Untitled Stryx AU: 2

Blue Jeans awoke to something cold and glowing around his neck. He groggily picked at it, suddenly realizing that it was a collar. He sat up and looked around, realizing that he was in some kind of cell, but it was much nicer than a jail cell. It had painted walls, a bed (which he was currently sitting on,) a bookshelf with a variety of books, a small desk, a chair in the corner, and what he could only assume was a separate room for the bathroom. The front of the room was not covered by bars, but instead by another painted wall, a door planted in the center of it. Blue Jeans walked over to the door and wiggled the handle. It was locked. He looked through the small window in the door, trying to get a grip on where he was. Outside was another door, just like his. It presumably led to another room like his, with the possibility of someone being held captive inside. It was then that he remembered the events prior to waking up, and began to panic. Where was Bleu? Was she alright? Who took them? Why did they take them? Thoughts raced around his head at full speed. But one was more prominent than the others. Where was he?

 He took a few steps back, looking around one more time, before reaching a hand up to tug at the collar again. He gave an exceptionally hard tug, causing a pain in the back of his neck. His hand drifted there, reaching under the collar, only to find that he could not fit his talon between the collar and his skin and lift it. It was bolted to his spine. He let his hand drop to his side, backing up to sit on the bed once again. He had to get out of here. He had to find Bleu, and most importantly, find out who was behind all of this.

Bleu began to stir from her sleep, groaning at the throbbing pain in her head. Her whole body hurt. She didn’t want to even think about what had happened to her, fearing the answer. When she finally decided to open her eyes, the room was dim. There was no one inside, she was alone. She tried to move, only to fall back into her bed, overwhelmed with pain. She took a better look around, finding that her arm was injected with an IV, providing some kind of fluid to her body, pain relief, she assumed. Wasn’t working too well, though. There was a monitor just out of her sight, she only knew it was there because of the beeping of what she assumed to be her heart rate. Bleu swung her legs off the bed, planting her bare feet on the cold floor. It was only then that she realized that she was completely naked, save for a pair of shorts she didn’t remember putting on before the party. The party. I was at the party before… Bleu tried her hardest to remember the events after she and Blue Jeans left the party, but her mind was drawing blanks at every turn. Blue Jeans. Where had he gone? And where was she? Bleu stared blankly at the floor as she contemplated things.

Eventually, after a while, Bleu began to hear voices outside her room. She looked up just in time to see a pair of what seemed to be doctors fiddling with the electronic lock on the door. With a click it unlocked, allowing the two doctors inside. “Alright Bleu, we’re just going to examine you for a moment, and then you’ll be put into your own room!” The shorter of the two said while the taller messed with the monitor’s control panel behind Bleu. He then removed her IV, causing the pain in Bleu’s body to immediately return. She cringed at it, which the shorter doctor seemed to notice. “Don’t worry, you’ll be on some pain meds soon, we just have to get a read on your pain level for now. Now, shall we begin?”

