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X-25 sat in its shackles waiting. X-25 did not speak. It did not have thoughts or have the ability to communicate to another. It was a machine, manufactured for its Masters use, as was X-24. Who wasn’t with X-25 at the moment.
X-25 had ‘done a number’ on X-24 during training that had taken place an hour, 23 minutes and approximately 48 seconds ago. X-25, although built with a smaller - stollen - body with a lack of the metal skeleton X-24 held and thus an ability to defend itself, was stronger than X-24 because X-25 could not be hurt.
During training, X-24 would claw and cut at X-25’s smaller body. X-24 was ruthless during training, not feeling an ounce of remorse for the smaller manufactured being. X-25 had lost limbs before, and it had hurt, but it healed. It’s arm grew back each time it was sliced off, and small cuts and bruises held no chance against X-25’s remarkable ability, and neither did X-24.
X-25 could heal itself with something deep inside, that was implanted under it’s Master’s and the other lab coated superiors’ hands.
If X-25 was something (which it was not, because it was nothing), It would wonder if what it did under its Master command was what another society would deem ‘right’ or ‘socially acceptable’. But because a thought was not seen behind those stolen eyes, it did not wonder such wonders about itself and a life outside of the one it had.
Those eyes matched a sweet child’s own, a child who we knew to do no wrong in the eyes of many. A saint, some would say. X-25 hadn’t met that child, but had heard of him and the compliments he was giving.
It had heard of the child through the complaints by his Master, who seemed to have a deep distaste for the boy. If X-25 was built to feel, which it wasn’t, it would fear that the deep hatred for the boy with X-25’s matching face would filter into X-25. It didn’t want it’s Master to hate it.
But, that hated boy was in the same place X-25 was now.
He was here. X-25’s match, the one it’s face was stolen from. The kind, sweet child we know. X-25 would hear him sometimes down the hall. He would-
“X-25.”
Master. By the door now opened to let Master in. Stand straight, even if the shackles tried to tug you down and cut into your skin. It would heal (and it was not like X-25 could react to the pain anyway. That wasn’t in its programming, and there was no escaping ones programming. Plus, it was designed to heal. Pain shouldn’t have an affect on it, even if there used to be a time when the pain uses to prickle tears in its eyes).
Master was at the door. X-25 did not look at him. Feet apart at shoulder width, shackles keeping its hands behind its back tightly sealed. Less it use them to hurt, Master had said.
Although X-25 was designed to heal itself and others after battle, it could inflict pain as well as heal through its training.
It was trained to hurt. It’s ability heal was stolen, put in its blood and invisible soul. That was what X-24 and X-25 did together. The times they were at training were the only times they were allowed to see the other. They weren’t supposed to ‘build friendships’ Master had said, when talking about them instead of to them.
There was a noise behind Master as he entered. The door closing cut off that familiar noise. ‘The boy’, X-25 would have thought if it had the ability to think.
“I was impressed by your actions in fighting against X-24 today, X-25.” Master said. He rounded X-25 in its shackles and it did not move because it was not instructed to. “X-24 is in recovery. We might need your... expertise to help it along the way. You did a number on it, X-25.”
X-25 found itself faltering. X-25 wasn’t built to create a ‘bond’ to anyone, especially not to X-24. The other... ‘being’ (sometimes, and X-25 would never tell anyone this because it didn’t have the words programmed too, X-25 would wonder what they actually are) meant something to X-25, which it wasn’t supposed to feel. X-25 wasn’t built to feel anything, especially not anything to X-24. Not this feeling of... what was this feeling?
It was concern. But X-25 wasn’t built to know that.
Just slightly, it’s eyes wandered straight into Master’s eye-line. Something X-25 had never dared to do before because it wasn’t built to do so. Master saw something he didn’t like in X-25’s own stolen eyes, and slapped the disobedient and useless thing that it was with the back of his hand. The sound rattled the room, and X-25 did not react. X-25 snapped his head back to look straight forwards as its healing fixed the sting in seconds. It didn’t dare look back again.
“Don’t you dare do that again.” X-25 wouldn’t. Master scolded with a spit, his hands shaking in fists angrily. “Don’t tell me you care for your own opponent!” Master asked rhetorically. X-25 would not have answered anyway. X-25 did not talk.
Master’s eye’s roamed X-25’s face. X-25 was shorter than Master, and it felt towered over him. But it didn’t falter again.
“Unbelievable...” Master mumbled to himself, pacing the cold metal room X-25 spent most of it’s time in (not that he had a choice. The room wasn’t its own, it just stayed in there when the other scientists and Master needed it away from them).
“I spend all this time. All this money-“ He spat the word. “-To chase those god awful freaks down - especially that brat of a boy and his little gang - only for you to become such a failure to me!” Master yelled, grabbing at something that had been on one of the tables and throwing it on the ground. It had been glass, and it cut X-25’s feet when it smashed to was a crash. It’s skin healed over the glass in seconds. The glass was stuck in its body now.
“You’ve disappointed me, X-25.” Master got in its face, spitting and glaring out his words into X-25’s mechanic soul. If X-25 had been programmed to wonder, it would wonder if its stolen face was tied to the original owners soul... and the opposite: if X-25’s soul (if it had one) had tainted the original owner.
“Don’t let it happen again.” Master spat one last time before leaving, lab coat flowing behind him as he left out of the corner of X-25’s eye. X-25 stood still. It stared ahead, and didn’t dare look to watch Master leave.
When Master opened the door, he was greeted with other scientist in old-blood stained lab coats who told Master something about a boy ‘being ready’. For what, X-25 didn’t catch.
“Perfect. I want the brat in the room X-24 is located.” Master said, turning back to X-25 as he closed the door behind him.
“And shock that one, will you? It’s been bad.” Seconds later, X-25 screamed as the electric shocks around it’s neck burnt into it’s skin through the metal encasing it.
The skin was left without a scar once the shocks stopped.