"I'm in," Mulligan muttered into his earpiece as he hid in a corner that was darker than the rest of the halls. "Now I just have to find him. Where do I go, A?" Mulligan heard a girl sigh deeply in his ear. "What?"

"First of all, I know that you're in. I got you in."

"Why don't you ever let me say that?" Mulligan grumbled at A's usual sass.

"I let you say that the first time you went on a mission, which was two and a half years ago." Mulligan opened his mouth to talk again, but was cut off when A said, "Second of all, stop narrating what you do. It's weird." Mulligan rolled his eyes.

"A. Just-"

"Go straight forward from where you're standing, then turn right at the first intersection." Mulligan nodded, relieved to finally get useful information. He leaned forward and glanced around, then quickly and quietly snuck down the hall. He came up to where the hallways crossed and stopped. "There's a Third to the right," A said. "Just one. Put him down."

"Got it," Mulligan smirked and hurried around the corner. He came face to face with a man with a large gun in his arms. Before the man could attack, Mulligan yanked the weapon away from him. He slammed the butt of the gun against the other person's head, causing them to crumple to the ground, unconscious. "Where to, A?" Mulligan asked, dropping the gun.

"You have way too much fun with that," A mumbled. "Okay, um, just keep going." Mulligan trekked on without another road block in his path.

"Hey, A? Do you think it's a problem that I've only come across one Third?" Mulligan wondered aloud as he walked down the long, and astonishingly empty, hallway.

"Dumplings, this is a rescue mission," A mentioned. "I don't care about how many Thirds there are. The easier it is for you to get in and out, the better."

"I guess," Mulligan shrugged. "But doesn't it seem-"

"Stop." Mulligan froze when A told him to. "Directly to your left, there's a cell. It's far enough from the other cells to make it suspicious. He's got to be in there." Mulligan looked around, then turned to face the metal door.

"You're right," Mulligan said after seeing no other cells around, "this is suspicious. Just like the fact that there is literally nobody guarding the-"

"Just get him out." Mulligan groaned and nodded compliantly, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small, metal, spider-like device and pressed the top of it, where the letters P.S. were engraved. The device blinked yellow and beeped, seeming happy to be alive.

"Alright, little buddy," Mulligan whispered to the robotic bug, "do your thing." He lifted his hand to a screen next to the cell, and watched the bug crawl onto it. Its spindly, silver legs took hold of and pulled on the side of the screen until it parted from the wall. The bug ran under the screen, into the mass of wires behind it. Mulligan waited a minute, then heard a click as the door slid open. He was about to go inside the cell when he heard rapid beeping next to him. He turned around and saw the bug flailing two of its legs as if in panic. Mulligan rolled his eyes and grinned. "I should tell P to stop giving you emotions," he said, lifting the bug, turning it off, and putting it back in his pocket. "It's getting annoying."

Mulligan walked into the cell, and pressed a button on the front of his suit, which switched on a light on his chest.

"Holy..." Mulligan whispered when he saw the prisoner inside. "You seeing this, A?"

"Uh-huh..." The prisoner they were staring at (A through a tiny camera on Mulligan's head) was the person that Mulligan had been sent to rescue. They had expected him to be tortured for information, but not this much in such a short amount of time. The young man in the cell was unconscious, laying in the corner. His legs and right arm were clearly broken, and dried blood trailed down the back of his head and from his mouth. His breathing was shallow and slow, barely strong enough to blow some stray curly hairs away from his face.

"Alright, let's get him out of here," Mulligan huffed, taking a step forward. "What's his name?"

"How did you forget-whatever. Name's Lafayette." Mulligan tested the name on his lips while pulling a flask of water out of his bag. He opened the flask and splashed its contents on the other man's face. Lafayette gasped and sputtered and opened his eyes, blinking water out of them. When he focused, he looked Mulligan up and down with a sneer.

"You are new," Lafayette stated, his voice ragged and laced with a French accent. "I usually get big-hair guy."

"Well, you're lucky I'm here instead, because I'm going to break you out of here." Lafayette was shocked by the reply, until Mulligan showed the silver star sewn on the inside of his collar. "I'm part of the Union; my name is Mulligan." Lafayette smiled faintly and tried to sit up, then winced in pain. "Don't worry, we have plenty of awesome doctors at HQ that can fix you up."

