Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade or Death Note.

Warnings: Rated for Mature content of all kinds.

A/n: Okay! Just a few things. Firstly, this story is completely AU, so no one who reads it has to know anything about Beyblade or Death Note, I swear! If you wanna know what any characters look like, you can just google it. This story comes about from my desperate need to write a science fiction story, I wrote a horror and then I wanted to do this and I have brainstormed it to death, I promise. This story has a plot! And yaoi! What else could a fan girl ask for???? Or fan boy!?? I really hope people give it a chance! And any questions that are not vital to the plot I will answer if you ask! I hope anyone reading enjoys it!

The Loudest Sound

One - The Chemicals Between Us

The Year 3100

Many, many years into a future, at which one time human’s had speculated about and had theories and dreams that involved evolutionary space travel and worlds of technological advancements…many, many years into the future had now become a mud ball planet inside of a small solar system which is part of a massive galaxy which is a part of a universe with billions of other galaxies of great significance it was supposed…sadly on Earth there was nothing significant going on…

Earth had become a planet that was eaten alive by the very organisms which had intelligence, the planet was fairly the same as it was many centuries ago, except with a further depleted ozone layer, which was no longer really sufficient to keep human’s breathing and advances in synthetic food since the soils and land became infertile and animals ceased to exist. It was murky and mostly the weather was unpredictable in the haze of smog that covered the land when it didn‘t rain for days, but over all, human’s lived the same as they always did…dwindling and hanging on...being parasites and using up what little the planet had to give them.

However…while their dreams had once depicted that they would have massive air ships for outer space travel and be able to teleport and other such incomprehensible things, none of it had panned out, it was not so much that they had not tried but more because they had put all of their effort into human advancement to withstand the lack of oxygen and overwhelmingly filthy atmosphere.

The Cyborg was created for the first time…succesfully.

It had begun as a method of keeping human’s alive, undergoing cybernetic transplants in order to keep the species from going extinct. Human’s at their prime and final growth ages, between 16-20, were taken for these enhancements. But many died, especially females, who were far weaker and in time of pregnancy failed to keep healthy and breathing. In this way scientists had to think ahead, and as time went on, genetically ‘perfect’ humans, woman and men, were then chosen and from ages as young as 4, operations to their physical were done and continued on until they were of age.

Still…far too many human’s died, the process was testy in itself, but ultimately…people were dying because of the atmosphere even before they could get to the age of cybernetic enhancement. Around the year 2500, the population was less than half and people were moving into closer more livable area’s in the world, but by now, babies had been surviving births and people had started adapting as best they could to the world as it was. Although a frighteningly unpleasant sight a natural human is…

With the world suffering, like in any scenario with beings of free will, there came many religions and many rebellions. There came a government…or well, it was always there, it was just now at the centre of the picture for all to see. Taking woman to be artificially inseminated by selected genetically and un-tampered male human semen, the tight knit government began the process of successful procreation and human breeding, it took several years naturally and in that time more technological advances and discoveries were tested and utilized.

It resulted in most of the healthy babies being raised in the ‘Government Empire’ and then later undergoing 70% cybernetic transplants, making them just barely part human.

This was the way of the world for years, and after the cyborg humans were completely done, they were sent into the defect world to live, and they did. Criminals…murderers….rapists…terrorists…were all rife but they lived below level among the filth, essentially fixed to survive the conditions but left with nothing.

By the year 3060 the population of the world was roughly 60 million, which was a massive drop from the almost 6 billion that had once lived on the planet. Deaths were prevented by the cybernetic enhancements, which stopped age, taking away the bodies natural aging processes and replacing it with machinery, the only time death occurred in a cyborg being, was when they were damaged irreparably and had no access or funds to pay one of the rare cyber mechanics, which really only operated in the ‘higher’ areas, but it wasn’t too often, they’d adapted and came stock with a basic self repair manual.

The humans were concentrated throughout the continents once known at Europe and Asia, years after global warming had washed away a large part of the livable land, it became the cleanest and most suitable place…for a while anyway and truthfully when looking at world map in the new age, the world was unrecognizable.

Closer to the present year in which I’ve brought you…a revolution of sorts happened. Among those who cared or had access to great land at the very top of the former European continent…someone came to be known…a genius. Who very quickly had loyal followers and over threw the ‘Government Empire’ becoming the new Lord of the world…with him came a turn of the century…

But…alas…whilst all of that was happening and before it really does become a part of this story, I’m going to start in a small lower part of ‘Former Europe’, a grungy scaly and barely livable part of the world, were two people, who evidently didn’t even know how much they knew, were idling in the decaying world they existed in.

Tala ran his thin fingers very slowly and delicately along the shaft of the 30 caliber rifle he had propped up on the old wooden table, as if he were caressing it, the butt of the gun resting against his bare taught lower abdomen as he sat hunched in the old chair, a cigarette hanging from between his lips, spilt at the top with dried smeared blood running to the corner of his mouth.

