Brothers in Blood (Jiskastya X Inara)

[Jiskastya]

The corridor was shadowed and broken, unappealing to every sense that could be imagined. It reeked of darkness, of a desire to break, to hurt, to destroy. It would have been quite effective on a normal young child’s mind, back when the soldiers had still worried that their newest project might try and run away. But he was unable to run, unable to move without the help of man or machinery, and such an obvious technique would never have worked on him anyways. He did nothing based on emotion.

He walked through it now without a hint of worry, not even noticing the way the walls seemed to tighten, to try and crush the very breath from his body. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, didn’t worry that there was something that might leap out of the shadows at him, but rather, he didn’t even recognize the atmospheric differences between this dark place and the brightly lit western wing.

The western wing. The military's answer to needing to keep someone contained, without letting them know that they are trapped as much as any prisoner. He still knew, no matter the fact that they had told him he had been born with a broken spine. That they implied they hadn't done it. They had. But they lied, not recognizing that the mind they had created to be so clever would see through their lies as well. He didn't believe them, didn't believe anything they told him, except the power that his mind head, and the power that this body held.

The western wing. Warm and brightly lit, with wide doors and hallways to accommodate the bulky animatronic wheelchair that was his only way of moving, his only way to interact with the world. He struggled through life with it now, only able to truly live through these eyes, running across the world and destroying anything in the way.

The western wing. The only place that he... the only place that Lucius had ever been.

He had been everywhere. All over the world. In conditions that would have killed anyone else, always executing his brother’s brilliant plans, just the way that he wanted. And Lucius had been there too. Had experienced it just the way his brother had, but still his body had never left this room.

And nor was it ever going to. But he was getting out today. Out of the control, out of the pressure, out of the place where they were never allowed to have even a moment's breath. Never allowed to have a moments peace, never allowed a single independent thought. Never allowed to move. Never allowed to leave. Always being controlled, always being influenced, always being stopped, always being poked and prodded, always expected to come up with the solution, to execute the plan, to be the perfect little soldier.

And they had done just that. Everyone here thought that they were safe, that they had come up with the perfect system to win in any situation, and that they had this perfect system completely under control. But not any more. Not ever, although they didn’t know it. He had waited, waited until the moment where they could get away perfectly clean. He foresaw it all.

In the western wing, the guards smiled politely, accommodating his requests with respectful salutes. They smiled to his face and then spat as soon as he turned his back, cursing his name, hating his very existence, but forced to put up with him, for he was the engine that ran this whole facility anymore. He was the one who led every mission, and won every single mission, wading through seas of blood for the glory of this military government. For that was who they owed their loyalty to, or so the generals thought. The men who had taken two newborns to the orphanage, still soaked in their mother’s blood, and, later, came back, and taken the boys to this cursed life.

They thought they owned him, that he would respond to their every whim with perfect willingness. After all, that is what he had done up to this point. They thought he had complete control over the “weapon” that he had been given, the weapon that this body had been turned into, mind shattered, unable to think. And then handed over to his brother, to be controlled. To be guided, to be directed to the right targets, like some absurd homing missile.

But he knew that he was no treasure, no special person. He knew why they had broken his body so completely. So that he could never run away, never escape this prison of control. But why would this "treasure" want to. The treasure behaved himself, acted like the perfect soldier. And the fools believed it. They would learn.

They didn’t even hear him coming now. He crept up behind them and killed them, killed those polite bastard guards who had so often cursed him. They thought he didn’t know, that he thought they all respected him, but they should know his genius, know that he wouldn’t be fooled. Not by anything.

He killed them with a single pinch, with a single touch. He could have obliterated them, but he had been told not to, that everyone in the wing needed to die before he made any noise. And that noise had been determined already, as well.