"I do not doubt it." Mulligan bent down and reached out to Lafayette.

"Dumplings, you were right." A's voice suddenly rang out in Mulligan's ear, full of panic. "The Thirds found you out; they're coming towards you. A ton of them. I'm sending in squadron Black for backup. Just keep the two of you alive as long as possible."

"Shit..."Mulligan muttered, standing back up. He pulled two guns out of the holsters at his hips, and held one out to Lafayette. "Can you still shoot?"

"I can try." Lafayette took hold of the weapon hesitantly. "What is going on?"

Mulligan answered while taking out and turning on five robotic bugs, setting them on the floor. "We're about to be attacked. We'll have to defend ourselves as much as we can until my squadron gets here." Footsteps sounded from down the hall, getting closer every second.

"What are the robots for?" Lafayette asked, watching the bugs scatter across the room.

"They're our way out."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, yes, what are you talking about? I'd just love to know." Mulligan and Lafayette turned to the door to see a small crowd of people looking back at them. At the head of the group was a man with a large mane of curls, and who was wearing a bright red jacket-a stark contrast to the dark clothes of the soldiers behind him.

"I'll assume you're big-hair guy," Mulligan guessed. The man in red squinted and clicked his tongue, then turned to glare at Lafayette.

"Is that what you've been calling me?" The man asked Lafayette, who shrunk down and avoided the other man's eyes. "Whatever." He reached out towards one of the people behind him. When they saw what he was given, Mulligan and Lafayette both held up their guns. The man they aimed at simply raised his eyebrows. "Oh, stop it. I know you won't shoot." All the Thirds behind him raised their own weapons; Mulligan and Lafayette raised their arms in defense (in Lafayette's case, the one arm that worked). The man with big hair smiled darkly at them and said, "Although," he gestured towards the people behind him, "I know that they will." Before Lafayette and Mulligan could react, the man nodded to his men, and two of them fired their guns.

One bullet hit Mulligan's right hand, knocking the gun out of his grasp, and causing him to stumble backwards. As he held his bleeding hand to his chest and hissed in pain, he looked around to see where the second bullet had gone.

The second bullet had gone directly into Lafayette's head, making his dark eyes cold and dull with the blankness of death.

"Shit." Mulligan whispered.

"Oh, don't get so upset," the man in red cooed. "He was useless. I needed someone new." He smirked and leaned against the weapon he had been given earlier: an axe. "Since we'll be spending so much time together, I might as well properly introduce myself." Mulligan gulped, knowing what he was entailing.

A's voice broke through the clouding fear, saying, "Stay calm. The squad's almost there."

"You can call me Jefferson," the man in red told Mulligan, taking a few steps forward. Mulligan tried to step back, but found that he was backed against a wall. "I also go by 'Your Worst Nightmare'."

Jefferson wore a shit-eating grin, until Mulligan said, idiotically, "You can't seriously be using that line." Suddenly, Mulligan felt the bones in his right arm cracking-no, shattering.

"I'd advise that you never talk to me like that again," Jefferson growled, moving the axe away from Mulligan's arm and instead pressing the top of it into his chest. The blunt side of the weapon had been the one to hit Mulligan's arm, so he wasn't cut, but now the axe was positioned like a lever; if it was pulled down, the blade would tear into his torso. Jefferson's other hand moved up to Mulligan's chin, lifting it to meet the near-seductive, yet crazed, look on his face. "I am under strict orders to do whatever I want to you to get you to talk. So if you so much as try to-" A gunshot went off behind him.

Mulligan looked around Jefferson to see that a Third had fallen to the ground. Not dead, but injured. Behind the Thirds was now a large group of people, all wearing black, and carrying a gun or knife or some other weapon.

The Union had arrived.

A battle was in full swing in a matter of seconds.

Jefferson glared at Mulligan, then turned back to the fight, barking orders at his soldiers. Guns were shot throughout the hallway, and shouts echoed from every direction. Mulligan watched as his teammates dodged bullets and blades almost easily. Jefferson had left the cell, leaving an opportunity for someone of the Union to slip inside, unnoticed. His uniform had a blue stripe across the front, signifying that he was the captain of the squadron. His long hair was held back tightly in a bun, so that if Mulligan didn't know him, he might have thought the hair was straight.

"Laurens, could you have taken any longer to get here?" Mulligan asked, attempting to smile.

