Chapter Text
Goldcity, evening.
What once was a simple shopping street, a small but notable centre for commerce, trading and tourism, had with time grown into a sprawling city. A centre for innovation and progress. But no place is fully spotless, and it’s sometimes shocking what can hide beneath a well constructed facade.
It was here where the most famous heroes of fairy tale island one night could be found. Downtown Goldcity, speeding down the road in a long copper coloured motor car. It’s chauffeur’s eyes fully trained on the road as his brothers read the navigation gear they’d installed by the front seats only a few weeks before, telling him where to turn next. Behind them, past the wall separating the drivers seats and the rest of the car, the other part of the group sat, making last minute preparations, as the self professed leader of The Fearless Seven went over what he’d manage to figure out about the situation they where getting into.
“It seems like the majority of employees has managed to flee to one of the safe rooms in the building,” Merlin explained as he looked at the tablet in his hand, “Red apparently directed it on her own as no higher ups seemed to have been present or yet located.”
Arthur didn’t miss the twitch on Merlins lips as he talked about the anonymous informant, Red. The woman had initially contacted them about two earlier attacks on White Apple labs, after apparently realising neither occurrence had been reported to the city authorities. It was hard to miss how quickly she had grown on Merlin in just a few days, especially as he’d taken up the sole responsibility to help her figure out what was happening. Arthur would of course be a hypocrite if he said he wasn’t one for flirting with a lady while helping her out, but it wasn’t like Merlin even had seen the woman outside of the impersonal avatar she’d employed to keep her identity and job safe.
Whatever, he thought to himself, it’ll probably blow over soon enough. And now wasn’t the time to think about that topic anyway, since apparently there had been yet another attack just half an hour ago according to the lady herself.
And here Arthur had hoped for some time to unwind after spending a day being dragged to a bunch of long and stuffy meetings to finalise that new partnership…
“Apparently they’ve found multiple people passed out in the building, and though they have managed to pull those found to safety, she’s concerned that there might be more in areas that she hasn’t been in since the attack.” Merlin continued. “The emergency escape in the safe room also doesn’t seem to be working, and they aren’t sure if they can all get to the other exit safely at this moment.”
“And the bad guy?” Arthur tilted his head to Merlin.
“No one of the people awake has yet to describe them,” Merlin said swiping his finger against the tablet, “but Red was able to find this picture from one of the previous attacks.”
Merlin lifted the tablet up to them, showing a blurry image from what looked like a security camera. One could make out a large dark shape surrounded by grey mist that seemed to hide most of their body, whoever they were seemed to be wearing some sort of top hat and what possibly could be a pair of large round glasses that sharply reflected light coming from beyond the frame.
“Hm,” Jack raised his eyebrow at the picture, “I think I’ve figured out why these people have been passing out.”
“Eh. They don’t look that tough to me,” Arthur reached out his hand to get a closer look at the bad guy, but Merlin quickly moved it away from him. “Hey!”
“They’re still someone with a criminal record,” Merlin reminded him, “and from what Red’s been telling me they’ve been using explosives. What visuals we have may not look like-“ he squinted at the picture, “much. But I don’t think we should put our guards down just yet.”
“I don’t know mate,” Arthur said, maybe with a bit more carelessness then he intended. “Explosives and gas aren’t exactly good weapons to use in a hand to hand situation if you ask me,” he lifted his sword up and watched it’s blade catch the gleams of streetlights from outside, “put ‘em in the ringer with me and I’ll have them down in five minutes, top.”
“If that’s what you think then you’re free to be the one to scout them out,” Merlin said sharply, clearly growing tried of the way he was acting, “Jack could join the rescue group in that case.”
Arthur squinted his eyes at Merlin.
“‘S that a challenge?” It was usually Jack who located the bad guy, since he had his fancy invisibility and all, and then he would tell the others where to find them, but Arthur could admit he found the strategy convoluted and was itching to try something different this time, especially if that meant he could show up Merlin.
Merlin squinted back at him, his face was still serious, but he could see a very familiar challenging glint to his eyes. Just like the ones he would give him as a kid, saying ‘I’m not going to endorse this idiocy out loud, but I would like to see you try’.
“Oh no,” Hans muttered as he watched the two of them from the sidelines, “You can’t seriously be planning to-“ the sudden stop of their vehicle cut him off, Pino alerting the others to their arrival.
