Sorry for the wait, I've had this sitting but my focus has been elsewhere.

Both Epoch and Interim have had minor overhauls, mostly to fix plot-related issues and grammar/spelling.

Mostly everything after the capture is spoken in Russian, and so i haven't added any actual Russian words in this chapter.

[Warning: Brief torture, murder and some other stuff that happens.]

Chapter 7: Sigma, part 1

The tenebrosity of the evening sky was the perfect cover for the two figures riding the black motorbike down the poorly lit deserted industrial street filled with warehouses. The deep but quiet rumble of the bike was enough to not draw the attention of any unwanted people that might have been wandering during the late hours of the night. The duo continued further down until the point where the street lamps became practically non-existent, which is when the driver finally turned off from the road and down an alley shrouded in complete darkness.

There was no headlight from the bike to brighten their surroundings but had there been any onlookers what they wouldn't have known was that the black helmets they bore were in fact filtered with a night vision setting.

The bike was turned off, adequately silencing the industrial suburb. Neither moved for a good long five seconds, the duo using the silence to listen to see if they had drawn any attention.

None.

The passenger swung their leg over and hopped down, revealing the body of a female—they were short in height, slim in weight, and had any had a chance to observe the body, realise that it belonged to that of a sixteen-year-old.

She took several steps back, giving the driver, a male—a boy no older than sixteen either—a chance to kick the stand out and climb off also.

The girl finally reached up and unclipped her helmet tag and pulled it off to reveal a young Zelda, her hair was pulled back into a plait and spun into a bun, effectively keeping it out of the way.

The young Zelda held more plump cheeks—remains of baby fat which was slowly disappearing as she aged. Her entire appearance was the of a younger—average—teenager and nothing like the mature adult she would become.

Zelda let out a quiet breath, setting the helmet on the lidded industrial waste bin. A hand absentmindedly drifted to the strap of the black one-shouldered backpack, letting her fingertips drag along the fabric as she watched the alley opening with an expressionless face.

Behind her, her male companion pulled off his own helmet to reveal short but wavy blond hair, to which he ran a hand through to ruffle it. His blue-grey eyes drifted to Zelda.

"You okay, Ze?"

Zelda's attention, and head, snapped to him. She blinked but nodded. "Fine, Adan, just…" She trailed off, a frown pulling at her brows.

"Just what?" The newly named male questioned.

Zelda shook her head, scratching her cheek. "Nothing."

"…Okay." Adan said slowly because he knew something was bothering her—he'd known her since she was four, he could tell when something was wrong, however, he knew not to push her. Instead, he reached up to the blue-tooth ear-piece. =Virgo, this is Leo.=

=Virgo responding.= Was the instantaneous answer.

=We've arrived, anything look out of place or suspicious?= Zelda questioned.

=Negative.= Virgo reported. =MECH soldiers are loading atm, no sign of Silas yet. It is possible he's dressed up. It's likely he's suspicious about the fact we'd be here.=

=Wouldn't be surprised.= Zelda muttered, nose scrunching up as the idea he could be waiting for them had her stomach churning in worry.

Virgo snorted but it was obvious he'd tried to muffle it by the cough that followed.

Zelda then turned abruptly on her spot and headed for the opposite end of the alley, Adan followed wordlessly. They climbed over the wall that separated the warehouses, using the walls to quickly climb onto the twin skinned roof of that building.

Zelda took a few steps, testing to see if the metal would echo her footsteps; barely, if anything. She glanced over her shoulder, nodding to Adan as he followed the flat part of the roof towards the front end.

Zelda released a breath and began her journey across the roof towards the window that would allow her to peer down into the bustling warehouse. She flexed her jaw as she slid the bag from her back, while she hated the fact MECH were able to transport stolen goods, she wasn't here to stop that tonight.

No, she was going to be taking out a certain person. Cain Lupin was his name, a higher up in the MECH organisation and someone Silas trusted enough to be considered his righthand man.

She unzipped the bag and pulled out the case inside. She opened that and began to assemble the APR sniper. It was a modified version to allow Zelda the ability to both put it together and break it down in record time.

=Any eyes on Cain?= She asked lowly; to speak normally was an unwanted risk.

=I think that's him by the van, Scorpio.= Leo answered. Virgo confirmed it.

Zelda hummed and looked down the scope to find her target. The fact he did not bare a mask to hide his face was a big help. Ironic, she thought, lips curling upwards into a sardonic smirk, that your desire to be noticed and listened to as a superior member is what's going to get you killed.

She lined it up, finger coming to rest on the trigger when suddenly Cain's radio seemed to fizzle to life, and he shifted just out of her scope. Zelda gritted her teeth but waited patiently.

=Virgo, you getting what's being said?= Leo asked.