The soldiers couldn’t control him, and they knew it. He was too powerful to be stopped by anything they threw at him. That was why they had broken his mind, and given him to his brother. He was supposed to keep him under control, turn him into a toy, a machine, a weapon to be pointed and fired. But he didn’t want to keep him under control. He wanted him to kill them, just as much as he did. Maybe more, for it was him who had to face them every day. But he hated them too, hated the memory of their leers, even if it wasn’t him who actually saw it. He knew it. He could feel his brother’s hatred for them, and that hate became his hate. And so he killed them with a harsh leer on his face, quietly. Everyone in this wing would be dead by the time he was finished.

His brother too. Shot in the head by the gun that was tucked into his waist strap. He didn’t need it, but he had told him it to be messy. Had to make sure that they thought he had killed him, completely and thoroughly. Out of hatred, out of a desire to no longer be controlled, whatever story they wanted to fabricate to appease the higher ups. He said that meant that those who were at the top would believe that they only had to deal with one unthinking, if almost unstoppable, monster. They wouldn’t know that the tactician was still there. Was still making plans. They wouldn’t know until it was too late to do anything about it, to try and come up with a way to stop it.

Now he stood before his broken form, the figure that had controlled his life for as long as he could remember. His brother, his constant companion, the man he hated more than anyone else, the only man that he could trust.

The gun leveled, perfectly still, right next to his head. And he pulled the trigger.

The resulting bang echoed through the entire western wing, but it didn’t matter anymore. There was no one alive except him to hear the gunshot anymore. But his brother still heard it, and, slowly, brought into being by the very strength of his brother’s being, he reformed, strong and tall as he had never been in life, insubstantial, but still present. Still thinking. Now it was time to go.

He was free. Out, and able to begin planning his revenge, with a brother that was only too willing to help in tow, and with the power to level a city within his body.

[Inara]

Lucius eyes glanced to his formidable brother, but he felt no fear. These were his instructions, being followed to the letter. The gun fired. And finally, the prisoner was free, and dead. But the latter was not important right now. Death was preferable to another minute as a “loyal” slave to the totalitarian Czercerian government. The Brothers in Blood were finally free of their gilded cage. Free of the sneers the guards gave them, hating the very existence of a pair that could out-think and outfight the best of them, even those that had had a hand in their creation. The quadriplegic was free. Free of his caretaker that saluted him in his chair, only to spit in his face when they were out of view of the security cameras. The bastards had broken his spine when he was four years old, but his Will was a force of its own. After all, he had regularly used it to control his gargantuan brother in the most dangerous of situations. And it was that link they shared that made it downright trivial to hold himself to this world as an incorporeal being. For the first time in nearly twenty years, Lucius felt a sense of … joy. And though he was not at the moment directly controlling his brother's body, the body of his only friend, the emotion was so strong that Marcus' lips formed into an almost giddy grin.

But now it was time to run. Everyone in the facility was dead, but they still only had five minutes before reinforcements arrived. For all intents and purposes one being, the pair ran out of the facility. As anticipated, several SWAT teams full of soldier reinforcements were already beginning to show up. Marcus/Lucius smiled again. 'Time to try that new skill I've been working on,' the ghost thought wryly. Using Marcus' eyes, he scanned the reinforcements, finding one soldier with tanned skin and dark brown hair, right in the middle of the fray, and with a nice V-154 submachine gun to boot. Lucius' eyes twinkled, and suddenly he was in the body of that soldier. A few shots later, and then entire group around him was dead, the unfortunate recipients of the V-154's rather efficient lead delivery system. 'I haven't had this much fun in my life! Who knew one's corporeal extinction could be so exciting?' Lucius' thoughts yelled out to his brother.

[Jiskastya]

They were off, in some ways starting all over again. Free. Free from the rules, from the control, from having to obey. Maybe now he would be able to become something, to be more than a toy, a weapon to be controlled. But as a joy that was hardly his own and yet was completely his, a joy he truly felt though he had no real reason to feel it, and his lips spread into a vicious grin, he knew he wasn’t truly free. For he was still there. And they were the same as they had ever been. At least he would be able to make his own choices now, not having to obey the soldiers. Maybe that would make a difference for him as well.

