Sly (An Apex Legends Fanfic)

Chapter 63

We ended up moving to the common area in the hallway as not everyone could fit inside my tiny apartment. Bloodhound sat beside me on the couch and Mirage sat on the other side, Octane crammed into the tiny space left beside Mirage. Wraith was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the couch, while Pathfinder took a chair. Crypto had hooked up his laptop to the T.V and was sitting on the ground in front of it.

"How much do you know already?" I asked Wraith, suddenly feeling nervous about what I was about to learn.

"I know what happened to me," she said. "We, we were different." I nodded a few times and I felt Bloodhound squeeze my hand.

"You sure you are okay with us being here?" Mirage asked a second later. I nodded again, my nerves seeming to have taken control over my vocal cords.

"Alright," Crypto said, finally interrupting the silence that had overtaken the room. He looked over at me and I nodded one more time. "So, you are aware that you and Wraith were frozen in similar circumstances."

"Wait, wait, really?!" Octane interrupted. "Wraith you're from-" Mirage elbowed him. "Lo siento."

"When the majority of people left Earth, you two were left in an old government research facility," Crypto went on. "It appears that you were forgotten about till about three hundred years ago." I tilted my head, to display my confusion. "The IMC had been raiding old facilities, like the one you were in, in search of any old research that could prove useful." Crypto hit a few buttons on his laptop and a second later there were a few photos on the screen.

"Is that-?" I started. He nodded. On the screen were two pods that I recognized to be the machine I was frozen in, though in these pictures, I could make out an outline of a person inside of them. I gulped.

"IMC was working with another company at the time. Both wanted to use you for research and experiments so they came to an agreement. The IMC took Wraith and the other took you."

"What company?" I asked. Crypto changed to another set of photos, displaying a logo.

"Hammond Robotics."

"Hammond?" Mirage was the first to pipe up. Crypto nodded.

"Wait, wait, who's Hammond?" I asked. I felt a pit in my stomach growing.

"They worked hand in hand with the IMC during the war," Mirage explained to me. "Care more for profit than they do people."

"And this all happened three hundred years ago?" Crypto nodded again.

"While the IMC decided to wait till recently to unfreeze and test on Wraith, Hammond started right away with you," Crypto got ready to change the pictures on the screen again. "This... this may be hard to see."

"I can handle it." The screen changed and it displayed a video. On it, the pod I was frozen in, surrounded by a couple of people in lab coats. I could tell they were in the process of unfreezing me. I felt my brows furrow as I watched myself stumble out of it, being caught by one of the people.

"Where am I?" the video version of me coughed out, I was looking frantically at the room I was in. In real-time I felt my stomach do a backflip as I watched one of the scientists poke a needle into my arm, knocking me out where I was then put onto a gurney. The video ended and I felt everyone's gaze on me. I was shaking my head.

"I..." I started, trying to think. "I don't... remember that." I looked over at Crypto, the video now replaying itself in the background.

"Well, given Wraith's lack of memory and you not having any from that year, it's safe to say the process of freezing impairs one's memories."

"Year?" I felt my breathing getting more rapid and I saw Crypto bite his bottom lip.

"Yeah." I could hear the sympathy in his voice. "You were in that facility for just under a year." He changed the screen to display multiple videos that had been taken over that time course, each of me. "In that time," Crypto went on. "They ended up freezing and unfreezing you multiple times, usually between tests they ran." It went quiet again as my eyes were fixated on the screen. None of the videos had sound but I could tell very clearly that I had been in pain. I felt my bottom jaw beginning to tremble as my eyes filled with tears.

"W-why?" I finally managed to croak out, my voice cracking as I spoke. Crypto shook his head.

"Elskan," Bloodhound's voice was barely a whisper. They took both of my hands into theirs. "Breathe." I nodded a few times, taking a few shaky breaths, slowly turning them into deeper ones until I felt myself stop shaking.

"Kid?" Mirage asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. I nodded a few more times, wiping my eyes before any tears had the chance to fall.

"I'm okay." I nodded again, reassuring myself. "I'm okay." I took another deep breath. "I just wasn't expecting that," I said with a small laugh. "So... is, are they, is that how I got the uh," I made a sticky motion with my hand that wasn't holding Bloodhound's.

"They described it as a side effect from the continuous freezing and thawing." I stifled back another laugh, resulting in me getting a few worried glances.

"So, they did all of that... only to discover that if you refreeze a human too many times they get sticky?" I saw Mirage grin a little. "What about the invisibility than?"

"That was a result of the testing they were doing. Most of the information was redacted so I can't tell you for sure what they were trying to accomplish, but they title your case 'The Winter Soldier'." This time I couldn't help but laugh. The small laugh quickly turned into a bigger one. I could hear Bloodhound chuckling a little as well.

"Clever," they said to me. "That too would have been a good outfit choice for you."

"You don't think they were planning on chopping my arm off, do you?" Bloodhound laughed a little again while everyone else looked at us, very confused.

"I don't think that was in their plans..." Crypto started, looking through his laptop.

"No, no," I laughed again.

"It's a Marvel reference," Bloodhound explained over my laughter. I looked at them and grinned,

"I know this isn't the time, but you understanding Marvel references is like... really hot."

"Gross!"

"Get a room!" Mirage and Octane yelled at us simultaneously. My face flushed red and Bloodhound laughed, wrapping their arms around me to pull me closer. I looked back at Crypto.

"So, what happened? I woke up back on Earth, three hundred years after that, right?"

"Yes," Crypto said. "It appears that they were running another... experiment at the time, which was getting better results so they decided to see if freezing you back on Earth would change anything."

"Should I be offended by that?"

"Probably," Mirage said. I rolled my eyes.

"So what was the other experiment?" I asked, deciding to ignore Mirage. "Was it another person?" Crypto nodded.

"Those files were even more encrypted than yours, this project was called..." Crypto looked back at his screen, double-checking. "Red Skull."

"Red Skull?" I asked. "So Marvel must've recently been forgotten about then, huh?" I asked no one in particular. "What did they do to Red Skull?" Crypto shrugged,

"I didn't try to crack the files, seeing as they didn't regard you. I suppose I can if you want." Now I shook my head,

"Nah, it's okay. It's probably not important anyway."

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