His ice colored barely blue eyes however remained trained on the slightly taller man, standing across the room, his blonde hair sat shoulder length and stuck to his bare neck and face as he stared harshly through the grubby window, which offered no view, just caked dust and the blurred sight of raindrops on the other side.

Tala’s hair was wet as well, as was his leather pants which stuck uncomfortably to his thin legs and made the flesh prickle and itch as the time passed and he sat there, staring and waiting, his thin fingers trailing all the way back to the stock of the long powerful weapon and slowly back up, but he stopped when the blonde shifted, his blue eyes sliding to look at Tala, between very narrowed pale eyelids, thin black fine hairs lining the blondes eyes closed together as he blinked for a split second.

“Care to tell me what happened, Mello?” Tala piped up when he blonde didn‘t actually say anything, his voice was quiet and not very deep unlike the blonde who had a more intimidating tone of voice. He received no answer and Mello looked back to the window,“I shot him…but he got up.” Mello spoke and brought his thin muscled arms to cross his pale chest.

“You didn’t use a very powerful weapon…” Tala informed, clicking the small switch on the gun and slipping it open loudly, Tala’s blue eyes fell to the table and the opened box of large bullets that lay in front of the gun, next to a half empty bottle of beer.

“Humans don’t fucking need a powerful shot to be wounded!” he raised his voice and Tala fell silent and leaned forward to reach two bullets.

Mello’s breathing was all that could be heard until he turned, his boots scraping the floor loudly when he did, his eyes fell on the red head. He stared as Tala ignored him, eyes downcast on the task of reloading the rifle and parts of his red hair sticking to his face while the rest remained above his head in a shock of blood red. Mello watched the gun click closed and Tala sighed and sat forward, raising the gun and placing it down leaning against the table, he sat forward and grabbed the beer bottle, only meeting Mello’s eyes when he tipped his head back to drink.

When he lowered he bottle again and it touched down a bit loudly on the wood, his scraped his nails against the beer label as he watched Mello,

“You think he’s a cyborg?” he asked the inevitable question which he thought was ridiculous, since cyborg’s were sparse in this era.

Mello clucked his tongue and busied himself with unzipping the tight leather waistcoat from his lean frame, pulling it off roughly and Tala could see that somehow, Mello believed it was possible they’d found another cyborg like themselves, which worried them, they‘d come here to get away from cyborg‘s.

When he started pulling open the ties at the front of his leather pants he moved through a doorway to find the small shitty bathroom of the old cheap flat and Tala stood up, his iron toed boots knocking loudly against the old wooden floor as he walked, not to mention he weighed far more than regular human so his weight strained the floor boards.

He stood in the door way and leaned against it, his eyes on the floor as he heard the old shower start up, the pipes rattling and groaning,

“The chances are slim…” he looked at Mello now, as he stood naked and still, under the water, “…even slimmer that he is a model like us…50% human, these days they come with more machine than man. Did he-?”

“Not that I saw…” Mello answered before Tala finished and he started rubbing his hands against his skin, “…but it wouldn’t be hard to check, we could go back to the docks and check for blood.”

Tala found himself nodding as he ran his hands up through his damp hair,

“I’ll wait till your done, then we’ll leave…yeah?”

Mello spat out some water he’d swiveled in his mouth and pulled his wet hair over his shoulders,

“Your not going to shower…you’ve been out all night…and your bloody.” he called to Tala who was just outside the door, coincidently touching the bullet graze wound on his upper left arm, there was barely any bleeding from his highly sensitive flesh covering, no nerves had been severed and he knew it’d heal, so he shrugged,

“I’ll just stitch up the flesh…fuck it…I’m gonna get cold and wet again anyway…” he said and just in time as a crack of lighting drowned out his voice and sent a flash of white through the dimly lit flat which shook just a second later with the thunder.

Tala’s hair’s stood on end at the static reaction to the electricity in the air and then he moved passed the table to the trunk of guns at the end of the other wall, they’d have to arm well just in case any other son‘s of bitches tried to take shots at him.

“…aah…fuck…christ…” Kai slipped down the muddy bank and he landed stiff against the back of a boat house, his legs first and then he was knocked forward at the speed and an awkward angle so his shoulder connected as well. He opened his eyes once he thought he could bare the downpour on his vision but here down this bank in the dark he could see nothing but the barely visible outline of trees, which he’d knocked into on his tumbling way down the bank.

“…Ma…Matt!” Kai shouted and groaned as the bullet wound below his collar bone throbbed, pulsed and oozed blood, he grabbed at it and his palm met warm thick liquid, he shut his eyes again tightly as he shivered, the ice cold rain making him shiver yet he felt hot and feverish from the wound. Earlier , if he hadn’t shifted just at the right time out of pure fear of seeing a gun aimed at him, he would have been shot in his chest probably directly in his heart…that blonde son of a bitch had aim and had been more than 30meters across the docks when he took the shot, why the fuck had he shot at him again???