They set back off through the utterly silent western wing, and if it wasn’t for the corpses littered around the room, the pools of blood slowly congealing into massive scarlet lakes, it might always have seemed the way it always had been. But the silence, more than anything told that something was wrong.

It was just the way he liked it. None left alive, except those he chose. And the one person he could never escape from.

His heavy boots echoed through the hallway now that he no longer cared about stealth, but he was perfectly silent, not even needing to touch the ground, for he had never gotten around by walking. It was just as easy to glide, to slip through the intangible matter that was doors and walls, and trusting to his brother to be able to keep up.

Marcus did so, hurtling through the hallways with an animal-like agility, and barreled outside only moments after his brother. A grin spread its way slowly across his face, seeming to rip a gash across his cheeks. This time, there would be no need for stealth. Just pure, brute force. He, too, was off before he even understood what he was planning to do, but the obvious ripple of destruction that surrounded his actions was clear to his enhanced eyes, even if the distance was fairly great. But his joy was plain. By the end of this, there would be no one left alive to recount what had happened. Although he might insist on one. The fact that “one” man could cause that much trouble would certainly cause panic in the upper ranks. Or so he would say.

With a roar that sent shivers down the spine of even the bravest man, Marcus waded into the sea of people, a tidal wave that only increased as the countless people died around him. He was a sea of blood that drowned anyone who drew close, ripping anyone who got near apart, screaming as the bullets tore through his body only to be healed over by a ripple of flesh seconds later. The bodies mounted around him, some soldiers trying valiantly to remain to their course, others succumbing to complete panic.

He killed them all, indiscriminate, always making his way closer and closer to the soldier that was his brother.

“Kill them all.”

[Inara]

The soldier's body, under Lucius' control, unveiled a self-satisfied smirk. He could not speak very easily, the fine grained control involved in vibrating a pair of vocal chords and forming words was... more difficult than was necessary. 'One escaped from the other side of the field. His account combined with the … erm... results here will be more than enough to terrify them,' he commented mentally, both to himself and Marcus. The ghost looked around the battlefield. It was... beautiful. The perfect execution of a perfect plan, as the pair had always done, and as they always would do. The sweet perfume of the blood and carnage of their enemies filled Lucius borrowed nostrils. The first stage of their revenge was complete.

Suddenly the body dropped to the ground, and Lucius was incorporeal once again. Expecting his brother to follow him, he floated towards an alleyway. 'You need to change into another set of clothes. You got more than a few drops of blood on you. It will draw attention in a crowd,' Lucius thought, not fully conscious of the fact that his tone was that of giving a command. He knew little of what it meant to 'be polite.' In Lucius' mind, he was showing courtesy by not simply directly controlling everything his brother's body did himself. After all, even as linked as their thoughts were, having to actually explain his actions and relay information to his brother was considerably slower than just doing everything himself.

But they were free, free of their slavery and imprisonment. On some level, Lucius knew that choosing to directly control his brother, when they were not under threat of torture, to voluntarily choose to suppress his consciousness when it was not absolutely necessary for survival, would prove him just as cruel as their now-former masters. His brother deserved freedom as well; even freedom from Lucius' own willpower. Their emotional connection was not one-sided; he could feel his brother's hate, his resentment at being a weapon to be used, his own freewill broken, if not altogether destroyed. Though the emotions came through a haze of a sadly fragmented mind, one who might not have even been able to put them into words, Lucius knew they were there; he could sense them, nearly as strongly as his own, even concealed as they were by the confusion and chaos that lived within Marcus' mind. He knew that, on some level, his brother's resentment towards him rivaled even the loathing they felt towards the Czercerian military. It was a strange experience indeed, feeling someone else's hatred towards you as if it were your own. Just another strange paradox of their cursed minds, the cursed fate that they shared. Despite knowing this, Lucius could not say that he felt terribly remorseful about what he had done, what he still might have to do. It was necessary, plain and simple, childish emotions be damned.

