost the fight. Every effort he had ever made was all for nothing. He was doomed to fail from the very beginning. If he was an Original instead of some Replica, would things have worked out differently?
As the doctor made his exit, the lights went off and the binds that held Sechs so tightly finally slipped away. Yet Sechs didn't move. He only wearily slumped to the side, panting heavily as his eyes widened at the disturbing sight brewing around him. The wiggling tendrils grew as the doppelganger voice laughed on, its source followed by a murky face that materialized before him. Sechs could only wearily shake his head as the face took on familiar shapes. The metal plates connected to the cybernetic eye, the long gnashing teeth, a single yellow eye and the bold metal six on the forehead... His "dark side of the moon" had returned...
It was the same shadow that the hypnotist Whophon summoned to torment Sechs not so long ago at the Z.O.T.T. But how could he be seeing that damn... thing again?! Whophon was dead, and Sechs was sure as hell that he and the doctor were not the same man! How could the scientist's drug bring it back like this?!
"So you're still alive and kicking, huh? You little fake freak!" the shadow sneered as two blackened hands appeared above Sechs' bruised wrists. "Didn't I already tell you to do away with yourself before? Or are you just too stupid to know you've far outlived your time?!"
Suddenly the hands clamped down around Sechs' wrists. Sechs let out a gasp from the surprising chill, he tried to wrench away from the ghastly hands but they proved to be as firm as the chair's metal cuffs. Wheezing with panic, Sechs' eyes darted between the impossible apparition and his mirroring face. Was this real?!
"Just give it up already!" the shadow continued, "Let me take ya outta your misery! No one's gonna notice that you're gone!"
"Maybe he's right..." Sechs thought as familiar faces flashed through his mind. Would anyone he knew notice his disappearance? Alita probably would have been glad to be rid of an annoying copy like him. No one else gave much of a damn about him either, not that he ever cared about that before. ...But then what about the people he got to know here at Landel's?
"Forget them! No one here cares about a scumbag like you either!" the dark voice interrupted Sechs' thoughts with a snap. The cruel mask leaned in closer to Sechs while the twisted hands dug deeper into his skin. "Don't bother fighting me! You can't kill a part of yourself without destroying your very being, remember?"
Then it all dawned on him. All of Sechs' efforts to be unique had just been trampled by the doctor's cruelty; he had no more reason to bother with his undeserved life anymore. He was nothing but a weak copy! Sechs wanted out of this agonizing darkness and back into the peaceful unconsciousness he rested in before waking up to this nightmare... He was so tired...
Yet before Sechs gave himself up to his shadow, a new face appeared in his mind. Pale skin, white hair, pointed ears and eyes that glowed with warm compassion. Kibitoshin! "There's no way you're worthless. No way..." echoed the Kaioshin.
Just that small memory was all his warrior spirit needed to fight back. "NO!!" Sechs cried out as he made one last struggle. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE ME!" With his last ounce of strength, Sechs tore his arms away from his shadow's steely clutches. Once freed, the Replica finally gave in to his exhaustion and passed out on the chair.
Meanwhile, the shadow cackled as it faded off into the darkness, leaving the Replica in peace -- for now...
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ZEX felt a chill when he entered the room, glimpses he caught of the equipment inside bringing back all too recent memories. His hallucinations definitely weren't helping, giving him the illusion of motion all around him, and he looked back at Donna, almost so he wouldn't have to look at the room around him anymore. It looked too familiar.
"Do you see anything?" Her eyesight might be better in the dark, and ZEX tried to suppress a shudder. Memories of what had happened to him were rising up quickly and it was difficult to fight them back. His difficulties discerning reality from the lies the Institute constantly fed him weren't making this much easier for him. He could see that shadowy form, feel the restraints, that buzzing as he cut through his skull, and he felt sick and it hurt all over again, like he was there again and trapped, and...
