Death and Rebirth
Her mother was dead. Isabelle stared at the corpse all dolled up with makeup, hair pinned into a neat little bun composed of thick braids, dressed in her favorite little black dress, and felt absolutely nothing. Her father was standing at the head of the casket, as pale as his now deceased wife as he mumbled thank you to those offering their condolences. On occasion they would step over to her first, opening their mouths to speak before they caught her cold stare and hastily shut their mouths. She didn't want to be here, standing in front of her mother's casket wearing a black back dress nearly identical to the one on her corpse. The room was filled with soft murmurs and halfhearted sobs of people whom she barely knew, and who probably hadn't even known her mother that well either. Fucking hypocrites. The worst offenders belonged to her mother's old clique, a group of catty, back-stabbing bitches who now bawled into the shoulders of their husbands and each other while only a week ago they were mocking her mother's choice of hors d'oeurves at the holiday party and gossiping about her 'low-class' origins before schmoozing up to her moments later. She had to fight the urge to smack them when they came up, one after another, expressing to her father how much they would miss Vivian and how beloved she was and how they'd never, ever fucking forget her. Not a single one of them approached her though, probably because when they'd tried that shit earlier she'd politely told them to their stupid, perfect stunned face to go fuck themselves before promptly walking away. It was amazing the kind of shit she could get away with now that her mother was dead.
The service was just as full of horse shit as the people attending but the ride to the cemetery was thankfully filled with complete silence. Her father hardly even seemed to notice she was there. There was more preaching as they lowered the casket in the ground and then she was ushered up along with her father to take a handful of dirt to throw onto it, an act that inspired no more emotion in her than any of the rest of this charade. People began to wander off after they'd symbolically buried her mother, and it wasn't until she was walking to her father's car that Andrew showed up.
"I'm sorry I didn't get here in time, I couldn't get today off." He stumbled through that simple sentence and the look on his face as she stared silently back at him reminded her of a puppy waiting to be kicked, all big pleading eyes. Hers dropped down to the bouquet of pink carnations that seemed oddly small in his large hands. He noticed this, then quickly thrust them at her. "Here, these are for you. I'm really sorry about-" She stopped him with a glare, then softened her gaze and took the flowers in one hand, his in the other.
"Take me back to your place." She demanded softly. Seeming dumbstruck, he nodded. And lead the way to his car.
She didn't wait until they'd made it to his house, ordering him pull down a semi secluded and little used road on the way. She climbed into his lap as he, with that stupid, dumb-struck look still on his face, just leaned back in his seat and stared at her. It wasn't until she began tugging at his belt that he started responding, albeit slower than she liked. They fucked. He got off before she did but she didn't really care. Never the less she muttered, as she slid back into the passenger seat and readjusted her dress: "Thanks alot. I feel soooo much better." with as much sarcasm as she could muster.
As he stumbled over his apology, she waved a hand dismissively. "Just drive me home."
While Isabelle and her boyfriend had their little rendezvous by the road, a small black van from the funeral home appeared to have followed them and parked, just out of sight, hiding behind a large roadside sign. The van simply seemed to wait for them to move once more, showing no signs of life beyond the hum of its engine.
Andrew managed to wait to speak again for a couple miles, she could tell by the look on his face and the way his mouth kept opening and shutting like a stupid, dying fish on dry land. When words finally did tumble out from between his lips it was enough to make her give an exaggerated sigh.
"Iz- about your mother-"
"Jesus, can't you just shut the fuck up?" She quickly interrupted, her usually large brown eyes narrowing into a glare she solidly directed at him. "She's dead. Who the fuck cares?" There was a lasting moment in which he just stared at her, jaw slack now, with an expression of horror on his face. He gaped at her so long that the car started veering over the solid white line separating the road from the shoulder. Noticing this, Isabelle threw an arm out to the window shield.
"Andrew!" Her words seemed to snap him out of the stupor he was in and he corrected the car before they ended up in the ditch.