[Jiskastya]

A small growl slipped from between his lips, but he took the order with a general sort of resignation. What he said was undoubtedly true, everything he said was always true. Or at least he believed it was.

Finding a clean uniform in the blood stained field was almost impossible, but he finally found one that met with his particular approval. He wiped the splatter off of his face with the last clean spot on his own shirt, another order from him, and then slid the clean shirt over his head.

And they were off again, his body galloping away from the bloodstained battlefield, the other tagging along for the ride.

They made it through the city with minimal trouble. He had been “free” to explore the city, under his brother’s strict control, and the two had long ago memorized every street, alley, and back route that wound its way into a convoluted labyrinth. Only one person had the misfortune to cross their path, and his hand flitted out, disposing of him without even breaking stride.

Soon, they were at the fence that surrounded the city. Outside, far enough away that it wouldn't pose a security risk, the forest grew wild and untamed, a natural barrier that the enemy would have to fight its way through before being able to attack the city, wasting precious resources. Not that any revolution or opposing government had gained the strength to get that close. Especially not since he had been sent out on the field.

The gate was not designed to be opened except under emergency circumstances, but that posed little trouble for him. He found the deserted section that he usually used, gathered his strength, and leaped over the forty foot fence in one fluid movement. He was not bound by such corporeal barriers and slipped through the solid wall and joined him on the other side.

And then they were off, him racing into the woods at full speed, barely more than a blur to the watching sentries. The guards dismissed it promptly convinced that they hadn’t really seen anything. After all, their duty wasn’t to prevent things from coming out of the city, only from going in.

[Inara]

Marcus galloped along at speeds reaching 30 miles per hour, far faster than any normal human could run. They were not in a vehicle, but still, Lucius was but a passenger. He had little to do, for Marcus could avoid obstacles and follow the path that had already been traced into his mind with little further input from his brother. It was sometimes almost like giving commands to a highly advanced robot, but humanity had never perfected such excellent autonomy and frightening efficiency with robotic technologies as the military had achieved in this pair. His commands could be as detailed or as vague as the situation required, and they were always executed perfectly. And when it was necessary, he could take control.

But while functionally it was an apt comparison, it was a truly cold one to make. Marcus was no robot. He was a living, breathing, and though the government did not believe it, thinking human being. Every single time Lucius controlled or influenced him, he was suppressing his own brother's freewill. Lucius was more than a puppet-master; his emotions, and those thoughts that he allowed to be revealed, were now so ingrained in Marcus' mind that the latter hardly could tell the difference between his own will and his brother's anymore.

'But so what?' the ghost thought coldly, careful to guard his cruel observations from his brother, his puppet, his only friend. 'Like he could survive on his own anyway, in his state. His thoughts are too chaotic and fragmented. My voice brings him order, a calm to the storm. I have pulled his strings to guide him out of danger hundreds of times.' But whether he would admit it or not, Lucius knew that if their roles were reversed, he would loathe his brother even more than he knew Marcus loathed him.

They were off, two fugitives fleeing into the night. Fugitives; from fugo, fugere, Latin for 'to put to flight,' or 'to drive into exile.' And so they flew. But no one had driven the soldiers. Not this time, and never again. They could forge their own fates now; the unstoppable weapon, and the incorporeal voice in his head that guided him.

It was three long hours, sprinting at an average of 25 mph before the ghost allowed his brother to slow down. Pain was irrelevant. Fatigue was irrelevant. They were mere sensations of the body, sensations of which Lucius felt a stronger echo than ever before, now that he possessed no body of his own to mitigate his psychic connection with this one.