It was silent, the only sound was tapping from Virgo's end, then: =I believe it to be Silas, voice patterns seems to suggest but no idea on what's actually being said—audio's to fuzzy.=

Zelda grunted but never faulted from her position.

Eventually Cain stepped back out and the scope allowed her to see his smug smile. She frowned, what's he smiling about?

The ginger shook her head. =Taking the shot.=

She lined up again, took in a deep breath and—

The bullet hit her target, piercing the skull and killing on impact. Immediately she ducked away from the window as the underlings all burst into a frenzy. She heard the shouts and orders being given but paid no attention to them as she dismantled the sniper and packed up.

=Go, go, go!= Virgo ordered as soon as she'd shoved the case away and she was on her feet, sliding the bag back onto her back. Leo was already waiting for her, crouched low. She joined them, sharing a look as the underlings began to file out of the building in search of the shooter.

Zelda humphed softly in annoyance, they couldn't stay on the roof nor could they risk climbing down.

"Bike's a warehouse over." Adan murmured as both of their eyes scanned for possible exits. It wasn't one of their finer moments—these types of locations were hard ones to escape in a hurry.

Zelda glanced back over the roof, scanning. Her eyes were drawn to the raised roof, perhaps…

"Think we'd make that jump?" She asked, pointing at the thing that'd caught her attention. Adan flashed her a confused look but followed her gaze, his eyes filled with understanding.

"Maybe, we'd gotta land it right otherwise risk a leg injury." He offered.

"It's the only chance we've got to get off the building. They'll be up here soon."

Their eyes meet, a silence conversation—a silent understanding and they shared a nod. They were on their feet in the next moment, crouching low as they hurried towards the roof entrance. The raised piece of architecture was just long enough for a run and jump.

"You first." Adan waved.

Zelda didn't waste a moment in answering, just climbed onto the secondary roof and took a deep breath, readying herself. She tensed her muscles, relaxed them and positioned herself, not hesitating a second in taking off in a run. She was over the edge in a mere second, the last second jettisoning herself into the air.

Let me make it, let me make it, let me make it, let me make it, she mentally chanted as her seconds in the air passed by agonisingly slow before she began her decent.

She landed, knees bending to help cushion her landing as she fell into a roll. It drew a painful grunt from her—it was metal roofing after all.

She quickly scrambled to her feet, ignoring the vertigo that hit her as she did, and moved out of the way for Adan. Zelda turned in time to see him go soaring through the air.

Her breath lodged itself in her throat, that smallest part of her feared he'd under jumped.

But that wasn't what should have been her fear because he landed, however it wasn't correctly. Adan hissed, biting back a shout as his left shoe slipped upon his landing, it threw his entire manoeuvre off.

"Adan!" His name escaped in a strangled hushed tone.

Zelda quickly rushed to his side, hands landing on his shoulders. The blond choked on the pain, his own hand coming to clench Zelda's vest.

"We've gotta go!" Zelda's eyes widened as the door on the roof they'd just came from was slammed open.

Adan groaned but they moved—it was blatantly obvious he was seriously hurt. It might not have been a break, but it was a serve sprain.

It was going to be difficult.

It was difficult.

Since Adan had injured his ankle, he was unable to drive the bike and so Zelda had taken over the role of driver. They didn't even have time to pull on their helmets as they jumped onto the bike and started it up.

Zelda shot out of the alley, the turn onto the road almost sending them crashing but if there was any vehicle Zelda's was a professional at it was the motorbike. There was shooting from behind, shouts and yells as the MECH soldiers chased after them with their own cars.

=Virgo, plans gone to shit!= Adan shouted over the wailing wind, there was no response. =Virgo?=

Nothing.

"Shit!" Adan hissed, burying his face into Zelda's shoulder. "Virgo's not answering! Somethings seriously wrong, there shouldn't be this many soldiers!"

Zelda grunted in response, her focus more on the road and avoiding the MECH trailing them. She turned another corner only for a black van to shoot out from nowhere. They screamed instinctively as Zelda pulled at the break, but it was too late, she was forced to swerve and it sent them skidding along the tarmac.

Zelda thinks that maybe she blacked out—or maybe hit her head—or just something because when she opened her eyes, her entire body ached down to the bone and she was trapped under the bike as Adan sprawled out several feet from her.

He was trying to push himself but was struggling.

Zelda tried moving but… but she couldn't, she exhaled, biting back the panic—the fear—she'd been paralysed but she could feel her legs clearly—the pain helped pull that realisation to the front.

She coughed and felt something wet, something thicker than her saliva and tasted like copper. Blood.

Internal bleeding was more than possible—she didn't need to be Aria to know that.

Finally, she gained some strength, struggling and painful, but she lifted the bike enough to get out from under it.