Arthur was immediately up on his feet.
“Looks like it’s time to get into action,” he brushed his hands together briskly and sheathed his sword, “Jack,” he laid a hand on Jacks shoulder “you’re with Merlin and the others, get the employees to safety, I’m going to kick some bad guy ass.” And then he walked out of the vehicle and to the building.
It was a large, grey, rectangular three story building, that from the front didn’t look like it was in the middle of a villain attack at all. Stepping into the foyer it almost seemed like the lab had simply closed for the day and everyone had gone home, at least at first. There was a faint yet strange smell that hung in the air, and a thin grey cloud hovered centimetres over the ground, clearly out of place.
“It looks like the air is alright to breathe,” Noki noted as he walked in behind Arthur, looking down at a contraption at the back of his hand.
“That gas however…” Kio muttered a little as he looked at the ground.
“Don’t recommend breathing it in,” Pino finished, “Or getting close to the ground, in general.”
Arthur gave them an absentminded nod as his gaze swept over the place, trying to decide where he should go and look for the villain first.
“Try following the destruction.” Jack said as he passed by with the others, Pino in the front as he was the one carrying the equipment for finding the civilians.
“And remember to alert us when you find them.” Merlin added.
“Yeah yeah.” Arthur muttered, watching the others disappear up the stairs to the right.
After a little bit more of contemplation, he walked up the stairs to the left.
Even on the second floor there seemed to be a faint grey mist on the ground, and as he walked the mist temporarily parted around his feet, leaving a short trail after him. That meant that the bad guy would leave similar tracks as well right? He should probably keep his eyes open for that then. Still he couldn’t see any mist tracks yet so-
“Follow the destruction.” He mumbled to himself, so far the most destruction he was seeing was that of security cameras, their lenses smashed in as if someone had been running around with a hammer, so he followed them.
Aside from the security cameras, and the occasional broken vase and pushed over glass cases, the hallways were mostly untouched. There also didn’t seem to be any people passed out here, despite Red’s concern. The most notable destruction seemed to be in the rooms the bad guy had entered during their rampage through the building. The doors to the rooms appeared to have been violently broken into, large scorch marked holes in place of doorhandles and locks, one door even having come off it’s hinges and laying on the ground. When Arthur had kicked at the air over that one he’d caught the sight of dirty footsteps on it.
The insides of the rooms were chaotic. One of the rooms were full of filing cabinets that now were all beat up and dented to hell and back, with the ground littered with the probably pretty important papers that were supposed to be inside of said cabinets. Another was a computer room with almost all of the computer screens bashed in and computer parts littering the floor. There was no doubt that the bad guy was causing a lot of damage to the company with the attack, but Arthur found most of the rooms uninteresting as they showed no signs of the perpetrator.
Was this what Jack did every time they where in a mission? Walking around looking at uninteresting broken stuff, hoping it will lead to the bad guy?
Arthur huffed to himself a little bit as he stared down yet another hallway with broken security cameras, not yet ready to swallow his pride he steadied his shoulders and kept walking. And just as he reached out to check the nearest door for the bad guy, he heard something new.
The loud bang of an explosion.
He’d already spun around on his heels when a scream echoed down the way he’d come from, followed by the sound of footsteps.
Quick ones, as if someone was running.
Immediately on the hunt, Arthur followed the sounds back from where he’d came, back up and to the right where a large central hallway stood.
Resting his palm on the pommel of his sword, Arthur leaned over the corner to look after the source of the footsteps.
The hallway seemed to go on and then meet a crossing with another hallway, and it was by that crossing Arthur saw movement. A man in a grey suit and gas mask gasping in panic in the middle of running from something, or someone. He only saw the man for a moment before he disappeared into the rest of the hallway, apparently not taking the shot at turning at the crossing, instead going full steam ahead. Arthur didn’t get a moment to follow him as a large cloud of grey mist billowed from where the man had came. He could feel the faint stench of the gas increase, and he instinctually moved further behind his corner as he put a hand over his nose and mouth. For a moment he found himself just watching the cloud, until he noticed a faint shape move inside of it, though only for a moment before it also disappeared down the hallway after the man. Then came the booming sound of a loud distorted voice, followed by a loud bang.