As time went on, and since the formidable powers of his mind were not currently required elsewhere, he concentrated on intercepting and mitigating the pain signals for his brother, decreasing the signal amplitude at the cost of transferring the energy to the echoes he felt, intensifying them. The result was that his echoes were roughly equal to what Marcus was actually feeling, instead of the previous half-intensity. It was only logical to direct resources where they were most needed, and to discard hindrances to where they would cause the least trouble in the plan. At this particular moment, Marcus' body was actually more important to the mission than Lucius' mind. Besides... Pain. Was. Irrelevant. It was a mere sensation, a mere trick of one's nervous system to warn you of impending danger. The most important thing was the current mission objective: to create as much distance between them and Stolig as was superhumanly possible.

The intensified echoes of the stress on Marcus' body, combined with the fine-grained concentration required to misdirect the electrical energy in literally millions of signals in millions of neurons, was making even Lucius' mind slow down. And that too made sense; a supercomputer would have had trouble processing that amount of data. He was actually having trouble keeping his own concentration, his own superhuman processing power on anything besides that task. But who cared? His mind was not currently required for any other task, so therefore, it was the most efficient use of resources.

It was only when the pain and fatigue became nearly unbearable to them both that he allowed Marcus to slow down. But they never stopped. Marcus drank water from a flask as they kept moving, finally slowing their pace to a more sane fifteen miles per hour, perfectly following a flawlessly efficient, faultlessly designed path until –

They tripped. A gigantic net made from almost invisibly delicate, yet insanely strong wire engulfed Marcus' body. The strands were so thin, they were difficult even for the man's enhanced eyes to see. To someone without such enhanced vision, they would have been essentially invisible. Borrowing his brother's vision for a moment, Lucius zoomed in on a strand of the wire, recognizing it almost immediately. 'Fogul-Waugh microfibers,' the ghost thought, cursing. The tripwire on the ground was made of the same material, which is why they had not seen it. But he only had half a second to process his analysis before no less than ten tranquilizer darts came towards them, four heading straight for Marcus. It had only taken one unknown variable, one miscalculation, one mistake, to cause a wrinkle in Lucius' master plan.

[Jiskastya]

He was running, he was driving him to run. And the trees raced by at a speed that his mind couldn't comprehend. But his body could, and he raced on, dodging things in his path without even noticing that they had been there in the first place. But this was how he ran, constantly moving forward, simply reacting. That was how he lived.

And then the pain started, but that, too was nothing new. He told him to keep going. That pain was irrelevant, and he believed him. He never lied to him. He pushed past the burning in his lungs and legs, the pounding in his head, made sure that his limbs were still moving. He sunk deeper into himself, pushing him onwards, not letting him stop, not letting him know. But he ran because this was what he was meant to do, this was what he had always done, this was his purpose, the only thing he could do.

Run.

But the pain kept building, coursing through his body with a numbing fire, and he wanted to stop. He had no reason to keep running. Except he did. He had to get away, and this body was the only way he could do that. And he would do anything to get away. Now he began to get mad, but that too he ignored.

Run.

And then, when he knew that he must fight to finally stop, he let him slow down. Air rushed into his lungs, moisture down his throat, and it was enough. This he could continue. For now even he could remember why they had been running. That bright, sterile prison loomed behind him, telling him that he could never get away. But they were away and nothing was going to stop them.

Until with a sudden shock, he was forced to a stop. The tiny wires ripped into his body, cutting his skin, severing muscle. They were designed to pick up a walking person, not someone traveling as fast as he had been. But the flesh rippled, covering the gashes, and the muscle stitched itself back together. The pain returned to the dull ache he had been experiencing for so long. His eyes focused on the wire, and sudden, intense anger flared through his mind. They were trapped again.

That was when the first needle ripped into him, forcing a toxin into his blood. It didn't matter, nothing like that could touch him, but that was it. They had dared to trap him, dared to stop him, dared to prevent his escape. And he did not like it.

A bestial roar ripped its way out from inside of him, and his whole boy tensed, straining against the tiny fibers that had trapped him. They were not going to get in his way. A vein in his arm burst, instantly resealing itself. But this time the pain didn't matter. His rage at being trapped was too great. And his rage, the rage at having his perfect plan ruined, was too much.

