Chapter Text
It was an ungodly hour in the morning in New Tehas City and unfortunately for The Elementals, evil never slept. They were roused from their beds by an alarm beeping shrilly and consistently from their wristbands and each, with varying levels of awareness, piled into the Elemental Rover. The newest, Shockwave, who would normally be literally buzzing with excitement over being sent on a mission, dozed lightly against Tide’s shoulder being jostled slightly as the rover bumped over the poorly maintained streets on the outskirts of the city.
Tide looked down at him warmly as he tried to stamp down the anxious feeling rising in his stomach. An assignment that required the skills of all five of them was rare and it put Tide on edge, an ineffable feeling of dread beginning to gnaw at his gut.
It wasn’t as if the mission itself was all that out of the ordinary, a lab explosion on the outskirts of town, which happened more often than Tide would like due to the poor control the governor asserted on the outer sections of the city. Crime was much more common out here than it was in the bustling city center. The Elementals might not have even bothered with the remote disturbance if not for the lab’s ties to superhuman experimentation and possible ties to less than ethical megacorporations.
Magma, who was at the wheel, slowed the rover to a stop as the laboratory came into view, the barely dawn sky around it hazy with smoke. The explosion must have burned hot and fast, as there weren’t very many visible flames, only a few pieces of brick and concrete were still smoldering.
The entire front and left side of the building was reduced to rubble, the ceiling sloping down and metal support beams exposed. The few cars parked in the lot sat at odd angles having been pushed back by the initial explosion, the sides closest to the blast melted from the heat. Tide shook Shockwave awake gently as The Elementals climbed out of the vehicle and Whirlwind let out a soft whistle at the sight of the destruction.
“Alright everybody,” Tide said, voice deceptively calm and authoritative, “Our first priority is to look for any survivors and get them to safety before we investigate the possible origin of the explosion. Seismic, you and Magma work on clearing the debris while Whirlwind, Shockwave, and I search for civilians.” Seismic snapped his goggles down over his eyes and nodded with a mock salute before he and Magma took off down the hill in the direction of the burning remains.
It only took a handful of minutes of searching for it to become clear that there would be no survivors for the brothers to find. Each piece of rubble Seismic lifted out of the way just revealing another horrifically burned victim for Tide to carefully set aside to be identified later. The feeling that this wasn’t just a routine accidental explosion nipped at Tide’s heels as Seismic moved a large slab of roof out of the way to access the building itself.
“That was some explosion,” Whirlwind said, peeking into the devastation that was the inside of the building, “It's a wonder there’s anything left here at all.”
“It was an incredibly hot blast,” Magma agreed as they carefully picked their way into the building’s entrance, which more resembled a gaping hole. He pointed out a few metal support beams, hardened iron dripping down their sides like candle wax, “Anyone who was close to the epicenter would have been immediately eviscerated.”
“E…eviscerated?” Shockwave echoed, a waver in his voice, “That uh, that doesn’t sound good.” Tide took a moment to feel bad for his youngest brother, after all, his first birthday had only been a couple weeks ago.
“It's more than likely the victims we did find were running from whatever caused the explosion. Which means they had a pre-warning to the blast.” The five of them moved their way farther into the building, climbing over piles of crumbled concrete and shattered remains of machinery that Tide could only guess at the use of. The sky, still visible above them though the gaping hole in the roof, began to bleed a fiery orange with the sunrise.
“Did they cause the explosion themselves?” Tide inquired.
“Like a self-destruct button?” Shockwave added, trying his best to be helpful, “Maybe they were trying to cover up some experiment they were doing before they were caught.”
Magma quickly shook his head, “If that were the case, they would have detonated it when the building was empty and made it look like an unfortunate after hours accident.”
“Do you think the blast was accidental?” Tide hoisted Shockwave by the arm over a particularly steep mountain of building remains.
“That is a possibility, there’s plenty of chemicals that could cause an explosion that hot, but it's hard to say not knowing what this lab had access to,” Magma paused and scratched his head, “It's strange though, I would think they would keep their hazardous materials on a lower level, but this explosion originated from the ground floor. Not to mention the direction of the blast.”
“The direction of the blast?” Tide questioned, looking up at him.
Magma gestured to the other side of the building which, miraculously, looked nearly untouched, “The blast only emanated out in this direction, usually explosions are not that precise.”
“It seems to me that something they were doing here got out of control,” Seismic reasoned.
