The Broken Observatory - Party Crashers AU

Short lockdown.

WARNING: Vomiting blood, anxiety/panic attack, psychological abuse.
  
  
  
We started to walk much more carefully when we heard Bowser sleeping, quickly figuring we were next to his room. We quickly, but as quiet as possible, ran to the other room without a nameplate.

I opened the door of that room. Once I walked inside and looked up, my jaw immediately dropped slightly.

Brent was there, in a cage attached to the ceiling. I wanted to run towards him somehow, but I had to remember to be careful as well. I smiled at him though, and he smiled back at me. I felt relieved that he was okay.

We walked further into the room, as I noticed Vernias flying towards the cage Brent was in. I saw them talking for a while and trying to open the cage, but eventually Vern flew back down.
  
  
"We need a key or something like this." - Vern announced, but still keeping his voice down.

"Okay, thanks, fallen angel." - I answered him and looked around the room again, taking a few steps forward.

I looked at the cages' weird placements. Two cages were in one corner, kind of attached with each other, and the other two were on the opposite corner of the room.

"What a stupid design choice." - I whispered to myself, but I could tell Vern and Eevee heard it, based on their giggling.

We all walked around the room, looking for any tool to open the cage, when suddenly, we all heard a voice behind us.
"Well well well, who do we have here?"

We all turned around to look back, and noticed Bowser there. We all took a few steps back, everyone looking thrown off.

"Noah, the ex-coworker of mine." - Bowser said with a grin while looking at Eevee, both me and Vern looked at him, surprised.

Sophist had his fists clenched and was frowning at the words Bowser said.
"You used to be my best spy back in the day, what was with that sudden change of sides two years ago? You left without a word." - Bowser continued.

"You worked for him?!" - I asked him, trying to keep my voice down.

Sophist nodded, looking quite disappointed with himself.
"Trust me, I have never regretted anything more than that." - he whispered back with a disgusted face.

Bowser, despite hearing what Eevee said, he looked at Vernias and continued his monologue.
"And if it isn't Vernias." - Bowser grinned again. - "My greatest experiment so far."

Vernias rolled his eyes, to which I looked at him in surprise, while Eevee looked down, rather upset.
"Yeah, that is quite a painful memory, thanks." - Vern responded.

"What does it mean, you're an experiment..?" - I whispered to him, worried.

"More like a normal human experimented on. I'll explain it to you someday." - he answered, upset from the flashback.

I felt really bad, both for Vernias and Eevee. I had a weird feeling of blaming myself, despite being fully aware that I couldn't do anything back then, because I didn't even know them before.

"And Nicolas, was it?" - Bowser suddenly continued. - "The younger prince of Sarasaland, Brent's twin brother."

I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow to listen to his talk.

"How thankful I can be for your recklessness about yourself." - Bowser said. I frowned, sure that everyone was looking at me now. - "Maybe you will tell the class yourself?"