Kick POV

I was already confused when we got to a weird abandoned.. base thing. Even more so wondering what Zoe- Sonya was doing leading a kid to a place like this.

Was Test really here?

The moment the door opened, a sick feeling grew heavy in my chest.

I don't think that man is Test.

I look to Sonya for a reaction of answer, but she seems to be at ease with this grey man. In fact, they seem to have an unspoken understanding between them as they look back down to the cowering Leif.

She looks absolutely dumbstruck and terrified. Does she know him? However they met, must have been a pretty bad experience.

The man produces a gun, as casually as one might wave to a friend, and gestures silently for her to go in. Leif turns briefly, seeking my eyes for help. 

Sonya raises her hands, showing her palms to both me and Leif. 

My heart sank lower. This was who she worked with.

What happened to that sweet annoying sister of mine? How could she have ended up doing this sort of filthy work?

But maybe this was a result of my own faults, the consequences of me failing to find her, letting her grow up under who knows what sort of influence to lead her here.

I had to find out who did this to her.

"Do you know that man?" I looked straight into Sonya's eyes, un easing her. "What are you up to?"

"That man saved my life." Sonya responds bluntly. "You said you wanted me to tell you where I came from? Ginn knows all that I know and don't."

Ginn, I assume, looks to me after passing Leif off to a paler green guy. 

"Why are you concerned with where she came from?" His voice is difficult to read, his thoughts hidden behind the shades that obscured his eyes. I could not tell if he was irritated, upset or curious. 

"She looks.. like.." A wave of chills roll down my spine. His gaze, blind to me, searing into my body. He pulsates a sense of power, an earned respect from that green man and Sonya. I cannot help but feel somehow below him, despite my height placing me above. "I think she might be my sister. I.. lost her.. years ago, to a fire."

His silent stare propels an urge to keep talking.

"I c-couldn't find her.. I thought she had died with my parents." I blabber on. "But Sonya... she looks like my Zoey. My little sister.. I was supposed to protect.."

At the mention of the name "Zoey", I feel the brunt of judgement falling upon me.

"What's your name?" He asks.

"My name is Kick Seron." I reply. "And.. my sister is Zoey Seron."

A pause of thoughts.