"Shit." She rolled her eyes at his cursing.
"Pay attention to the fucking road you idiot."
They turned off of the road, now back on the original route back to his house. Now, however, she wasn't sure that she even wanted to go back to his place still. Maybe it would be better to just go home to that big, empty house and her mute father.
Or maybe I should leave D.C all together so I don't have to deal with this bullshit anymore.
Distracted by the argument they were having and everything that had been happening, the trio noticed a bit too late that there was something on the road. It seemed to be a bump the size of a human hand, which closely resembled a human hand as well. Andrew tried to swerve but it was too late, as soon as the front of the car was over the object, it suddenly exploded with the force of a stick of dynamite. Pushed by the sudden turn and the explosion, the car was tossed to the side of the road, falling on it's side and sliding forward a good 100 feet, sparks, parts and pieces of glass flying in all directions, before finally stopping by the side of the road.
Isabelle had been too busy staring angrily out the window to notice the thing in the road, but she couldn't miss Andrew's sudden yelp or the fact that the car was suddenly in the air. There was very little time to react. She started to say: "What the fu-" only to be cut off as her head smacked into the glass window with a sickening crunch right before the passenger side hit the ground and the whole vehicle scraped its way along with her arms caught beneath. The pain had her screaming before they'd even come to rest, her vision going dark for a moment, but then rushing back with gruesome clarity. She was too busy being in agony to form words or coherent thoughts, her brain lighting up with the red streaks of pain and fragments.
-the fuck- oh god my arm- what happ- oh jesus christ my arm- my fucking arm- WHAT HAPPENED?- Her body was cold some how, her head and limbs wet, and she realized as she attempted to lift her head
-OH GOD IT HURTS- that it was blood.
Andrew groaned and attempted to move, his mind not yet having processed that he was sitting sideways and was tangled in his seat belt still. His airbag had deployed, knocked him out for a few second, but he figured out quick enough that other than a headache and some cuts and bruises he was fine. His girlfriend though- "Oh jesus- Iz? Iz are you okay?" It was a stupid question, she was a mess. He could see the broken glass in her hair- but not in it, no, they were buried in her head, jagged edges just sticking out like a crown, red with her blood. She was panting and moaning, almost sounding like she was about to sob but never quite getting there, and her eyes were wide. Something lit up in his head, bits of the first-aid training he got a couple years back.
She's probably in shock, I have to get her out- His hand fumbled with his buckle. Somehow he managed to free himself and not fall on her, though God knows he thought he was going to, and climb out the drivers side door. He ended up slipping and sliding off the side, landing on his back hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs for a few seconds before finally finding himself at the the front of the car.
The windshield was shattered completely giving him an all to clear view of the situation. He pondered only for a second on what happened before the crash
-something was in the road, and explosive?- then crawled as close as he could to Isabelle. From here he could see her right arm, or what was left of it, caught under the car. The shoulder looked wrong, displaced, her arm tore up so badly he could see the bone, and blood rapidly pooling out of her. She had reached over with the other hand, grasping at her shoulder and giving weak, desperate pulls punctuated by harsh cries. "Baby no- stay still- I'll, I'll call for help-" Yeah, that's what he needed to do. His finger slipped down into his pocket, searching for his phone without taking his eyes off of her.
As Andrew's bloodied fingers struggled to tap out 911 on his phone and failing miserably as he caused the screen to become wet and there for unresponsive, Isabelle stopped yanking on her trapped arm, a part of her realizing how useless it was, and instead she reached for him. Seeing this, his face took on a pained looked, almost worse than hers, and near tears he reached back and took a gentle hold of her hand. "It'll be okay Iz-" He whispered in a desperate attempt to console her. But the phone wasn't recognizing his touch, even after he rubbed it briskly against his pant leg. "Fuck. FUCK!"