ZEX shut his eyes and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, squeezing in an effort to refocus his thoughts. This was not the time... if this was indeed one of those rooms, then that meant that there might be someone inside that needed his help. He had to focus, but his human mind wasn't giving him an easy time of it.
"Just... give me a moment..." A bit labored as he struggled to fight back his flashback. "Go on ahead..."
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His words said otherwise and although he wanted her to continue, concern had Donna staying back with him instead. "I'm not just gunna leave you, silly," she scolded him, giving his back a rub in hopes that it might help.
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Meanwhile, the dark side of Sechs' psyche kept a distance, deciding to take advantage of the situation and toy with its vulnerable host, making itself known only through a faint but powerful thought.
"Well whaddya know? Looks like our good doctor just called in for the garbage disposal team!" the voice chuckled in Sechs' head, "Too bad it had to happen now, the Deckmen back at the Scrapyard factory would have been more than happy to do that job a long time ago!"
Sechs winced at the thought. Was that true? Had Sechs' time finally come? What was left of his adrenaline flashed through his system, but his body just couldn't fight anymore. Groaning, the defeated Replica weakly lifted his head up from his shoulder and peered towards the beam of lights and their unknown users.
"Who... Who's there?!" he called out to the strangers, only to hear his voice croak out as an incoherent grunt instead.
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Although he did like being touched.
"I'm alright." ZEX could make out some kind of motion in the dark, no doubt his mind playing tricks on him again. "I just feel like I've been here before..."
He stiffened when he heard something in the dark, something that definitely hadn't come from one of his hallucinations. Someone, or something, was there!
"Did you hear that?" ZEX took a few steps towards the sound. "Hello? Who's there?" A moment. "Sechs, is that you?" He hoped it wasn't... maybe Sechs had just been otherwise occupied that night and hadn't been horribly tortured, as ZEX had been, but he doubted it. There was not a lot of mercy to be found in this place. "Sechs?"
An examining chair, much like the one he himself had been bound to not long ago, with a human sitting in it. There was nothing holding him there, but, as far as ZEX could tell, he didn't look to be in the best of shape.
Asking if he was alright would have been redundant. Looking at him brought on a cold, sinking feeling, like danger was near. No one had come for ZEX when he had suffered here; the door had not unlocked, his restraints had not gone loose. Which meant there was a reason Sechs' door had opened to let them in, and ZEX could only think of bait. For that reason, he kept his distance for now. "Sechs?"
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She lost the feeling of Zex's back as he moved forward and brought the light up to help. As he called for an answer, Donna noticed the chair and the person, but instead of simply speaking to it moved forward quickly, passing the man and getting to the person. She wasn't much for asking questions first.
"It doesn't matter who it is, now does it?" Donna snapped back at Zex, maybe a bit upset that he wasn't acting when he thought a possible friend was in trouble, and propped the torch next to the chair so that she could see. "Name's Donna, and that's Zex unless you already knew that," she told the sitting person, "But like I said, doesn't matter. Point is we'll be getting you out of here one way or another."
It didn't take a genius to realize that the guy had been taken. Just who would have been sitting in a chair up here on their own for the fun of it? She started checking the chair for restraints and found a few to begin pulling at. Of course that would be the setup. Landel so did not get points for originality, that was for sure.
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Within that deranged moment, Sechs' struggled to lift his bruised arms in a last ditch attempt to protect himself. "No...!" he wheezed out, his voice hoarse from all the screams and shouts he uttered earlier. "Don't throw me out! I'm not finished living...!"
Suddenly the threatening figure's beam of light pointed away from his eyes and in an angle that illuminated the true identities of the two strangers, snapping the Replica out of his delirious state.
"Huh?"
Sechs furiously blinked the watery shadows out of his eyes to find a red-haired woman instead of a factory worker standing before him. Meanwhile the dull ringing in his ears finally calmed down enough for him to catch the stranger's name and...
