The Freaks of the Ring

Two: The Freaks

Levi glanced down at the body in front of them, prodding the chest with a gloved finger. "Tony, tell me again why you'd thought it would be a good idea to knock a random pedestrian with no ties to us whatsoever unconscious, proceed to bring him here, and then suggest we try the serum on him?" They looked up at the cyborg, eyes filled with question underneath a sheet of jet-black hair.

Tony merely shrugged, his laser eye scanning over Adam's body once again. "He has the Power inside of him, that much I can tell. Why not take use of it and recruit our final member?" The was already a syringe filled with the potentially deadly liquid in his hand. Everyone had barely stopped him in time.

Rem sighed and twirled a piece of bright red hair around their finger. "For the smartest person of our generation, you can really be dense sometimes, Metal-Head. The thing could easily kill someone without Power, why risk it? Not that I should be complaining, of course." They pressed two leather-clad fingers to Adam's neck, as if checking to make sure he wasn't dead already. "We already have Doku to worry about, do we really need another incapable person to worry about?"

As much as Blitz wanted to interrupt Rem's thoughts, he couldn't worm himself into the conversation. A jerk of his hand that caused the electricity to surge finally caught their attention. "You're really going to hate on him again? If it wasn't for him, I'd probably be dead right about now, thank you very much." It wasn't difficult to tell that the two didn't exactly get along. Rem was already reaching for the scythe they'd set down on the concrete floor earlier. Blitz's hand was quickly being covered by a casing of plasma.

As usual, Levi was forced to come in between the fighting elementals. With a sigh, they placed a hand on a shoulder of each member and mumbled something incoherent under their breath. The electric elemental froze in place almost immediately, stuck in his own little loop of time until Levi decided to release him. Rem, on the other hand, was completely unaffected. "Go back to our room and calm down," their twin said gently, as though talking to a small child. Rem didn't bother even protesting. They just swung the scythe over their shoulder and left the infirmary with a huff.

While that went on, Tony took the distraction to carry out with his original plan. Without hesitation, the syringe was plunged into Adam's arm, the shimmering liquid inside slowly emptying into the boy's flesh. He knew exactly what he was doing. One day, Levi would thank him for this. Of course, that was the same thought he'd had the first time he suspected someone held control over water in their veins and that time hadn't exactly worked out all that well. In his defense, it had actually been the girl's idea to try to bring out her so-called powers. It was the same time that they all realized how deadly the formula that brought out their abilities could actually be.

For the time being however, Levi was absolutely pissed. They'd barely gotten finished with Rem when they heard the plunger go down in the little glass tube. It was all they had not to wrap a hand around Tony's throat and cut off his air supply completely.

"What in the name of all things good and bright do you think you're doing?!" They yanked the syringe out of Tony's grasp, knocking it to the floor. It was too late though. Every last drop of the serum had been emptied into Adam's blood stream. "What did I just say about not trying it out on him? We're probably going to need to get Rem back in here to deal with the corpse!"

"No, there will be no need for that whatsoever. Just watch and see." Tony couldn't help but smile a little at Levi, to their dismay. They pushed back their hair, revealing pure white eyes that slowly widened in complete and utter shock. "You've gotta be kidding me..."

Without a doubt, gills were beginning to form on Adam's neck, webbing between his fingers. Tiny scales were solidifying on his arms in place of hairs. Levi didn't hesitate to run to the sink and soak a towel through with water. They'd never seen a Revealing before, though they suspected that exposing the team's newest member to their element was the best way to go about keeping him alive. It had supposedly worked with just about everyone else, so why not try it with this guy?

They'd just set the damp towel over Adam's new gills when a thought finally occurred to Levi. With a sigh, they looked back up at Tony. "So since it's looking like we've picked up another hopeless member, does this mean I have to come up with another code name and get a room ready?"

Tony couldn't help but chuckle. It always did seem like Levi was left with all the tasks that no one else could be bothered to do. "You could always ask Percikan to do it for you, though I doubt you'd like to be burned to a crisp."

The life-giver sighed and shook their hair back into place. "I doubt we'd want the entire Ring to be burned to ashes again. I'm on it."