Caught up with his mounting frustration and fear, he didn't notice the creeping pain the spread from where their hands clasped together, or the way his heart started speeding up. Isabelle let out another soft cry and though he felt her nails digging into him he didn't let go. "We'll get help, we'll get help-" He kept saying, over and over as he kept trying to dial out. It wasn't until he felt the sharp, sudden pain in his chest that he realized something wasn't right. It was so intense he almost fell face first into the dirt, gasping for breath and she mirrored his sound. Mouth agape, he looked up at her again, but was unable to process what he was seeing now.
"Isa-" He only managed to get her name half out before another sharp agony ripped through him, this time enough to have him curling into a ball where he knelt. Her grip was tighter than ever, he managed to peer up at her again, and for a moment thought that she was dying- she was shaking, mouth and eyes wide open and strangled groans escaping from her throat, but her head, her arm, the jagged gashes and gaping wounds- were they- were they closing? It had to be trick, he thought, even as his own wounds suddenly seemed to tears open and bleed profusely, as his vision blurred and his head exploded into full born agony, all the way up until his heart finally gave out and he took his final breath.
Isabelle let go of his hand, her body alight with fresh, but dulled pain. The bleeding stopped, her arm, though still caught under the door, was whole again, and better yet she had never felt this fucking good in her life.
While the car still smoked and Isabelle was trapped, she could see a large black SUV pull onto the road right by her car's wreck. The doors of the massive black vehicle opened and a couple of men in full tactical gear quickly jumped out. Isabelle could barely make out bits of whatever they were saying into their communicators, everything sounded garbled and messy after the crash. She did hear the words 'perimeter', 'secured' and 'evidence' before another figure walked down from the car. From her vantage point, trapped under the door, she could only see a large man moving towards her, military boots stomping on the ground as he made his way down the ditch where the car was. There was a clicking sound and suddenly a loud bang, the man had shot Andrew's inert body squarely on the chest, where his heart would be. Before Isabelle could react, two more shots of the heavy pistol ringed out and Andrew's whole head pretty much exploded, only chunks of skull sitting on a mess of soft tissue remaining. "That should give them the roundabout." said the man whose face Isabelle could not yet see before he left out a chuckle. "Hey there girlie!" he added, leaning down so Isabelle could see his face. He was a man in his 40s, his face covered in the marks of old battles and menacing brown eyes. He had salt and pepper hair slicked back and a hint of a beard over a strong jaw. "Good to see you in one piece, not that we expected anything else." he continued, grinning as he waved the still smoking pistol in her general direction.
The euphoria that Isabelle experienced was short lived. She released Andrew's now limp hand, taking only a moment to wonder if she'd killed him,
but how?, before her attention turned to the SUV that pulled up. Her first thought was that someone was stopping to help them, that it might have even been someone from the funeral, but that notion flew far from her head when she watched armed men in full battle rattle get out. Her eyes widened.
What the fuck? One particularly large set of boots approached her and she held her breath. What was this? A kidnapping? Her father had a good job in the political field, but even she knew he was not a big enough fish to attract this kind of attention. A hit squad? That's what they looked like, just like in her games and all her favorite action movies. "Andrew?" She whispered, hoping now that he was alive still. He didn't move or speak.
She felt sick again, wondering if she'd managed to escape one death, because, hell, she knew somehow that she had been on the verge until Andrew grabbed her hand, only to face another. The shots caused her to jerk violently where she lay trapped, sending a sharp, shooting pain up through her right arm. Isabelle muffled the resulting cry of pain and closed her eyes, but not before getting the image of her now, most definitely dead boyfriend burned into her mind. Andrew's face was gone now, just a pulpy, bloody mess and it almost didn't look real to her.
"
That should give them the roundabout." Hearing him speak her jaw tightened, her eyes closing all the tighter, she tried to go limp, to act dead, but his next words made it clear that she wasn't fooling anybody.
Her eyes opened slowly and she looked back at him from her lopsided position in the sideways car, swallowing hard. Isabelle took in his face which filled her view almost entirely, not to be outdone of course by the gun he was waving about in front of her, and it took a moment for her to reply. "Who are you?"
