Within the first few seconds of his cognitive life, a few things became extremely apparent.

It was dark.

And it hurt.

He could feel nerves trailing from the tips of his fingers to the rest of his body alight with pain, threatening to burn through his skin.

Skin that felt a lot thicker than he remembered being normal.

His vision was surprisingly good, only blurred from the searing pain traveling through his body. He could make out figures in white suits panicking as his movements became erratic, the… drill? The drill that was his right hand whirring at high speeds, and his other hand swiping randomly, eventually catching a person by the head. His gloved hand engulfed the entirety of their head, and they gripped his wrist in a futile effort to force him to release his head.

"Subject J-4UN, release Doctor Farkley, would you kindly."

His hand released the now named Doctor Farkley, and the man scrambled to his feet and out of the room. Left alone with naught but another person, Subject J-4UN focused on the glass panel far above, from which the order came, and tried to peer into the dark depths of the room behind it. He could only make out the silhouette of a man in a lab coat.

Embroidered upon which was a pair of golden arcs that gleamed in the light of the room.

"Return to your station, would you kindly."

In his daze, he had moved away from the pod he had awakened in, and against what little will he could muster, he steadily made his way back to whence he came, each footfall echoing as they clanged loudly against the metal floor.

He could feel himself losing consciousness as they lab-coated figures cautiously filled the room, just catching a the word "bonding" before he was gone.

The second time he came to consciousness, it was significantly less painful.

His left hand no longer burned in agony, but instead dully ached in a way he could easily ignore. He flexed the appendage, taking note of just how large it, and likewise he was. The drill that made up his other hand spun slowly, rotating on its axis as he-

"Step out of your sleeping chamber, would you kindly."

His right hand stopped, and he could only watch from a first person perspective as he stepped forward, his legs made up of the same rubbery material as his arms and ending in heavy, metal boots that thudded with the weight of that who wore them. He stood tall, towering over the blonde scientist that stood before him. Said scientist didn't even flinch when he J-4UN stood up, instead only grinning as he watched the yellow lights on the massive dome of a helmet turn green.

"Go to the testing chamber, would you kindly."

Following a path he'd never seen before, J-4UN walked along the large metal corridor; the ceiling being made up of a thick glass window that was reinforced by metallic bars. Through the panes he caught glimpses of the rest of the facility, and though it was small in area, the glass domes that separated the outside from what looked like the ocean gave it a majestic look and oppressive feel.

His feet guided him to a pair of clean double doors that slid open without so much as a whisper. He stomped into the doorway but proceeded no further.

For inside the room was a group of five young girls, who were laughing and playing with something in the far back.

Said something was an inch or two shorter than J-4UN, though its form was lithe compared to his large and bulky frame. It's features seemed slightly feminine, and a basket on its back was decorated in flowers and little bows and ribbon. It had a divers helmet and suit much smaller than his, and though its lights were glowing a bright green as it played with the girls, the massive needle on its right arm worried him greatly.

It looked up at the intruder, and its lights took a yellow tone as it tried to put itself between him and the girls. J-4UN could feel himself grow tense, and if the yellow glow on the borders of his vision, he did the same.

"J-4UN, Olive, stand down would you kindly. There's a gift for the girls in the cage on your back, J-4UN."

Both of the behemoths' lights turned green and Olive stepped to the side, though J-4UN reached back and retrieved something from the cage on his lower back, though not without much effort.

In his hand was a small teddy bear plushie.

A massive wave of emotion flooded him, and he glanced from the plush to the girls in the back who eyed his warily. He stepped forward slowly, making his footsteps as soft as possible as he did. The girls all moved towards him just as warily, but soon enough they were within a yard of one another.

J-4UN knelt down, holding the plush in his hand. As it sagged slightly under its own weight, he held it out and offered it towards the group of girls. They slowly approached the offering, but they were satisfied once it was clear he wouldn't move. One of the braver ones tentatively reached out and snatched the plush from the gloved hand, whose metal fingers dwarfed the girls own.

She took a few steps back, holding the bear at arm's length as she looked it up and down. J-4UN lowered his hand, letting it hang limp from his side as he watched the events unfold.

It was naught but a few moments before she held the bear to her chest, squeezing it tight and rocking it to and fro. Her eyes were screwed shut as well, though her smile could not have been any brighter. She had her moment, and once her eyes opened, she looked at J-4UN's towering form with a gaze filled with awe and admiration. The others sagged at the shoulders from relieved tension, and they returned to playing with Olive who entertained their every whim.