There was squealing of tires and distantly Zelda was aware of Adan shouting suddenly but she couldn't place anything. She blinked as the light from the lamppost was concealed, it took her a moment to realise it was a masked person.

She wanted to fight, to yell, to scream but she couldn't.

She didn't have the strength.

Her arms were grabbed, and she was dragged along the tarmac, it was painful but she couldn't fight it.

More yelling, snickering and everything went black.

She jolted into awareness, it was painful, and her head hurt and—well, everything hurt, even breathing. Zelda rolled her head side to side slowly as she tried to use her mushy and pulsing brain to recall what had happened.

She swallowed thickly when it came flickering back. She bit back a sob.

The crash.

Adan.

MECH.

Rattling snagged her attention and she twisted her head to see where it came from, out of the darkness she lay in, she could make out hints of blond hair. She forced herself onto her side and squinted as the sudden amount of light that hit her from the angle change made her eyes hurt.

"Adan?" She slurred, voice croaky and cracking from both lack of use and moisture.

"Hey." An equally as quiet voice but he sounded tired instead.

The was more chain shuffling as Adan crawled closer, it allowed Zelda to see the chain around his left ankle. She kicked her legs in response, seeing if she too bore one.

Right leg.

"W-What happened?"

"MECH." He whispered, his gaze turning towards the bars of their cage. Something Zelda was only just realising. She took a moment to breathe, examining the outside and she grimaced. It didn't look good, this wasn't some normal prisoner like cage—no, this looked like a lab.

It was dank and dark in colour, but Zelda knew what a lab looked like.

She had to hold back another sob, but her eyes stung this time and tears slipped out.

"How long have you been awake?"

"I want to say a day but I'm not sure, there's no clock in here." He answered dully. "The guy that was pottering, muttering to himself, left about two hours ago."

Zelda began trying to push herself up—

"Zelda." Adan's voice turned soft.

No—no, it wasn't possible.

She reached for her right arm but—there was nothing there but her shoulder. She choked—oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god. Oh, god.

Zelda used her remaining arm to drag herself to the and slump against it to—to—

The back wall was completely concrete of the prison, the front was completely barred, but the sides were a half of each, effectively allowing them to see into the two other cages either side of them. Both of which were empty.

A part of her was grateful but that realistic part of her knew, could see, there had been people in these cages prior to them. It made her sick—sicker than she already was—

For a long time, neither of them said anything, Zelda covering her mouth with her left hand in some attempt to muffle her sobs.

This cannot be happening, she trembled, this has to be some stupid nightmare.

However, Zelda was many thing, a goofball, oddly clumsy, a nervous wreck sometimes but she wasn't an idiot.

This was real and the nightmare had yet to even start.

She screamed until her voice was hoarse and even passed that.

She remembers being tied to the metal examination table and having her blood taking, and strange liquids injected into her bloodstream that made her burn inside.

She remembers puking and refusing to eat until she was strapped down again and force-feed through a tube.

She remembers as Adan too was strapped down and forced to endure the same things as she was.

She remembers watching Adan cough up blood instead of puking like she did, and hearing the man behind it all, the scientist, muttering in Russian about how they'd need to 'watch him' as he was thrown back into the cage.

All the while Silas stood back and watched, smiling.

Whatever they were doing, Zelda could feel a difference in her body—it was subtle sure, but it was there all the same.

One time when she'd been thrown back into their cage, she hit the ground but found herself on her feet in seconds and launching herself at the underlings with impossible strength.

Whatever was happening to her made the scientist excited.

But it scared her.

What were they doing to them?

Adan's coughing was what woke up her. He'd been doing that more and more the last few… days? Zelda thought it had to be days, they'd found the scientist worked in shifts. He roused later in the day, worked until late before retiring, just to repeat.

Or at least that's what they guest from Silas's visits.

They weren't always pulled out of the cages and shoved onto the metal exanimation tables the entire time—they were only dragged out when he'd have something to stick in them.

It was a blessing.

Zelda completely turned her head to face Adan as his coughing escalated. She pushed herself up and crawled towards him, curling up next to him and Adan, in turn, slumped against her.

She reached her remaining hand up and brushed it through his hair, not caring about the greasy feeling.

"I love you." He whispered.

Zelda took a shaky breath, lips trembling. "I love you too."

"They have yet to die." Silas speaking Russian woke her from what could hardly be called sleep—merely a state of unconscious, perhaps.

"True but the boy is weak, I doubt he'll survive much longer. I've noticed it seems to be something about her blood that has accepted the serums, I believe I'm close to making a breakthrough as to what the anomaly might be."

"An anomaly, you say?" Silas questioned.

Zelda frowned but continued to feign sleep, unsure if they would stop talking if they knew she was awake.

