20.

Jade lowered herself to the theater rooftop, quietly landing on her toes before walking up, behind Dark and Ashlynn. She gave them a small smile as she fixed her hoodie, pulling it over her head again. "Hey guys."

Kyo landed gently on the rooftop and observed the group from afar, unaware that there would be others here. Dark had been hasty in informing about this recon mission and the only thing Kyo knew was that it could possibly turn ugly. What else did he need to know? Balthazar's training had made him bolder and he was more than happy to step up in order to defend his friend from any potential harm, especially in the suspicious absence of Aphrodite.
Kyo made his way over to them and grinned, concealing the painful awareness that the man with the grinning helmet had been there the night of his first murder.
"Damn, looks like we missed the superhero dress code memo." he said, referring to himself and Jade.

"Some of us can't always be prepared." Dark says with a smirk.

"Now then let's get down to business, for all we know this place we're about to enter has been abandoned for quite some time. We're simply going in there to investigate and find some clues, anything can happen so stay alert.

Ashlynn will guide us."

Ashlynn simply nodded and floated slowly off the rooftop, making sure everyone was ready to go.

"Let's go."

Ashlynn shot off toward the direction of the lab, with everyone following behind her.

---

The group arrived at the lab; a relic of a building where the outsides definitely needed a very thorough power washing. The perimeter was surrounded by a tall fence tipped with barbwire at the top, rust and tetanus lacing each sharp edge. She flew over the fence and made it to the front entrance.

She didn't say anything after arrival; she was tough, but this building brought back far too many bad memories.

20.

Jade grinned at Kyo and turned towards Ashlynn, waiting on her to give the word. Once Ashlynn told them, she took off behind the group, flying slightly slower than the rest.

Once they arrived to the building, she landed close to the others, her arms crossed as she shivered slightly. She had never seen the place, but immidiately didn't like it; a feeling of anxiety and fear building up.

Albeit a little late, Mei followed the note left on her dorm door. Had it not been for the fact that only a half dozen people that attended the Academy would even know about what was going on, it felt legitimate. That still didn't quell her urge to keep a icy dagger in the right wrist of her black hoodie.

Approaching the designated area, Mei could see several figures standing around a door. She approached slowly, hood up, ready to drop the dagger from her sleeve or roast whoever would attempt to attack her. As she approached, the familiar forms of Dark and Jade (names she had learned in the days after the alley) came into view. She dropped the dagger into her hand, letting it melt quickly. She quietly stepped into the group.

"Welcome!" said Kyo, flashing Mei an amiable smile. "I don't know what you guys are expecting to find in here, but we need to be quick about this. Quick scan and nothing more."
Kyo stepped in front of the group and led them to the wooden doors guarding the entrance to the main building. He budged it with his shoulder but, unsurprisingly, the door remained shut. He lifted his knee up and smashed his foot into the door, knocking it off its hinges and watching it skid across the floor before settling against the wall, dust billowing around it. The floor was encrusted with the accumulated filth of years of abandonment.
"After you." he said to the others, beckoning for the group to file in.

Dark is the first to enter the building, their was an annoying stench in the air of rotted wood, decay and trash.

"Ashlynn where do we go from here?"

He asks as he looks around the front room a little bit more.

"Forward", Ashlynn said simply. It was dark in the lab, and as she walked in she looked for a nearby light switch. After she found a panel of switches, she flicked each of them multiple times. The switches clicked every time, but no light came forth. The incandescent light tubes in the ceiling were perfectly fine for the most part; no cracks or shattered glass.

She turned to Cancer. "Sparky. I know you're an electricity specialist. Think you can give this place some juice?"

There was a slight crackling noise due to Cancer rubbing his hands together. He put his hands on the switch panel, and after combining both Dark magic and Electrical magic, purple and blue tendrils jumped from his hands into the underlying wiring. The lab then hummed back to life after Cancer's resuscitation, the lights in the hallways turning on one after another.

Ashlynn walked forward, pointing to the passing cells and rooms, all of which had glass windows. "Each.. 'Patient' had their own individual cell with their codename and number."

She stopped after reaching a particular room. "The knowledge gained after each 'experiment session' is stored here in the research room. You might find something..", she trailed off as she lightly closed an open, empty file drawer with her foot. "But you probably won't."

This entire thing kept getting more confusing, but Mei wanted answers. Was that Kyo guy involved in this? Explains the insane burns, messing with people like this. She wanted to stop and ask what his role in this thing was (and admire the nurse's handiwork repairing his face).