"I'm a friend, Deary, a magical unicorn come to take you to a land of wonder." replied simply the man as he stood up and called towards the other two soldiers. "Lift the car." Isabelle heard him say simply. Suddenly, she could feel the car being rocked back and forth, the pressure on her trapped arm easing and becoming stronger intermittently. The tall man who seemed to lead the group reached over to her and grabbed the collar of her clothes. Finally, when the pressure on her arm was lowest, the man simply yanked her out from under the overturned car, dragging her across the floor and all the way up to the actual road. He showed as much care as tenderness as he would a sack of potatoes. "Do the thing." he then said to the commandos, and one of them quickly retrieved a gallon of gasoline from their SUV, dousing the car with it as the man pretty much tossed Isabelle onto the asphalt. "Name's Frag. I'm what you would call a Company man." he said simply, pulling out a cigarette. He placed the cigarette on his mouth and then held the tip of his index finger against the tip of the cigarette. With a small puff of smoke and sparks from his finger, the cigarette seemed to magically light up.
The fuck. Isabelle thought in response to his answer. Before she could start wondering what the hell was going on the car began to move. She let out a hiss of pain and gritted her teeth as the pressure rose and fell with the rocking of the vehicle, then let out a surprised grunt when she was suddenly, roughly jerked out of the car and dragged. Her feet kicked, seeking purchase, one foot bare, the other with her heel still attached, while the hem of her black dress rose too far up her legs. The indignity of it was enough to have her cussing a storm, but when they reached the rode she swore even louder, her voice laced with pain as her bare skin scraped along the pavement. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. LET ME GO!" When he finally did she was quick to jump up and yank her skirt back down, her face red as she glared up at him, stupid as it may have been after watching him put three bullets into her boyfriend and ordering the car to be lit on fire. Without looking away from him she reached down and pulled off her other heel, angrily throwing it in the direction of the burning vehicle before snapping: "What do you want from me?"
Standing over Isabelle with the cigarette, between his fingers, the man finally seemed ready to introduce himself, "The name's Frag, I work for some people who like mutants a whole lot." he said with a sardonic smile. "And we want you, dearest Isabelle." he said, his voice softening up as he looked her up and down. Though he seemed to be playing nice right now, Frag's eyes were those of a predator. It was a looking into the eyes of a tiger and knowing that any sudden motion could result in being torn apart. "I misspoke, they want your power, unless you can prove useful in other way." he added with a shrug. "Most of our kind in the east coast has either gone into hiding or ran under the skirts of the X-men, so we've had to.. ramp up, our operations." he grinned, pointing to the burning car in the ditch. "Now, if you promise to be a good girl and come quietly, I may play nice too."
Isabelle stared back, but the hair on her neck was rising; this guy was a fucking killer. Even she could see that look in his eyes and recognize it for what it was, as stupid as she often was. Still, she didn't move an inch from her spot in front of him, listening to his words as she felt eyes all over her and, when he finished, she let out a half-hearted scoff. "My power- you can fucking take it. It's never done me any good." Of course she had no idea what the implications of it was or that what just happened was a new faucet of that very power she detested so much, finally rearing its head. Something else had jumped out at her as well though.
The X-Men? Why does that sound familiar? Then it hit her. "Oh, you mean that school in New York? They don't know what the fuck they're doing."
"We intend to, lassie, but you come attached." replied Frag with a grin, leaning down and grabbing Isabelle's chin between his index and middle finger and pulling her up to look at him in the eye. "I think you're going to be singing a very different tune when you see how we'll go about taking it." he added with a grin. Letting go of Isabelle, the man waved over the two commandos, "Bag her and tag her boys, let's head home. No one get frisky during transport now, we're to deliver these puppies intact." As he turned around and began walking to the black SUV, the two men in balaclavas approached Isabelle, one had a black bag and the other a taser.
