Summary: M-21 finds himself in a familiar place he doesn't want to be and meets a familiar face that shouldn't be there. From there it goes downhill.

I finished writing a third part sooo I'll just move this to it's own post too.

Cracked Mirror

By Dark Ice Dragon

M-21 frowned as he walked down the pristine corridors that screamed Union lab at him. He'd been in them enough times to recognise the fucking fake plant all their labs had, bulk-buying them from the same place, probably.

This had to be a dream. Why else had he found himself in a lab without remembering how?

Except...

M-21 pursed his lips. There was far too big a chance he'd been kidnapped and his memories erased.

Dread grabbed him but M-21 shoved it down, still moving forward. He could worry when he found something. And to do that, he needed to get out. He avoided approaching footsteps, but he didn't have to do that often. There weren't any windows or clocks on the walls, but it had to be night.

A double-door to M-21's left slid open and-

Huh.

He had to be dreaming then — it was Frankenstein that stepped out from the room, wearing his usual labcoat.

M-21 relaxed, a smile starting to curl his lips. All he had to do was wake up then.

A frown tugged Frankenstein's down lips, his eyebrows drawing in as he looked M-21 up and down. Assessing him. M-21's smile faded, the hairs at the back of his neck raising.

"M-21, where did you get that suit?" The question was mild, softly asked, but M-21 recognised his sharp look.

Unease grew in M-21. Or his dream was diving into a nightmare, because Frankenstein was looking at him like a Union scientist: M-21 was just a convenient source of data for him, nothing of worth.

"I bought it."

"Oh?" Frankenstein raised his eyebrows as he tilted his head. "With what money…?"

M-21 gritted his teeth, wanting this nightmare to end already, especially with the implications it was giving him. "With the money you paid me, Frankenstein."

Frankenstein smiled. It didn't reach his eyes, his gaze calculating, like M-21 had upgraded himself into something that piqued his interest. Something that needed to be studied right now. "And where did you hear that name, mm?" Frankenstein purred, advancing on him. The movement made something swing on his breast pocket: there was an ID card clipped there, the name on it simply stating 'Dr. Lee'.

This was wrong. Not just how Frankenstein was acting, but everything felt too real. M-21's instincts were screaming at him to run, his heart kicking up in preparation, ready for him to transform. And he'd been so distracted with Frankenstein he hadn't noticed there were people approaching from behind.

M-21 backed up a step, swivelling around to see who was behind him and froze.

There were three people walking up, two of them in labcoats flanking the third. It was the third person that made M-21 stop, his brain trying to understand what was in front of him.

The person in the middle was himself, wearing the all too familiar plain clothes of experimental material.

He wasn't an exact copy: his hair was longer than M-21's had been, falling past his shoulders, his skin so pale it must have been years since it had been touched by the sun. Those differences weren't what made M-21's stomach twist at the sight of him.

It was the old scars that circled his double's neck and wrists, sunk in enough that chunks of flesh must have been torn out. M-21 could see the line of restraints, but there were others that spread out like they'd traced up veins to reach further and damage more.

And what made M-21's temper flare was he recognised those injures, the purple so dark it was almost black imbedded in the skin. He'd had them once before and M-21 snarled as he transformed, whirling around and slashing at the fucking bastard that had Frankenstein's face.

A black shield threaded with purple snapped up in time to protect Frankenstein, not that M-21 expected anything less. As Dark Spear shot out at him, M-21 arced his arms up, tearing through the ceiling.

He hadn't passed any windows and everything pointed to them being in an underground lab. M-21 was rewarded with the ceiling caving in with a fountain of dirt and debris pouring in through the holes he'd created to block the corridor.

It wouldn't stop Frankenstein for long, M-21 already feeling the warning prickle of Dark Spear gaining in strength. The scientists had scrambled back at the fight, one of them fallen back on their ass, and the sound of their blood splattering against was the wall was so fucking satisfying, their cooling blood on his fingertips feeling real as they dripped from his claws.

"Come on!" he snapped as his wide-eyed double, lunging forward and grabbing him above where Dark Spear had bit, pulling him down the corridor.

Wherever M-21 was, whatever was happening, he wasn't going to let someone like him be used as experimental material if he could help it.

Inspired by sharingwritingprompts' 'An accident throws a person into the wrong timeline, and the only one who understands what happens is the person who was their mortal enemy in their proper timeline.'