“RUN AS MUCH YOU WANT, I WILL CATCH YOU, AND I WILL BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY!”
Arthur briefly considered contacting the others. Then he thought back to the conversation in the car and decided not to. This bad guy was his.
The thick cloud of mist begun to disperse, and Arthur finally kicked himself into gear, rushing to the crossing and turning into the hallway where the shape and the man had gone down. There was a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway, the left one hung open with a tail of mist slipping inside it.
“YOU THINK YOU COULD REALLY STOP ME WITH THAT?”
“AHHH! Stay away! I’ll set them off! Don’t think I won’t!” A terrified voice shouted from the room. Only to be met by mocking distorted cackling.
“GO. AHEAD.”
Arthur stormed into the room, pushing the right door almost of it’s hinges, and caught the sight of the man covering by the podium of what seemed to be a conference hall, his back against the speaker stand, holding up a small device in his shaking hand. Right before him was the thick cloud of mist, the shape inside it still faint, but noticeably human.
“Stop villain!” Arthur yelled as he moved further into the conference room, straight towards the podium.
The man’s head snapped to Arthur, and to his surprise the first words was not ones of thankfulness.
“No sto-!”
Arthur felt something meet his foot and before he could properly register it his senses were overtaken by explosions, multiple of them.
And then he found himself crashing against the ground, painfully. He could only give a mental thanks for the triplets for the dampening effects of his armour, both in regards to the fall and the loud sound of the explosion. Still he felt that the wind had properly been knocked out of him, and a faint feeling of drowsiness hung on the edges of his conscious as the odd smell from before had gotten stronger. He was only able to snap back to attention as he heard shouts from above.
“Nonono! Plea-“ A loud thud echoed faintly through the room.
“NIGHT NIGHT.”
Arthur lifted up his head from the ground, still breathing unevenly from the fall and found the large hole in the ceiling, thin whips of smoke floating down from it. But that wasn’t the only hole around him, for as he looked around the room he found himself in he saw only ruined walls with rebar sticking out, piles of rubble on the floors and dust from broken cement in the air.
What was this room? It looked nothing like the rest of the building, it’s colour pallet a solid grey, with the occasional splash of industrial yellow. And all of the destruction? Was it recent? From the current attack? But something about that thought didn’t sit right, because outside of the fresh hole in the ceiling, everything else felt…structured. Every hole in the walls seemed like it had been placed there on a grid, and he could swear some of the holes he saw around him had yellow letters and numbers above them.
His confusion was cut off by the sound of feet meeting rubble and a distorted grunt. And as he looked in front of him he saw the cloud of fog, a small trail of grey leading from it to the hole in the ceiling. In front of it, out of his grasp, laid Excalibur,
And then the figure stepped out of the mist as it thinned and dispersed, a somewhat rotund person dressed in a thick dark red trench coat, on top of brown pants and boots and a turtleneck. They were wearing some sort of respirator that covered the lower part of their face and their eyes were hidden by a pair of goggles, what little he could see of their skin under it all was pale. A brown top hat rested atop dark brown hair, two bangs of which whipped around their face, and on their back they carried a large rectangular metal object with a tube sticking out of it’s side.
“HUH,” the masked person strolled towards Arthur kicking excalibur further away with a metal cane, before taking a kneel on the rubble before him, “WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT,” the grasp of their cane shot out of their gloved hand and tilted Arthur’s face up so he could stare into the dark glass of their googles. “IF IT ISN’T A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR.” They tilted their head at him, appearing thoughtful. “DOES THIS MEAN I’VE MADE IT INTO THE BIG LEAGUES NOW?”
Their voice, despite the distortion came out as more contemplative as they spoke, as if his presence was puzzling to them, but not necessarily in a bad way. It was almost like… curiosity.
Finally getting his bearings back Arthur stared at the person before him, the villain who’d caused so much of the destruction he’d seen in the building. He saw his sword laying just a little bit behind them, he just needed a good opening.
“Who are you?” He grunted out, pushing himself up a little in an attempt to be at eye level with the bad guy.
The villain made a noise that was hard to decipher, before a burst of distorted cackling came out of them, as they lightly tapped his right cheek with their cane. Then in a quick movement the cane flipped down and hooked the collar of his breastplate pulling him forward so their foreheads were touching.
“THE NAME’S HYDE, DOCTOR HYDE.”
