Chapter Text
*shhfff*
*shhhhhfff*
*shhhhhffffff*
Octavio slowly drifts into half-consciousness.
What… happened?
His mind felt scattered. Foggy.
It hurt to think.
He could feel mechanical claws clamped around his upper arms, dragging him somewhere. He wanted to know what was going on, but he barely had the strength to stay awake, let alone lift his head. He settles for opening his eyes, just a bit.
The ground blurs below him, and he feels sick. He tries not to throw up.
Time passes in bursts. In one moment the floor was a polished tile, in the next it’s patterned sheet metal. He manages to gain a bit more awareness by the time it transitions to peeling laminate. Hanging limply in his captor's grasp, he tries to organize his thoughts.
Where… am I? What’s… going on? And why does this feel so… so familiar?
Hands dragging him… Body feels heavy… Can’t think… Can’t fight back…
His hearts race.
~~~~~
Hands hold him down. He struggles and thrashes, tentacles curling up menacingly as he growls and bares his fangs. There’s shouting.
“How the shell is he awake!?”
“Someone put him under!”
“Ow! Fuck!”
Stumbling footsteps, and then a loud thud.
“Shit! He got Tracie!”
“Muzzle him before he paralyzes anyone else!”
More hands. On his chest, his face. He snarls as they shove cloth in his mouth. They inject him with something, and he feels dizzy.
Footsteps, loud and imposing.
“Now now your majesty,” a voice purrs mockingly as his consciousness fades, “I’m afraid we need you alive.”
~~~~~
He gasps, a cold feeling settling in his stomach.
They had stopped in front of a glass door. Through his swimming vision, the only thing he can make out in its reflection is a large window behind them. One of the mechanical claws lets go, leaving him to dangle loosely in the grasp of the other.
He reacts without a second thought.
In one jagged motion, he staggers to his feet and grabs whatever was restraining him, hurling it across the room like a frisbee. It smashes against the window, creating a large spiderwebbing crack in the glass as it bounces off and clatters to the floor.
He runs.
An electrical whine fills the air as he rams into the glass with his shoulder. It crumbles, and the weapon fires, hitting him square in the side.
He falls. Down, down, down. Past lines of windows and rickety walkways, accompanied by the blare of sirens and the familiar sting of electricity.
He blacks out before he hits the ground.
Pain.
Breathing.
Thinking.
Everything was pain.
It overwhelmed him, ebbing and flowing with each ragged breath he took.
Slowly, he opens his eyes.
Everything was blurry. Lights swirled, and a looming darkness pulsed at the edge of his vision. He blinks, trying to clear it, but it was no use. He lies there in a daze, the siren call of sleep singing sweetly to him.
Y’need to rest darlin’, you’re no good to anyone if ya wind up dead.
Yeah, that sounded nice… But, no, wasn’t he supposed to be doing something? Something important…
Keep him under. He’s too dangerous. Don’t let him escape.
Escape…
He gasps, a sharp intake of breath that sends him into a coughing fit.
He couldn’t stay here. They would find him.
With great effort, he rolls onto his side, and then bites down a scream. That small act had caused a searing pain to shoot down his left shoulder, but he grits his beak and bears it. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he tries to stand, but regrets it immediately when his knees buckle. He grabs onto the nearest object, a broken beam, and pants as the world spins.
He can’t afford any weakness.
Especially not now.
Blearily, he looks around for an exit. Past the pile of rubble was a broken door, holding onto its frame by a single rusty hinge. He takes a deep breath, and walks.
Each step threatened to send him crashing to the ground again, but he powers through. The moment he steps through the door, he grabs onto the wall for desperately needed support. Guided only by stuttering fluorescents, he stumbles down the hall, barely lucid as his body moves on autopilot, a repeated mantra of ‘Get out. Get out. GET OUT.’ ringing through his aching head.
The place was a disaster. Rubble littered the floor, entire walls had collapsed, and the musky scent of mildew permeated the air. Wherever he was, it clearly hadn’t been touched in quite some time.
