Test POV

How did I end up back here? The 2 years ago seem like forever. Had it really just been less than the peaceful decade I had hoped for?

I suppose so.

That day I was taken from the world and family I knew, forced into these once sterilised and busy rooms. Being marched between the lab and my cell, trying to reign in the nerves of my body throwing tantrums like awakened babies from their naps. A deafening symphony of pain and overwhelming sensation I would sit crying, slowly silencing them once more.

Whatever they did to me.. those syringes of angry substances forced into my tissue and muscles. Those hours spent exposed to a machine that hummed in waves you would feel with your hands and taste with scattered tastebuds on your tongue. 

It had nurtured something within my body I never knew could grow such a way. At first it felt empowering. I was stronger, quicker, more reactive. And I thought I'd fight my way out with ease any day then. But no, a coward I was, cowering in my cell, obeying their commands for those 4 years. 

And inside.. I could feel my body turning on me. As if it was dissatisfied with me, like I was the prison of its full potential. 

And so as it tried to expand within me, to break free, it's creators stuck me in the very same chair I lie in now. Tubes inserted into their designated and marked slots all across my chest and muscles, to suck out the Core's angry attempts to convert me to its element. In turn, this energy they extracted powered their machines. I was not only a test subject, a surrogate mother they birthed their creations within, and watched how it grew within my veins and bones, but a power source as well.

The Core they reconstructed within me.. it began to close its abilities off from me, only thrusting them upon me in unmanageable doses on maximum should I have tried to access them. I couldn't fight, least my body turn itself against me. To raise my eardrum sensitivity and sight to the point it hurt to hear my own breath or glance upon a surface. Every touch, a nuclear bomb upon my nerves. 

A failure I was deemed by them. A.. "Test", something they would learn from for next time. It's sad to say it's all I clung to as my identity. During that time I could not remember from where I came or who I had been before I was forced to be "F-2". Though since my escape it's been slowly dripping back into my conscious memory. 

And I remember Ginn. How he had taken me down with no warning, zero signs or aggression or motives of harm. But yet again by his encounter, I wind up here again.

Haha...

The only reason I ever managed to escape before.. oh Drapus, I hope Ginn hasn't hurt you too. I pleaded to whoever was listening the reason of your disappearance to be your own shenanigans and not something of concern.

That day you broke free from their chains. I saw them prepare you upon the table, ready to repeat the same procedure I received on you. I couldn't stand the thought of some poor innocent creature being subjected to that sort of chaos and hurt. You didn't seem afraid as I approached. Perhaps because I was relatively younger than the men who dragged you in, or perhaps you could smell my fear and motives as I loosened the bolts holding the chains in place.

I guess most of those scientists were not made aware of your arrival sooner as they seem shellshocked, rooted in place as we made a run to the door. I tried my best to fight along your side. Though I offered little to nothing compared to the columns of flames you spat.

I glance towards the path I'd have to take to rejoin that old escape run. It seemed so long ago... but not long enough.

Drapus isn't here. And I remain just as uselessly bound to their machines as I had been years before.

And worst of all..

I tilt my chin towards the Core fragment extractor. Where they used to suck out energy by submerging pieces of things pixelized by the Core, Leif now stared terrified within it's glass walls.

Why her of all people? A mere child... dragged into a place like this.

Water has her straining on the tips of her feet, chin angled upwards as she struggled to keep her face above the surface. My heart ached watching an innocent child struggle for her life, no doubt drowning in fear and confusion. What did she do to deserve to end up here?

Nothing.

That was just how things go. Innocents get hurt, villains run free. It all comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The physical throb of my heart took my attention. It was sucking up the being hibernating within me the past couple years.

"They gave me my core, and they knew how to take it away." I couldn't help but smile. I don't know why. Perhaps everything just felt so sad it became funny. Maybe I wanted to offer some sort of false assurance to Leif. Maybe it was my own form of gritting my teeth as the tubes dug deeper and deeper into my core.

I winced hearing her sputter and attempt to speak between gasps lapsed with water. "What's a core? Why did those mean people give it to you? Why are they using it to hurt you like this now?"

Good question.

I look to Ginn, the boy who now stood a man before me. Already as a boy doing those things, how they horrified me. Now.. it seemed sad to see him turn out this way. 

Did he know? Why I was chosen that day to be a lab rat? Did he choose me? Or simply following orders?

I wish I knew.

Silence indicated his lack of willingness to provide an answer to her. Instead I answered from what I knew.

"The bad people who ran this place wanted to learn about this powerful thing called a core. They come from those rips. And they decided to put it into people to see how it worked. And.." 

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

A jerk within me caused every fibre of my being to freeze up. That thing... the core...

It was breaking apart, right there, within me.

Every part of me it had latched on to now shook to their very molecular forms. A sharpness seized my insides, as if rough concrete bricks were forming in my arms and chest.