He tore his way out of the filaments, and then the screams began. They were like a sweet nectar, and his senses instantly locked on to each voice. He crouched, beast-like on the ground, eyes pinned on the closest voice.

She was a petite thing, with fine, strong hands and a delicate neck. It would break between his hands like a twig.

[Inara]

For a moment, for one minuscule glorious moment, Lucius wanted to kill them too. He craved the blood of the people who had dared trap them, even for a second. He longed to see the fear in their eyes just before the life blinked out of them. His own rage was so intertwined with his brother's that for one short moment, it was hard to even think. But only for a moment. Lucius was trained to not be heavily affected by such trivial things as emotions. He analyzed the situation, the data he had on hand, darting Marcus' enhanced eyes from enemy to enemy. They were not wearing uniforms, did not look like an organized army, but they all carried weapons, and he saw the same tiny insignia on the clothes they did wear. It was a tiny patch, loosely stitched in, that looked as though it could be removed quickly, presumably upon capture. He realized who these people were; who they had to be. It was a homegrown militia. A resistance cell. Another wave of shame caught Lucius. He had allowed them to be trapped by … amateurs. Worse, amateurs that he should not kill. If he was right, then they were bound by a common enemy, and there was no reason to get in their way, so long as they got the hell out of his.

'Stop, they are not our enemy,' he commanded firmly. His voice more than a voice, it was a direction to focus, an urging to calm the anger, to not kill. This situation was too tense, and it would call for diplomacy over force. Lucius concentrated and tried to take control, but Marcus' will was fighting him to remain where it was. He kept pushing forward, attempting to suppress his brother's consciousness, if only for a few minutes. 'Please don't fight it now. I can't possibly explain the nuances of this to you,' he thought, almost begging. What he didn't quite admit though, was that he was not even sure he could pull this whole diplomacy thing off himself. He was a tactician, a strategist, not a freaking politician. But Marcus would not budge. He liked this taste of freedom; he did not want to be turned into a puppet once again. Finally, the battle raged so strongly that it took both brothers' full concentration, and the brain in question could not handle being fought over so vigorously. Its higher functions shut down, and the body fell to the floor.

This entire conflict had happened at the speed of thought, and therefore had taken less than a minute. It appeared to the Resistance onlookers that there tranquilizer had simply taken effect.

[Jiskastya]

His fingers were almost there, he could already feel her racing heartbeat underneath his sensitive fingers. Her mouth was open wide in a scream. She knew her doom. In just a moment his fingers would wrap around her thin neck, snapping it before she could even react. And her body would fall, but he would be at the next person before she even hit the ground.

He could feel the heat coming from her body, saw her arms coming up to block him, but they wouldn't get there in time.

Stop... not... enemy. His mind hit his command like a truck would run into a wall, it might break through, but the damage was irreparable. His fingrs grabbed on empty air, and she fell backwards, landing heard on the ground. Alive.

And then he was there. Trying to push his way in, trying to take control of him. Trying to return him to nothing more than a trapped slave.

No.

He was free now, away from all of that, and nothing he could do would change that. They had gotten out, gotten him away from the world where he was so completely controlled. But he was not willing to do the same for him. He would not let it be that easy.

It hurt to resist. His mind was strong, his demand great, but he would not let it be that easy. He wouldn't give up. Not now. Not when he was finally free. He slipped away from his body, he slipped into that indeterminable space that was his consciousness. He wouldn't let him in. He filled the space, he pushed, poked, prodded, ordered. He fought. He could not be allowed win.

He didn't even notice as his body hit the ground, falling with the sudden absence of a mind to control it. He did not notice. He was too locked in, too much a part of this war, to even notice. His body was his. For once in his life, it would be his, no matter what.

But his body still worked, and his eardrum still vibrated from the incoming waves of voice.

"Evangaline, are you all right?" deeper, male, concerned. A worry that he had never known for another living being. Not even for him. Not even for himself.

