Weird idea time: What if the Flare worked in more diverse ways?

In which I sadistically torture Newt (again. Refer to Prototype, my other story).

Dylan O'Brien was just so adorable when presenting the Death Cure set! And the few glimpses of Thomas Brodie-Sangster had managed to snap me out of the stupor I had gotten into over an actor in a Singaporean drama (he stopped acting after 2012...ish...and I'm bemoaning the lack of media). Hence the reawakened Maze Runner fervor.

I'm going to leave you in the dark about this first, except that this is totally AU. It deviates almost completely from the books and movies after the second one. It's not going to be long, five chapters at the most. Then again, I'm rubbish at estimations. I don't even have a clear plot line for this yet.

Enjoy!

It had shown itself in the Scorch, brief glimpses and brushes, but they didn't truly understand what it meant.

"Rise and shine, shanks! We have to get moving fast if we're going to reach the village before night!"

The Gladers rose reluctantly, brushing sand from their clothes. Thomas groaned and resisted the urge to flip over on his side to avoid the glare of the Sun shining down on them. Beside him, Newt sat up, seemingly unbothered by the harsh sunlight.

"It's still dark out, Min."

"Huh?" Thomas turned sharply to face his friend, tiredly rubbing at his eyes. Minho let out a snort of disbelief.

"Now's not the time to shucking kid me for a few more seconds of sleep, Newt."

Newt blinked a few more times. "Oh. The sun's glare must have blinded me. Shucking brilliant."

They continued on their journey, the little episode forgotten as they struggled to survive.

Until more started to crop up.

Minho barely managed to yank Newt out of the way as the passage crumbled. He would have reached for Thomas too, but Newt was responding too slowly, and it was the best he could do to make sure that none of the falling chunks of rocks hit them.

He coughed, dust shifting around him, and the dust settled enough for him to see Newt staring open-mouthed at the damage. The blocked tunnel. He was about to open his mouth when he heard Newt mutter quietly, to himself.

"How the bloody hell did I not hear that?"

And more.

"This tastes like klunk!" Newt complained, wrinkling his nose after getting a bite of the rations.

Frypan stared curiously at him. While it wasn't gourmet food, it was edible and decent. He wondered if his cooking was that good, to spoil Newt to this extent.

"Shut it, shank. It's something, so eat it and shut your hole." Minho sat down beside Newt, stretching his legs after a long day of running. He had been irritable lately, even with Newt. Especially with Newt.

Newt said nothing, just quietly finished the rest of the energy bar.

Frypan saw genuine confusion flicker in his Second in Command's eyes for a moment, but it was gone in an instant.

And the one that made everyone notice that something was genuinely wrong.

"Run for the Berg!" Thomas screamed over the sound of gnashing teeth and screams. "Quick! They didn't plan to wait for us!"

Struggling with their respective opponents, the Gladers, Glenners, Jorge and Brenda slowly made their way in the general direction of the Berg, more and more bodies thudding to the ground.

"Aim for the bulbs!"

Thomas quickly ran to help out the others as soon as he discovered the Achlles' Heel of whatever these things were, doing us best to ignore the blood soaking into the dry desert ground. Thunder crackled above them ominously.

In the instant lightning flashed, he heard a surprised yelp to his left, and spun to find Minho tackling a not-Griever, with two final bulbs dangling tantalizingly on its body down as Newt stared at his makeshift weapon, a staff on the ground, concentrating so hard that Thomas would have assumed that he was trying to move it by telekinesis.

Then the moment was over, and Newt moved, quick and deft, snatching the staff up from the ground, and with two well aimed jabs, he burst the remaining two bulbs. An unreadable expression on his face, he offered Minho a hand up.

Minho took it, and was about to say something when the Berg started moving, gaining speed.

"SHUCK!" Newt yelped, and the three of them sprinted after their salvation, barely making it, tumbling into the Berg painfully just as it took off.

"Now, shank." Minho said, after taking stock of their environment, rounding on Newt. "Tell me what the shuck happened out there."

He wished he hadn't asked.

"I don't know." Newt whispered.

In that moment, he looked very much like a frightened child.

Thomas couldn't stop worrying about Newt, and it drove him up the walls when he was being held in the White Room. When he saw everyone together at the end of the Third Trial, he wanted to pounce on Newt and ask him whether those episodes had still been happening, but Newt looked so happy and relaxed, teasing Minho about the new haircut he'd wrangled from a guard, that he couldn't bring himself to spoil it.

The Rat Man cleared his throat, and the room fell silent.

"Well, subjects-"

"Stop calling us that." Harriet, sounding annoyed. "Gladers and Glenners will do."

"Ladies and gentlemen." Jansen opted for a compromise, though sniggers were heard around the rooms to being addressed like this. "Congratulations on completing the Trials. You are now officially free from them."

"Oh yeah? What about our memories?" Frypan called out.

"I'm getting to that. You will all be of greater use to our research for a Cure to the Flare with your memories intact, so we are going to remove the Swipe shortly after this. It is a painless and swift procedure, and the only side effects you will experience is minor disorientation."

With those words, the room was thrown into an instant uproar.

"-trust them-"

"-our memories!"

"I want to-"

"Wait, you don't have the Cure yet?"

The room was silenced instantly.

"We hope to have one very soon." Janson said, his smile unwavering. "You are all Immune, which is why you have been chosen to take part in the Trials. We want to know what adaptive structure you might have in your Killzone to combat the Flare, and we hope to duplicate it."

A collective sigh of relief was heard.

"However, a few of you have been placed in the Trials as Controls, to compare your brain patterns. I'll like to get this over as soon as possible. The Controls are advised to remain in the facility as they will be high up in the priority list for receiving the Cure."

The room tensed again, everyone waiting for the hammer to fall.

"Group A, Subject A5, the Glue, Isaac Newton. Group B, Subject B8, the Provider, Margaret Thatcher. Now, will those who wish to have the Swipe removed follow me?"

Janson breezed through the announcement, as though happy to have yet another task ticked off the list.

"Newt..."

"I'm a Crank." Newt said, voice hollow. "I'm a Crank, Min."

Thomas sat quietly by the side, absorbing the new information, watching Margaret take quick, uneven strides out of the room after Janson. The rest soon followed.

Minho pulled the smaller boy into a gruff hug, a rare of affection. "It's going to be alright. Those shuckfaces will find a Cure, and you're going to get better."

Newt started to cry into Minho's shoulder. "It's not that, Minho, it's not just that. The Flare doesn't explain what's been going wrong with me. The Flare is supposed to make me mad, and I know how to deal with that, I've been thinking about it the whole way here, but there's something else, and I don't know what's happening in my bloody head. I'm scared, Min."

"What's been going on?" Thomas asked, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible.

Newt lifted red, unfocused eyes to his. "I can't see, Tommy."

"Fascinating. This mutated strain of the Flare hasn't been seen in nearly a decade."

"Why?" The trainee asked.

"Because they were wiped out by those who contracted the First Strain. Those who contract this usually can't survive long. Not long enough to pass it on. But somehow, our Control seems to have contracted it from either the Scorch, or his physiology was designed to change the First Strain into the Second Strain. The latter is more probable, since the Second Strain died out a long time ago. Do you know what this means?"

"If his body can mutate the Flare, we can use a similar theory to mutate the Flare into something harmless?"

Janson smiled. "And this is why you are Ava Paige's protégée."