The sound of the beeping reached Everlearn’s ears first.
It wasn’t soothing, more of a haunting melody that prevented him from truly finding peace in the darkness around him.
He wanted nothing more than to shut that thing off, and his eyes snapped open.
It was another darkness illuminated by bizarre green motes of light.
All that was before him was a shadowed room: a desk with several display monitors and another desk cluttered with test tubes and syringes.
In a way, his point of view was greatly elevated, looking at the room from above, and so, he turned to look at himself, realizing why.
Right now, he was within a massive tube, filled to the brim with green liquid, the only source of illumination in the dark room.
There was a large mask on his face that prevented him from drowning in the liquid.
He tried to move his hands, but that was almost impossible:
There was a chain tied within the glass that separated both arms apart, and his legs were held together by a witholding iron clamp around his ankles.
’This is great. Really great.’
’I escaped that dangerous forest just to become some lab rat?!’
He thought, agape at his own bad luck, but then,
A creaking noise reached Everlearn, and his eyes turned to the far end of the lab.
There was a metallic door, and the knob was currently twisting.
The door opened up, and stepping in was someone at first hidden by the darkness, continuing forward until they arrived before the desk where the monitors were placed.
Rapidly typing on the keyboard, the figure paused as if confirming something before rising and walking forth towards Everlearn in the glass tube.
With the liquid’s glow against her features, she came into view.
A woman, dressed quite sharply.
A dark blouse tucked into an equally dark short skirt, her legs hidden beneath tight pants.
Over her shoulder slung a long black coat, trimmed with crimson fur at the collar.
But Everlearn’s eyes really remained on the sword that was sheathed at her side, its edge hidden beneath the coat.
Her hair was long and dark, spilling across her shoulders and pouring over her coat.
She was a truly beautiful woman, staggeringly so, but her face was cold.
So frigidly cold, and her eyes were a full crimson, with not the slightest bit of emotion in them.
She reached into her coat, drew out a crimson-coloured cigarette box, and slipped one between her red lips.
A lighter snapped open, flames bursting out over the cigarette’s tips before she flicked it shut and slid it back into her coat.
She inhaled deeply, then exhaled.
Right then, Everlearn saw her expression thaw.
A hint of emotion: relief, flashing through her cold features before her eyes settled on him.
"You shouldn’t have lived,"
Those were her first words, cutting through the silence like a shard blade as Everlearn’s eyebrow furrowed.
"The force of the bomb colliding with that pod should have been enough to turn any ordinary man to mush, but all you got was a couple of scratches from the panels here and there and a few broken bones." Read full story at 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⟡𝕗𝗂𝗋𝖾⟡𝕟𝕖𝕥
"Impaled straight through the stomach, and having your liver and kidney skewered into mush, just after that should have sealed the deal... but you survived it once more."
She said, pausing to take another inhale of her smoke before continuing.
"This serum I placed you in is a Grade X healing serum."
"Quite above average, but to heal a person as injured as you back to original, which will include regenerating entire organs, should have taken about 48 hours at least, but you’re already fully healed in just 8 hours."
"All of this efficiency is something that should only be possible for Corers, but according to the scan, you have not a single core implanted within you, and neither do you have any bionic heart fluids."
"By every measurement, you’re as ordinary as ordinary can be. And yet..."
Her lips curved into a grin, her crimson eyes glinting sharply.
"...we both know that isn’t true, don’t we?"
Everlearn stayed silent, simply staring.
"What you have is special."
"So special that those bastard organizations will pay billions to have it, and I bet they wouldn’t mind splitting your brains into countless pieces just to find exactly what is wrong with you."
"Selling you out, I will have at least a few hundreds of millions in my pocket."
"Not bad money, right?" She said.
It was a staggering amount, but Everlearn knew she wasn’t exaggerating.
After all, there were some Mech Designs with creation modules costing in the hundreds of millions.
A secret to how an ordinary human could rival a Corer without having any bionic fluid or core implants?
That would be a world-shaking discovery, that those organizations won’t mind spending billions to keep for themselves.
But looking at the woman, and her soulless eyes.
He didn’t think she was that much impressed by the money at all.
"I have no need for money," She said coldly, "Nor am I interested in your little secret."
’Then what do you want?’ Everlearn thought.
"What I do want..." She murmured, drawing again from her cigarette, then exhaling a long puff of smoke.
"...is for you to work for me," She said, and his brows arched.
"If you do, your secret stays safe. Even the ones tied to the Mechara Organization."
"And you’ll be protected from every other force that might come hunting for you to try and lay hands on your secrets."
"In short, I’ll guard your secret and your life."
"That’s the bare minimum of what I can give you."
She tilted her head, her crimson eyes locked onto his blue ones.
"What do you say, Kid?"