Her voice was soft, and tears of shock slipped out from beneath her eyelids. It took her a couple of tries for her voice to finally work. "I... I think so," she whispered.

"What the hell is that thing?" another voice, male, almost in panic. "It ripped through that net as though it was thread. That isn't possible! I didn't even realize it had moved until you fell to the ground, Angel. I thought it was going to take your head off..." he suddenly quailed under the look the first man gave him, or perhaps he finally realized how insensitive he was being. But she let out a soft, sweet laugh, choosing to take the statement for what it was, a friend worrying about another.

The next voice was calmer, more authoritative, and everyone turned to him as soon as he spoke. "Are we sure it is unconscious?" There was a collective intake of breath among the group, as though everyone was suddenly expecting him to get back off the ground, return to the attack that he had so longed to complete. But he was gone, locked into a battle of wills the only person who had ever mattered in his life.

He was the youngest in the group, still determined to prove himself to his superiors. He took a step forward. "Be careful, Mark," warned another.

"He must be unconscious," Mark reasoned. "Otherwise he would have... got... Angie."

He took another step, taking the barrel of his gun and gently prodding his shoulder.

They had touched him. Those who had trapped him had touched him. They weren't going to leave it at that, either. They were going to take him back, trap him, hurt him, make him a slave again. His mind flooded back into his body, and his hand shot out faster than the eye could track. The gun shattered, and the boy screamed, the finger that had been in the trigger snapped cleanly in half. Fragments of the weapon shot across the space, one sliver cutting a shallow wound in one man's arm. He swore, and every gun was suddenly trained on his figure, Mark rapidly backpedaling, trying to get away from the creature that had woken so suddenly, cradling his wounded digit, tears streaming down his face.

But he had gotten distracted, and his mind was wide open to him. He had lost. He had given away his freedom, once again.

[Inara]

It had never been this difficult before, not since the first time he had done it, so many years ago. Marcus' will had already gained a new strength since their escape. He had tasted some semblance of freedom, and he wanted to hold on to it. And now the ghost fought to rip it away from him again, to turn him back into an object to be controlled, a robot, a slave. The fact that it was necessary, that the strange nuances of human communication would be beyond him, that he was doing it to save the lives of these people while still furthering their own plans, that did not matter.

It had never mattered. From the first test, when they were around five, Lucius had only ever done this to protect him, but from what he could tell, Marcus could not remember that time, so many years ago. His own enhanced memory remembered every single test, every single experiment, with absolute perfection, down to the employee numbers on the scientists' badges, down to their blank faces as they threatened and shocked a pair of five year olds, because their bosses had told them to. The same blind obedience to authority that Milgram's experiment had indicated so long ago, hard at work to extreme measures. No matter how much Lucius looked out for their interests, no matter how much he tried to protect them both, servitude to him was no different in his brother's eyes than servitude to the government. For Lucius did not really care for his brother, not like these freedom fighters cared for each other. He was wholly incapable of such ... compassion. One did not worry for the pieces on a chessboard. One did not mourn the loss of a pawn. And just as he had always been taught, one did not grieve for the loss of a mind, even the mind of a friend and brother.

But then Marcus' will faltered. His attention diverted when the man had touched his body. Little did he know that he might have saved all of their lives, for that split second of distraction was all Lucius need to push through, to be in control again. If Marcus' was already this much stronger after mere hours out from the government's thumb, just how much more powerful was he going to become?

“It should be evident to you that your weapons will do little good here,” Lucius as Marcus announced calmly, his voice frigid in its lack of inflection. He stood up straight, and looked around at the crowd, trying his hand at the techniques used in negotiations and public speaking, while simultaneously assimilating all of the information he could about their positions and weaponry. “Despite the appearance of my uniform, I am not allied with the government. I do not wish to kill any of you, but I will not hesitate to do so if you decide to try and stop me from leaving this place." One body, they took a step forward; southwest, the way they had been traveling before this unfortunate blunder occurred.