The girl's eyes widened as he forced her to look up at him, his ominous threat hanging over her.
What the fuck does he mean by that? Isabelle thought, fear taking hold now, as if she finally just realized that she was in deep shit. "No,wait-" But it was a little late. That worry turning to full blown panic when she saw the two,masked men approaching, that cliche black bag on one hand, the taser on the other.
Oh shit. Without thinking Isabelle turned and bolted, her bare feet slapping the pavement as she ran harder and faster than she ever had at her high school track meets.
The woods- I just gotta get into the woods-don't look back, just run- but even as she altered her direction to make a beeline for trees, she couldn't resist the urge to look over her shoulder and see if they were following, a decision that had immediate and disastrous consequences as she tripped and was sent sprawling into the dirt.
"Shit" said simply Frag with his arms crossed as the woman made a break for the woods, running past the two men who quickly turned around and started chasing her. Soon enough, however, Isabelle tripped on the asphalt and fell on the dirt next to the road, close to rolling into the ditch her car had fallen into. Soon enough, the two commandos were onto her, grabbing her by the arms and picking her up. "Ballsy, but stupid." said Frag as he approached her, he had taken out the heavy pistol that had turned her boyfriend's head into much and seemed to have been ready to shoot her leg off from under her should she continued running. "I was just about to blow your leg off, good thing you can regenerate, though." he added with a smirk. "Taker to the car." he said simply to the two Commandos who began to drag Isabelle back to the SUV. Only an instant later, however, he stopped the men. "Wait!" he said, stroking his chin, "...Better play it safe." he added with a nonchalant tone, taking a shot with the massive pistol. After the loud bang, Isabelle felt a pain unlike anything she had ever known coming from her left foot, or at least, where her left foot had seem, now a bloody stump with a few shreds of tissue and small chunks of bone hanging from it.
Isabelle grunted and pushed herself up, her cheek, hands, and knees scraped from the fall, and she would have taken off again if it hadn't been for the firm grasp that the commandos had on her arms as they lifted her back up and started dragging her back. "Goddammit let me go!" She demanded, desperately trying to pull free of the two who had a tight hold of her. Her brown eyes narrowed into slits as she glared at him, but it was easy to see the color draining from her face as he advanced with the pistol in his hand, and when she spoke up again her voice lacked the same venom and came out hoarse. "I don't know what you're talking about." But didn't she? Was that really her doing, her healing herself? She'd never been able to before but-
I was missing a key ingredient. She thought, picturing the confusion on Andrew's face again. Isabelle had stopped fighting as they lead her on, shuffling along and lost in her own head until Frag stopped them. She stared, brows furrowed, uncomprehendin
g, opening her mouth to ask what? when the gun went off and stars exploded in front of her eyes. At first she couldn't understand what had happened, couldn't even feel a thing, but her eyes were drawn inexplicably downwards. Where is my foot? Her jaw went slack, confusion marring her features, watching as the blood pooled out from where a limb should have been. Jesus Christ. Isabelle took in a long, slow, shaky breath, then started to scream.
"Don't worry girlie, we're gonna get you something to eat and heal up." grinned the man once more, ignoring her screams. "Wrap that up and shut her up would you?" he said. Suddenly, everything went dark for Isabelle as a black bag was slipped over her head. Before she could try to struggle more, she felt some cold metal poke her back through her dress and, with the sudden smell of ozone, a powerful electric shock knocked her out cold. Isabelle only came to when she felt some cold water splash her face. She didn't know how long it had been, her foot was still mostly missing, now that it was cleaner, she saw she had lost all of her toes and much of the front, leaving only her heel and some bloody strings handing off it. The pain was still horrible, but dull now, as a tourniquet around her calf had cut blood flow to the foot. "Easy now, only been an hour." she heard, as someone spoke to her from above. Her head was killing her and the floor was freezing cold. Everything felt cold. Her face, hair and dress were soaking wet from the water and she was in a concrete room with no windows to speak off, lit by cold electric lights from naked bulbs on the ceiling. On either side of the room was a line of strange looking, metal doors, looking as heavy as if they belonged in a vault. Frag was standing over her with an empty bottle of water and her hands had been bound with a pair of cuffs. "All good now? Don't worry, your foot will be fine, been little over an hour." he added as he waved his left hand at someone behind Isabelle. Behind her were the two thugs that had taken her into the SUV, they nodded as Frag motioned towards them and headed for one of the metal doors, one which had a red X painted on it.