“Hey guys!” Shockwave flinched at Whirlwind’s sudden voice, Tide placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Their brother stood a little ways in front of them by a back wall, a door blocked by a metal beam beside him. He thumbed towards the stair symbol above the door, “If we could get into the stairwell we can check out the lower levels, there might be some clues.”
Magma stepped forward and placed a hand on the beam, after a few moments it began to glow a dull red and then bright white as the metal began to drip onto the floor. The five of them stepped carefully over the pool of molten metal and opened the door to the stairway.
“It looks to be intact,” Tide said, “Just be on your toes, I have no idea if the structural integrity of the building is still viable.” With a growing sense of unease, Tide led his brothers down the staircase.
The smell of old waste and blood with the ever present hint of smoke hit their noses as soon as they reached the lower level, Seismic immediately scrunched up his face and placed a hand under his nose. “Disgusting,” he grunted.
Magma and Tide stepped around him, Tide patting him on the back as they began to survey the rest of the room. Cages of all sizes lined the walls, lit dimly with what lights were connected to the building's emergency power. Some of the cages were empty but showed signs of something previously being housed in them, water bottles with metal tubes affixed to their sides.
“What in the…?” Tide began but was interrupted as Shockwave yelped and jumped back from a cage he was peering into.
“S-something moved in there,” He stuttered out, hands nervously fiddling with each other, “Something definitely moved in there!”
Tide kept a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, trying to ground him as he looked into the cage. A mangy looking brown dog looked back at him and Tide grimaced as he looked at its eyes, glowing with a sickly green light with vertical pupils more like a cat’s. The dog itself smelled like sickness and death. “Something is wrong here,” Tide said, stepping back and turning to his brothers, looking at him with concerned expressions, the distressed sounds of more animals began to reach their ears, “Something is very wrong here.”
They made their way farther back into the room, the uneasy feeling in Tide’s gut rising with every step threatening to make him sick. Shockwave walked beside him, body at a constant jitter, arcs of static leaping from his body and striking the cold stone walls. Eventually the cages, many of them holding similar amalgams to the dog, gave way to observation rooms of harsh steel and glass. Gurneys sat in some with thick leather straps, some of the white mattresses stained with blood.
“What the fuck were they doing in here?” Magma snapped, Tide could tell his twin was getting agitated as his footsteps left smoke in their wake.
“Nothing good,” Seismic replied, even his usual level tone brandishing an edge of fear. The hallway stretched out even longer before them, going much farther than the observable length of the building from above.
“Hey guys,” Shockwave piped up, his voice carrying poorly hidden fear, “I don’t like this, maybe we should get out of here and tell the Doctor what we saw.”
“Notion seconded,” Whirlwind piped up, he was clutching to the back of Seismic’s brown and black uniform and had his face hidden in the fabric.
Tide shook his head, keeping a brave face for his brothers even though he also wanted to leave as soon as possible, “Not until we’ve investigated the whole facility. We still have yet to find a clue as to what caused that explosion.” Shockwave gulped but continued to walk by Tide’s side.
“What the f-“ Magma’s deep voice reached their ears and caused Tide to snap to attention rushing up to him. They had reached the end of the room, a single halogen bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminating a door in front of them. Pieces of paper had been plastered onto the front of it, scribbled on with colorful crayon and depicting the drawings of a child.
“Nope!” Both Shockwave and Whirlwind exclaimed at once, turning on their heels. Tide grabbed the back of both of their uniforms stopping them in their tracks.
Seismic walked forward having been released by his brother and inspected the door. “Its not locked,” he said, “Should I-”
“Open it,” Tide commanded with a quick nod.
The door swung open and Tide stepped past his brothers and into the room releasing the youngest two into Seismic’s care. He fumbled his hand along the wall for a second before finding the light switch and flipping it on. Bright, white-yellow light flooded out into the hall.
“Oh my god,” Tide nearly tripped in shock, stumbling back into the arms of Magma who stood behind him.
“What?” Magma snapped, immediately put off at his brother’s strange reaction, “What is it?” The others gathered around too, filling up the small doorway.
A couple mattresses sat in one corner, covered with soft blue blankets, there was a short table and three chairs in the other corner, the top covered with paper and crayons rubbed down to nubs, soft toys and stuffed animals littered the floor. Three sleeping children around age four or five were curled together all on one mattress.
At Magma’s voice the boy in the middle sat up, causing the other two clinging on to him to stir as well, their little faces scrunching up. The little boy rubbed his amber colored eyes underneath the curtain of red hair that fell in front of them. “Morning?” He asked sleepily, blinking at the strange men in the doorway.
“Oh my god,” Tide said again.