"ZEX?" Sechs squinted towards the second stranger and spotted the single eye and the greenly tinged hair. He tried to sit up on the chair but slumped back down into it with a fatigued grunt. "What? Why are you--"
Did the ex-VUX go through all this trouble to find Sechs? But why would he and the new woman do that? He and ZEX barely knew each other! ...Wait ...was this supposed to be like one of those friendship things that Kibitoshin tried to explain to him a few nights ago...?
"Don't even think about it," the living shadow suddenly hissed in Sechs' head, "If these two knew what you really are, they wouldn't have bothered wasting their time for the likes of you!"
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He wanted to shake the intrusive thoughts away, memories that kept echoing and amplifying one another, but they wouldn't stop. This room, this place, this chair... he'd been here or someplace much like it before, what if they were luring him here again? He couldn't let it happen to him again, lose his other eye, go completely blind, he couldn't...
"Uh..." Donna was moving forward, and ZEX struggled through his flashback, his human body's aversion to the chair, to do the same. His body might have been malfunctioning for some reason, but he had to rise above it. The socket where his eye once was was hurting, he could feel it-
He heard his name, and his voice matched his memory. It was Sechs after all. So he hadn't been spared... so much for mercy.
"You don't think I'd let you miss our appointment together, would you?" With a very weak smile. "I'm just sorry I couldn't get here sooner... it must have been terrible..."
He was trailing off, easily lost in his thoughts. Why couldn't he banish these memories? Why did they keep intruding on his thoughts? This didn't seem normal... he'd have to ask someone later. He moved to Sechs's side, reached out and touched his arm hesitantly. Touching always made ZEX feel better, after all, so surely it'd do the same for someone else. "Do you think you can walk?"
Sechs still had both of his eyes... he hoped this wasn't a trap.
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Donna had no idea if this Sechs guy was an alien or human or whatever. Aside from knowing that Zex knew him, and that their names would have definitely gotten them some questions where she came from, she knew less to nothing about the guy. But he had been taken as a patient like the rest of them. That was reason enough not to just sit around and let him figure his own way out. If they didn't help each other, who would?
Finishing with the last strap she could spot, she grabbed her torch back and looked across to Zex, "You got that side done?"
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Sechs flinched at the touch. His body was still associating such feelings with the approach of a needle. Reassuring himself that it was just ZEX and that no syringes were going to invade his system again, Sechs managed to relax, or at least as much as anyone could after going through what he just did. He could still feel his body tremble out of his control...
Looking to ZEX, the Replica gave the VUX a wary nod. All his limbs felt heavy and numb, like they were miles away from his brain. It took a moment for the sluggish muscles in his legs to lift through what seemed more like thick water than air. "I think so..."
Once the straps were out of the way, Sechs heaved himself off the chair and unto his wobbly legs. For a second, he felt like he was just born mere minutes ago, reminding him of the moment his newly loaded brain chip worked to get accustomed to a fresh cyborg body. To think that happened only two years ago...
Suddenly he lost his balance and dropped back into the chair's possessive arms. Groaning, he glanced between ZEX and Donna, "Uh... I... I think I'm gonna need some..."
He trailed off and dropped his gaze, not wanting to say the word that felt so humiliating for a warrior like him to utter. Hopefully his two rescuers would know what he was talking about and respect what was left of his dignity...
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ZEX watched Sechs move to stand, and when he fell back he reached out to try and catch him without success. If he'd gone through anything like ZEX had gone through, he wouldn't be surprised to see that he was unsteady on his feet. Although, Sechs still had both his eyes and it didn't look like his hair had been cut anywhere... what had they done to him then?
"It's alright," ZEX tried to sound reassuring, although his voice shook itself. His hallucinations were making the darkness around them seem alive, and it wasn't helping calm his fears about this being a trap. "I don't think I could have walked much myself after..."
Not that he would have had much cause for it... no one had come for him, after all. He hadn't been released, and he still couldn't shake the suspicious feeling that came with the fact that Sechs had been. What was the staff here playing at?
Either way, he reached out to help Sechs up. The sooner they got out of this room, the better.
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