Her eyes fluttered, not seeing anything at first, and letting out a long, shaky gasp that quickly turned into a sob as the cold and the pain dug its claws into her. She rolled her head side to side, eyes liquid with tears as she tried to make sense of what was happening and her teeth chattering violently. The icy water seemed to penetrate all the way down to her bones however, the worst of it was how her foot ached; it ached and ached but, she realized with an agonizing cry, that it shouldn't because it wasn't there. Isabelle spent a few more minutes crying and shaking before she even acknowledged the man standing over her. When she spoke, it came out strained and broken up with shuddering sobs, all the fight seeming to have gone out of her. "What do you want from me?"
Frag's attention had gone elsewhere while Isabelle sobbed on the floor, he supervised as his men opened the door with the red X and walked inside, the sound of belts and buckles being moved around could be heard inside. "Uhm?" he said simply as she asked her question, as if he had not been paying attention. "I thought I had already answered that." he said simply, then he asked one of the commandos who was just exiting the room, "Didn't I already answer that?". With his arms crossed, he sighed and simply answered, "As I said before, we want your power. However it is we can use it." Just as he finished saying that, the two commandos stepped out of the room holding onto a young woman wearing some sort of white, wet-suit-like getup. Her hair had been cut into a buzzcut but one could still see the blue on it. She had pale skin and looked very thin, but not malnourished. The two men approached Isabelle and tossed the unconscious woman before her, upon closer inspection, Isabelle saw she had a metallic collar around her neck and they had bored several metallic plugs directly into her skull. On the side of the collar was a kind of tag which read; Owden, Cecilia. Codename-Aqua, Water Manipulation, Xavier Mansion. Additionally, there was a date from almost a year ago on it. "Turns out our method is not as flawless as we though, you see?" grinned Frag, almost amused at the unconscious mutant before him. "We used this one's power too much and we seem to have sucked her dry. Eggheads didn't even think that could happen, but boy am I glad I'm out here." he added, pointing to the spot where he was standing, before he pointed to one of the metal doors "Rather than in there."
Isabelle stared up at him, her expression falling when he gave his response. His words didn't really make sense to her, she understood what he was saying, but not what he meant; not until they dragged out the body. "Oh God..." She whimpered, unable to tear her eyes from the woman in front of her. The skin, the collar, the things in her skull; she gagged, a wave of pain and fear induced nausea rolling through her, then heaved as what little that was in her stomach tried to make it's way out. They sucked her dry- her power. This wasn't some magic machine that you stepped in and ding! power gone, off you go now. She'd been here for a year- an entire fucking year. Even in her current state Isabelle knew to be horrified. Frag only confirmed how much she didn't want to be there when he said it himself, and with this full realization she seemed to snap more awake, resuming her sobbing as the words shot out of her. "No- no- please! I don't wanna go in there Frag- please-" She begged, rolling onto her stomach with a loud moan and attempting to wriggle closer. "I can- I- I can help! I can help! I'll-" She glanced to the nearly dead woman lying beside her with quivering lips and desperate eyes, then back to Frag, "I can spy on the school for you! I have a room there! I can- I can get information for you, I can help, please- please let me help you, let me work for you-" The desperate please tapered off into hopeless, wordless groveling and weeping at his feet, her head down and her body wracked with sobs.