"If you do not speak of or interfere with our business with her," Ginn waves a hand in Leif's direction. "I believe we can discuss this further."

~~~

Leif POV

"I told you."

"I told you."

"I told you!"

"I TOLD YOU!"

I'm squeezing my eyes shut as I'm herded through the empty cold corridor. Sward says nothing as we walk.

I know, Wither. I know. I just thought...

"What? That it was okay to trust Kick and that Sonya person? That it was okay to trust a man? To trust at all?"

I'm sorry.

She doesn't say anything after that.

We pass through a room filled with weird things made of shiny metal. Most are coated in webs and dust, while some have been kinda dusted off. 

I sneeze.

"Storm? Leif?"

I perk up immediately at the coarse voice. My eyes rake the room before I notice him on a bed chair thing.

"Test!" I cry in joy and horror at the same time. 

I'm overjoyed and relieved to see him here and okay. But yet, a set of tubes and wire thingies have been thrust into his chest and parts of his body, mostly the shoulders and elbows. 

My stomach twists looking at him and I shrink back, feeling a little queasy. 

His eyes flash with regret, a sadness for what's about to happen. He looks so.. accepting  of the situation, like he's been here before, and knows he can't escape it.

But what? What does he know will happen? And why?

"Test?" 

"Sorry Leif," He interrupts. "You need to get out of here. Get back to Storm, and run away from here. You might have to seek protection from the Gladion."

"What about you?" I ask. "Why are Ginn and those people trapping us here? What are they doing to you?"

A prod into my back propels me forward, towards a glass cylinder thing. Sward prompts me to step in before tapping a box next to it, causing the door to slide shut.

I've tried, since Ginn appeared in the door, to call Gem out. But I still haven't gotten the hang of it yet, and she doesn't respond. Maybe those other times were because we were in immediate trouble? Spur of the moment?

Please, Gem, I really need your help. I plead silently. Please wake up... we have to get out of here.

That familiar sensation tingled my senses, though much fainter than when she had moved on her own before.

"You're not generating enough energy for me to use." I heard Gem quietly mutter. 

"Huh?" My eyes flickered to the side of my hair where Gem had stuck herself in before this.

"Humans generate life energy, no matter how slow." Gem explains, a tinge of tired irritability. "Since you've become Chosen of Life, Grenendaris has established a connection to you. So you'll be generating more than the typical human. I need that energy to be able to move around and change my form for you. Really any plant you give enough of your energy to can start moving and stuff. But of course, you need to be generating lots of it, which I'm sure, eventually you will over time. But for now.. I doubt I can help you much."

I barely register her words, but through energy, I somehow understand. But what now? What can I do?

"Sward please.. we met before when we were kids!" I try to talk to him, pressing myself flat against the glass. "Remember? You and Storm were there that day.. when.."

"When the world was nothing but fear and agony."

"Alan.. Mister Orvil." It hurts to speak his name, as if the words themselves were dragging and scraping the inside of my throat to be spoken. "When he tried to drag me out of the house... you and Storm came.. you stopped him. You helped us... Saved me."

Sward's face is stiff but a sense of sadness twists beneath it.

"You aren't a bad person.. you want to help others, like you helped me... and you helped Storm when she first found out about her powers." I push on. "You sparred with her. And you said you were going to the City to maybe join the military and protect people. What happened?"

"What do you know." He murmured, though meant to be harsh, I heard it filled with sadness. "You're just a little kid. Storm was right about you, you always seemed so... different. So childish and naive. And even now, you're still acting like a kid."

I'm confused.

"Things in the City.. are confusing." Did he read my mind? "You think everything's all black and white and its easy to protect the people from the bad guys but.."

His hand plays on the hilt of his sword.

"You get there... and everything's grey. It's all different greys you can't tell whats white and black. You can't tell who you're supposed to protect, and from who." He glances at the door. "And some times you need to do bad things to create something good."

Ginn slips through the door.

"I'm sorry. But you just came into the picture at the wrong time." He starts to move away from me, towards Ginn. "And that's how it is in life."

"Kick is with Sonya." Ginn explains her absence. "They'll be joining us later."

"Yes sir."

"Are things ready?" He steals glances at Test and me, which makes me back away from the glass, a little scared.

Sward looks over at some boxes with flashing lights and buttons, peering at a side of it that dimly glows under his tapping. He passes Ginn a nod.

He moves before the glass and I back up further. He looks through it to stare at me, as if he'd forgotten I was there in the first place. 

"It's unfortunate you had to be there." He murmured before tapping something at the side of the cylinder thing I'm stuck in.

I hear a hiss behind me before water pours in from some holes opening around the space. I squeak a little from the sudden cold as it starts to swamp my feet. 

"I'm afraid I know no other means to extract energy from you to unlatch that connection of being Chosen you claimed." I couldn't tell if that was real sadness or a monotonous false apology as the water level began to rise. "Life energy disperses in water. So to separate you from what I need, it seems pretty obvious what must be done."

I'm feeling a panic rise in my chest. Of course the natural terror of being faced with certain death. But an additional, awakening feeling.

I can't die again. Not like this.

