Axel ran down the hall, the *pat* *thunk* of his feet echoing. Behind him, a bunch of yelling could be heard from the adult guards chasing him. He'd had trouble losing them and had actually lost track of where he was. He turned the corner and, upon seeing the metal doors, cheered as he stretched his metal left arm out. With his control over metal, he absorbed the doors into his arm before using all his speed to create a barrier at the end of the hallway, giving him enough of a reprieve from the running.

What Axel didn't realize was the hallway held the rooms of Kitty, Laika, Vale, Jain, and Lance. He hadn't had the most interactions with them, except Kitty, but he didn't have anything bad to say about any of them. With a bit of time to rest, Axel took his metal limbs off, letting his arm and leg rest.

Seeing the hallway blocked, the guards radioed in for backup. It was time to bring in the Trainees. There was no escape for the metal-boy this time.

Kitty was happily residing in her room reading on top of her bed whilst laying on her stomach. Using her thumb to turn the pages as she finished them, content in letting her mind be at peace with the words on the page being the only things to fill it with a voice. Her own. A rarity for her when she wasn't left to her own devices, with the silent change of her door turning to a liquid and flowing back to the teen who controlled it, a few thoughts wandered into her mind as her room became unsheltered from the hallway as well as the others down her hall.

A familiar voice pinging in her mind ratherly loudly from proximity, and the white-haired girl placed her book down while she slipped off her bed. Landing on her feet, she silently walked over to the open doorway and peeked out with her head. Face deadpanned as her grayish blue eyes wandered to the figure resting on the wall next to her-- well where her door had been. The edges of her mouth twitching downward as her brows furrowed.

'Of course it would be you.'

Her calm voice chimed in the metallic limbed boy's mind, clear as though she had actually whispered it in his ear despite how her lips hadn't moved at all, and she was verbally mute. Her head tilted to the side as she scanned the hallway to confirm what she had already guessed had happened. All of their doors were gone, and she was left with the whispers of their thoughts running in her head without much choice in the matter. With her own ears, she could hear the sounds of radios going behind the makeshift blockade Axel had made and rolled her eyes at the situation itself.

'What is it that you're up to this time?' She asked, without even looking back at him at first. Her question quietly placed in only his head to hear. Her gaze shifting back to him by the end, staring from the corners of her eyes at the familiar male who was taller than her despite her being older. Then again, life was rather unfair.

It was the time of day that Vale hated the most. The time when they were all confined to their rooms, locked away from everyone else. The boy paced around the room, passed the stack of books that laid in the corner, passed his bed, around in a circle. Taking deep breaths, Vale was doing everything in his power to fight away the existential crisis that rang in his head. They were locked away again. Just like every other night. He was away from his plants, the only true friends he felt he had in his place, the only ones who really understood and heard him.

The flood of light hit him. Startled, he jumped back, eye wide as he stared back at where the door to his room used to be. With some hesitation, he stepped forwards, fingers wrapping around the frame before he stuck his head out.

"Uh..." Voice cracking as he spied the other two, there was another long pause from him, before he stepped out into the hallway. "...We're not supposed to leave our rooms," and yet here he was, out in the hall, going against the very thing that he said.

Slowly, his gaze shifted passed the two other's, to the end of the hallway. "What did you do?" Moving his single eye from the end of the hall to the two that he now stood by, he began to wring his hands together, in a nervous motion.

Locked in her room Jain was without the stifling blindfold bouncing a small wad of paper around the room in rapid controlled teleports her goal precision and endurance. It was what the Doctor had been telling her that she needed to do it without concentration because most of the others saw her as a transportation type, she more than that.

In her mind she saw surprised guards their weapons missing then they themselves appearing upside down on the ceiling or under the one who was falling from above. Jian had been drilled in the featureless training room till her head was pounding an overworked muscle "You must grow stronger, you must grow so we can expand your ports eventually till you can transport groups and machines 85 tons and more. demanded Dr. Schroder.

The Doctor was either overconfident or thought her under control but in either case she wasn't the tame subject some of the other staff believed, Jain wasn't planning rebellion but revenge for her treatment, for the burning eye drops they put in her eyes when they locked the blindfold around her head. So it was with some surprise she saw her door vanish and who could blame her for seeing this as an opportunity to escape.