"Good!" replied simply Frag, crossing his arms in front of his chest as Isabelle realized just what a precarious situation she was in. The man walked around the young woman while she squirmed on the floor, begging to be of use to Frag's organization. "Honestly this was a lot easier than I had feared, but I have to commend how malleable you are, quick and painless is the way to go, uh?" he added, looking almost like he may laugh. Stepping towards Isabelle, Frag placed the tip of the combat boots he was wearing under the unconscious woman's stomach and flipped her over with her foot, towards Isabelle. "You're not good to me with your foot mangled like that, though. Get it fixed."
Her eyes watched him as he circled her, feeling like an injured rabbit caught in a trap with a coyote staring down at her. Her teeth were chattering, making a loud clattering sound as Frag talked. All she could do was stupidly nod her head, her eyes following his every moment, wide and unblinking. Isabelle couldn't even bring herself to care that he was belittling her as she laid there cold and in agony on the floor, begging for her life. She couldn't didn't feel the shame or anger that she would normally feel, just sweet relief that she'd said the right thing to save herself. "Yes- yes- okay." Came her whimper, but she could only stare blankly when he rolled the woman over and Isabelle found herself face to face with the fate she now knew to fear. She looked from that pale gaunt face down to her foot and back again, she breathed heavily, she whimpered and started to cry a little, but in the end she reached out with a shaky hand and grasped the woman's shoulder. It happened more slowly this time, she could feel the energy pulsing inside of her, but it was slow and soft. Something inside of her though seemed to reach out and tug at it, draw it into herself and when she did the pain began again. Isabelle let out a loud, sharp cry as her foot began to grow back, the new nerve endings alight with pain. Her fingers dug into the woman as she rode it out, briefly catching site of the regrowth of her appendage and nearly fainting with the shock of it. However, she managed to hang on, whimpering as the process completed itself, as the bone and muscles and flesh reformed and, once it had finished, she could even feel that last little bit of life being pulled from the woman's still corpse.
Frag went quiet as Isabelle began to drain life from the unconscious mutant. Though the woman's powers had been spent, she was still very much alive and kicking, but barely discernible from a human at this point and thus of no use to the company. Standing before Isabelle, there were nearly imperceptible movements in the older man's face as she began regenerating the injury. A slight twitch of the brow or tug at the corner of his lips were all that showed Frag was actually kind of impressed at the speed of Isabelle's regeneration. Once she was done, Frag seemed to stop for a second, not saying anything but simply looking up to one of his men and nodding. The man walked over to where Isabelle was and, seemingly ignoring the mutant, knelt down and grabbed the corpse of the woman Isabelle had just drained. Grabbing under the dead woman's shoulders, he simply dragged her off outside, and out of Isabelle's visual range. "Good! Now that you're complete again I might have some use for you and your ability." said Frag grimly, continuing his circling of the woman, the combat boots clicking on the cold concrete floor with each step. "Just one last thing to take care of." he added nonchalantly while as he passed behind Isabelle. Suddenly stopping, he reached over to the woman and grabbed her face from behind, pulling her up until her head was about as high as his stomach. He placed his thumb on one of her cheeks and his fingertips on the other, squeezing her face slightly as he pulled her up. The woman felt him reach around for something, but held the way she was, she could not see him. Suddenly, there was a mechanical suction sound and she felt something pierce the skin on the back of her neck. For a split second there was a jutting, stabbing pain on the back of her neck and then it burned as if it had been set alight before Frag finally let her go. The pain was intense and overwhelming, but fleeting... soon after all that remained was a strange circular scar around the size of a quarter on the nape of her neck, the smell of burned skin and a throbbing, dull pain radiating from the back of Isabelle's neck.