“…Matt!” he shouted again and managed a grunt of misery when he heard a door open,

“Kai??” he heard a voice call to him,

“Yeah! Man help me!” Kai almost whined as his voice was lost in lighting and more rain but he was relieved when he saw the dull outline of Matt as he stepped through the long grass to walk to Kai at the back of the old boat house, a gun held loosely in his hand.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked as he crouched down next to Kai, his clothes and hair instantly soaked from the onslaught of rain.

He pressed his hand against Kai’s over the bullet wound seeing the inky black color of the blood as there was no light, Matt made a small gasping noise of concern and he quickly leaned forward to grab a hold of Kai better,

“Come on get up…” he encouraged and Kai did, falling though at first from disorientation.

Matt helped him through the grass and around onto the slippery wood walk way which moved into a small pier over the water, but Kai could see the open door because of the orange light cast on to the deck and he gripped tightly to Matt as they sped up, the water knocking against the pier and hitting their legs.

Once inside Matt all but dropped Kai onto the small sofa and stumbled for balance, the heavy rainfall disorienting him as well, he sat next to Kai, half on top of one of Kai’s legs, both young men breathing heavily and Matt, wiping his dark red hair back from his face with one handful, his black shirt sticking to him as well as his jeans, set his shocked green eyes on Kai’s frowning face, his auburn eyes pained and half focused on Matt.

“How the fuck did you get shot?” Matt question and feeling like he’d gathered his balance got off Kai’s leg and the couch and walked across the small room to the table where a cigarette was burning itself away, there were brief gusts of wind in the room from the other door which led to the boat tied inside and the cold air made both boys shiver.

Kai was shaking his head, his slate and black hair quite literally plastered to his face and his neck and he shivered again from his soaked clothes, not even caring he’d soaked the small sofa. He sat up, bringing his booted foot onto the floor to where the other was, his legs spread wide as he leaned one elbow on one knee and held his still bleeding wound…yet it was bleeding less.

Matt was inhaling on the cigarette consistently with his walking around and digging through the small bags and drawers, looking for the medical kit he knew he had somewhere.

“I went across the docks…to the warehouse where the mechanical stock was supposed to be after the shipment…but I saw someone…he was just standing there outside of the very same warehouse I was headed to and I didn’t think he saw me…until I heard gun shots…rapid fire…echoing everywhere…” he was explaining quietly, remembering how he‘d gotten a shock and drawn attention to himself at his sudden movement.

Matt listened as he sat back next to Kai, ripping open the bandages from their plastic with one hand and his teeth then he lifted a scissor, large and metallic to cut away Kai’s tight black shirt, exposing the wound, a gaping hole, Matt absently noticed that the bullet had just barely missed to shatter Kai’s collar bone,

“Your bone might be slightly split and brittle from the bullet, heat and impact…” Matt informed him, lifting bottle of specialized wound antiseptic and using gauze from the bandage package as well, he poured some of the antiseptic onto the palm sized square and started treating Kai’s wound.

Kai shouted and swore at the hot burning sensation and Matt sported a grin,“Don’t be such a bitch…” he laughed and Kai gave him a side glance as his eyes narrowed but only half heartedly.

Matt was silent until he thought he’d cleaned the wound and then he turned around and Kai saw him lift his heavy metal carry case,

“Oh christ…” Kai groaned and shut his eyes tightly.

Matt still just smirked as he opened the top, revealing the top slide tray of 4 others alike it below, all lined with small medical or mechanical if you’d prefer, instruments. He lifted what resembled tweezers, only larger and with sharper ends,

“Just sit back…” Matt instructed and slipped his lighter out of his pocket, lifting it and clicking it on, a bright blue flame shooting up and he burned it over the ends of the small instrument, since he was dealing with pure flesh he needed to sterilize.

Kai did lay back and he rested his head, sniffing as water trickled over his face from his hair,

“So I was saying…” he started and glanced at Matt who had reached over and lifted the cigarette he’d delicately rested on the sofa’s wooden armrest in a precarious manner and Matt’s green eyes settled on him as he continued smoking and Kai continued,

“I don’t know where the other gun fire came from and if there was shouting I couldn’t hear it, because of the rain…which brings me to this!” his voice suddenly raised as he was about to complain and Matt took this opportunity to stick the tweezers into the gaping hole, cigarette hanging between his lips and his eyes narrowed in concentration and from the smoke rising up.

The squishy sound of flesh and the oozing of blood made Kai curse again and Matt smiled,

“Go on…” he teased and Kai swore he’d hit Matt later.

“…how the fuck that guy managed to take a shot and hit me through this rain and the distance, it just doesn’t add up.” he complained.

“…doesn’t it?” Matt questioned and Kai sighed and then grit his teeth again when Matt pulled out the half a shell from his flesh, dripping with blood and a dull gold color with the red taint,

“Lucky it was so far away…this is a heavy bullet…” he had the tweezers help up so he could study the bullet, “…it would have gone right through and taken flesh with it at close range.” he informed Kai, peering past the bullet at his friend and seeing Kai’s frowning and tense face come into focus.

“…your thinking target vision, like that heat detecting kind…” Kai mumbled and glanced at what he could see of his wound, nothing really but blood.