So it was with caution she stepped close to the now bare door frame and looked out

She spotted three people she barely knew and fixed them in her mind as she'd been drilled ready to weaponize the inertia of their movements or even just alter the direction they faced so any projective powers they had went far off target

"...We're not supposed to leave our rooms,"What did you do?" said one boy to the other two

They were like her and judging from the missing doors at least one was rebellious against their tormentors

"Is there a plan" she asked still in the threshold of her cell ready to retreat if she felt any response more than she could handle her explanation prepared to place blame on the three first ones.

Lance was lying on the floor staring at the lights above. He had put down a blanket and pillow for comfort from the hard ground. The light would dim and then return to its proper illumination. He didn't pay much mind to the noise that was coming from the hall. It wasn't uncommon for guards to come and go moving people in and out. He leaned up from his cushion to see that his door was open, but there weren't any guards there to escort him. He looked at it with a raised eyebrow and turn over to his knees to stand himself up.

People were talking outside, so he walked up to the entrance to his room to find that the door wasn't just open, but it had completely vanished. The mystery of the missing metal door quickly fell wayside as he spotted his neighbors also entering the hall. The other didn't seem all that concern about what the guards might think with them all out of their rooms. It just wasn't his door that had went missing. Now he was more confused. The missing door became his concern again. Where did all the doors go, and why wasn't anyone bothered by it?

He leaned out, but kept most of his person still in the room as possible to see that Kitty and the others were gathering near what looked like a hastily made mound of metal acting like some sort of blockade. There was chatter on the other side, the noise he was hearing before, at least in part. Did one of them do that? Was it Axel? The person resting looked like Axel. Slowly, he left his room to meet the others. He gave a slight glance to Jain as he passed her to approach the others.

"I don't think this is a good idea." he said softly at first. "What if they catch you?" The metal blockade looked bad. He didn't want to them to get into trouble. Then again, he wasn't sure if Axel could get out of this without getting in trouble, but at least he could help Kitty and the others.

Felix had been struggling to understand the paper in his hands for a while now. Earlier he’d gotten curious about something scientific sounding Dr. Grey had mentioned and worked up the courage to ask what it meant, only to have been handed a paper well beyond what he could even begin to understand and promptly ignored. Still, Felix wanted to understand and as far as he was concerned surely Dr. Grey wouldn't have given him the paper if he couldn't have understood it.

Finally, Felix was drawn from his impossible task by the repetitive sound of something metal striking the floor as it moved along the corridor outside his room, followed by his door seemingly melting and disappearing as said thing ran by. Was that the guy who could control metal? Probably, Felix had heard Axel do similar things before and that would explain how the door had disappeared.

At first, Felix was content to leave it at that, not wanting to risk getting himself in trouble and expecting the guards to come running through at any moment like they usually did. When the guards didn't come however Felix felt his curiosity begin to rise, especially when he heard the sound of voices coming from the hallway. Still, leaving his room now was a bad idea, any number of things could go wrong if he stepped outside. What if he got in trouble? Or what if there was someone with a scary power waiting outside? Then again, he really wanted to know what was going on and it probably wouldn't hurt if he just took a peek...

Sticking his head out through the now doorless doorway, Felix could see the Axel and the other occupants of the hallway talking amongst each other, most having already left their rooms. Felix recognised the older kids at least and while he couldn’t say he knew any of them well, he was pretty confident none of them were particularly dangerous, at least not any more than was normal. To the other end of the hallway, Felix could see a crude metal barricade, presumably formed by Axel as he ran past earlier. That was a little frightening, it meant for now he was trapped.

Had Axel trapped them in here on purpose? Probably not, Axel looked pretty tired. Then was it to keep something out? That would explain why the guards hadn’t shown up. Then again, what if the barrier was to keep something else out entirely, like someone with a really scary power that had been chasing Axel? That would also explain why Axel looked tired. Or maybe this was all part of some kind of experiment or training?

Finally, between his curiosity to find out just what was going on, and the somewhat irrational fear that something horrifying would burst through the barricade to terrorise them at any moment, Felix decided to approach the rest of the group where they’d gathered in the hall. "Um... does anyone know what's going on?"

Laika didn't really sleep, as such.

Maintaining her intended operation made sleeping distinctly sub-optimal to performance, so part of the alterations were specifically designed to avoid that.
As such, she hadn't had a bed for a while.
Instead, at the time a certain other subject broke into the hallway on which here room was placed, Laika was in her default position: Sat on a mat on the floor, legs crossed, and arms in her lap.