Then the other guy in the Daft Punk helmet started powering the entire room ahead, talking about experiments? How did that tie into the Egyptian Alley Attackers Society? She stood barely a foot into the doorway, trying to process it all.

20.

Jade watched as Kyo knocked the door down, turning when she saw someone else join them. "Mei?" She turned around and began walking in with the others, thanking Kyo quietly before walking off on her own.
Once the lights came on, she relaxed a bit as she looked through cabinets and folders. "Wait how do you know this?" Her voice suddenly breaking the momentary silence. She began making her way down a hall, a small wall like barrier of dark magic forming at every door entrance before she walked in, just in case.

Kyo walked down tot he end of the hallway, within earshot of the others in case they needed him. He rested his hands on the window ledge in front of him and gazed through the grime-encrusted window at the ominous shadows of the Ceteris skyline. It was hard to imagine that this decrepit building had once served an actual, horrible purpose. It seemed as if it was abandoned almost immediately after Ashlynn's escape. They must have severely underestimated her skill since she was able to escape. Her resolve to find freedom must have been strengthened by the unimaginable cruelty that took place here, with the holding cells bearing more than a passing resemblance to a zoo. Judging by the angle of the cell windows, the prisoners here were never able to marvel at the magnificence of Ceteris.

As Dark walks from cell to cell, reading the names and numbers on each one. He looks through to see what their living condition was like. Some had beds, some didn't he sneers in disgust at the site. These people had it worse than him when he was growing up in the slums. Even though he was alone, he was able to enjoy the freedom of being outside, and not being an experiment, how many of these Wanderers survived in this lab, Ashlynn and Cancer are truly lucky he thought.

"Cancer, any of this ringing a bell at all?"

"...Seriously?", Ashlynn said out loud to Mei. "Egyptian Alley Attackers Society?", she continued, picking up off of Mei's endless questions and thoughts.

Cancer vigorously shook his head. "Nope!"

"This might", Ashlynn called out, pointing to a cell very close to the research room. She dusted off the placard next to the door, and it read "CANCER 000"; the same as Cancer's 'hospital' bracelet.

Cancer walked up to the cell and slowly entered. He took in what little sights he could; the bed, the bathroom, glass scattered all across the ground. Besides from these things, there was one more: a dirtied yet still slightly white straitjacket.

As soon as he took sight of the straitjacket, Cancer fell to his knees and clutched his head, quickly entering a balled-up position. He screamed in agony, his head suddenly feeling like it was about to explode in his skull after being crushed by a flood of thoughts. He saw fragmented memories, including those of him rocking back and forth in the crazy jacket and bursting outside of cocoon made of solid rock while singing a children's song. Some included faces he's seen recently or previously, with intermittent 'television white snow and static' cutting in and out.

Specifically, Cancer saw Ivy, but it didn't seem like the Ivy who smashed Carolyn's face in with a kitchen door a few weeks ago. This one seemed more meek, and.. Panicky. In the memory, he stood on a white marble stadium. In front of him stood a medium-sized unholy abomination that can only be described as the combination of a human male, a 'shit ton of snakes', and a ram's head. It struck so much fear in the flashback Cancer, and as flashback Cancer charged toward it to attack it with electrical blades, the monster struck him with it's scaled appendages.

Back in the real world, Cancer screamed on; the memories flooded his brain, and the dam was bound to break.

Mei looked at Ashlynn, confused at using the phrase that popped into her head. "The fuck...?" Who was she, anyway? Before she had the chance to ask, they had already started down the cells looking for...whatever they were looking for. As they disappeared down the Green Mile of Hell, Mei went back outside. Whatever was being searched for, she knew she would not be of any help finding it.

She had completely forgot that Kyo had not entered the room and was still outside. "Oh..." she said. After an uncomfortable few seconds, she spoke again, staring ahead. "So...your face looks better."

20.

Jade's head popped out of a room when she heard Ashlynn call out Cancer's name, followed by zeros. She walked out of the room she was in only to walk into that room. "What....." She had barely began her question when Cancer dropped to the floor. Jade's eyes widened as she saw him practically break down, a million things rushing through her mind as she tried figuring out what had happened. "Cancer?? Ashlynn what's wrong with him?" Jade walked over quickly and kneeled down next to him, trying to calm him down. "Cancer... Hey, it's ok, you're ok now." She didn't exactly know what was happening but she tried in order for him to stop screaming.