For a split second Arthur caught a glimpse of their eyes, which stared back at him with wild glee, like that of a mad scientist from an old black and white movie. But, he could swear there was also, something else…
Before he got the chance to figure out what it was Doctor Hyde pulled back, cane unhooking from his collar as they smoothly slid it back to a resting position against the ground.
“NICE TALK.” They said casually as if they’d just been discussing the weather, their head lifting up to take in the surroundings. They let out what was probably a low whistle, but whatever they where using to distort their voice only made it come out like a garbled mess.
Seeing the chance to move Arthur pushed himself up from the ground and onto his knees. He didn’t get further then that before Doctor Hyde made a snapping motion with their wrist and pressed their cane down against his shoulder.
“…KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS PLACE?” they asked, and Arthur thought he could made out genuine curiosity though the distortion.
“…No?” He answered slowly, looking from the cane pressed against his shoulder and back at Doctor Hyde. The villain who was having a casual conversation with him, right after assaulting a man. “I assumed you did this?” He wasn’t sure in his guess, but figured he should voice it anyway.
Doctor Hyde let out another distorted cackle.
“I WISH!” they lifted their cane and looked as if they where about to say something else, but then there was a faint thud and their head suddenly snapped to the side, cane already swinging through the air.
Arthur spotted the tale tell glimmer of a diamond encrusted gauntlet as Jack dropped his invisibility, the swing from the cane missing him by a few feet, and delivered a right hook at Doctor Hyde. They stumbled back a little from the force of his punch, but seemed to have been able to block it with their non dominant arm.
Doctor Hyde’s fingers flexed as they lowered their arm enough to look at Jack, tilting their head to the side.
“OH, THERE’S ANOTHER ONE OF YOU?” they said, before stabbing the cane forward as if it was a rapier towards Jack, who jumped back in the nick of time, stumbling a little on the uneven ground. “YOU WANNA FUCKING DANCE INVISIBOY?”
“Oui.” He simply replied, making dead eye contact and lifting his gauntlets into a boxing position over his face, before dropping low on the ground and launching forward.
Noticing that the attention was no longer on him Arthur tore his gaze away from them to once more locate Excalibur. Rolling over to it, he grabbed it and rose to his feet, quickly dropping into a fighting stance as he spun around back to the fight at hand. The first thing he saw was Jack nimbly dodging a surprisingly controlled swing of Doctor Hydes cane, dropping to the left to attempt an attack to their side, only to be swatted away with the very same cane. Despite being a fancy pants, when in a one on one fight Jack was a brawler at heart, and though he was always one for improvised or pilfered weapons, the only ones he carried on his person had notably shorter reach then the cane he was going up against.
Then again, Arthur thought, Jack was someone who had a pretty notable trick up his sleeve.
As if on cue, Jack exchanged a quickly glance at Arthur which he recognised immediately, dodged back from another swing of the cane, and turned invisible.
“CHICKENSHIT.” Doctor Hyde spat out, and seemed to be about to say something else, before Arthur charged at them.
Moving his blade in an overarm swing, he brought it down towards Doctor Hyde, who just in the last second managed to dodge and use their cane to redirect his swing onto the torn up ground. Looking closer, Arthur could recognise their movements as pretty amateur, at least in the way that fighting with a cane compared to swordsmanship, still it was something to keep in mind, especially as an unpredictable amateur had the ability to be as dangerous as, and at times even more dangerous then, someone who’d trained for years.
“AH, THE KNIGHT’S BACK IN ACTION.” Doctor Hyde jeered, flicking the cane back up at his face, missing his nose with a hairs breath as he hunched back.
He was about to swing back at them, but was stopped as Jack came out swinging for their face, which he almost succeeded at, had his hand not immediately been swatted away. Despite this Jack smiled as he jumped back, once more flicking his eyes at Arthur, who had already moved in to restrain them when their attention had been caught by Jack.
As he moved to wrap his arms around them however, their body seemed to immediately seize up, and then they violently kicked off the already unsteady ground, making Arthur slip and resulting in the two of them tumbling to the floor. They only stayed down for a few moments, quickly rolling up from the ground, facing each other, and crossing sword with cane as they both attempted to strike the other at the same time.
The cane and sword rebounded against each other as they crossed, sparks seeming to fly where the two weapons had met.
