Chapter Text
Gregory Gunn wants to die. It’s morbid, and definitely not healthy to think like that, but yes. He wants to kill himself, and then stick around as a ghost and see if his uncle ever cared. Uncle doesn’t, Greg knows this. Looking into the mirror, struggling to keep his eyes ahead and studying the rough skin crawling up his neck and claiming his cheeks.
He’s fourteen and has the absolute worst case of lizard skin a dermatologist has never seen. The people who like, paint nails and stuff? Yeah, his nails are thick, tinged green and they want to curl in a way that even Amaya’s talons don’t want to. Connor got off lucky, in Greg’s opinion. People like cats. Cat people are a thing online, from what little access to the internet Greg could have. Granted, those cat people were… really inappropriate, and Greg would always have to turn the computer off, too guilty to even scroll past whatever he saw or read.
His uncle was watching everything, after all. And Greg loves his uncle, really, he does! But a relationship sours when your uncle buys the first kids you talk to in a public setting, and then mutates them beyond repair, locking them underground with every government file wiped from existence. His uncle didn’t even have the courtesy to give his own nephew a cute animal to be an abomination of! He gave him a freaking Monitor Croc, some gross abomination that many people claimed was evil. That’s something He and Amaya had in common, at least.
“Hey,” a girl hissed, dropping out of an air duct that’s had a broken grille for years now.
“Luna, what’s up?” Greg was used to her popping in now and then, especially after she has a frustrating day like today. But then another body followed hers, a long and lanky kid who never spoke with Greg.
“Listen, Nepo, we need you to help us out here.” Nori and Luna were a year older than Greg and his friends, and were among the first batch of mutants GUNNTech made, alongside a third kid no one ever spoke about.
“I told you to stop calling me that.” Greg sighed, ready to help Luna at a moment’s notice. “There’s wound cream in the mattress, like always.”
“What.” Nori paused, eyes wide. They whipped their head to look at Luna, who had wasted no time pulling a small medicinal tube out from a hidden slit in the stiff mattress in the corner. “What the hell Moony, you made me think we were gonna force him or something!” Luna ignored them, pulling up her shirt to spread the cream on her side, where a nasty multicolor bruise painted her ribcage. It was a safety precaution Greg got away with a few months ago after Luna popped in with an arm so purple and swollen it looked like it was about to fall off.
“I mean, you are forcing me to.” Greg shrugged. “What do you need me to do?”
“We’re leaving.” Luna snarled, shoving the tube back into its hiding place. “Your bitch-ass uncle is trying to kill me! And fuck if I’m gonna stay in this hell-hole.”
“I’m going with.” Nori interrupted, wincing at her strong language.
“Huh?” Greg looked at the both of them. “But how will you live outside? We don’t exist?”
“You don’t.” Luna smirked. “But Nori found out we still have files, and that’s what we need help with.”
“Yes, I managed to get Kid Genius to make me a program that will obliterate whatever GUNNTech has, giving us a chance to disappear after we get out.” Nori pulled out a plug-in drive. “We have our escape plan, our files, our plan for after, but what we need…” Nori held out the drive.
“Is a distraction.” Greg finished, voice soft. He shifted his gaze up and into Luna’s grey eyes. “Why me?”
Luna softens as well. “You’re my best friend, Lizard brain. Even if you… stay, I know I can trust you.”
“Wait, he’s staying? You’re staying?” Nori shakes their head. “No no no no, us making him help is bad enough, but now you’re just gonna let a loose end go?”
“I’ve been helping Luna for years.” Greg argued. “I think I’m plenty trustworthy!”
Nori’s face withered. “If that’s true, then why aren’t you coming with us? You should know better than most what a horrible place this is?”
Luna groaned, snatching the drive and shoving Nori back. “Listen, we’re running out of time! Greg and I have an understanding. Get back into the vent, or I’m leaving you behind!” She dropped the drive into Greg’s open hand. “Plug it into the server, Nori marked where, and then get the fuck out of there. It’s set up to trigger alarms all over the place and unlock everything. If you get punished for this, I’ll never forgive you.” She vowed. Her lips are chapped and her fingertips are calloused.
“When?” He asks, having already had a feeling something like this would happen. Luna wasn’t exactly subtle around him.
“ASAP.” Nori huffs, pulling themselves up into the duct, leaving Luna to elaborate. “Dinner just ended, Romeo and Connor have clearance to hang out tonight, Amaya’s scheduled night training, and there are only two hours until curfew.” Luna grins. “It’s the perfect time to start shit.”
When Gregory Gunn was five years old, his mom and dad had dropped him off to stay with his uncle. A few months later, Uncle took him to a classroom full of other kids the same age as him. There were two girls who were super nice, and they played with blocks and the superhero figurines. One girl, Amaya, loved Flossy Flash, who wasn’t Greg’s favourite, but she’s cool too! The second girl was quiet, but she helped Greg with the blocks when his stubby hands made it difficult to make delicate builds. Her favorite hero was Master Fang, and Greg had fun playing Kick Mcgee, his sidekick.
Greg didn’t know he doomed these girls just by talking to them. Uncle insisted they come home with him like a sleepover. But they didn’t go home. Instead, Greg and his new friends found themselves underground, slated to become the next batch of mutants, designed to boost the egos of doctors that Greg didn’t know. A month after they were trapped underground, the three kids woke up with metal plates on their chests, a diamond shape that was an affront to God, inserted against their wills into their small bodies.
Violated, no longer children who just stopped being toddlers, just test subjects.
Batch One of the Animal Mutants.