It seemed this energy harvest was my last. The battery that was my body was expiring. Then..

A bubble of laughter choked from my throat as my chest flickered white, a square.. like a computer pixel rising out from within me.

"Sward? What's going on with him?" I heard Ginn demand in a rollercoaster of volumes. My ears were going both ways with sensitivity, hearing muffled murmurs and the very creaking strain of me as I shook in place. Like my core was scrabbling in desperate attempt to retain a hold on me. 

The pain was immense. But I could not stop myself from cackling. How could I not? This thing... that once held my senses hostage, so powerful and stuffed with infinite energy was finally giving out. Just in time too.

"Leif!" I managed to cough out amidst my laughter. "Whatever happens, you have to run, okay? Find Storm and hide under the Gladion!"

I'm the only thing they have to power this machine. And I'm breaking before their eyes. 

Right time... right place.

I give a grin of victory as agony continued to writhe about in all folds and corners of my skin and tissue. Though yet a sadness washed over me, realising the only way I could help her now.. was such a horrid thing for anyone, much less a young girl, to witness.

"TEST?!" I managed to catch her gargled screech, no doubt struggling to comprehend what she saw. 

Ginn seemed to realise the predicament about to unfold and cast me an uncaring glance of disappointment. As if my early demise only inconvenienced him. But even so.. if I could buy a little more time for her..

"Leif.." I tried to retain a smile as I felt my face prick apart into pixels. "I'm sorry you had to see this."

I notice her slipping within the water that now glowed with golden tendrils of mist that unfurled from her. Erratically she shuddered, bubbles an irregular stream fleeing her lips. 

A seizure?

As if thinking of the word summoned it, my body gave a violent jerk, i rocked so suddenly I could have sword my lungs were thrown out. When I glanced down to check, there was a gaping, ever increasing hole in what once was my chest.

"Ha...ahgghk.." My vision was flooding with white. Noise drowned out as i felt a final tug within me.

Then all I saw was light.

There was no more pain, no more sensation. Just an abyss of white.

Swift POV

Wait... this is...

I look about at the familiar suroundings of the woods across Ferdun Town.

The first thing I noted was that I could see. And upon clear inspection of my hands I could affirm I was indeed not dead.

How could this be?

A warm yet icy pulse tingled my neck where my scarf lay secured. I grabbed the loose end and began to examine the ebroidery.

Where was the past? Drexan, Ginn.. all that.

Is this back to the beginning?

....
Ah.. I see.

A rewrite.

Should I contact Trunio about this?

I hear not the sound of Storm noisely trunging through the woods but a horrific scream cut short.

It came from that old base...

Leif? No. The scream was too low to be a female's much less a young girl. A man then?

I was confused. What part of the past was this?

Perhaps I should check the town if Pax and the rest are still there or-

Saurus...

...

Well this was going to get awkward.

Whoever has brought us back to the past clearly wants things to change.

But for the sake of what I know so far, I will keep things going as I remembered them.

I leap up a tree and break my head above the canopy. I turn in every direction until I see the clearings indicating the town.

Swiftly I close the distance with leaps and bounds memorized by practice over decades.

I have walked this path before and I can do it again.

I speed myself up, the air following in my accelerated time.

In what could be mere moments I have broken through to the town. I glance about and see the medic tent.

So the tournaments are still happening then?

Oh cool they have a new battlefield.

"Where the heck is she?!"

Ah. There's no mistaking Storm's voice.

...

I missed her.

I spot her storming out the medic tent with Pax following suit.

"Why would you let her go off alone with some dude??" Storm barks at the healer.

"Actually, you're the one who beckoned her to go." Pax responded.

Oh. So Leif's gone. But she wasn't taken by force this time I suppose.

"Something's definitely wrong. Talking plants or no, she wouldn't be out there alone with some guy this long!" Storm steals a glance at the tournaments but keeps her pace towards the woods.

"How do you know? She might be.. having a good time.. or she got carried away." Pax interjects.

"Look, I've known her for two.. three years now. She's my best friend. I think I would know her limits, even if she doesn't know them herself." Storm grew quiet seconds before she disappeared through the line of bushes.

I drop down from my perch in the trees and follow after, remaining a good distance from her to avoid being fried.

Let's see how this plays out. Maybe we'll even get a happy ending.

×¥/•[Jixh*^£(¥ POV

So. This is it huh? You really are going to change the story?

A rewrite you say? But you know he follow you here. Whatever you change he can relive and mess in too.

Oh you know? Well, Author, don't mind me saying you're a complete idiot. But then again, maybe you do have a plan to deal with him and all this. Younsks

Ushs
O

Ahgh. Right... this isn't my point of time.

Whatever. Keep playing this game. Follow this plan you've no doubt crafted in that sick head of yours. I'll be waiting in the present day to see how much you changed or screwed up massively.

But even now, staring at you through this screen I can firmly predict we aren't going to get a happy ending.