The cables that ran from the back of her skull and shoulders hung loose, straight down her back, sometimes to the floor.
Her head, with angular features not really tinted from any abundance of sunlight, was tilted forwards. Her eyes were open, though at the moment displayed only an emissive white. Her actual visual was elsewhere, seeing all of this exchange from a whole different angle. That was, the security camera outside of the hall entrance.

She watched a lot of things. That was, ater all, what she was made for. Escapes weren't all that statistically unusual, though it wasn't often that things came quite so close or immediate.

It was only some moments after the removal of the doors that colour flooded back into Laika's eyes and she lifted her head, the silver rings of an iris moving with a quiet whirr of servos.

The voice from the facility's techno monstrosity didn't come from her mouth as such, but out of anything audio capable in the vicinity. She had been provided with some speakers for this usage, though it didn't prevent it speaking right out of intercoms from time to time.
It was a female voice, certainly, though far from anything natural there was a pitch-corrected artificiality about it.

"There has been a subject containment breach."

She tilted her head, over in Axel's direction, though it was always a little difficult to tell if Laika was actually looking at you, per se.

"Conditional on actions prior to arrival in this section you are currently in violation of at least eight facility codes."

Axel looked at each of the kids as they came out of their rooms. He knew he was about to get a lot of questions. He didn't realize which hallway he was in until he saw which kids were coming out.

'What is it that you're up to this time?' Kitty asked, seeming to lead the group.

"The same as usual, just taking a breather," he answered.

"Uh..." Voice cracking as he spied the other two, there was another long pause from him, before he stepped out into the hallway. "...We're not supposed to leave our rooms," and yet here he was, out in the hall, going against the very thing that he said.

Slowly, his gaze shifted past the two others, to the end of the hallway. "What did you do?"

"I used my power to create a barrier so I could get a couple of minutes of rest before I continue on back towards my room." Axel sighed.

"Is there a plan" Jain was next to ask.

"Plan to get out? Not yet. This just ended up being a wrong turn." Axel frowned with a sigh.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Lance said softly at first. "What if they catch you?"

"If you don't want to go down with me, I suggest retreating back in your room," Axel remarked, reaching to reattach his metal limbs.

"Um... does anyone know what's going on?" Felix questioned next.

"Alright, I'm only gonna say this once," Axel said as he rose to his feet. "If you want to run around with me, you're welcome to join. Otherwise, return to your rooms before you get in trouble. I don't want you to get hurt because of me." He placed his right hand against the barrier he made. "You have 10 seconds."

The voice from the facility's techno monstrosity didn't come from her mouth as such, but out of anything audio capable in the vicinity. She had been provided with some speakers for this usage, though it didn't prevent it speaking right out of intercoms from time to time.
It was a female voice, certainly, though far from anything natural there was a pitch-corrected artificiality about it.

"There has been a subject containment breach."

She tilted her head, over in Axel's direction, though it was always a little difficult to tell if Laika was actually looking at you, per se.

"Conditional on actions prior to arrival in this section you are currently in violation of at least eight facility codes."

"Goddammit!" he yelled. "They already know where I am!" With his flesh arm, he punched the metal barricade, inadvertently punching a hole through it. "And there's bound to be some corrupted headed this way too!"



On the other side of the barricade, the guards saw Axel's fist fly through the metal. "He's trapped!" came the loud voice of the Sergeant. "Either he'll let down this barricade or he'll run into the trainees." He looked around at every person, nodding as each one held their weapons at the ready. "Either way, be ready for combat!" The guards cheered in response.



"Trainees, this is Sergeant Marks. Subject 070705, codename Axel, is on the loose again. Subdue with non-lethal attacks only."

Many of the young teens whooped and hollered in joy. "Finally, some action," one of them laughed. They were more than ready to charge down the halls, and that's exactly what they did.

"Sergeant Marks, this is Hayden 050507. Trainees are on their way. What is his location?"

Kitty didn't need to turn her head to see what Axel was looking at. She could already hear them, their thoughts like an echo chamber in her own head thanks to the barriers that kept them separated having been removed by the metal manipulator in his attempt to buy time.

It was annoying hearing them all, especially when Laika decided to move closer.

She wasn't normal, hadn't been for a long time, and it showed from more than just her appearance. The whirling that came from her thoughts was by far the worst since the closest thing she could describe to the sound was something like a computer error being elongated into a screech that was how her thoughts, as minimal and instruction like as they were, was broadcasted to be like a voice. She would bet that had something to do with how she was more tech than person nowadays.

