One | Prologue | 





Adrenaline, that's all Soonyoung is running on. The chill of the morning hits his bare legs as he maneuvers from building to building. Each time he leaps from the edge, soaring through the murky gray sky of the morning, only on momentum, his heart drops. His only reassurance is when his hands grasp the edge of his destination and he's able to pull himself up with raw strength. It's frightening, knowing that one wrong move and he'd be falling into the pits, and things would only get worse from there.

Still, that's the least of his concerns. He's more worried about the various numbers littered on the watch strapped tightly to his wrist and the fact that Lee Jihoon had disappeared as soon as the alarm had signaled and hadn't been seen since. Soonyoung glances at his watch, what he sees sending his nerves into overdrive. Five minutes, Soonyoung has five minutes to capture, defeat, or kill Lee Jihoon.

He's not going to kill the younger of course. Killing was seen as a last resort (or at least to Soonyoung it was). Still, there were those blood thirsty kids that had been locked in their cells for too long and had possibly turned psychotic, or simply were that way upon arriving. Soonyoung himself wasn't like that, but he knew a few people that were. He didn't understand why they were allowed to participate in the challenges, but he narrowed it down to the faction heads actually wanting to get rid of some of them, less problems for them to deal with and an easy way to keep their hands clean while getting away with murder.

He despises it, despises them, but what can he do? He can only attempt to survive each challenge and hope for a tomorrow in the faction. It's a dull, bleak existence, but it's Soonyoung's nonetheless. Somehow, he manages.

The alarm signaling the last few minutes of the battle rings loudly, startling him out of his thoughts. Quickly, he steadies himself against the edge of the heightened building, squinting through the thick fog. It proved fruitless. If Jihoon didn't want to be found then he wouldn't be. Soonyoung knew this all too well.

The pink haired boy was one of the top five and that was just considering his intellect alone. His combat tactics were in a whole different league. Jihoon was undefeatable, many of his matches never lasting quite longer than the first five minutes. Soonyoung, of course, was initially scared less when the other boys face had showed up on the opponent screen, stoic and aloof.

Though Jihoon had never killed anyone (at least that anyone was aware of), he had a knack for rendering his opponents null, unable to battle anymore, or simply too traumatized to want to do so again. Being ineligible for battle meant spending your days in the psyche ward, doped up on too many drugs to quite remember anything at all. Soonyoung had been there before, after his first battle in fact, when his opponent had broken his arm. He'd spent his time healing in the psyche ward, being injected by various syringes every hour or so, trying to make out the blur in which the days had passed, and possibly, hoping he was losing his mind so he could be transferred to the holding cells.

Now, he shivers at the mere thought of ever setting foot there again.

Battling Jihoon wasn't as tough as he'd thought it would be, or rather, they hadn't really been battling to begin with. It was more of a game of cat and mouse that left Soonyoung more frustrated than anything. Not that he wanted to go head to head with Lee Jihoon of all people. He simply wanted to end the battle as quickly as possible. If he didn't know any better though he'd think the younger was toying with him. Jihoon had disappeared as soon as the battle started and hadn't been seen since.

Conflicting emotions passed through Soonyoung making him wonder. Did Jihoon not see him as a worthy opponent? Or was the younger simply waiting until the last minute to engage him, to add effect to his defeat? He didn't know which was worse.

As if the mere thought of the pink haired boy had summoned him, Soonyoung noticed the change in the air. It was palpable, the tension. He only manages to turn, bracing himself further from the edge to avoid falling altogether to find Jihoon standing before him, an indecipherable expression on his face. For reasons beyond him, Soonyoung found himself hesitating.

Should he attack? Why wasn't Jihoon attacking him?

"They're watching us." Soonyoung reminds the younger when he catches a glimpse at his watch. Two more minutes, it reads. At the reference to the faction heads and bidders watching the pair from the safety of their offices over a glass of wine with thinly veiled blood thirst and a yearning to see two teenagers beat each other to death, Jihoon his head to the side, as if trying to decide if he should care or not.

"I know." He says simply.

That's when Soonyoung notices the faint blue emitting from his body, but by then it's already too late. Jihoon is already closing the distance between them faster than his mind or body can comprehend or react. The last thing Soonyoung hears is the thumping of his own heart, loudly in his chest, before everything goes mute. It appears to happen in slow motion, really, the way Jihoon's palm connects with his chest, the blue illumination spreading from the younger onto Soonyoung himself.

It burns, excruciating in the sense that Soonyoung doesn't realize he's fallen from the building until the vertigo hits him. He can feel the effects of the Warp still, burning through his mesh armor then his skin itself, trying to shred him apart, starting from the outside. He claws at his armor, struggling fruitlessly as he falls. His vision starts to blur with black spots shortly afterward, the pain from the duration of the Warp making him lose consciousness.

Soonyoung welcomes it great fully, slipping his eyes closed as he succumbs to the darkness. After all, it is a long fall into the black.