Matt nodded and took the cigarette from his lips, it was now down to its last and he dropped it to the floor and stumped it out under his boot,

“Cyborg…it’s the only thing that makes sense…” he shrugged as he started cleaning away the new blood, all of the gauze winding up in a pile on the floor at their feet.

Kai had stopped whining now and he was thinking, trying to remember if he’d missed anything, but there was nothing, after he’d been shot, he’d run. He hadn’t taken a weapon, he hadn’t expected trouble.

“I always tell you to take a gun.” Matt said in a matter of fact way.

“What difference would it have made, I would have had to be too close to shoot anything accurately and wound up dead.” he grumbled and glanced at Matt’s blood stained hands taping fresh gauze over his wound, “…thanks.”

“Shut up…not like I haven’t patched your clumsy ass up before.” he glanced at Kai and Kai nodded numbly, Matt had done this sort of thing on a number of occasions, sometimes for himself.

“…I thought we were casing this area because there is a minimal number of cyborg’s in these parts, they usually move out into the deep city, not the out skirts.” he looked at Matt as he shifted, sitting forward so Matt could start wrapping the bandages.

“Take your shirt off…” he told Kai who was already doing so with his not so numb arm, revealing a fair upper body, lean muscles and many scars. Matt gestured for him to raise his other arm on the side where he was shot and it hurt but he managed, resting his elbow on Matt’s shoulder to keep it up.

Matt wrapped the bandage from the underside of Kai’s torso over the wound and the shoulder as he sighed,

“Well, maybe they’re after what we’re after, they do need the parts.” he speculated.

“So do we.”

Matt nodded and tied up the bandage,

“I hate to say this…but we really do need those parts Kai…I think we have to get back, they should be cleared out by now, at most we’ll find some corpses, which is nothing new.” he leaned back and again wiped his wet red hair from his line of vision, seemingly uninterested in the blood and mess.

Kai sat back with a grimace but he nodded,

“I figured as much, we’re almost out of supplies and we’ll need money.” which came in the form of small palm sized square silver slates with codes embedded in them for reading, which could be swiped and redeemed at small places were synthetic food and other merchandise like clothes and such could be purchased, mostly in the cities centre.

Cyborg’s however came standard with it built into the palms of their hands and are able to transfer credits easily by a method dubbed as ‘burning‘.

“Well, throw on a shirt stud…we gotta go.” Matt winked at him and stood up, walking over to he table and lifting his black goggles from their place beside his ashtray, he slapped them onto his face and glanced at Kai, who was crouching down at one of the carry bags and retrieving a grey long sleeve shirt which he pulled on slowly. Turning to Matt once he was done, he was faced with the butt of a gun,

“Carry this, is fully loaded, 15 bullets, one extra in the cage if the magazine runs out…”

“I know…” Kai gave him a deadpanned look and Matt shrugged,

“Well…you forget these things and you might wind up chucking the gun at someone…like if you forget the safety and the gun wont trigger.”

Kai smacked Matt upside his head with his good arm and Matt almost pouted but chose to laugh rather, he’d had it coming eventually. With that, they set out back to the docks.

They were heavy on the wood of the docks, but the sounds of their steps were drowned out under the rain, two pairs of eyes scanned their surroundings, seeing everything in their infrared vision, making the warehouses outlined in a green and orange hue, and they saw no people.

They came to warehouse 77 and Tala followed Mello who walked steadily off to the left between two massive warehouse walls, they came out on the other side,

“Over there…exactly 35.4 meters in that direction…I shot him.” he looked at Tala who nodded and they continued, walking across the docks and coming to stand at the exact spot.

Sure enough, when they changed to their trace vision, despite the rain washing away the actual blood, they could see the left behind stains of blood, and the trail seemed to lead off in a certain direction. Both of them stared after the trail, thinking similar thoughts about following the guy, but they had discovered for the most part that he was probably human, cyborg’s didn’t bleed that much, regardless of model.

Tala turned and looked back at the warehouse,

“Do you still want to check it out?”

“What happened earlier?” Mello asked him, loudly over the rain and Tala looked at him, Mello was slightly taller than him,

“…I’m not sure it makes sense.” Tala answered and brought a hand up to pull at his shirt, sticking his flesh beneath his coat and Mello raised an expectant eyebrow, his shoulder length blonde hair pushed back and three shades darker from the rain.

Tala visibly sighed and closed his eyes,

“I was spotted…” he admitted.

“In stealth, with your frequency switched off?” Mello instantly asked in disbelief and he watched Tala nod.

The question of ‘how’ hung briefly in the silence, but Mello couldn’t ask because he knew Tala couldn’t answer, no other cyborg, a model of their type, before or after would be able to track frequency if stealth was engaged, it technically shut down the mechanics of a cyborg completely.

It made both of them extremely unsure of what to expect, they had been led to this warehouse through a trail of rumors and a tip off about new cyborg upgrades, told it was not just a regular parts shipment, a black market smuggler had let them know, a man who was called Ryuk, one of the ‘full flesh human’s’ who lead a criminals life and did not exist among the righteous and religious cyborg lynching humans.

