Chapter Text
The deeper you delved into the trenches of TYUMI's underground, the darker it got. Literally, the lighting seemed to get dimmer and dimmer, the flooring dirtier and grimier... And figuratively, as the less savory realms of sapient experimentation happened below ground. The higher floors were filled with bureaucracy, which was its own type of darkness, but the basements got less and less humane as the number attached to the letter B grew. Same was true for the Bionic Bodies, in fact.
The deeper levels of the complex were darker in a third way, too: Information. Clearance levels needed for access increased as the elevator descended. It made sense, of course, that the 'good doctor' would hide their wilder, farfetched experiments behind further veils of secrecy. A higher clearance level meant you were closer to them, more aligned with their malformed dogma, more willing to accept anything for their cause.
Luckily, clearance meant sweet fuck all to Maverick Candles.
The rogue groaned as he shambled down the dim hallway, metal flooring rippling beneath his prosthetic legs and leaving ring-shaped crenellations. He didn't bother to deactivate his Stand. Let them spend the money to replace the flooring; they were going to know he was here by the end of this anyway. As he scratched at his chin, he looked around, squinting to try and make out any sign of life in the corridor at all. Most of the cells were empty or in disarray. Figured. The vast majority of these projects ended in failure, and those which didn't often had to be put down, or were kept in the cold storage facility without their DDs.
At last, though, he came upon a large, glass cylinder, containing a muscular, longhaired beast of a human hooked up to all sorts of injections and breathing pipes. A cylinder with a single placard denoting his Institute-assigned number:
BB4638
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes, eh?" Maverick said, speaking as if the man inside was able to hear him. Maybe he could, or maybe he couldn't. Either way, he felt the words leave him as if they needed to. He had lost those inhibitions a few years back. "Bloody tragic what those from on high did to you. To all of us. And some of us... Some of us didn't even live with all the shit they put us through." He scoffed, shutting his eyes. "Though I didn't feel it at the time, those were the lucky ones."
Maverick shrugged, knocking on the glass casing with a flick of his tail. "There's no turning back to who you were, *beast*. No way to undo the transformation. I've stopped trying to go back... But I've started thinking forwards." He said, tapping his head brace.
"Wouldn' it be nice if people saw you as you are now? Sure, you can't become your old self, as hideous of a person you were... but you can show the world your new self. All while getting to flex those altered muscles of yours. And luckily for you..."
The dingo curled his lips in a mischievous grin, drawing a test tube from his yellow coat with a strange black and yellow fluid inside.
"I'm breaking out of here tonight."