I could've, actually," Laurens grinned as he took a few basic medical supplies out of his bag.

"Well, you're too late anyway." Mulligan nodded towards the body in the corner.

"That was your fault." Laurens reached out. "Give me your hand."

"My arm is broken, idiot." Laurens rolled his eyes and grabbed Mulligan's hand, opening a flask of water with his mouth. As he cleaned the wound and wrapped a bandage around it, Mulligan wondered, "How is this my fault?" Mulligan flinched as Laurens tightened the bandage.

"You were sent on this mission, and you failed."

"Duck." Laurens immediately fell to his knees at Mulligan's word. A Third was standing behind him, about to attack, so Mulligan punched him with his left hand. At the same time, Laurens swung his legs back, knocking the Third to the floor. "I was ambushed," Mulligan mentioned as he and Laurens picked up the Third by his arms and threw him head first into the wall. "That doesn't count as failing."

"Yeah, okay," Laurens headed over to Lafayette's body. "Ugh...they always look so weird..." He gently closed Lafayette's eyelids, and looked back at Mulligan. "The squad should be able to cover us while we leave, but we have to go now." Mulligan nodded and stepped forward, using his working arm to help Laurens lift Lafayette. When they had his body situated between them, they made their way through the door, and into the battlefield of a hallway before them.

As soon as they saw their captain, the people of the Union fought to push back the Thirds, trying to make a path of escape. Mulligan ducked under several thrown punches, stepped over a few unconscious bodies, and kicked a Third's gun away from her on his way out.

"Stop right there!" A somewhat disheveled Jefferson ran out in front of them, pointing a pistol at Laurens.

"What is with you and stupid, cliché one-liners?" Mulligan asked. Laurens shot him a glare that read exactly what Jefferson screamed next.

"Shut up!" Jefferson's arm twitched slightly, which was problematic because it was the arm he held a loaded gun with. "You aren't getting away this easily." Jefferson snarled.

Mulligan's attention was caught by a silver glint on the ground next to Jefferson. He smirked and said, "I'm just going to deny that." Jefferson had only a moment of confusion before he gasped at something climbing up his leg.

"What the hell?" Jefferson looked down to see one of Mulligan's robotic bugs on his calf. He tried to kick it off, but the bug stayed firmly planted. Jefferson reached down and tore the robot from his leg and held it up to see it better. All of a sudden, the bug hissed and erupted into an enormous cloud of smoke. Jefferson screeched, while Mulligan and Laurens ran, unseen in the cloud. Behind them, other bugs exploded, completely obscuring any possible vision in the hallway.

A few minutes later, when the smoke had cleared, the Union was nowhere to be seen.

Later that day...

"What are you going to do with him?" Laurens asked. He was back at the Union's headquarters, talking to the chief of their medical staff, who went simply by "E". In front of them was a gurney on which was a sedated Mulligan.

"I've already done everything I can," E sighed. "I'll have to hand him over to P if we still want him fighting."

"P has Lafayette, though, right? So, now she has to fix four broken limbs?" Laurens smiled, but E stared at him seriously.

"Lafayette has more than just broken limbs, you know." E crossed her arms, then uncrossed them again when Laurens looked at her quizzically. She pointed out each injury Lafayette had, but on her own body. "Not only did he have a broken arm and two broken legs, one of which was broken at the femur," E explained, "but he has a lot of other, more drastic injuries, that went completely unnoticed by both you and Mulligan." Laurens' face heated up slightly at the upset tone in E's voice. "He has near ruptures in some of his internal organs, a few cracks in his skull, minor brain damage, several knife wounds, and a couple broken ribs; one of which is about 1.7 centimeters away from piercing his heart. A ton of work needs to be done on him."

"Okay, I get it," Laurens raised his hands in defense. "He's got crap-ton of problems." E nodded curtly.

"Mulligan, on the other hand, just has one." With that, E started pushing the gurney down the hall. Laurens followed her, continuing the conversation.

"It's still really bad, though. I mean, it's been a long time since the Thirds have tortured someone to this extent."

E turned to Laurens with a look that read, "Am I really the person you want to talk to about this?" What she actually said was, "They're trying to do more because they know that we're going to stop them."

"Yeah, I guess..." Laurens shrugged as they stopped in front of a metal door, with tiny yellow stars painted on it. E knocked softly on the door, then stood politely, waiting for it to open. When nothing happened, she frowned and pounded on the door. A high-pitched voice shouted in surprise, and the metal of the door squealed as it slid open.