Before Kyo could respond to Mei, the awful sounds of Cancer's pained screams rang throughout the corpse of a building. He turned in his heel and sprinted back into the room where the others were, rushing through the doorway and looking around frantically with a bewildered look as if asking for the others to explain what was happening. He dropped to his knees beside Cancer and placed both hands on his helmet, attempting to pry it off but eventually relenting as it was possible that it would just make things worse.
Utilising his telepathic prowess, Kyo delved into Cancer's mind to fight whatever visions he was seeing. Almost instantaneously, Kyo yelped and stumbled back as his entire being was knocked back by Cancer's mind.
"I can't do anything, it's too much! Help me hold him down!" he barked at the others, pinning Cancer's arms to the ground so that he would not be able to hurt himself or anyone else.

Dark creates limbs with his dark magic, and sends them towards Cancer, he hesitates before having them wrap around Cancer, as he thinks as this is what they probably did to him in this lab whenever he threw a tantrum, the man just saw a straitjacket and is breaking down. Instead he creates a shield around the others just in case Cancer decides to lash out at them, and he slowly approaches him.

"On it!", Ashlynn said to Kyo as she helped hold down the unstable Cancer.

Cancer was pinned down as his mind was constantly under assault from waves upon waves of information and memories, his head and body oscillated violently as if having a seizure.

Deep in Cancer's mind, he saw a full-scale assault on a college-like campus. It seemed very much like Prometheus Academy, just different.. Maybe a different, smaller school? Either way, the battle seemed two sided, one side including invaders while the other side included students and faculty.

The memory seemed to focus on two fraternal twins, a teenage girl and teenage boy, both of which were under fire (literally and metaphorically) by the invaders; elemental attacks all around them. Surrounded by hostiles and separated from his twin, the boy pulled opened his trench coat. He grinned and his mouth moved, saying something, but Cancer could not hear over the noise. The boy then flung all of the dynamite hidden underneath in the air, detonating them with his abilities over fire. The scene that followed the inferno was that of a funeral or burial; in attendance was a goth girl who was apparently close to at least one of the twins, saying that she 'can't believe they're gone'.

Involuntarily, Cancer summoned a R3NDR panel; it digitized itself into existence, a pool of pixels growing from a single spot on the floor as the panel slowly emerged from it. The pixels also floated upward as the panel did, disappearing shortly after. Cancer mouthed a few words before he heard static and saw white snow again.

"Yare.. Yare?"

The memory switched abruptly, now that to two girls fighting it out in the Gardens. One was a malicious blood-thirsty girl dressed and black, while another had golden locks and spoke in a heavy southern accent. There was some conversation in between each strike, but Cancer could only hear bits and pieces as the static interfered. It seemed that the girl in black was a summoner who called forth a monster that was able to shape shift, while the golden girl spoke a LOT of Latin and used a lot of potions contained in bottles. The beautiful lush Gardens was torn up from each strike and became an ash-filled battleground. This was mainly because of the girl in black; as her summon had the ability to channel energy and shoot 'red motherfucking laser beams' (according to Cancer's mental note and his current and practically out-of-body experience).

The memory stopped short with no conclusion, and he once again went through the mental/television interference. The last memory started, and once again his R3NDR panels were involuntarily summoned, but this time in more quantity.

He saw himself fighting the mysterious snake beast again, but this time he was not alone. He fought alongside several friends; a traveling White Mage, a cool-as-a-cucumber Telepath, and a bodybuilding, breakdancing Black Mage. Cancer charged forward, his body wrapped entirely in electricity. He was soon grabbed by the monster, tails of snakes wrapping around him and crushing his entire body. He screamed in pain, both in the memory and in the real world, and in the memory his last-ditch attempt at stopping the summon was to emit an electrical wave that was so powerful it could shut down an entire city block. Once doing so in the memory, though, Cancer stopped moving about frantically.

Cancer's lips moved behind the grinning helmet. "Rocco… Sayteairo… Cancer.. Best. Friends. Forever."

He gasped quietly as if reaching an epiphany. "…I think my name was ALWAYS.. Cancer."

The flat summons slowly fell downward, the pool of pixels returning as they made their way out of this particular plane of existence. The grinning man then blacked out; motionless, silent. Ashlynn herself was silent.

Checking his pulse, she sighed in relief. "He's still alive. Barely, but still alive. Something's up with this guy, and it's something fierce."

Mei watched Kyo blur past her at the immediate sound of the scream. She ran after, her hood flying back as she ran. By the time she got there, she found the guy in the Daft Punk helmet writhing on the ground. "What happened?" she whispered to no one in particular.