He moves slowly, carefully avoiding the debris. There were barely any doors, and the ones he did find were either locked or completely blocked off. He turns left, and then comes to a sudden stop, path blocked by a collapsed ceiling. He really didn’t want to turn around, years of experience telling him that backtracking would only spell his doom. He steps forwards, hand drifting along the wall as he tries in vain to look for a way past the blockage. His hand catches on a doorknob, and he startles when it turns.
The door creaks open, hinges parched for oil. The room was small, no more than a supply closet, but it was safe, and that’s all he was asking for. He sinks to the floor, legs giving out as he collapses against the closed door, exhausted. The darkness in his visions fades in again, slow and steady as his awareness dims.
He was so, so tired.
His shoulder burns. His muscles ache. His head spins.
He was lost, and confused, and alone.
He sucks in a shuddering gasp, and then another, and another. His skin crawls. He could still feel them.
Gloved hands and surgical blades. Needles with sedatives. Coarse sheets and heavy leather straps.
Restrain him. Keep him under control. Stop fighting. We’re trying to help. We’re trying to help. We’re trying to help—
He curls in on himself, pressing his forehead to his knees as he tries to muffle the sobs.
His chest hurt.
He couldn’t breathe.
The world crashes down around him, and he blacks out.
~~~~~
Fire and smoke and the sting of pounding rain against his skin.
He was running, running through the forest from a threat he couldn’t see. The trees seemed to stretch on for an eternity, curving up and blotting out the stars. Branches and foliage snag against his clothes, slowing him down. Suddenly, the ground slopes unevenly, and he stumbles, grabbing onto a splintered stump as he tries to regain his footing.
He pants raggedly, leaning against the shattered tree as he presses a hand to his shredded sleeve. Blood ran in rivulets down his arm, dripping onto the muddy ground. It trailed behind him, small pearls of neon green, unaffected by the downpour and glowing in the moonlight.
He had to keep moving. Keep going or else—
A hand wraps around his throat, fingers digging into his windpipe as the muzzle of a gun presses against the small of his back. He wants to shout, to bite and thrash and tear away from their hold, but his body wouldn’t move, frozen to the core as a hoarse voice whispers in his ear.
“It’s over. Give up.”
He knows that voice, would recognize it anywhere.
He swallows, struggling against the pressure on his throat, “I can’t.”
There was a low chuckle, slow and menacing and wrong.
“Aw darlin’… Y’think you have a choice in the matter? How cute.”
The slow whine of the gun being charged.
“You don’t.”
It moves up, right over his heart.
“Neither of us do.”
*BANG*
~~~~~
He jolts awake, slamming the back of his head against the closed door.
Hard.
Stars burst in his vision, and he groans, shutting his eyes and pressing his head against his knees as he rubs at the sore spot. He breathes through his nose, slow and steady, trying to calm his racing hearts.
This was why he hated sleeping.
.
.
.
Wait.
Slowly, he lifts his head, scarcely believing his eyes as he stares.
Legs. He was leaning on his… legs. And arms, hands, in his hair, pressed to the slightly rough texture of his tentacles.
How hard did I hit my head.
But… no. He could feel the slightly coarse fabric of the hakama against his skin, the soft silk of his kimono and haori.
It wasn’t that much of a shock, it’s not like he was incapable of shifting out of swim form, but it had been… —Cod, months?— since he had seen himself like this. But something felt… off, about it. A slight dissonance in what he remembers feeling versus what he felt right now.
Mirror. He needs a mirror.
He looks around the small room. There wasn’t much, a few mops and brooms hanging on the wall, a shelf scattered with cleaning supplies, and a rusty metal locker. He staggers to his feet even as his body screams at him not to.
The door to the locker opens with a horrible creak, and he winces. It didn’t look promising. There were only two items in it, a moth-bitten coat, and a pair of cracked rubber boots. He rifles through the coat’s pockets, but comes back empty handed. Stepping away from the locker, his gaze drifts back to the mops, and he grimaces.