“We should just check it out.” Mello mumbled.

Tala didn’t hear him so much as react to Mello’s initial steps in the general direction, gripping the shotgun in his hand tightly, he would go out of his way to kill anyone this time.

They went around the side and Mello used one of the four guns clipped onto the various leather straps on his lean body, equipped with a silencer and he shot out the lock on the side. Kicking the door in and waiting, it was very unusual that after an intrusion earlier that no one was on guard.

“You think they moved whatever was in here out?” Tala stepped in after Mello and went forward while shaking his head, his arm raised and the long shot gun rested comfortably below his forearm, held steadily, his blue eyes narrowed and his eyebrows pulled sharply into a frown as he looked around.

Water dripped over his face but he didn’t notice, what disturbed him was that there absolutely nothing, but a massive open space of the inside of the warehouse, so much that their quiet voices echoed, but earlier there had been more than 7 men here and one of them had been able to detect Tala easily.

“Camera’s.” Mello mumbled and placed a thin hand on Tala shoulder, making him stop from proceeding, that may have been the case…traps.

Mello looked around near the door way and lifted a large box with nothing inside it and Tala stepped out of the way as Mello chucked it up into the air, making it flop around until it hit the concrete ground with a dull thud and then flopped again, nothing triggered.

“Fuck this.” Tala stated and let off three loud gun shots straight into the surrounding area and nothing went off or activated.

Mello had a look of disbelief,

“…I don’t get it, no security. If it was a parts shipment, they wouldn’t be able to move it in one night, that’s tons of machinery.” he sounded angry by how everything wasn’t adding up.

“Take a look around?” Tala glanced at him for confirmation and Mello nodded and proceeded to walk past Tala, not hesitating and still there was no security or mechanical triggers going off to kill the trespassers.

They moved to opposite ends of the massive space and both started checking the labels on the boxes, double checking with their x ray vision to make sure the box contained what it said.

A half hour of searching later and Mello became frustrated and started yelling,

“Fuck! Fuck I’m gonna kill that sleazy human mutherfucker!” he kicked one of the boxes over and Tala merely glanced at him and then scratched his head with his free hand, placing his shot gun down and sighing as he sat on one of the boxes.

“He told us…” Mello seethed and stalked over, Tala changing to regular vision so he could see Mello and not the green blue outline of a cyborg, “…Ryuk said, it was a special shipment containing something major, everything here is standard equipment! I’m gonna rip his spleen from his deformed body!” he grit his teeth and Tala blinked at him,“Yes…that’s if he has a spleen…” he said with a smile and Mello couldn’t help but to smirk, even if it looked like a sneer.

After a moment of breathing heavily and being uncomfortable in their wet clothes and feeling quite cold, Tala looked down between his legs at the large and rather long box he sat on, he glanced up at Mello who had his arms folded,

“Let’s at least high jack some parts…this box probably contains weapons, if we save up credits we can find a techie and have em’ put on.”

Mello glanced at him and at the box,

“I don’t think I’d like weapons accessories…they’d slow me down.” he watched Tala shrug and nod,

“Or we could sell it and get a shit load of money!” he smiled and stood up only to crouch down and slip out a knife from the inside of his coat, Tala made a long cut along the one length side of the box and the two width sides, afterward flicking the knife closed and putting it away.

Mello lifted a boot and moved the top of the large box open and it fell away easily, Tala then reaching his hands in and pulling the non transparent cold sheeting back, already confused by the type of covering for weapons.

“What the fuck…” Mello crouched down beside Tala and they exchanged looks,

“It looked like a regular shipment…” he admitted to Mello who nodded and then looked back to the body…or cyborg lying still and unmoving in the box, inside the non de script box was a reinforced case that it laid in.

“…since when do cyborgs get shipped in boxes?” Tala mumbled and touched his fingers to his mouth in thought and irritation and Mello didn’t answer, instead his head snapped to the side when he heard something.

“Company.” Mello whispered and Tala turned his head slowly to hear the noise that Mello identified, sure enough, came light footsteps, cautious steps. They both looked in the opposite direction, blue eyes wide at the coming of a second person. They exchanged looks and nodded at each other, moving quietly and setting their bodies in stealth mode as they disappeared into the dark.

Kai, after treading cautiously, frowned when he saw a large box lying idly in the centre of the warehouse. He started a bit when he heard running steps but Matt came into view from the other entrance, reaching the box and looking in Kai’s direction, waving him over.

As he approached, looking around, still walking quietly with heavy boots, ignoring the pain in his shoulder Matt seemed to decide something,

“Someone’s been here…”

“No shit…I got shot by someone earlier.”

“Recently…like really recently…” he raised an eyebrow and pointed his gun around, the light on the end casting some light and Kai moved his gun light from Matt’s face and looked around as well, dust was moving around under the lights in the far distance.