\\

When Soonyoung awakes, it's to the blinding, bright lights of the medical ward. He jolts to awareness, immediately regretting it when a sharp pain shoots through his chest making him wince. Momentarily, he forgets what landed him in this predicament, until everything comes rushing at once, the void look on Jihoon's face before he had sent him tumbling over the edge, floating in and out of consciousness, and despite his failing state, hearing the announcer declare his defeat. The monitors next to him begin beeping rapidly making him curse quietly as he tries to remove one of the many wires he's hooked up to, flinching in the process.

“You're awake”

Soonyoung jumps, ignoring the searing pain in his chest as he eyes his faction head wearily. The man had a bad habit of sneaking up on others, cursing, and smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. A gaunt look to his face, an unhealthy tint to his pale skin, the constant shaking of his thin, nimble hands, and dark, hostile eyes, lined with almost permanent bags stare back at Soonyoung with a look of thinly veiled hostility. Sinjae smiles down at him, but there's nothing pleasant about it, and all Soonyoung has to do is blink before the elder is upon him, holding up an acid green infused syringe, inspecting it in the light momentarily before all but jabbing it into Soonyoung's arm. The monitors cease their frantic beeping, but Sinjae doesn't stop there, he's already shoving the various monitors aside and yanking the many wires from the younger, pulling the blonde up and out of the bed on shaky feet.

Nausea hits Soonyoung in waves, making him stumble as he's practically dragged from the cramped room, but Sinjae either doesn't notice or doesn't care, most likely the latter. The elder pulls him along the dimly lit medical ward, ignoring the irate calls from various nurses and indignant shouts from doctors. They don't stop until the medical ward is long forgotten and they've entered the training ward of the facility. Sinjae shoves an unsuspecting Soonyoung into one of the barren practice rooms, the younger losing his footing and falling to his knees in the middle of the empty room, wincing at the impact.

“I'm proud of you.” Sinjae starts, shoving his erratic hands in the pockets of his sweats as he steps into the dimly lit room, “ No one has ever lasted that long against Jihoon-”

At that, Soonyoung opens his mouth to clarify that, technically, Jihoon had spent most of the battle toying with him, only to defeat him (quite easily) with one blow in the last few minutes of the round, but apparantly Sinjae doesn't really want to hear that, because he waves Soonyoung off with a sudden irritable air about him.

“Don't worry about that” He says quickly, and that's all Soonyoung needs to hear, really.

“The bidders are interested in you now, more so than ever. This is just what Faction Twelve needs. You're one of the best we've got, Soonyoung. You just might be that extra push we need after all.” Sinjae is standing in front of him now, bearing the same unpleasant smile from earlier that looked more like a grimace to Soonyoung than an actual smile. It makes the younger uncomfortable, as that smile usually meant trouble for the person on the receiving end, in this case Soonyoung.

“You've been out for three days, and somewhere in those few days the top five has minimized to the top four.” Sinjae pauses then, as if waiting for Soonyoung to process the new information before continuing, pulling his hands from his sweats to rest behind his back as he paces, “ We held the meeting like usual, chose the opponents, Hyejin, from faction three, and some kid, I don't remember his name but there was something off about him besides what I'm about to tell you. Anyway, they get to the arena, everything’s going as normal. The battle starts and Hyejin gets the upper hand, as expected, but then-… just goes left field. This kid, he can't be older than ing seventeen, he-… He ing kills her, like right there-”

Sinjae points adamantly at the spot before him, as if the actual battle is taking place before him, again. Soonyoung's too busy processing his words to notice or care. Someone had killed one of the elites? Hyejin at that, Soonyoung didn't know her personally, but he'd heard that she was one of the nicer kids, and that was saying something considering her faction (and status). Death didn't visit the facility often, but each time it did, Soonyoung always felt affected by the grief.

“No one knows who it was?” He asks, because something felt off.

“No, that's the odd thing about it.” Sinjae frowns, “He wasn't from the holding cells or the psyche ward either. We have personal equipment to identify those kids. They had me in as a spectator and most of the faction heads said they'd never seen the kid before in their life. He was faction-less. The facility heads are playing games again.”

Soonyoung frowns, trying to ignore the dread creeping in the pit of his gut. When the facility heads got bored or money hungry, it usually meant hell for all of the factions, but more specifically the weaker ones (which unfortunately included his).

“They were standing on the platform and that was it- He just held up it his hand and that was it- . It was strange. They said no foul play but I'll be damned if I ever trust those bastards. I don't know what kind of game they're playing, bringing those experimented guinea pigs from the basements to battle-”

Sinjae his head to the side then, lips pressed in a thin line at the sudden slip, not that it was a foreign concept to Soonyoung anyway. He'd heard of the facility heads experimenting on some of the newer kids. In the basement apparently, but no one was allowed down there to confirm the rumor. Still, he wouldn't be surprised if it were true. The facility heads were those kinds of people, who preyed on innocent children (albeit mutated) for money.