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
He leaves the closet armed with a makeshift octobrush and a plan.
What was the plan?
Find mirror. Figure out what was going on. ?????. Escape.
What? He never said it was a good plan.
First order of business was finding a way upstairs. He treads carefully, and now that he has a relatively clear head, he actually pays attention to where he was going.
The place seemed more decayed than destroyed. The musty brown walls were extremely water damaged, a line about waist high showing where it used to be flooded. Mold flourished there, so he keeps his distance.
He regrets leaning on them.
Stepping into an intersection, he finds a sign hanging from the ceiling by a few sparking wires. It had a picture of a staircase on it, clearly some sort of emergency exit sign, even if the text on it was illegible. With no better option, he goes in the direction it was pointing, praying that it hadn’t spun around when it broke. The corridors looked more or less the same, it wouldn't be difficult to get lost.
Luckily for him, it hadn’t. After a few more minutes of trudging through debris, he finds the door to the staircase, half obscured by rubble. He tries the handle, but it wouldn’t budge, jammed by something on the other side.
He frowns, backing up a step before planting a solid kick near the rusty hinges. The metal gives way immediately, snapping like a twig as the door crashes to the floor with a clang. Ducking past the rubble, he carefully steps into the room.
A metal staircase twisted up and up, dusty with disuse. It seemed relatively stable, but the first few steps had rusted away and collapsed, leaving a sharp, jagged edge about chest high.
Thinking quickly, he tries to shrug off his haori to use as padding, but it catches on his left shoulder. Confused, he reaches back, trying to feel what the problem was, but only succeeding in cutting his palm open on something surprisingly sharp. He pulls back with a hiss. What the shell was—
His mind drifts back to the window.
…Ah.
Slowly, he pries the fabric away from the shrapnel, careful not to remove any of the glass. Pulling them out would only cause him to bleed more, and walking around this mold infested dive with open wounds was only going to spell disaster. Draping the haori over the sharp edge of the step, he hoists himself up on shaky hands, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder.
He would deal with it later.
The stairs creak ominously as he stands, throwing his jacket back on carelessly as treks up the steps, trying to be quick while shaking the aged staircase as little as possible. He manages to make it up three floors before the metal beneath his feet shudders in warning.
Just before the stairs tear from the walls and crash down with a horrific screeching clang, he bursts through a doorway into a much cleaner hallway, tentacles curling as he winces against the sound.
He only has a few seconds to look around and take in the scenery before the slam of some far-off door echoes down the corridor. There was no water damage, and the lights worked, but other than that it was completely devoid of character. The only other thing of note in the off-white hallway was a large window looking over a cavernous room filled with artificial sunlight, a sight he was all too familiar with. Silently, he slips through a nearby door, careful to disturb the thick layer of dust carpeting the floor as little as possible.
He looks around as the automatic lights flicker on slowly, their bulbs yellowed and weak, barely illuminating the strange room. It seemed to be some sort of chemical laboratory, dried up beakers and flasks sat beneath large fumigation hoods, abandoned mid work. Illegible documents spilled out of faded folders on a small table off to the side, and as he walks further in, he passes by a small sink with a cracked mirror, catching sight of his broken reflection.
He was… young, again. Late twenties to early thirties, maybe? He steps closer, turning his head this way and that, not quite believing what he was seeing. His tentacles curled in front of his ears, tightly controlled as to not give away his emotions, an unfortunate necessity in his line of work, and his skin was back to its natural bronze hue, no longer pale from a century trapped underground.
But neither of those things were what baffled him the most— No, it was his eyes that shocked him. No longer bloodshot and bruised, light lavender stared back at him through the cracks, reflected ten times over with haunting clarity.
A ghost of a memory.
He tears himself away from the mirror, unable to bear the sight any longer. He had no idea what was going on or how this had happened, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to find out.