Fearful chittering was more apparent than anything else. Lance and Felix's voices were whispering it, softly while on the outside to Axel they asked the same question all of them had without realizing it.

Axel was growing more agitated the more it was asked, her gaze following him like a hawk as he sauntered away from her door and over to the barricade.

Zale wanted his plants. He didn't want to be here, being outside of his room meant bad things were going to occur to him and them.
Jain wanted to leave and assumed Axel had a way-

More voices pierced into her skull like a siren just as Axel's arm went through his own barrier, cutting off whatever train of thought Kitty had completely from the sudden influx. The people on the other side of it were starting to be bleed through. She couldn't hear Axel's yelling over the guards on the other side, the sound causing her to lift her hand up to her head as she swayed into her doorframe for support until the loudness of the new voices ebbed away enough for her to think.

'They've called for them.' The kids in the hall could all hear her voice in their head, though she was staring right at Axel, her eyes narrowed somewhat as she walked past all the kids to stand beside him, her gaze softening when she looked behind her at the younger ones in their current makeshift group; Vale, Jain, Felix, and Lance. 'And the guards are expecting a fight.'

Vale's eyes widened as the sounds of the guards grew louder. Wrapping his arms around himself, he fidgetted nervously, his stance always shifting. Hugging himself, then his arms dropping, then hands moved to the hair that fell over his shoulder, stroking it. The anxiety was beginning to bubble up, and it was obvious as he shifted and moved.

"A-a fight? Well...Well, don't give them a fight!" Swallowing, Vale shook his head as he backed away from Axel and Kitty, glancing behind him at the slowly emerging people from the other rooms. Head snapping to attention as the speakers sounded off, the young man bit his lip, before looking back towards Axel and Kitty. "If you fight them, it'll only get worse. There's no getting out of here, you know. With however many times people have tired and failed, you'd think other's would learn by now," as he looked away, there was a flash of something in his eye. Sadness? Pain?

It was a foolish effort, he thought, on Axel's part, but he understood why they did it. This place...It was horrible. What they were made to do, what they were, it wasn't normal. At least, that was what he had learned from the stories he read. "You should just turn yourself in. Maybe they'll go easier on you..."

Angry that the others seemed already defeated, worried about the corrupt Jain was just thrilled to see the faces of her fellow guinea pigs. The only time her blindfold was removed was in her heated white room, a room they had cleverly done in all white and bright lights, lights two times as bright as the others endured and she was free of it.

Knowing they'd all get some blame just for stepping outside of their rooms she weighed her options and smiled as she began winding up her ability into combat mode imagining people caught then released, runners released into the paths of other runners weapons vanishing, her favorite pivoted 180 zenith and appearing face first 2 feet above the hard floor where they could spend their former horizontal velocity into the hard floor.

Snap, snap, snap she said as she recalled the sound of pickup implosions air rushing in to fill the void where her target once was.

Lance took a step back as Axel equipped himself. He seemed bothered by the broken record of questions, but Lance couldn’t do anything about that. Usually the doors do not suddenly remove themselves the solid frames that house each of the children. It was muffled, but there was a commotion on the other side of the barrier, and Axel looked ready to tackle it head on. Perhaps his annoyance of answering the same question spurred a want to fight.

With only ten seconds to make a decision, Lance started back towards his unsealed room. It was one thing to for Alex to cause trouble. While Lance had not known him personally, he knew of the antics he was capable of. This seemed a bit more on the extreme side. Lance knew not to piss off the guards, the staff, the doctors, whoever really. They took their work seriously, and Lance could not help but feel powerless. What was he going to do? He couldn’t stop the guards, and he certainly couldn’t stop Axel.

“This is a bad idea.” Lance said, using his eyes to try and urge the others to also retreat to their rooms. It didn’t work as most if not all of the attention was on Axel and his barricade. He yelled and then punched the wall, penetrating the amalgam of metal clean through. It didn’t take much more than Kitty to tell him the guards were ready to fight.

“I told you this was a bad idea.” Said Lance as he quickly turned and ducked back into his room. He looked out to see that guards were starting to break through. Lance didn’t want to be a part of that fight. Axel made this mess; he should have to deal with it. Lance was sorry that he couldn’t do more to help the others though. Not that they needed his help, but he was afraid they would sink with the same ship Axel was sailing.

Laika, for her own part, didn't appear very moved by the increasingly tense situation, though as Kitty was made uncomfortably aware of, there was invariably a lot more going on under the surface than was visible as a glance, even if the continual electric shriek of constant information was quite difficult to parse.