Blue Jeans continued to kick at his door repeatedly. He’d paced around his room for about an hour, picked at the books on the shelf, read half of one, and paced some more. Now, he was beyond irritated. He couldn’t stand being cooped up on his own, not with all these mysterious things happening around him. He needed to find Bleu and get some answers. Yet he had no idea how. Eventually he slammed his fists down on the door’s surface, frustrated with everything. He stood back and headed over to his bed, deciding to take a nap and leave reality for a bit. Before he even reached his bed, he heard someone outside his cell. He turned around and to his surprise, spotted Hershey, looking at him through the window. He ran over to the door, not knowing whether to believe his eyes or not. “Hershey? Where have you been? Why are you here?” He asked, noticing that she was wearing a collar too. Now that he had a better look at it, it had a small screen, and a series of buttons on it. He reached up for his own collar, only to find that there was nothing of the sort on it anywhere. Without a word, Hershey pressed a few buttons on what was presumably a keypad on the wall outside Blue Jeans' cell, and the door's lock clicked open. Hershey pulled the heavy door towards her, releasing the blue colored Harpia. Blue Jeans immediately ran to hug his beloved, to which Hershey did not return. Instead, she pushed him away firmly, took hold of his wrists, cuffed him, and began to lead him down the hall. Locked in sudden thought, Blue Jeans trudged after her. What had just happened? Why didn't she seem to recognize him, and why wasn't she saying anything? Blue Jeans was startles from his questions by a loud, repetitive banging on one of the doors they were passing by. giving it a quick glance, Blue Jeans could briefly see a familiar face in the small window. A young Horned Corva was slamming her fists on the door as they walked by, yelling what was only assumed to be profane things at them. Another quick glance revealed this Corva to be none other than Akita, a feisty girl and loyal friend. Hershey payed no mind to Akita, and continued to tug Blue Jeans along the hallway until they reached a series of intersecting hallways. She quickly turned down one of them, beginning to take faster strides. "Where are we going?" Was all Blue Jeans could ask, to which he only received a quick look from Hershey before she returned her attention back to the nearly endless hallway ahead of them.
After a few more turns and doorways, they arrived at a rather large door with no window. Hershey wordlessly knocked on it, making a loud metal bang each time. After a few moments, and a bit of shuffling from the other side, the door was cracked open. A single, very familiar icy blue eye met them through the crack.
"Did you do as asked?"
That voice...
"Yes. He's here." Hershey finally spoke, but her voice was different. It sounded raspier, like she'd been using it excessively. The door suddenly opened, and they were greeted by a large Gryph standing before them, yet another collar attached to her neck. Her feathers were oily and unkempt, like they hadn't been preened in a while. After closer inspection, Blue Jeans was surprised to find that this Gryph was none other then Banshee.
"Banshee?" Blue Jeans quietly asked, but again received no verbal response. Instead, he was given a cold stare from her, but there was something unreadable behind her eyes.
"Let's go." Hershey rasped again, harshly pulling on his arm. Blue Jeans turned to see a rather large, crimson colored Royal Harpia staring him down with his piercing orange eyes.