Isabelle wasn't looking at Frag as she released her tight grip on the now dead woman, unable to stop staring at the lifeless body. There was a certain coldness inside of her now as she realized that she had just murdered someone, intentionally this time, for the second time that day. If it’s still even the same day. The girl had no perception of time in this cold, metal room and not the faintest idea of how long she’d been out. Her bleary eyes, red from the sobbing and begging for her life, turned to her freshly regenerated foot. If it wasn't for the blood splatter on her ankles she wouldn't have been able to tell that only five minutes ago it’d been just a bloody stump with some bone and tissue sticking out. She wriggled her toes with a frown, feeling as if it should hurt her considering what she’d done to get it back. Her gaze shifted to watch Frag as he circled her with the beginnings of hate in her eyes. When he suddenly grabbed her from behind she stiffened but didn't fight him, having already learned just how bad that could go for her, but it was hard not to struggle as her fear surged and then became impossible when pain tore through her neck like a jagged blade. She screamed again, her spine arching out, feet kicking and hands clawing at whatever they came in contact with. By the time he dropped her back down she shaking and panting, fresh tears brimming over her lower lids as she now openly glared up at him. Without thinking she reached around to the source of the new, throbbing pain and winced when she felt it. “What the fuck was that?” She whispered in a low, hoarse voice. Her hand dropped down and she pushed herself up from the floor on unsteady feet, turning to face him properly.
Frag had already started to walk off was Isabelle pushed herself up. With a smirk, the man showed her a sort of small, gun-like decide with a wisp of smoke coming out of the muzzle. "It's just so we can make sure you're putting your neck where your mouth is." replied Frag. At the same time, he turned around and lifted some of the hair on his back, showing her a small metallic dot, surrounded by some scar tissue, which had been embedded onto the back of his neck. Isabelle probably had the exact same thing on the back of HER neck right now. "I would suggest not messing with it at all, it's small but powerful, we've had some stupid would-be agents whose heads we had to retrieve in garbage bags before they decided they'd remove our little... 'loyalty implants'" he continued. "Come on, get up, dust yourself off. Let's get you cleaned up." he added, motioning her to follow as he walked towards the door.
The girl stood there for a long moment staring at him with an incredulous look, teeth gritted, then swallowing hard once he’d explained the function of the thing he’d implanted inside of her. There was a fucking explosive buried in her neck, a mother fucking bomb. Part of her wanted to reach back there, pull it out of her, and fuck all the consequences, while the rest of her struggled to squash that feeling down. A loyalty implant. Though she hadn’t yet realized she’d even been thinking of it, she now knew for sure that there was no backing out of this as soon as they let her loose. What the fuck have I gotten myself into? Even as she asked herself this she pictured the blown up car being blown up along with Andrew’s corpse and the comatose woman they’d dragged from the other room. Her shoulder’s slumping, Isabelle let her breath out loudly and began to shuffle along behind him, hands balled into fists and finding herself wishing that she had a fucking smoke.
Frag and Isabelle walked out of the concrete building they had been in, it revealed to be one of many similar buildings hidden in some underground area. The structures were very much like shipping containers, probably made so they could be moved easily. There were several large concrete columns among the "containers" which held up the the ceiling of the underground area. A couple of commandos accompanied them as they reached a wall at the end of the massive space, on it, there was an industrial cargo elevator on which Frag and the commandos quickly stepped on. "Now, let's talk a bit about what we'll have you do for us, shall we? After that you can take a shower and get a warm meal. We'll even get you a nice new outfit." grinned the older man as he held the door to the elevator open for Isabelle.
Feeling strangely numb, but surprisingly not at all tired, Isabelle followed Frag and looked around as they passed through the underground complex. It looked like something out of one of a movie, which was funny, because she'd always fantasied about being the badass hero in a situation like this. She even had the kind of ability she'd always wished she had; the ability to kill people with her bare hands. For some reason she found she couldn't muster up any excitement about the fact right now. As they stepped into the lift she cast a glance to the armed men going with them. "Are they really necessary?" She asked Frag deadpan without looking at him. "I mean, you just planted a fucking bomb in the back of my skull, if they're here to keep me in line it's kind of overkill at this point."
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