"Come on in," a girl called out, over the sounds on clanging and grinding metal. E pushed the gurney into the large room, and Laurens stepped in after her. A girl with curly, brown hair and caramel-toned skin was standing over a table on the other side of the room. She wore multiple tool belts, grease-stained gloves, and bulky goggles over her eyes. Just as Laurens and E walked inside, the girl hastily pulled a sheet over whatever was on the table in front of her. She turned around to organize supplies on a shelf, and asked, "What do you want?"

"We brought Mulligan," E mentioned. "So, if you could fix him up, that would be great, P."

"Ugh..." P groaned and faced them, pushing her goggles onto her forehead. "I'm kinda working on something right now..." She gestured to the table.

"P, it's just one arm," John told her. "That takes you, like, a week to do that." P rolled her eyes.

"But this is a huge project," P whined.

"Can you please just work on something important, instead of one of your projects?"

"But-"

"P." E placed her hands on her hips sternly.

"...Fine." P pulled the gurney farther into her room, albeit begrudgingly.

"I thought you would love this. You enjoy fixing and building things more than anything. How come you don't want to now?" P turned away from E, and moved to a shelf full of wires and metal plates.

"This," P pointed at the sheet-covered table, "is going to be big."

"What is it?" Laurens asked. He walked towards the table and reached out to lift the sheet. A wrench hit his hand, and when he yelped in pain and looked up, P was suddenly right next to him.

"It's a surprise," P told him. "Now, back off." Laurens nodded and backed up fearfully.

"Wait, where's Lafayette?" E wondered. P smirked and pulled her goggles back over her eyes.

"You'll see them in a few weeks." P stood over Mulligan, and pulled a handheld buzz saw out of her tool belt. "Now, you might want to leave me alone."

Three weeks later...

"How's your arm?" Laurens asked as he walked up to Mulligan, who stood in the training field, reloading a pistol. It had been a week since he left P's workshop, but he had basically avoided everyone for a few days.

"It's fine, I guess..." Mulligan mumbled, not looking up. Laurens nodded in understanding.

"Yeah, it's...it's really weird at first. But you'll get used to it soon." Laurens patted Mulligan's right shoulder, and the latter flinched at the contact.

"Yo, Fluffy! Dumplings!" Laurens and Mulligan looked behind them at the nicknames that A called them. The setting sun shone on her face, her eyes reflecting the light from afar. "Magnets' got something to show us." Recognizing P's nickname, Mulligan and Laurens glanced at each other in suspicion, but followed A inside anyway.

When the three of them got to the workshop, E was already there, trying to calm P down, as she was pacing frantically around the room.

"P, please," E stressed. "It's not like you've never talked to him before."

"You don't understand. There's only an 77.8 percent chance that this will work properly." P groaned and massaged her temples.

"That's wonderful!" E assured. P whipped around to face her, making her jump in surprise.

"Are you kidding me?" P cried. "Everything else I've ever built has had a chance of success of 89.4 percent or higher."

"Oh no..." Laurens whispered. "She's panicking again." P started hyperventilating, and held a whole metal fan to her face.

"Yes, she is," E muttered. She turned around headed towards the door.

"Where are you going, Mouse?" A asked as E opened the door.

"I'm checking to see if-oh boy."

"What is it?"

"P, don't freak out, but he's coming." P gasped, spun around, and tried to hold in a scream.

"Too late. I'm freaking out!" P threw her arms and head onto a workbench, making the tools on it bounce and make a loud clang.

"Is everything alright?" Everyone in the room turned towards the voice in the doorway. A man was standing there with a nearly emotionless face, and a silver pin of the American flag on his shirt. The door closed loudly behind him, as if for dramatic affect. Everyone but P, because she was mortified, stood up straight and saluted the man in front of them.

General Washington.

P looked as if she was going to faint. "Uh...n-no-I mean, yes," P stuttered. "Everything's fine." Her voice cracked, contradicting her statement. "At least, there's a 77.8 percent chance that everything will be fine," she muttered.

"You know we'll be impressed by whatever you have to show us, P," Washington said with a faint smile. P's eyes lit up at the compliment.