“Anyways-” The elder says, rolling his shoulders before leaning down to pull the blonde boy up, “The next battle is in two weeks and I need to know if you can still fight.”

Soonyoung wants to point out that it hurts to even breathe, but he knows there's no point. He's not dense, he knows the hidden meaning behind the elder's words. I want to see if you're still useful to me or not. If not, then he'd be sent to rot in the psyche ward or simply die in the holding cells.

“Right now I just want to know if your biotic abilities are still intact. You should be mostly recuperated by next week. We have a new kid coming in then also. You can help break him in, a little friendly spar between you two. Injury or not, a new kid, with no mastery of his powers what so ever should not be able to do much damage to you. That will let me know if I need to withdraw you from the upcoming battle, Don't let that be the case Soonyoung, do you understand?”

The younger nods stiffly, trying to ignore the sudden undecipherable tilt to the elder's tone. Sinjae smiles then, fake in every sense of the word before stepping back, allowing the blonde enough space to concentrate properly. Soonyoung swallows thickly, focus intent as he holds his hand out steadily. He watches then as the electric blue sparks form at his fingertips, flickering as they emit into a lengthy wave spiraling at Sinjae's feet, who jumps out of the way just in time as the shock wave begins to coil.

“Wonderful. The medical ward has agreed to release you within the next few days. I'll come to collect you then, until that time, get some rest and don't worry about the injections, your heart rate has been very- erratic since your battle. You went into Sudden Cardiac Arrest during your fall, the medics almost couldn't save you.”

The silence that follows is heavy as Soonyoung takes in the elder's words. So Jihoon had been trying to kill him after all. The thought makes his blood run cold. Things were definitely changing, and suddenly, he felt more helpless than before. As if sensing his thoughts, Sinjae closes the distance before them, hand coming to rest lightly on the younger's shoulder, an unreadable expression marring his features once more.

“Soonyoung, this isn't a game anymore. Don't you get it? From the moment your name appears on that screen alongside you opponent's, your life is in danger. The bidders want blood now, and the facility heads won't deny them. The facility needs the money. In this case, you know our faction is at a disadvantage, but I'm not too worried about that-” Soonyoung wants to say he begs to differ with the deep, dark bags under the elder's eyes and unconvincing tilt to his tone, but he's too busy trying to fight off the dread at Sinjae's words, “- because we have you. You're the hope of faction twelve, Soonyoung. If you win your next two battles, you will be considered within the top five. Facing off against Jihoon has raised the bar for you, the bidders went crazy that night. You're now considered a more formidable opponent, which means they'll be drawing your name more often also. This is your chance to rise, Soonyoung and bring faction twelve with you.”

Sinjae pats his shoulder then, as if he hasn't placed what felt like the world on Soonyoung's shoulders, and it's every bit as awkward as he's imagined. The elder offers one last smile, still as artificial as the others, before bowing and disappearing out of the dimly lit practice room altogether. The blonde simply stands there, clutching his pounding head. The prospect of becoming a part of the top five was more than unappealing to him, in fact, he feared it. While being one of the top five meant being feared, like Lee Jihoon, and revered, like Yoon Jeonghan, it also came with it's own set of repercussions. Typically, those among the top five were the most popular with the bidders, which meant they paid more to see those specific fighters. This, in turn, meant your name being drawn for battle more often than others, despite your faction.

The remaining of the top five, since Hyejin's passing were Lee Jihoon and Yoon Jeonghan, both faction three members, Choi Seungcheol of faction one, and Hong Jisoo, from faction four. Among them, Yoon Jeonghan had to be the most feared and the most popular among the bidders. Soonyoung didn't know much about the elder, except that the blonde had the shortest battle durations in the facility and the rumors of his apparent relationship with Hong Jisoo. Soonyoung hoped that's what it was at least, a rumor, he and Jisoo were on friendly terms and the prospect of the elder associating with anyone from faction three rubbed him the wrong way.

Soonyoung wills the thought away. What Jisoo did was none of his concern anyway. He needed to focus on his own problems, like the fact that the facility was watching him more closely with his new found status. The thought made him shiver. They were already closely monitored, but the top five had their every move under surveillance.

The blonde hobbles out of the dimly lit practice room, careful not to strain himself too much. Eventually, he makes it back to the medical ward. The nurses and doctors glare at him as if he had dragged his own self out of bed. He ignores them though, closing his room door shut securely. His room is a scattered mess of wires and machines, but among the clutter something catches Soonyoung's eye. The blonde hobbles forward, seating himself at the edge of the bed as he reaches for it, a single white rose.

He frowns, thumbing the stem of the flower. Who was it from? There was no note and he had been absent during it's placing. Before he can ponder it further his exhaustion overtakes him and he falls back onto the mattress, eyes slipping closed as he succumbs to the darkness once more.

//

(A/N) Story might be confusing but will become clear as it progress)