The night of Wither and my birth jolted through my memory, being trapped beneath the rolling currents of the river that twisted Lief relentlessly. Her struggles and our first thoughts as two.

The flash of light that was followed by a shockwave so painful and powerful it seared through our mind, cleaving our consciousness into our individual halves. Tearing the drowned Lief into me and Wither. 

Linda told me I had died that night. But by some miraculous force.. maybe the mercy of a greater being, our body was returned life, left to us now, the past whole person we once were no where to be seen. 

That energy... now it seemed so familiar..

As water sloshed around my chest I started to knock on the glass, desperate to find a way to get the door to open and let me out of this repeat of the past. 

That same energy I swore flooded our senses before our drenched body breathed once more with renewed life, now was snaking out from me in the water. I could feel myself growing weaker, more tired..

"What's happening?" I gasped, trying to keep my neck above the rising level.

I watched the gold tendril mists get sucked through a tube thing, glowing in the pipes that ran along the walls of the room. 

Test's cries caught my attention, his chest where the tube stuck through blared an intense red before starting to dim.

"This old place ran on energy from a Core." Ginn explained. "My past employer told me many things about these bases. And luckily for me to come across Test, I found the technology they had for their experiments surrounding him. Including how to power their machines from what they fused into his body. And that means the very Chosen Energy extraction machine you're in right now."

"What are you talking about?" I knew Test had escaped from some bad people who did mean things to him.. but this was scary. And... more real.

Test shared a sorry look in my direction. "Sorry Leif. I can't really move like this. If I could, I'd get us both out of here."

He smiled in the midst of his pain. "They gave me my core, and they knew how to take it away."

The water was grabbing at my chin and I lifted it to keep it over. I was getting really tired.. was.. the water glowing?

"Core?" I sputtered, confused and trying to swallow the terror that grappled me with heaviness. "What's a core? Why did those mean people give it to you? Why are they using it to hurt you like this now?"

Test looked at Ginn as if seeking to see if the gunman wanted to answer my question. With his silence, Test responded.

"The bad people who ran this place wanted to learn about this powerful thing called a core. They come from those rips." The rips.. I remember... thats what made the bright light and shockwave that night. "And they decided to put it into people to see how it worked. And.." 

Test glared at Ginn. "I was caught and they tried it on me. They called it Core reconstruction. And it made me stronger. But..."

He froze, as if suddenly realising something.

A weird sound came from his chest as it flickered white, a weird square rising from it.

He looked stunned, in pain.. but... he laughed.

Ginn looked annoyed and concerned for what this meant. "Sward? What's going on with him?"

"Leif!" Test choked amidst his laughter. "Whatever happens, you have to run, okay? Find Storm and hide under the Gladion!"

His outburst of laughter dropped to a sad but victorious smile.

With another weird sound, his chest started to break into little squares. They floated away before flickering out of view.

"TEST?!" I screeched in shock. 

Ginn seemed to realise whatever was happening quickly and regarded Test with a solemn and disappointed expression.

"Leif.." His smile wavered as his face began to distort in those odd white squares and rectangular shapes. "I'm sorry you had to see this."

I was completely submerged in the water still swirling with the gold energy I seemed to be giving out. Is this the energy Gem had told me about?

Memory rang again in my head as it sang with panic. I couldn't help but fall into a vicious mental cycle... reliving that night. Bubbles frothed from my mouth and my head pounded. My face felt like it was burning..

"NO!"

I'm so... scared..

The world is shaking. My body feels like I'm being thrown about in every direction and shaken around. I try to keep my sight trained on Test, whom I cannot hear anymore.

I think I'm screaming? But its underwater and really hurts. It feels like snakes running through my body, it thrashes around and I can't control it.

The next time my head stops spinning in halves and I can see clearly without any blurry spots, I'm lying on the ground of the cylinder space. I'm trembling, but it's not as bad and crazy as before when I was drowning. My hair clings to my face, drenched and I sputter a few mouthfuls of water. 

My hands gather under me and I shakily push myself in a hunched over position. I nearly fall back down, my arms feeling so soft and flimsy. I feel so tired.. 

I manage to lean against the glass to stay upright and try to peer outside.

"Okay. Leif, switch out. Now." 

My vision is being covered with dots of blue. I feel the petals extend over my eyes in the place of tears, obscuring my sight.

"T.." My face flushes with warmth, making the blue flowers grow faster over my eyes. "Test..."

I can feel Wither's grip on me, trying to tug me away from control.

"Leif." She pleads in a soft command. 

I close my eyes and press my flower flooded face against the glass, dropping a few more petals as I cry. Despite the hiding of the sight before me, I've already seen him. And his image burns painfully in non perfect clarity in my mind as I shudder with sobs.

His eyes hollowed squares... and the huge gaping hole in his chest, as if something with blocky teeth took a big bite out of him. The tubes seen stuck into him before lay strewn across his gut and the floor, with nothing to grab onto.

I slip into hiding, falling back into Wither's arms. She hates it, but she takes my place. So I can hide from the outside.