“We should find some light…” Matt nodded in agreement and they started flashing their lights around, looking for a large wall lever. Matt spotted it and walked over to it with the help of his light,

“I found it!” he called to Kai and it echoed loudly. With some effort he flipped the lever down and the place slowly lit up in parts, casting light over them and he turned to find Kai inspecting a box on the floor, opened.

“What is it?” he jogged over slowly, switching off the gun light as he did so.

He paused and his mouth opened in surprise when he saw the body of the cyborg in the box,

“…” he had no comment and he and Kai exchanged a look,

“I say we take it.” Kai smiled and Matt did too and nodded,

“Research!” he grinned and put his gun away, Kai did too and they started closing up the box.

Matt paused though,

“Too easy…” he admitted, “…it was open…someone…”

“Is here?” Kai mumbled as well.

“Hiding…why?”

“To kill us?” Kai looked at him and his hands fell still on the box top.

“Very likely.” Matt swallowed slowly.

“We should go.” Matt added and they stood up, deciding to live another day and they started leaving. Before Matt could say that it was ‘too easy’ again they heard something shift behind them a few meters,

“Shit!” they started running and both of them ran toward the stairs off to the side, Matt pulling out his gun and running straight at the wall, using the gun and both hands with the length of his barrel to shove the light switch back up and off, making Kai practically fall up the stairs and hurt his arm,

“…geez…” he groaned and felt Matt’s arm grab him and lift him, whispering they had to keep moving, of course nothing had happened yet but a small noise, but since rats didn’t exist, it couldn’t have been anything but a person or cyborg.

They noticed how loud their movements were and Kai belatedly switched the light off on his gun, they slowed down,

“What’s happening?” Kai whispered to Matt behind him and received no answer.

Both boys jumped in fright when the light’s droned to life again, much quicker and Kai looked down to find a red head, sharp icy eyes staring up at him and gun aimed directly at him, no smile or friendly welcome,

“Oh shitohshitohshitoshitohshit!” Kai started shouting and tried to run and Matt went the opposite way along the narrow walkway, swearing as he did. Tala sneered and started shooting in Kai’s wake making Kai stop dead as the part ahead of him on the walkway was breaking and falling apart, he looked down at Tala who pulled his face and let off a shot directly beneath Kai’s legs making the iron break apart and Kai wobbled and landed hard on his side, disabled by the pain shooting through his body, he barely moved.

“Kai! Kai! We’re trapped…” Matt pulled out his gun when he saw the blonde at the bottom of the stairs they’d come up, Mello raised a leg and kicked one of the bars supporting the walkway, making it bend and almost crack and fall, the entire walkway shaking and alerting Kai and Matt they would fall 20 feet in a few seconds,

“Cyborgs!” Matt yelled, it was the only explanation and Mello again kicked at the iron bars and a few others broke under the strain of weight.

Tala stepped back several steps when he saw it breaking and Mello delivered a final kick and the entire iron walkway came crashing down, both Matt and Kai shouting in fright and falling down before the actual walkway fell, it was still creaking to hang on.

Kai made a loud pained sound and was winded when he landed in a pile of boxes, breaking his fall but not without breaking his arm…on the same side as the wound, he shouted in pain and his working arm immediately grabbed at his freshly bleeding gun wound. Matt hit the boxes as well, but his fall was less of a painful one since the pile was higher under him.

A box split beneath him and he scampered quickly inside the wall of boxes, grabbing at a compact canon launcher inside the split box, he switched the power on, it was hard to hold since it was technically an add on weapon, it had no holding place, but he did his best, breathing panicked, Matt looked up through his dusty goggles and saw the walkway about to come down, he stood up and even though he had several pains, he raised it and aimed at the wall of boxes, knowing the cyborg’s were on the other side. Bracing himself and praying he’d have a chance to smoke another cigarette after this, he hit the trigger switch located on the underside.

Matt was propelled backward stiffly into the boxes from the launce and the entire warehouse shook from the impact.

Tala had jumped over some boxes and smirked down at Kai, who was bleeding and gritting his teeth from the pain,

“Stupid…” Tala mumbled and jumped down, standing over Kai’s body unevenly on the boxes, “…wanna tell me what your doing here?” he asked and Kai opened his eyes looking up at the pale red head aiming a gun at his head and he managed a smile,

“Not having fun.” he said hoarsely and Tala’s eyebrow twitched.

When the explosion sounded Tala barely managed to remain balanced and he spun around,

“Mello!” was the first thing he shouted and then the iron walkway about to fall above them caught his attention, “…arh!” he growled and grabbed Kai’s by the front of his shirt, easily dragging him over the boxes and making Kai stifle several cries of pain.

Tala dropped Kai’s weight when he saw Mello standing, the look on his face swore murder and a few inches from where he stood, Tala saw the side of the warehouse blown out and in flames,

“Mello!” he called again and rushed over, Mello was leaning over and holding the left side of his face, Tala placed his hand on Mello’s back and Mello turned to look at him, straightening up.

Tala became angered when he saw the bubbling and searing heat rising off the left side of Mello’s face, parts of his hair burned away and his flesh down to his left hand and over his shoulder, neck and face was burning.