By this point she had risen from her sitting position and walked into the corridor itself. No shoes on her feet, but the compression suit more of less obscured any glimpse of skin below the neck, and it wasn't especially good protection for the feet where it came to running around.
"Nine currently, due to extended conversing."
She tilted her head slightly to one side.
"Broad stroke security techniques frequently recommended in facilitating the clearance of a corridor where all security is disabled as a means to protect security personnel."
Other side.
"All present subjects lacking security clearance may become potential targets for enforcement measures."

Which seemed, in her roundabout way of conveying it, that as far as she was concerned, they were probably all potential targets for trainees at this point. Which was, presumably, the reason she'd not made much attempt to return to her own room, and instead was watching the barrier.

Well, watching the barrier until she flicker her way back over to the cameras outside of it, looking out for what the current threat consisted of.

'They've called for them.' The kids in the hall could all hear her voice in their head, though she was staring right at Axel, her eyes narrowed somewhat as she walked past all the kids to stand beside him, her gaze softening when she looked behind her at the younger ones in their current makeshift group; Vale, Jain, Felix, and Lance. 'And the guards are expecting a fight.'

"Of course they are." Axel sighed, repairing his wall as he pulled his hand out.

Then Vale started going off about getting in trouble and fighting. Axel grabbed Vale with his metal arm and carried him back to his room. "Stay in your room if you don't want to get in trouble." Using the minimal amount of metal, he made a quick metal mesh that Vale would easily be able to punch through. "Trust me, you're safer in there than with us.

With Lance choosing to stay in his room, Axel looked at the girls. As far as he could tell, they were all ready to fight. "Barrier's coming down," he announced, putting his hand on it. Immediately, he became armored and weaponized, wielding a pair of large swords.

With the wall down, the guards opened fire with their rubber bullets. Axel blocked as many as the shots as he could, making himself a barrier for the girls to hide behind as they countered the adults. "Be glad they're using rubber," he said to the girls, a slight smirk on his face.

Then running footsteps and hollering could be heard behind them. It sounded like the trainees were coming. "You girls got them," he said, leaving his armor as a small wall for them as he rushed towards the trainees to begin trying to hold them off.



From outside their room, Brayden and David could hear the shouts of the corrupted as they ran through the halls. Many of the trainees that passed by their small window could be seen holding various weapons, though not all of them needed any. Most of the guards they passed were pressed against the walls to allow the teenagers in uniform to pass them without trouble, though a couple of guards got ran over because they were too slow to react.

It had been dark and young David cried because it scared him. He remembered Eli his only friend at the time comforting him with a hug but then Eli went stiff and his breathing became ragged until he heard a long sigh and then a wet feeling as the lights flashed on in their room revealing Ali as a rotten corpse in his arms. Skin and viscera flaking onto the floor and he screamed.



With a start David screamed as he awoke "Eli" tears crawling slowly down his cheeks. Wiping the tears from his eyes David heard the clatter of footfalls and shouting outside his room.

Rather it was their room meaning his roommate Brayden whom was also occupying the room much to David's chagrin. The boy who seemed to be his age but he didn't really pay his roommate that much attention anyways. David slumped against the wall with a dull thud and a sigh as he tried to find a happy thought to get his mind of the panic attack he had just had.

David wasn't spared the time of day beyond a questioning glance towards him as he awoke with a scream, but that ended as briefly as it had began. No, Brayden's attention was to the outside of their small cell, where Trainees could be seen pouring through the hallway. He stood near their solid steel doorway, watching as those dubbed 'Corrupted' were set in dead-sprints towards the unknown...Granted, Brayden had some guesses.

"Hmph. Probably just Axel causing a ruckus again, since half the other kids in this place couldn't be bothered to raise a finger without being told to..." He thought to himself, giving David a sideways glance before returning to his own thoughts. Yeah, that kid definitely fit the bill there...

Still, that metal-warper must've gone over his head today to get a horde like that coming on his trail. Brayden only wished he could get involved, since this was looking to be quite the big deal, but...

THUD.

The sound of him lightly kicking the doorway with his heavy-metal boot echoed throughout their room and the hallway, a reminder of why he couldn't go and do exactly that. "Ugh. Damn restraints..." Was all he could be bothered to say, muttered under his breath and barely audible due to his mask, another stainless steel contraption that took up a good half of his face.