It looked like the cane had bounced further of the two of them, making Arthur assume he had an opening, and going for it. Stabbing forward, he willed his sword not to cause lethal damage. Only for Doctor Hyde quickly to sidestep, Arthur’s blade just brushing past their stomach, and swerved their cane around to go for his face, forcing him to pull back into a guard to block.
The sounds of distant footsteps started echoing around them, making everyone freeze in place.
“Jack?! Did you find Arthur!?” The yell was faint but unmistakably from Hans. “Why aren’t you answering your coms?!”
Doctor Hyde let out what sounded like a loud distorted groan, taking a few steps back before grabbing the trigger nozzle hanging off the side of the backpack, and just as Arthur tried jump forward and make another grab for them a large cloud of smoke erupted from the exhaust atop the metal contraption.
“SOUNDS LIKE THAT’S MY CUE GENTLEMEN,” they said as Arthur stumbled back, soon followed by Jack who’d attempted to once more flank them, trying to avoid inhaling the smoke that began filling the air around the villain, shrouding them once more until only the faint gleam of their goggles was visible, “IT’S BEEN FUN, BUT I’VE ALREADY GOT WHAT I CAME FOR, SO NOW I TAKE MY LEAVE.”
Jack let out a loud cough from accidentally inhaling some of the smoke, and the gleam of the goggles was gone, footsteps disappearing in a direction they couldn’t go without crossing the cloud now engulfing half of the area they where in.
Maybe gas really was of some use in close combat, or at least when trying to avoid it. Huh, who would have thought.
“Jack! Arthur! Are you two down there?!” Someone yelled from above them.
The others only dropped down once the smoke had dispersed enough, at which point Jack immediately left the group in an attempt to follow the trail of footsteps they’d heard. Arthur wanted to follow him, but was held back after watching Merlin drop down in the arms of a short but round woman that was holding him in a bridal carry. His confusion at the sight was soon replaced by worry as he spotted the makeshift bandaging on his leg.
“Mate what happened to your leg?!” He yelled as he ran up to them.
Merlin and the woman carrying him spoke at the same time.
“It’s fine-“ “He got caught in a trap and sprained his leg!”
“A trap?” Arthur asked in surprise.
“Someone had laid traps in the hallway to the second emergency escape.” Pino explained holding up a metal contraption, “they are like flat bear traps, with small silent bombs on them.”
“They were spread out under the carpet.” Noki said. “We only realised they were there after Merlin had stepped in one.”
“Wait, what do you mean silent bombs?” Arthur asked.
“What it says on the tin.” Kio said with a shrug, “not all of the explosives seemed to be functioning though,” he gestured at Merlins unexploded leg.
“Then how did you know it was supposed to explode?”
“They threw the trap Merlin had stepped in at one of them.” Hans said, sounding vaguely exasperated.
“We also saw the explosive in the bear trap before doing that.” Pino said pointedly, “there was also some tripwire at the end of the corridor, but we haven’t looked at it yet.”
“Tripwire?” Arthur took a step back from his confusion over the silent bombs, another entirely separate thought beginning to form in his head.
“Yeah,” Merlin said, trying to seem nonchalant as he happily followed the topic of conversation away from his trap mishap, “we thought they might have been put up by our crook, so to speak, but…” he glanced around the room with a thoughtful expression, then looked at the woman carrying him. “You said this used to be an office area before?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “they begun renovating here two months ago. For safety reasons, they said, but no one I know has been in this area since then.” She looked around, “They even removed the old doors, so no one knew how to get here anymore. At least.” She added, “No one that could have known told me how.”
“And no one, heard anything?” Hans asked, glancing over the broken walls around them, “or felt anything?” he gestured vaguely at an hole in one wall stained with the telltale soot from an explosion.
“No.” She answered, but sounded just as baffled as Hans looked, and as Arthur felt.
“Some of these holes are at least a week old,” Pino said, crouching by a hole in the ground beside Kio, holding one of the triplets many strange devices over it.
“And there’s over a one meter layer of concrete and steel plates under our feet.” Noki said as his head peaked out of the hole. “If this is the same, or similar, in the walls and some really good sound dampening in the ceiling then it might explain there being little to no sound. Especially if some of the bombs were supposed to be soundless.”