That canon had exploded inches from Mello who was looking at the blood and skin his hands,

“…” Mello breathed erratically out of pure anger, ignoring the flesh burning pain on his left side, “…he…he…”

Tala turned to look at ‘he’, another red head with goggles hiding the shocked expression on his face, Kai had managed to get to his knees and he looked at Matt who looked at him not knowing what to do, Matt’s arms weak and shaken from the powerful blast of the weapon.

Tala raised his gun,

“I’m gonna kill you!”

“I can fix him!” Matt defended and backed away, stopping in fright and covering his head when just a meter behind him the walkway collapsed causing a deafening crash and another rumble through the warehouse.

“What!?” Tala paused and Mello looked at him, the flesh still red and deformed as he narrowed his eyes at Matt,

“I’m…I’m a cybernetic tech! I can fix him…with the right stuff I can replace his skin! Not the nerves…but…”

“Shut it!” Mello snapped and with a bleeding face he looked at Tala,

“Grab that cyborg…I’ll take the humans, we need to get out of here.” he glanced at the gaping flaming hole and Tala nodded, instantly moving to the box.

He grabbed the end of it and punctured a hold for grip purposes, dragging the surprisingly heavy box with him rather quickly.

Mello ordered Matt to grab Kai and then he dragged Matt out by his hair, Matt trying to let Kai keep up while he tried to keep up as well, Mello walking quickly. It was a rough way out, but in the end, Matt and Kai were grateful they were still alive, even if it was just hanging on by a thread.

Matt was tossed quite literally to the ground and Kai came down on top of him, Mello’s large boot having shoved him by his ass. Matt helped Kai sit up and the two of them remained on the floor…in a dirty and probably likely to collapse soon…flat.

Mello immediately stormed past them, walking into what Kai and Matt glanced and saw was a shabby bathroom, a light clicked on and flickered violently before settling on a yellow glow and they both winced when a mirror was punched and glass shattered.

“Fuck! My face! My skin! You bastard!!” Matt scrambled into Kai when he saw the angered cyborg rip the bathroom cabinet from the wall and smash it to the ground, crushing it into wooden pieces and sharp splinters with his boot afterward.

Matt was breathing heavily in fear and his eyebrows pulled very tightly together in a frown and Kai looked at him, raising his good arm and wrapping it around Matt’s neck and shoulder protectively, especially when he saw the red haired cyborg stomping in, the other cyborg from the box now slung over his shoulder for carrying convenience.

His blue eyes set on the two before shifting to the breaking noises in the bathroom and he angrily kicked the door shut so the flat actually shook, making Kai and Matt tense.

“Tala!” Mello shouted just as Tala tossed the cyborg he carried roughly onto the floor, its head knocking against the wall and he turned and walked toward the bathroom, leaning on the frame and looking at Mello,

“What do you need?” he asked and they saw him move inside and assess the other’s face.

Matt turned to Kai who let him go and gave him a wide eyed and worried expression,

“They are going to kill us…if I don’t…fix him!” Matt whispered loudly and Kai was silenced when they two cyborg’s emerged from the bathroom and Matt turned.

“Ah!” he shouted and his hands snapped up to grab the burned wrist of the hand now gripping a handful of his hair and yanking so Matt was actually lifted from the ground slightly, his legs bent and trying to hold himself up but truthfully the blondes hand was keeping him up, Matt’s face pulled in anger and pain as he kept still so as not to lose any hair.

Kai stayed silent when he heard a click and he looked to the side to find a gun barrel staring him down and the red head wasn’t even looking at him, he noticed the red head liked guns…and aiming at him.

“Now…” Mello’s tight voice cut through the heavy breathing and silence and he raised Matt so he was looking him in the eye and speaking into his face, teeth bared,

“You said something about fixing?” he enquired and rattled Matt by his hair a bit making him cry out in pain and his green eyes narrowed defiantly,

“…I can…” was all he said.

Mello lifted him up to his feet, making Matt the same height and he let go of his hair to roughly rip the goggles from Matt’s face, making it scrape his skin and leave red lines on his cold wet face,

“You will…not you can!” he said angrily and tossed the goggles across the room.

“I’ll…” he paused and swallowed raising his hands to say he meant no harm, the lightening striking loudly outside and sending flashes of white across all of their silhouettes, “…I’ll need to steal the supplies, or I cant replace the nerves that allow you to feel, the skin texture is easy, if that’s all you want…I-” he was silenced when Kai piped up,

“He can do the nerves…I know where the next parts shipment will be, I’ll be able to get the stuff and he can fix you…it’s in two days!” he said and grimaced, giving Tala a pissy look when the gun was pressed against his head and the red head smirked.

Mello seemed to calm and his blue eyes trailed between the two,

“Would you believe it…these two are just a couple of human criminals.” he said with a smirk and he and Tala looked at one another as Mello let his hand slide around Matt’s throat, which he could crush easily in his one hand and Matt stiffened, “…they’re a bit scrawny, but otherwise they look normal, not like the ‘other’ humans.” he added.

