Subject 132's Story

Andrew took notice when a mutant with hip-length hair entered the gathering room. Andrew smiled and walked over to greet the newcomer. Shoving aside the final mutant blocking his path, Andrew finally made it up to the mutant.

"Hello there."

Mepistopheles watched everyone else from where he sat in the corner, chin on his knees. He scratted lightly at one of the infected holes where nails poked through his neck and whined, bored. At least he wasn't being attacked this time, though. Hieronymus had seemed to given up hope of coming back for the time being, especially with all these new people around - the human felt dazed and confused, it seemed. The demon wasn't much happier, tail whisking on the floor. He flicked it back to curl around his bare feet before it got damp from a girl who seemed to be leaking.

He lifted his head so the bone jaw could hang open and his voice come out. The strange, glowing eyes deep in the hyena skull's eyesockets focused on the new girl and the boy who went to meet her. He felt left out, to be truthful, being the oldest one there. Hieronymus was middle aged, and he himself was no spring chicken any more. He waited for the girl to greet all of them, but grumbled when no such thing happened.

"Hello. Not talking to the lesser beings, then, are we?" it sighed, back to being sarcastic and jaded-sounding, despite the fear it displayed earlier.

Stretching, the demon clicked his neck and stood up, hunched over.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm not in the best of moods. Charmed to meet you, I'm sure."

It offered a long, spindly arm with hooked claws topping each finger for a shake. As always, it was hard to tell if it was being sarcastic or serious.

"Mind the claws, or you'll get a nasty infection and that would be a shame."

The creature peered down at the little girl and awkwardly patted her shoulder (trying his best not to cut her) before shaking hands with the young man. His jaw still hung open so that he could speak, and his tail whisked against the ground. It took him a moment to register that the girl was talking about the infected sores around the nails seemingly hammered through his body, but he shook his head. He'd had them as long as he could remember. Besides, the occasional pus weeping from one added to the 'scary' appearance of him. His skin was devoid of hair and was mottled grey and a disgusting unhealthy shade of pink. Veins ran criss-cross close to the surface and the tendons on his human feet stood out, making them look withered and scrawny. Where the nails poked through, it was an angrier red with odd patches of yellow where pus collected under the surface.

"I'm sure I've seen scarier," he said with a barking laugh, going to coil back on his chair again. "They call myself and my host 51. My host is known as Hieronymus to others, and my name is Mephistopheles. It's not my true name, I don't think, but I read it in a book and it seemed good enough."

-Lack-

After the ruckus had died down, Lack went to clean his ear off, sick of the thudding in his head from the pain. He was sick of everything all over, really, and was in an utterly foul mood. Harangued and plagued half to death by screaming mutants dragged down hallways by idiot guards, he managed to find an empty medical room to fix himself up in. His chewed-up ear had never looked good in the first place, but now it was just the lobe and tragus peering awkwardly into the world. Muttering to himself and scowling, he carefully cleaned the dried blood off. The wound had sealed but looked awful and Lack fought the urge to grab a scalpel and cut the rest off just to be done with it. He'd have to build a custom 'ear' and see if any of his co-workers would be able to fit it. The operation was relatively complicated but commonplace for biomechanical surgeons. Lack wasn't sure if he trusted any of the people here to drill into his head, though.

Head resting in his mechanical hand, he yanked his notepad and pen from his bag and began making a list. The man's handwriting was an atrocious scrawl, but it seemed as if he could read it. Each punctuation mark, each dot on every 'i' or 'j' was stabbed into the paper with vehemence as he sorted what he'd write about in his letter. He had listed most everything, but wasn't sure if it was all. Maybe Lazarus would know - he'd been working here longer than Lack, after all. Still scowling, he stood up and searched for the man. Knocking on the security room door, he poked his head around to see if he was there.

"No thank you. They've been like that as long as I remember," Meph said to the little girl, not used to communicating with people so very young. He wasn't sure if he'd get into trouble if he did heal them up anyway because that was how they had always been and he assumed that'd annoy certain powerful demons if they were fixed. He really didn't need those on his ass. His lazy half-existance was fine as it was. He curled further into his seat, sighing and listening to the woman, Sheelin. Corrupted by wrath, it seemed. Boring boring boring. The demon enjoyed playing with more insidious sins; sloth, pride and lust in particular.

"But you are humans," he pointed out. "Just ones with powers and sometimes wonky genes."

He wound his arms around his knees, the trinkets on his bizarre clothes clicking as he shifted.

"I borrow a human's body, but that doesn't make Hieronymus a demon. In answer to your question, yes. When necessary. I'm not a vengeful demon who wants to lay waste to mankind. My mission is corruption. Hieronymus has never killed. I doubt he could even at a push. You should channel your anger into something productive, or you'll end up like my poor host body. All bitter and twisted with no mind of your own, simply spitting and lashing out at people. Or maybe you're already like that, uhuhuh."

As he was a demon, the beast enjoyed thinking about morals. He wasn't resentful of being pinned to this body in the name of science; rather, he used it as a tool for learning. Before now, he'd had little contact with humans of any sort, normal or mutated.

The ruined lips of Lazarus didn't really bother Lack. He was curious, as always, but before he was entirely fixed up, he had a hole in one of his cheeks where you could see his teeth, and he could poke his tongue through if he wanted to bother people. Fortunately for him, it had been fixed up with a piece of flesh grown from stem-cells and then a simple skin graft. The whole thing had gone rather pear-shaped, however, and so barely just stuck out amonst the thick scar-tissue where fangs had pulled back skin and rended flesh. He felt sympathetic, and wondered if anyone had even tried grafts.

"Hey, I suppose now would be a bad time to want to ask questions, huh?" he said with his usual wonky, creepy grin. "I'm compiling a list of failings for my letter and wondered if you had any I could add in."

He paused, thinking for a second.

"I also wondered if you wanted me to do anything about those claws? I could make them retractable, if you wanted. I'd have to order in the correct pieces, or buy them from my old workplace, though. But I'll come back later, if you want."

The assault rifle he'd stolen from the dead man earlier was slung across his back. There had been attempts to get him to put it down, but the man had refused. He was incredibly stubborn and had threatened to go and buy something even more powerful and come back with it tomorrow morning if they didn't leave him be and have something to keep himself safe with. Of course, itd be useless against mutants, but hell if he cared. It was big, powerful and looked the part.

He peered out the door again and glanced towards the infirmary. He should really be helping out there. Doubtless lots of men and women could use his scientific expertise to help them out. But for now, he was busy. He looked back in.

-Meph-

"Funny, you said 'human insects' earlier. Is that a term of endearment? Hahah."

His voice sounded infuriatingly mocking even when making simple remarks, and it was hard to remember he didn't do it on purpose for a lot of people. Sometimes it was purposeful - he enjoyed winding people up even though he'd generally flee when threatened, or climb up a wall and refuse to come down until the threat had been dealt with. To the guards and scientists, the demon was unusually complaint, which often earnt suspicion. He meant nothing by it, however. He was simply as curious about them, and himself, as they were. Cutting of Hieronymus' hand had come a bit too close, though, and Meph loathed the scientist that ruined his host body. He often felt as if his own right hand shouldn't be there, and he knew that poor 51 had terrible phantom limb syndrome. Once, his 'hand' had managed to get 'stuck' in a painful position for weeks on end, and it took much bothering of doctors before it was sorted out with a short dose of mirror therapy.