“That and they probably did most of the testing at night.” Kio added, and after a second of consideration he turned to his brothers, “Haven’t there been progress in magically enhanced noise dampening recently? Could that have been used as well?”
Arthur turned his head to the woman as the triplets started chattering about the possibility of finding traces of whatever spell Kio was thinking of.
“You know the guy on the ground upstairs?”
“Yes.” She responded, “he’s the head of both the design and testing teams, he never joined us in the emergency room, I was wondering where he’d gone.”
“Why’re you asking?” Merlin raised his eyebrow at Arthur.
“He had explosive traps on him,” he lifted his hand to point at the hole in the ceiling, “set one of them off right there.”
“Ah…” Merlin said, “No question about it then is there?” He shifted in the woman’s hold “that only leaves us with why. Last time I checked this place did not produce explosives.”
“No, they do not,” Noki pitched in, his brothers nodding in agreement as they fiddled with their devices, “and you also need a license to do that.”
The woman took a deep breath.
“I think…” she paused, “if I tell you what I know, can you promise that my father and I will be safe?”
“‘Course!” Arthur said “your dad also works here?”
“He’s supposed to own it.”
It was only then the others properly introduced Arthur to Red, or well, Snow White. The daughter of the former owner, her dad, currently in a coma, and stepdaughter to the woman she suspected as being behind everything.
Jack returned reporting that the perp had gotten away, and in the next moment they were in Snows office where she pulled out a pile of documents she had copied and secretly stashed. Arthur didn’t read them himself, but by the looks on the others faces as they read them it was probably pretty incriminating.
The employees still in the building had been safely seen outside, Hans taking up the role to stay with them until the city watch and healers arrived, as the rest of f7 plus Snow White (determined to help searching and carrying Merlin so he could look around to) took final sweep of the building. Jack and the triplets walked back up to where the traps had been set up, while Arthur took the left side of the building, retracing his steps with Snow and Merlin in tow.
They of course had to take a few detours to check where Arthur in his haste hadn’t, one detour being down the hallway he’d seen Doctor Hyde emerge from in their chase, at the end of which was the charred remains of what once was a room. The door replaced with a large hole, the walls covered in cracks and soot, splinters, glass and other debris covering the floor. One could readily assume what had happened, considering everything, but who or why was anyones guess.
They left that room behind them knowing about just as much as before they’d entered it.
When they eventually entered one of the trashed file rooms Arthur couldn’t help but wonder what Doctor Hyde’s plan had been. Why do all this? What exactly had they been looking for? What had they found? Why attack this company in the first place?
He watched Merlin pick up a paper from the floor with a frown before showing it to Snow, who’s eyes widened.
“I’ve never- I didn’t think they’s still have one of these laying around.” She said in surprise, “she almost always have someone shred her correspondence every other week. This one’s from maybe a few days before the first attack.”
“Maybe she forgot to shred it?” Merlin suggested, “it does say 4 of 5 at the edge, and I can’t see the other parts among all of,” he gestured vaguely at the ground, “this.”
“What is it?” Unable to help his curiosity Arthur walked up to the two of them.
“Correspondence with a weapons manufacturer,” Merlin said as Snow lifted the paper up for Arthur to see.
There was barely anything written on it, just the tail end of a letter where the writer said they’re looking forwards to working with Regina. It would have looked completely innocuous, had there not been the big official looking stamp at the edge of the paper announcing it to be official Frodesson S&D correspondence. Arthur did not keep track of weapons manufacturers, but he was pretty sure he’d heard Pino spit the name out with that tone of distain before so he had a good idea what it was about.
He glanced at the date of the letter at one of the other corners, and it was as they’d said.
Coincidence?
Surely it had to be.
Still… there was something, to all of this.
“Ah, right,” Arthur straightened out his back and looked around the room a bit more before deciding to voice one of the thoughts that was swirling around his head. “You think they knew something about all this? They said that they had no idea about the, uh, explosion room, but…” he trailed off “they didn’t sound so surprised about that head of the team guys traps, and-“ he gestured at the room.
Merlin seemed to consider this.
“Maybe, who know’s really, but,” He rubbed his chin, “that is something to consider. Next time we stumble upon this, smoke-person we could-“
“Doctor Hyde.” Arthur supplied helpfully.
“Doctor Hyde?” Snow and Merlin asked in unison.
Arthur shrugged.