"Okay," P took a deep breath, and started her speech. "I wanted all of you to be the first to see this because you're the most important people in my life. Mulligan is one of my best friends; my other best friends are Laurens, A, and E, who also happen to be my sisters and brother; and, well, General Washington is my boss." A few quiet laughs echoed through the room. "So, it's an extreme honor to have you all here to see..." She took hold of the sheet on the table in front of her. "This." P pulled the sheet away like a magician, revealing the body of Lafayette, in perfect condition, and asleep.

That is, it would have been assumed that they were asleep, if not for the fact that they weren't breathing.

"Um...P?" Mulligan said after a moment. "I think that 32.2 percent of possible failure may have caught up with you."

"Yeah, I mean, he looks great, but isn't he supposed to be, you know, alive?" Laurens asked hesitantly. A glint appeared in P's eyes that most in the Union called the "mad scientist" look. She immediately began to talk and move her arms terrifyingly fast.

"Okay, they're not technically alive by your standards," P explained, "but...they're still... Listen, I've always wanted to try this, but I couldn't really try it on someone like Mulligan, who just had a broken arm. So when Lafayette was brought in, with injuries all over the place, I had to take the chance I was given, y'know?"

"P, what are you talking about?" Laurens questioned. "What did you do to him?"

"Them."

"What?"

"Them. Use them. Lafayette doesn't have a sex, and I'm 90 percent sure, even with the most advanced emotions I can fabricate, they won't really feel the need to pick one, so...I think they and them would be best." P smiled as if she had just won an award, though many in the room groaned at her random ranting.

"Miss Schuyler," Washington said, catching P's attention by using her last name. "Please tell us why Lafayette is more special than your other revivals and prosthetics."

P suddenly became serious and focused, finally clarifying, "Well, Sir, as you know, Laurens here," she gestured towards Laurens, who looked confused as to why he was involved, "is almost completely human. Lafayette is the opposite. The only parts of them that are 'human', I guess, are his looks and memories." Washington blinked.

"Wait," Laurens' voice cut through the momentary silence. "So, is he-I mean-are they a...robot?" P nodded with an awkward smile on her face. "Woah...weird..." Laurens grinned.

"Are they functional?" Washington asked.

"Uh..." P nervously rubbed her neck. "I...have no idea." Everyone stared at her, confused. "I haven't been able to test anything yet, hence why there's only a 77.8 percent chance of this working."

"Well, then, why don't you test them now?" Washington suggested.

"Okay," P answered with a shaky breath. She stepped closer to the table, and gently turned Lafayette's head to the side. She pressed her fingers to the bottom of the back of their skull until something clicked. Faint buzzes and whirs were heard coming from their body as P stepped back again. Slowly, Lafayette's eyes opened. "Lafayette?" P called, leaning over to get in their line of vision. Lafayette's realistic, yet unreal, eyes flicked to the side to meet her's. "Hi, there. Can you see and hear me clearly?" After a moment, Lafayette's head turned down in what P assumed was a nod. She smiled and told them, "Try to move; sit up if you can." In hesitant, jagged movements, Lafayette turned the joints in their arms and legs, then pressed their hands on the table, pushing themselves up. They turned to face the other people in the room, studying each of them. "Can you stand?" Lafayette gradually slid off the table, wobbling slightly when they got up all the way. P walked around them, whispering to herself as she looked them over. After a minute, she stood next to them and asked, "How do you feel?" Getting no response other than Lafayette's head turning to face her very quickly, P anxiously asked, "Can you talk?"

Everyone watched on in awe as Lafayette slowly opened their mouth and spoke in in a stiff voice.

"I...feel...alive."

So...this is a thing that I decided to write partially because you asked for it for some reason. I had no idea what genre to put this into but whatever. I also decided to finish and post this at just about 12:30 at night, so I'm obviously intelligent.

This being a prologue, it doesn't explain a lot, but being a prologue, it's also basically a test to see if you're interested or not.

If you want to keep reading when I probably post more, Alexander is actually the most prominent character, and there will be a chapter in which they discuss Lafayette's gender situation more. I'll also explain what a Third is, and about what P does for the Union, because the latter is weird and shouldn't be possible but...fiction!

Please, let me know how you felt about this, and if you want to see more. This chapter was loooong...like, I don't know how I did this. I've surprised myself. Although, it took me a week or longer to write this, I think...? I'm tired. Good (insert whatever time it is), friends!