“That hurt, damn it!” shouted Evan, grabbing his head in pain as the small metal bullet fell to the ground, utterly crushed upon impact. Kurt lowered the smoking gun he was holding, laid it carefully on the table, and clicked a small pen open, jotting a few notes down on a small notepad he held in his other hand.
“That’s one of the things we’re working on,” he stated coolly, gazing at that small bullet lying on the ground before glancing back up at Evan, “If we can figure out how to get your body to shut down its pain receptors, you ability might be put into better use. However, that is not our priority right now. At least, not after what happened last time…”
“What do you mean, last time?” asked Evan, the pain vanishing quickly, as he rubbed his forehead, bending over and picking up the small bullet on the ground. It had smashed against his skin, bending back on itself so that it appeared to be a round metal circle now. He stared at Kurt, not backing down from receiving an answer, and the teleporting man sighed.
“You’re not our first person to develop invulnerability. We had a subject here a few years ago. Went by the name of Ian Terna. Great guy, ended up working for us actually.”
“What happened then?” asked Evan, his look of pain turning into a frown, “Did he quit?”
“He was killed,” replied Kurt curtly, obviously trying to ignore the subject, “Stabbed in the chest with a samurai sword.” A silence hung in the room, and despite the whirring of computers that still filled the air, it seemed as if a strange horror now floated amidst the machines. Evan was the first to speak next.
“Stabbed? That’s impossible,” he said hoarsely, his hand running over the smooth metal of the crushed bullet, “How’d he… Didn’t you test for that?”
“Of course we did!” said Kurt angrily, grabbing the gun from the desk and aiming it at Evan’s chest, firing two shots in a fiery fit of anger. Evan grunted in pain again as the two bullets crashed against his chest with two distinct chinks before falling to the ground. His shirt had been punctured by the metal, and two slight rips showed where the bullets had struck. “We tested him on everything under the sun. But we weren’t prepared for who was wielding the samurai sword…”
“Who?” asked Evan, not understanding at all, and Kurt sighed, closing the notepad with snap and pressing a single button on the computer keyboard. The projector screen slid down, and projected onto the plain whiteness was the black outline of a human body, humorously labeled Evan Lasting. “Funny,” Evan said sarcastically, but one glance at Kurt’s face told him that this was no joke.
“Have you ever come upon one who can manipulate the space-time continuum?” replied Kurt briskly, pressing a single button, and the cartoon Evan began to walk across the screen, whistling merrily as he strolled along his way, “These are among the most powerful of evolved humans. Fully in control, they can control all aspects of time and space, resulting in practically infinite possibilities. Freezing time, teleportation, anything imaginable having to do with the space-time continuum…”
“Don’t lose your patient in the science talk Kurt,” replied Evan, scratching his head as he glanced at the screen, apparently a little confused, “What’s the point in all this?”
“Your body reacts instantly to any threat it is faced with,” stated Kurt, pressing another button. A dozen axes, rocks, and swords were dropped on the cartoon Evan from every angle, and instantly bounced off, leaving the whistling Evan walking along, just as before, “But even this requires the slightest bit of time…” Now, another cartoon figure walked upon the screen. He was dressed entirely in black, with a large samurai sword held in one hand. He was not labeled, except for a large N1 printed above his head. He swung his samurai sword experimentally, and it bounced off with ease, with the cartoon Evan laughing his head off. “If the time controller freezes time…” continued Kurt, somewhat ominously, and the other cartoon snapped its fingers, leaving cartoon Evan frozen in mid-laugh, “You’re body is unable to react, since it has no time. Resulting in…” The other cartoon stabbed cartoon Evan in the chest, and then ran away, laughing identical to the way Evan was laughing before. Evan himself was now quiet, watching his cartoon self bleed over the screen, before the large white projector screen slid back up into the ceiling. Blood… it had been so long since he had seen the crimson liquid spilling from his own body…
“So that’s it then?” he asked, the images of himself being stabbed by a comical Japanese time-traveler fresh in his mind, “Is that the only way I can die?”
“The only one we are aware of,” replied Kurt, placing the gun back onto the table and picking up his notebook with a sigh, “And we don’t intend on leaving it that way. As we speak, our scientists are working on a way to enhance your body’s reaction time so that it does not even need the slightest increment of time to process the threat. Some DNA samples we retrieved from the time traveler should help us figure out a way to accelerate the rate of reaction…”
However, as he spoke, a small black phone at his pocket rang. The ring startled them both out of their serious revelry, and Kurt grabbed it quickly, flicking it open with a snap and placing it on his ear. A small voice warbled into his ear, and although Evan could not hear the words, the look on Kurt’s face told him that the news was definitely not good…
“Damn it,” he swore, snapping the phone shut and sliding it deep into his pocket with a frown on his face, “Two of the Company were just killed.”
“What?” asked Evan, a look of anger and surprise on his face, “Who would do that?”
“That damn Rebellion, that’s who…” replied Kurt, beginning to pace as he put his hands behind his back, “They’ve left two dead here, and another subject has escaped from the base in Odessa…”
“Rebellion?” asked Evan, obviously in the dark about the situation, and Kurt laughed.
“A group of evolved people who don’t believe we have their best interests at heart,” he replied, and Evan felt a trickle of anger running through his mind.
“Why would they try and murder us?” he asked angrily, his hand waving around at all the computers in this lab, “You guys do good stuff!”
“We, do good stuff,” corrected Kurt with a wave of his hand, “You are part of us now, don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, whatever,” muttered Evan half-heartedly, and Kurt finally stopped pacing, snapping his fingers, and turning to him.
“You’re coming with me,” he replied, his eyes gazing in those of the invulnerable Evan, “This’ll be a good opportunity to test the extent of your abilities in combat. Also, we need to retrieve that lost subject…”
“In combat?” replied Evan nervously, opening and closing his hands slowly, “I don’t know if I like the sound of that…”
“The girl has control over plants,” replied Kurt, waving his hands dismissively, “You have no need to worry about a time-traveler. If there was one even in sight, we probably wouldn’t let you out of this building.”
“Fine, I guess…” said Evan, but before he could even finish his sentence, Kurt grabbed his hand, and a familiar squeezing sensation of being teleported filled his body. He blinked, and suddenly, he was in a totally different area. He was in the street, in the warm air of Odessa, Texas. Two girls were standing there, one of them with a look of fire upon her face. She had her hands upraised, as if controlling a puppet, and beyond her, Evan could see a series of large, snake-like vines grappling with a second girl, binding her completely and beginning to ravage her… Uh…. Damn it, damn it, do something! He was standing behind the girl, apparently unseen, and in the distance, he could see two younger boys running toward him… Think fast…
“Sorry about this,” he said, raising his hand and grabbing the girl from behind. One kick to the knee, and she’d be on the ground. One good strike to the back of the head, and she’d be out like a light… At least, if those kung-fu movies he used to watch with his wife were any accurate…
OOC: Yes, that is you Lilian. Yes, that might be an allusion to Hiro Nakamura. No, I will not kill her, so don't worry