“That’s what they said their name was at least.”
———
Outskirts of Goldcity, northeast apartments. An hour or so later, and far away from the White Apple labs facility, a person dressed in dark muddy red climbed through an apartment window.
They closed the window with a groan, and despite their exhaustion they gave the handle on the window an extra tug to make sure it locked in place. Closing the blinds, the small living room was thrown into darkness, and they patted the wall beside them for a light switch. They’d done this many times, yet still they found themselves struggling this time around. It was because exhaustion they assumed, those damn hero’s did cause some extra trouble after all.
Finally finding the switch they let out a snort, before pulling down the respirator and pushing up the googles. The night air that had slipped in alongside her filled her lungs, and she stifled a laugh, a giddy feeling rolling over her body.
Hah ‘Damn hero’s’, she thought, she really was in the big game now, talking like that, what was she going to say next? ‘I’ll get you next time!’ Or maybe ‘You haven’t seen the last of me!’? The world was her oyster in regards to that she supposed.
Hunching down she begun pulling her boots off, depositing them into the empty box resting beside the window, and taking a moment to brush up the dirt she dragged in from outside.
Really though? She wasn’t actually expecting hero’s to get on her ass so early in her, well, let’s just say hobby’s lifespan, so while she hoped she managed to somewhat play it cool, she had to admit to being taken aback somewhat back there. It’s surprisingly easy to get temporarily numb to certain emotions during such high octane situations, simply focusing on what needed to be done moment to moment, and only realising how freaked out you were afterwards.
Taking off her hat and the plain headband under it she noticed the faint shake in her hands.
Then again, how much of the delayed reaction was from her freaking out and how much was just her coming down from the adrenaline high was hard to say, probably because the two sometimes tended to go hand in hand.
She clenched and unclenched her fist a few times, and then returned to getting out of her Doctor Hyde clothes and slipping into her pyjamas. She caught the sight of a small bruise on her forearm, but shrugged it off, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t make an everyday excuse for. It was with a small tinge of pride she noted that nothing during the fight had broken her skin, just as expected. The Doctor Hyde things was all put into the box, except the gastank which she first inspected for possible damage, and then when satisfied wrapped in a thick blanket and placed it into it’s own little bag. She would have to look over the filters inside of it again soon, thankfully she still had enough materials to do that, she’d checked beforehand in case she should snatch something during her break in.
That was the first time she’d actually introduced herself as Doctor Hyde, before then it had mostly been a name in her head as people often didn’t have a chance to ask about it before passing out from the sleeping gas, and that company bigwig had been a bit to busy running from her like a scared animal after she’d destroyed his precious samples to really listen to any introductions. Then again she supposed she hadn’t really tried, and at the moment, throwing all those explosive vials against the desk still littered with notes on the samples, had seemed like an appropriate response to his pompous “what do you think you’re doing here?”. Now though, it felt almost like she’d spoken the identity into existence in that very moment before the armoured super hero.
She took a moment to look down at the clothes in the box.
Wearing those clothes, she was Doctor Hyde. A thought that thrilled her to no ends.
Closing the box, she let it stand alongside a few other of the moving boxes she had yet, even after living there for a year, properly unpacked.
Then she stood up to get herself some midnight dinner, sliding on her headphones and picking up her phone as she went. Her hands were still shaky and so were her legs, but she could handle it. Probably wasn’t going to try to make anything serious though, maybe just make a few sandwiches and eat that protein bar she’d bought out of curiosity and because it was sold with a half off price.
Opening her phone she instinctually looked at her email, hoping to see if there had been any interesting alerts on the search she’d made for chemical environmental analysis, a while back. What she was met with instead was an email from her boss.
She let out a low grunt in annoyance, opening the pantry to pull out the half full bag of bread. 1 in the night was not a time when she wanted to even perceive work emails unless it was about a truly seismic shift in the field that had just happened overnight, or an easy way to reverse the effects of oils spills. She was about to lift her thumb to scroll away from the email, she could probably just read it in the morning, but then her brain and eyes registered the subject text.
“Regarding the collaboration with The Fearless Seven.”
‘Fearless Seven’?
Why did that sound familiar?
Soon the light of dawn falls over the apartment, and a new era dawns upon not only The Fearless Seven and Snow White, but the little crook who can only partially grasp what she’s gotten herself into.