First Sin: The Runaway Experiment (Pt. 5)

---Mercer ---

“Can’t let him waste time with us when those fuckers are fleeing.” He sighed, before setting the unconscious girl down behind a car and just out of sight of both the elevators and Vigilance.

Pulling out a roll of bandages and then his knife, he dragged the blade along his arm. Not deep enough to bleed him out, but enough to get some blood flowing for his act.

He then proceeded to smear his blood on the bandage before carefully wrapping it around his head in a way that looked like it was to staunch a head wound, while also covering just enough of his face to conceal his identity while also avoiding too much suspicion.

Unfortunately this meant that he was stuck with only his bad eye uncovered, since Vigilance hadn’t seen his face with the scar that a bit more blood made appear new rather than years old. That wasn’t to say he couldn’t still see out the eye, but its vision was notably more blurry than what his good eye could perceive. (Which means if this goes south I’m going to have to tear the bandages off.)

He could just tell that would end in disaster.

Shaking his head and smearing a bit more blood here and there, he picked the girl back up by throwing one of her arms over his shoulder rather than actually carrying her. Something he hoped would both throw his height off and make him look significantly weaker than Vigilance knew him to be.

With his disguise in place he inhaled and exhaled quickly to build up a sort of panicking gasping, before stumbling his way towards the fighting duo.

“S-Sam!” He called in an off pitch voice, knowing what that name would do to Vigilance’s headspace.

Both Vigilance and the girl stopped before glancing his way, neither actually taking their eyes off the other.

“Sam, I-I got her.” He gasped, showing the girl in his arms.

“B!” The girl yelled, completely disregarding Vigilance as she rushed towards him before fretting over the girl.

(Rookie mistake.) He internally grimaced, glad that Vigilance wasn’t taking advantage of the opening to take her down. Something he knew the Mask wouldn’t hesitate to do if he was in one of his more antagonistic moods.

“F-fuck!” The girl cursed upon seeing the apparent B’s condition, her voice cracking in a way he hadn’t heard during any of their previous exchanges. “W-what did those fuckers do to her?”

“They, they had her strapped to this, this big sparking machine.” He told her, purposely breaking himself up as if this was more stressful than any other day on the job.

“That fucking thing?!” The girl growled her eyes flashing red, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “I’m going to fucking kill every last one of them!”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He noticed Vigilance subtly shifting closer, and he shook his head, pretending not to notice. “You, you won’t have time, they’re, they’re abandoning their base right now!”

“Who is?” Vigilance cut in.

He jumped before making his eyes go wide as he got a good look at the older Mask. “Your, your V-Vigilance!” He gasped in an awed way that he would never use should they meet mask to mask.

The older mask narrowed his eyes. “You said someone is abandoning their base. Who is?”

He blinked and then pointed at the hero. “You, you can stop them!” He pretended to realize, before beginning to ramble the same way some of the more helpful victims would in a crisis. “Look, I, I don’t know who these guys are, I was just looking for a story. I, I work for the gazette, heard some rumors and ran into S-Sam. Thought this was my big break, but, but fuck this was so much worse than I was expecting. Should’ve, should’ve just called Sanctuary, or maybe they’re on the cut if they’re really here… but no they can’t be.”

“They can’t be who?” Vigilance pressed to try and get him back on track.

“I…” He swallowed. “I heard these rumors, unrelated to what got me in this mess, that a few decades back Asylum built these underground bunkers in every city they were based out of.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s really them, but that is a big fucking bunker, with a lot of f-fucked up experiments going on in there!”

“Asylum.” The older mask repeated quietly, his mind likely flashing back to the shit show that was the end of the Rift Riots when he and several other heroes had helped with the clean up of those monster’s labs.

And while he knew this place was nowhere near that bad, it was still close enough that he had no problem using the older man’s memories to send him after them.

“How did you get in and out?” Vigilance asked him.

“There’s, there’s this elevator hidden in the wall over there.” He explained pointing at the way they came from. “I saw a guard coming out from there when Sam started his rampage.” He lied, hoping to draw more comparisons with the real Sam’s rampage.

The older mask pulled something out of his belt and clicked several buttons on it. “Wait here, and stay out of sight. I’ve called a medic and backup to deal with whatever is happening here.”

With that Vigilance turned towards the elevator to try and catch whoever he could, leaving Mercer with a massive sense of relief that his acting skills were still up to the task.

“You’re just letting me go? After all of that?” The girl asked apparently unable to (keep her fucking mouth shut!)

The older Mask paused for a moment, “If what you say is true, and given the circumstances it likely is. Then I can allow this incident to slide, but,” Vigilance glared over his shoulder, “if you kill anyone else in this city I will hunt you down myself. Regardless of your dietary needs. Especially, since the hospital will be more than capable of helping you find an alternative.” (Or rather you’d anonymously give them an alternative.)

With his piece said, the Mask moved on to hunt more serious monsters, leaving them alone in the parking lot as the elevator doors shut behind him.

“Alright, we don’t have much time before whichever Vigil he called gets here. We need to get moving or there are going to be a lot of problems for both of us.” He told the girl in his real voice as he picked B up into a proper carry.

“What?” The girl frowned, stepping into his path before he could take B with him.

“Look, I know Vigilance means well, but he also doesn’t accept how fucked the system really is, or what will happen to you if you get to the hospital and someone notices you’re a Malcontent.” He tried to explain. “Meaning we need to get out of here before Sanctuary or one of Vigilance’s sidekicks tries to get themselves involved.”

The girl glared at him, likely trying to decide whether she should stay or go with him, before nodding. “What’s the plan?”

“Right, first things, first we get Bell here to a healer. They fucked her up bad and I know someone who’ll help us and should keep quiet about it.”