Chapter Text
The first thing Wemmbu remembered was the ceiling.
White.
Always white.
The walls of his cell were white. The floor was white. The lights that burned overhead day and night were white. Even the scientists who came to drag him away for experiments wore white coats.
Everything was white.
Everything except him.
The files attached to the glass outside his room labeled him in bold purple letters.
SUBJECT 500 - PURPLE RANK
The rank nobody understood.
The rank nobody wanted.
The rank that meant they couldn't predict what he would become.
Wemmbu hated that file.
At eight years old, he already knew enough to hate being different.
Still, he refused to let them see it.
Every morning he would grin when they opened his cell.
Every experiment, he'd crack jokes.
Every punishment, he'd stick his tongue out.
The scientists called him troublesome.
Chaotic.
Uncontrollable.
Wemmbu preferred those words.
They were better than scared.
Because he was scared all the time.
Especially when they took Eggchan.
Eggchan was Blue Rank.
The weakest rank.
Small, quiet, fragile.
Everything Wemmbu wasn't.
The first time they'd met, Eggchan had been crying in the corner of the recreation room.
Wemmbu had walked over and sat beside him.
"Why are you crying?"
Eggchan had wiped his eyes.
"I'm scared."
Wemmbu had shrugged.
"Me too."
That was the beginning.
After that, they became inseparable.
Well.
As inseparable as two experiments could be.
Whenever stronger subjects pushed Eggchan around, Wemmbu stepped in.
Whenever Eggchan got hurt during training, Wemmbu helped him walk back.
Whenever nightmares woke Wemmbu up, Eggchan would sneak through the vents and sit beside him until he fell asleep again.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
And in a place like this, something was everything.
—
The Purple Rank experiments were always the worst.
They strapped him down.
Injected strange chemicals into his veins.
Measured his enderdragon abilities.
Forced him to fight until his body gave out.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Hours became days.
Days became weeks.
The scientists wrote notes while he screamed.
The scientists observed while he bled.
The scientists watched while he cried.
And every time he asked for Eggchan, they ignored him.
By the time they returned him to his cell, he could barely stand.
His wings dragged across the floor.
His vision blurred.
Everything hurt.
Everything.
He collapsed onto his bed.
Alone.
The room felt bigger somehow.
Colder.
Emptier.
A few minutes later, he heard scratching inside the vent.
Then a familiar voice.
"Wem?"
Eggchan.
Wemmbu nearly started crying.
Instead he forced a grin.
"Took you long enough."
Eggchan crawled out.
The moment he saw Wemmbu, the smile disappeared from his face.
"Oh."
Wemmbu looked away.
He hated that expression.
The pity.
The sadness.
The realization of how much pain he was in.
Neither of them said anything.
Eggchan simply climbed onto the bed and sat beside him.
Close enough that their shoulders touched.
Close enough that neither of them felt quite so alone.
The facility lights buzzed overhead.
The white walls remained unchanged.
The scientists still waited outside.
Tomorrow would bring more experiments.
More pain.
More tests.
More suffering.
Nothing would get better.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Not next year.
But for one small moment, sitting beside his best friend, Wemmbu could pretend.
Pretend they weren't experiments.
Pretend they weren't trapped.
Pretend they were just two normal kids.
And for the first time in a long time, the Purple Rank boy allowed himself to close his eyes.
Because if Eggchan was still here...
Then maybe he could survive one more day.
—
Wemmbu dragged himself through the cafeteria, Eggchan hurrying alongside him.
Usually, he wasn't allowed outside his cell for longer than an hour at a time.
Too dangerous.
Too unpredictable.
Too much of a risk.
At least, that's what the scientists always said.
But recently they'd decided isolation wasn't helping his behavior. Apparently, locking a hyperactive eight-year-old inside a room for most of his life had consequences.
Who knew?
So now he was allowed supervised cafeteria visits.
Lucky him.
The room buzzed with noise. Subjects from every rank sat scattered throughout the cafeteria. Blue ranks clustered together nervously. Greens and Yellows stuck to their own groups.
The Reds dominated the center.
Like they owned the place.
Which, in a way, they kind of did.
Wemmbu grabbed his tray and flopped down at the nearest empty table.
Then he noticed the silence.
Eggchan wasn't sitting beside him.
The Blue rank stood frozen a few feet away, staring at the table with wide eyes.
Wemmbu frowned.
"What?"
Eggchan swallowed.
"...Wem."
Only then did Wemmbu bother looking around.
Oh.
Oops.
Red ranks.
Four of them.
The biggest and strongest kids in the facility.
One looked bored.
One looked annoyed.
One looked like he wanted an excuse to hit something.
The fourth was completely black from head to toe, with streaks of rainbow colors scattered across his body.
The rainbow-accented boy grinned as he watched another boy, with brown dreads and a blindfold covering his eyes, along with a red and yellow headband, spoke to Wemmbu.
"Move."
Wemmbu blinked.
"No."
The entire table went quiet.
The boy's smirk twitched.
"What?"
"No."
The other Red ranks stared.
Nobody talked to Reds like that. Especially not to Flame.
Nobody.
Wemmbu stabbed a fork into his mystery cafeteria food.
"Find another table."
The boy laughed.
It wasn't a nice laugh.
"This isn't your place."
"How would you know?"
"Because you're..." He squinted at the purple tag attached to Wemmbu's uniform. "A Purple rank?"
The confusion on his face was almost funny.
"The hell's a Purple rank?"
Wemmbu grinned immediately.
A grin that usually meant trouble.
"A special rank."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yep."
"Never heard of it."
"That's because there's only one."
The boy rolled his eyes.
"I bet it's lower than Blue rank."
One of his friends snorted.
Another laughed.
Eggchan visibly shrank where he stood.
Wemmbu noticed immediately.
His grin disappeared.
Just a little.
"Nah."
The rainbow-accented boy leaned forward.
"Nah?"
"I'm higher than all of you."
The table erupted into laughter.
Even a few nearby subjects started listening.
A tiny eight-year-old Purple rank claiming he outranked Reds?
Ridiculous.
The rainbow-accented boy wiped tears from his eyes.
"Sure you are."
"I am."
"Prove it."
As light crackled from Wemmbus fingertips, his shock collar immediately flashed red, making his powers extinguish.
"You know damn well I can't."
Flame snorted.
"You seriously need powers just to fight? There's no honor behind that. Use your fists."
"I'll shove this fist up your—" Wemmbu was interrupted by Eggchan covering his mouth.
"What?" Flame scowled.
The boy from earlier, with the rainbow accents, slammed his hands down on the table.
"Guyysss... Let's just eat and be nice! Friendship is magic, yknow?"
"Shut up Spoke." The three Red ranks replied, but listened either way, allowing Wemmbu to eat with them.
"Jeez man..is this the mean girls show or something? acting like idiots.." Wemmbu mumbled under his breathe. Spoke snorted, but everyone else ignored him.
Eggchan waved bye as he went to eat with the other Blue ranks.