Bleu stood quaking, both from the low temperature of the room and fear. One of the two doctors continued to examine her closely, nodding at times while the other would occasionally type things into the nearby computer. After a while, the doctor must've concluded something about her condition, and waved the other towards the door. "Alright Bleu, you seem to be stable, so we'll leave you to get yourself dressed, someone will be by to pick you up shortly." He gestured to a pile of clothes sitting on the chair next to her bed, one that he seemed to have placed there while she wasn't looking. Bleu silently nodded, watching as the two left her room and re-locked the door. Bleu fell back onto her bed, letting out a shaky sigh of relief. How had things taken such a turn in such a small amount of time? The pains in her body were becoming increasingly worse now, so she decided to get up and dress herself while she could still concentrate.
After a bit of struggling to get her clothes on around her wounds, Bleu finally pulled the shirt over her head in time to hear a quiet knock at the door. Bleu assumed that the doctors were back with whoever was coming to fetch her, so she merely placed herself on the edge of the bed and waited. After a while, she began to hear whispering, followed by a faint series of beeps and clicks. Next thing she knew, her door was flung open, smoke pouring from a device in the culprit's hands. The culprit, or should she say multiples, was a small Hawk with various browns in her plumage, and a stark white colored head and neck. Next to her, there was a young Chiro, also covered in brown fur, with a white head as well.
"Shoot, I knew it was up too high! Oh well, I doubt they heard anything, with these practically soundproof doors and all."
Bleu was merely looking on in shock at the two carfty young Stryx. They had to be around 16-18, merely teenagers. Did they work here? Did the doctors send them? They began to approach Bleu, muttering to themselves. The Hawk gestured to the computer next to Bleu's bed, to which the Chiro boy quickly hopped over to and began typing away at the keyboard.
"Heya, you're probably wondering why we're here, among other questions. Come on, get up. We're here to get you out. Oh, and take this. Just let it dissolve in your mouth, it'll help with the pain." The young Hawk handed Bleu a small round tablet, presumably some kind of painkiller. She hesitantly took it, but didn't place it in her mouth. "Don't worry, I'm not trying to poison you. If I was, I wouldn't have gone through all this effort." Bleu decided to trust this young one, and placed the tablet on her tongue. It was bitter, but dissolved fairly quickly. "Come on, we don't have all day!" The Hawk was already at the door, looking over at the Chiro at the computer. "I know, I know! It's a lot harder to do these things that you'd think!" He snapped back at her, typing quicker. A few things flitted across the computer screen, and the Chiro took a USB flash drive out of his pocket, plugging it into the computer. He did some more typing and a lot of clicking on various things, but once he seemed to be satisfied, he unplugged the drive, placed it back in his pocket, and hurried over to the Hawk's side. "Done." He huffed.
Bleu stood up, noticing a slight decrease in her pain, and headed towards the two Stryx. "Who...?" Was all she managed to ask, immediately coughing at the pain in her throat. "Gylfie." The Hawk replied, then gestured to the Chiro, "And this is Hunter. He's kinda shy, so don't mind him." Hunter immediately elbowed her in the shoulder, receiving a glare from Gylfie. Gylfie then turned her attention to Bleu, who was still hacking away from the pain. "Yeah, those tablets are a bit dry, aren't they? Here, I've got an extra water bottle in my bag." Gylfie shook the bag on her back off, reaching in to grab a bottle of lukewarm water. "It's not cold, but it's better than nothing." She handed it to Bleu, who eagerly took it and downed half of the bottle. "Thanks." She said after wiping the droplets from her beak. "So, what are you doing here? You don't seem like you're one of the doctors, are you?" Bleu asked, throat still a bit sore.
"We're not here by employment, we're here to get as many of you guys out of here as possible." Gylfie explained, beginning to walk down the hallway. She must've seen the visible confusion on Bleu's face, because she began to explain further. "You were hit by a car, no? Blacked out? Well, I hate to break it to you, but there was a reason you were hit by that car. They caused that blackout as a diversion to capture as many of you as possible, starting with you and that blue colored fellow. We don't yet know what for, but we know it can't be good. 'So why are you guys here? You weren't at the party.' You may be asking yourself. Well, no, we weren't invited. We've been down here far longer than you'd think, even though we're young compared to you. We've been down here for about 5-6 years, trying to break Stryx out of here. Ever wonder why various locals just go missing, but they're merely marked as 'Deceased?' They were stolen away, both the young and the old, and brought down here for 'modification.' Just think of it as a fancy word for practically torture. Most of them are taken apart, fiddled with, and then put back together in grotesque forms, even mutating into unrecognizable monsters. Some are much more fortunate, merely dubbed as servents to The Fire Demon, shackled and monitored closely. Once he has no need for them however, they are sent to be turned into energy for the reactor that keeps everything here running. Kinda fucked, isn't it?" At this point, Bleu was no less than mortified. She was honestly speechless, for nearly the first time in her life.
"Oh, I bet you're still wondering what happens to those who we break out. Well, to tell you the truth, we've only ever helped one Stryx to freedom. He was called something different before this all happened to them, but that's all he could remember of his previous time in society. I could tell he'd been down here for a long time. When it was eventually time to say goodbye and send him off, we'd been calling him Malus for so long, as a placeholder, that he decided to keep his newfound name. Wonder what's become of him now?" Gylfie asked, more as a rhetorical question than one to be answered. Hunter still hadn't interjected to help her explain their mission.
"Anyway, now we're here helping you. Yes, we've become very tech-savvy in our time down here, at least with the tech used around here. We know all the ins and outs in the basic computer system, but we're still trying to crack the code on the main one. All we really have access to is door locks and such, maybe a few simple weapons systems. We haven't fully explored it yet. We have stolen a few pieces of tech though, including this nifty lock-breaker." Gylfie held up the strange device Bleu could now recall her holding when the two had opened her door. "Now, we should be close to the main containment wing, don't you have a friend that was with you when you were taken?" Gylfie asked. Bleu nodded meekly, still trying to process things.
"Alright, let's go get him then."