“Yeah…I guess its because of him…“ Tala looked at Matt, “…taking care of the living conditions with his techie smarts…“ he looked back and Kai and smirked, “You’re the retriever…like a dog and he’s the laborer…” Tala laughed and Mello offered an amused grin.

“Yeah, well what the fuck were you doing there?” Kai let his big mouth open and kept a raised eyebrow when the red head stopped smiling.

With that, both Tala and Mello’s blue eyes left the other two young men and settled on the cyborg resting dead still against the wall, head dipped and unmoving.

Matt and Kai glanced at one another and then at the body,“Is that a cyborg too?”

“That’s what we think.” Mello answered surprisingly casually and then walked away from Matt over to the cyborg, crouching down. Tala followed and he stood over it giving its odd appearance a bit of a frown,

“It’s pretty strange looking.” he commented and Mello nodded, placing a hand beneath its face and lifting it back to get a clear view of the face.

The skin was paper white, a color that Mello and Tala had as well, a standard complexion for cyborg’s, not a blemish to the texture. It had dark lashes and dark eyebrows despite them being thin and fine, the hair was an unruly mess of the same color and it seemed to flip and flop around the cyborg’s head at even the slightest movement in the air.

Judging it, they could tell it was probably taller than all of them in the room by a few noticeable inches and it was extremely thin but yet it didn’t appear fragile.

The clothing was odd, Tala and Mello could both recall being sent out into their new lives wearing a standard suit which was a grey color, consisting of a strong chemically engineered fiber that would last until they could find their own way and manage to get new clothes.

But this one wore a full black suit that seemed to stick to his very frame like tight spandex and it looked frightfully uncomfortable. As they stared something dawned on Tala and he blinked,

“I just realized, I have no idea how you switch a cyborg on.” he mumbled and slipped his gun into the back of his pants underneath his coat, water still dripping from his clothes and hair, just like the rest of them.

Matt cleared his throat and they looked at him, Kai having gotten to his feet also offered a look to Matt,“Its…uh…a predefined code…that is set for all cyborg’s. It activates on its own within 24 hours of its initial instillation.” he smiled a little cockily when they both seemed stunned.

“I guess then we just have to wait…it arrived at the docks pretty long ago…and maybe this code was even installed long before…” Mello said and then sighed, exhaustion finally setting in and he absently touched his burned skin, his eyes giving Matt a once over.

Matt blinked and his smile faded,

“I’m…uh, sorry about that…really.” he said sincerely and Mello didn’t look like he didn’t believe Matt,

“It doesn’t matter…we were likely to kill you in that warehouse, you saved your lives.” he said and pulled his wet hair back from his face, revealing the burned skin all the way over his ear and the uneven charred hair was still falling out in little bits when Mello brushed his hands through his hair.

Tala also seemed to relax as he pulled his wet leather coat from his body, revealing his tank shirt beneath and a few scars on the skin of his arms, in a few places near the joints his metallic mechanic parts were just about visible near the damaged skin, Kai thought it looked painful and Matt agreed,

“You guys could use touch ups…” he informed seriously and gestured to Tala’s scars.

“We cant afford a tech.” Tala said miserably and walked over to the table with only two chairs, a bottle of alcohol he’d taken from a small cupboard in his hand and he placed it beside his empty beer bottle from earlier.

Matt didn’t offer up his services per say, but he figured he’d help em’ out, looking at the blonde one, Mello, he knew his name now, and seeing how he stared at his hair in his hands, his blue eyes dull and unhappy, he knew he wanted to help them.

With that he looked at Kai who was standing behind him leaning against a wall and he had his head back, his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and Matt saw he was resting, the blood visible on the bandages. At least he’d managed to keep the two of them alive.

Tala thanked Mello when he placed the only two glasses they had on the table and he poured a neat glass for Mello before himself, Mello knocked it back in two large gulps easily before practically falling into the chair which creaked at the weight.

“What a night…” he mumbled and Tala who was sipping his own drink looked at Matt and then his eyes slid to his glass,

“I kinda like the burns.” he told Mello.

The blonde made a dull hum and Tala smiled,

“It gives you character…you were too pretty before, I felt like I was competing.” he was smiling and Matt found himself smiling too and he saw the blonde lift his head and smile at Tala,

“Fuck you…” he laughed and Tala laughed too.

Matt didn’t though, it wasn’t for him to laugh and he just resigned himself to stepping back to the wall Kai was at and he saw Kai had moved to sit on the floor and lean against the wall, he did the same and saw his goggles lying across the room near the cyborg.

Cyborgs were definitely not bad looking, so far of the three he’d seen in this one night, he had to admit, they had incredible facial structure and even though he knew to a certain extent that cyborg’s were created from the genetically stronger sorts of regular humans, he never thought it included looks as well.

He sighed as he rested his head back, glancing at Kai whose breathing was moderate and he still had a slight frown, Matt assumed from the pain of his wounds. He was slowly letting fatigue kick in and the lightening and thunder seemed more relaxing now that everyone was sitting and calm, it had been one hell of a night…he was so exhausted.