Project Jupiter

Chapter 4: A Past That Fuels The Present (Part 1)

Author's note: Howdy, my dear readers, hope you're doing fine as you read this. I'd love it if you would vote and comment on the story, it helps with reaching more people, that's all, enjoy!

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21:00 in Kanazawa-ku, South Yokohama, Year 2051

A figure could be seen walking inside of an apartment, leaving the bedroom with blue walls, a single bed, a desk with drawers, and some windows with thin curtains over them. The person looked to be 178cm tall and was wearing a casual plain black t-shirt and black pants accompanied by some black sandals and there were visible bruises on their arms. He walked through a wide and long corridor, passing by 2 bathrooms and 2 other rooms. Finally the figure reached what seemed to be the kitchen, turning on the light and revealing the black-haired, purple-eyed visage of Jupiter and in straight in front of him, sitting in a chair was the tall, green haired, blue eyed woman. He stared at her for a few seconds before directing himself to the fridge to get some food, and as he started looking, she started talking.

"Well good evening to you too, pretty boy" - she said in a lightly annoyed tone.

"I'm assuming you're coming with something important, Maho-chan" - retorted Jupiter, still looking into the fridge.

"When do I ever say unimportant things, dear Jiro?" - she asked in a confident tone, knowing that it was going to get a reaction out of him.

"What did you just call me? - Jiro asked, now looking at her with a face that expresses confusion.

"Jiro Hanata, that's your real name. I heard it when I was intercepting communications at one of the Hoshi Labs locations" - answered Maho with a serious look on her face.

"And before you start asking questions, you need to know that they are gonna come after you now. They seem to think you're the key to the experiments that gave us our powers and they want to replicate it. They're sending some guys named the Three Beasts to hunt you down" - she explained to Jiro who was now eating an apple with his eyes closed, trying to analyze all the information clearly.

"It's going to take a while to get used to that name. As for these beast guys they're sending after me, they better be ready to die, cuz I'll be damned if I let those crazy bastards get their hands on me again" - said Jiro in a calm rage as he remembered what they were put through.

"Well I'm not gonna let you fight alone, Thunderpants. You're the reason I'm free and I have my own bone to pick with them" - retorted Maho as she got up from her chair and walked towards Jiro

"You've just learnt my actual name and already discarded it. Why can't you be normal? - said Jiro, looking at her with his head slightly raised. Jiro was 178cm but Maho was taller, standing at 181cm. Maho walked behind Jiro and put her around his waist, resting her chin on his right shoulder with a serene smile on her face before falling to the ground comically, courtesy of a low voltage shock from Jiro.

"How many times have I told you to not do that? - said a lightly annoyed Jiro to Maho who was now laying on the ground

"I don't know, 153 times? It doesn't matter, we're strong but sometimes we need to feel some comfort. That goes for you too, Thunderpants. I don't care how strong you are, I'm gonna be fighting to protect you as much as you protect me. And that's not even mentioning Kazeyami" - she said, getting off the floor and dusting herself off.

"Speaking of Kazeyami, we should probably head to Kyoto and meet up with him. We know that Hoshi's HQ isn't here in Yokohama, and since they're coming after me, we don't have to worry about them damaging the city again" - said Jiro as he went back to his room to pack some essentials. As he stepped into the room, he looked at a silver necklace with the kanji for "protect" on it. It was the single item that he had that assured him that he had a family before being in the orphanage that he remembers as his earliest memories.

Unfortunately, it also served as a reminder of the cruel experiments that they were subjected to, the aggression from the guards and the feeling of despair, of knowing that there was pain awaiting him every single day that he was in the laboratories of Hoshi Corporation. He gripped the necklace strongly in his left hand, tears running down his face as the memories rushed through his mind. He packed the necklace and went to the bathroom through the wide corridor, took off his shirt and stared at the scars that remained on his torso: a long scar going from his right shoulder to his left hip, intercepted by a short vertical scar between his pecks. These scars held memories as well and he lost himself in them as he recalled how he broke himself, Maho and Kazeyami out of the laboratory.

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Flashback (8 years ago, Kyoto, Japan, 2043)

Underneath an abandoned warehouse in a scruffy neighborhood, a state-of-the-art facility for lab experiments was currently running their daily routine. Kids ranging from 10-18 years old were walking in a line towards the their quarters for their daily meal, all of them wearing control collars, most of them with pale skin and covered in bruises, scars and marks. As they walked, two thuds were heard coming from the back of the line where two kids had collapsed and were taking ragged breaths before they stopped moving and their breathing came to a halt. The rest of the kids didn't even bat an eye to what happened, they were used to that already, and in an instant two armed guards came to carry away the bodies.

As they arrived to the quarters and went to get their standard everyday meal, a man in a black lab coat came into the room with two armed guards beside him, one of which had distinctive short red hair and looked younger than the other. The man in the black lab coat had short black hair in a low fade and a serious expression in his face though he looked to be in his mid-twenties. He motioned for the guards to take 3 kids with them to the main experiment room. As they arrived, each of the children were put into different containment spaces, sat in chairs with constraints and tubes that linked to their bloodstream.

The man in the black lab coat, Fūdo Nawatami, started the experiments by pressing a button on his desk that began the transfusion of a dark green liquid that travelled through the tubes and went straight into the bloodstream of the 3 kids. Once the liquid finished entering their bodies, the cables were automatically removed and the kids started to scream in pain.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHH, PLEASEEEEE, HELLPPPPPPPP"

"IT BUUUUUUURNNNSSS, MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOPPP"

"PLEASEEEEEEEE HELP MEEEEEEE, SAVE MEEEE PLEEEE-" - the last scream never finished as Nawatami pressed a button on his desk to mute the noises.

He observed calmly as the kids trembled, screamed and convulsed. One of them was now presenting changes, his left arm bulging and becoming a dark deformation before blood came out of his mouth and he collapsed, immobile. Another one, a girl, started to grow, becoming taller, her skin becoming scaly and growing small horns on the top of her head but she soon started bleeding from her nose and ears as her body convulsed, and regressed into a halfway between normal and transformed, then she collapsed, immobile.

The last one looked stable for a few seconds after some minor convulsion, but his torso started to inflate, followed by his arms, and then his legs, and then his face suffered a deformation, with fangs coming out of his mouth and a hardened tail with a stinger bursting from his tailbone, splashing blood. He began to convulse once again as he laid on the ground and then all signs of life in him dissapeared.

Nawatami bowed his head in disappointment. It had been another failure. He had yet to manage altering the human DNA and keeping it stable. He had tried some ways but this time he tried mixing animal DNA with human DNA. It seemed that wasn't the solution. He got up from his seat and went back to the quarters where all the kids were.

He pointed at one child, seated at a table far back in the room, next to two others. The child was short, had short messy black hair and stunning purple eyes and looked to be 13 years old. The guards grabbed him and he was taken to the main experiment room.

To be continued...

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Author's note: there will be more about this in part 2, coming very soon. Hope y'all are liking this story. Don't forget to comment wherever u like and vote on it, it really helps.

Ookami out!