"Yes!" The scientist, Cooper is what most called him, breathed with excitement. "I noticed it early on but did not consider or deem it worthy enough to look into until I was doing some other blood work recently. It is truly… magnificent! I've never seen another with such odd DNA strands before! A mutated genome I've never heard of before in all my years—and it looks to have been genetic! I wonder what caused such a mutation to occur?"

"Well, you can ponder on that in your own time, just figure out if we can replicate it in others, got it?" Silas ordered.

"Of course sir." You could hear the grin in Cooper's voice.

Adan coughed and gagged. Zelda jolted and gaze turning to him as the gagging worsened and blood split from his mouth. His face twisted into agony.

"We don't need a failure. Best put him out of his misery." Silas waved off.

Zelda snapped, and snarled and growled. "DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!"

Silas just smirked and the cage door was opened. "Oh? And what are you going to do about it."

Zelda was on her feet in an instant in a blur of motion and launched herself at Silas. Her blood sang for his. With an animalistic snarl, she reached the end of her chain—the wall hold jerked. Zelda clawed and scratched at air, merely feet away from the man.

Then Silas raised his gun and—BANG

Zelda screeched in agony, an almost inhuman sound as she collapsed to the ground, crawling to Adan. Who gurgled, eyes wide, then slumped down dead.

Zelda just continued to scream and shout and cry in agony. Her fist clenching Adan's bloodied shirt as she begged for him not to leave her.

But it was already too late.

The shouts and crying of a young voice roused her immediately, her shoulders jolting with the startle, but she didn't move from the ball she'd curled up into against the right corner.

She left out a breathless intake… it was impossible, right?

Surely they wouldn't!

Suddenly Zelda chuckled croakily and humourlessly under her breath, wouldn't, haha, that's funny.

She raised her eyes but didn't move from the ball as an underling moved into her view carrying a boy who couldn't have been any older than seven or eight. The kid was screaming and crying out for his parents, but his bloody clothes said enough to Zelda.

They were likely dead, a sardonic smile creep onto her dry, dirty and pale face. MECH have a habit for murdering parents, she thought musingly with a quiet snicker.

The second underling stopped outside her cage and pulled open the door to allow the first to chuck the kid in with her.

The boy hit the ground jarringly and he cried out in pain this time.

Zelda blinked apathetically as the cage door was slammed closed once more and the underlings walked away.

The boy continued to sob—it began to grate on her nerves, but she gritted her teeth to stop her desire to snarl at him that crying was useless.

It lasted a long time—exactly she wasn't sure, perhaps near half an hour (too long for her likely) but eventually, he seemed to catch into the fact he wasn't alone. Green, bloodshot, puffy eyes lifted and landed on Zelda's hidden form in the corner.

He flinched, eyes widening in fear but all she did was stare at him blankly.

Finally, she let out a huff and buried her face into her knees, intending to go back to sleep.

He was an insistent bastard; she'd give him that. The boy had started off with huddling as far away from her as possible, just shaking and keeping to himself since he had no more tears to cry.

But after a while, a day or two—Zelda wasn't sure, didn't care anymore—he'd started staring at her.

She ignored it at first, half the time she wasn't even in the cage anyway. She'd be taken away for physical training to test her new abilities and prepping for something to do with her lack of arm.

She had no idea what was happening to the boy, but he'd flinched and curled in on himself whenever she'd return being dragged by the underlings.

She'd go back to her corner and sleep.

But eventually, she began to get annoyed. She looked up sharply, baring her teeth with a sneer as she barked in Russia: "What the fuck is your problem, brat?"

He flinched, eyes widening in fear—she both loved the look and loathed it simultaneously. He whimpered and Zelda scoffed, pathetic.

"Your crying and whining ain't gonna do anything, brat." She huffed.

"I just want my mum and dad." He whispered.

"They're probably dead, kid." She deadpanned. "Get over it."

"You're really mean, but…" He trailed off. "But not mean like them."

Zelda blinked, turning to gaze at him blankly. She didn't say anything.

The boy cuddled against her side, it left her breathing shaky, her fingers trembling because she didn't know what to do. She'd not had this…this kind of contact since… since… since his death.

Zelda's eyes burned. She bit back a sob and—she'd not cried in almost two months, she'd long since run out of tears. She didn't think she could ever cry again after all she'd see and felt.

But here she was, crying.

Shaking arm slowly wrapped around the boy, pulling him close.

"Please, no, no!" She screamed, fighting against the dozen men holding her down.

He screamed in fear and terror.

"Stop, stop, stop!"

More blood stained the ground.

Zelda sobbed, and screamed, and then just stopped, laying there limply.

She… she couldn't.

She couldn't do it anymore.

It was then that she truly stopped fighting.

:)