J-4UN held out his hand once more, and the girl who stayed clambered up his arm and onto his shoulders, giggling as she did so. J-4UN was finally able to get a good look at her and her attire. Her body was thin and seemed rather frail, and her thin, pale skin revealed veins that seemed to glow. Scars in the crook of her elbows seemed reminiscent of those that form due to the repeated insertion of needles, and her hair was a thin, wispy blonde that framed a pale, sickly face.

Her eyes, lacking pupils, glowed an earthly yellow.

J-4UN's musing about her appearance was interrupted by the girl in question, who had deemed it necessary to hang above the porthole he viewed the world through. Her grin was large, revealing slightly yellowed teeth, and her yellow sundress that had dulled with time hung down as well.

"Hi Jaune, I'm Violet, though the others call me Vi." The now identified Violet spoke, her grin never leaving her face as she swayed slightly from the newly named Jaune tilting his head. She righted herself into a position that rested both of her legs onto his left shoulder, said appendages kicking slightly. Jaune stood up and began to walk around the room, the other inhabitants distracted with their merriment.

"Yeah, I'm gonna call you Jaune cause if you write out your 'real name'," she made air quotes to emphasize that last phrase, "then you get something that looks kinda like Jaune. Look, I'll show you!" She leaned in front of Jaune once more and fogged the glass of his porthole with her breath. Then, she traced out the name NU4-J on the surface of the glass. He put the symbols into his mind, flipping and picturing what she could mean, and nodded once he realized that yes, it looked like Jaune.

So he nodded in agreement, swaying her to and fro in the process, though it was much to her joy based off of her shrieks of laughter. For some reason, it brought him joy as well.

Jaune snapped awake at the sound of a scream.

He launched himself from his sleeping pod, his drill of a right hand already spinning as fast as it could. With speed unbefitting of his massive frame, he tore through the winding hallways of groaning steel, through doors, walls, and even an unlucky scientist who seemed very familiar. Perhaps it was that Farkley fellow.

Speaking of which, it seemed that the lab-coated men and women of the site were in a frenzy themselves, yelling, running, and overall panicking over something.

Another shriek, and his pace doubled.

This shriek was met of a mechanical yell from him; instinctual and primal in nature as it echoed throughout the building. It was met with a similar call, though higher in pitch.

It seemed Olive was also on a warpath.

Paying it no heed, he continued his charge until he eventually came to a massive wall of glass that allowed an overhead view of the room Violet and her sisters slept.

Violet was tied down, and massive syringes hooked up to even larger machines stuck out of her from seemingly every possible angle, though congregating at her wrist, elbow, and thigh. The doctor with the double arcs was down there as well, seeming to be in some sort of maniac frenzy if the froth at the corner of his lips were anything to go by. Nevertheless, he seemed to be the one managing the machines.

That was all Jaune needed to know.

He took a step back, and with his spinning drill leading the way, he crashed through the glass and onto the floor. The mad doctor looked up in a frenzy, his hands never ceasing from their frantic dance across the interface of the machines.

"J-4UN, return to your fucking sleeping pod, would you kindly!" He snapped, the glasses decorating his nose slipping down and off of his face and revealing azure eyes whose pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. The blonde hair atop his head was scraggly and wild, and his coat was wrinkled and torn.

J-4UN could feel the haze descend on his mind, he could feel every fiber of his being prepare to follow the command, but a whimper from Violet cleared his head.

Jaune took a heavy step forward.

That set the doctor off. "J-4UN, cease your progress and return to your pod, would you kindly!" Anger was laced into every word, and his hands had left the interface, leaving the machine to rescind into the ceiling where it was hidden once before.

Jaune took another step forward.

"J-4UN, the facility is collapsing and there is no time! Would you kindly step off!" The doctor yelled, his hands now flailing in his madness, though the barest hints of fear was creeping into his eyes.

Jaune took another step forward.

The fear exploded, overriding the raving frustration and anger that existed once before. The doctor took a step back, his heel crunching the glasses underfoot, and his arms came up in an attempt to form some sort of defense.

A massive spike impaled him, and his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.

A twisting portal of purple crackled behind him, and extending from it was a lithe arm that ended in a massive needle. The body it was attached to stepped out of the vortex, revealing itself to be Olive. The doctor cast a furtive glance at the new arrival, but his attention was snapped to Jaune once more by the behemoth's massive gloved hand.

"J-4UN, return… to your sleeping pod… would you kindly?" It was weak, and blood pooled at the corners of his lips. His eyes were bloodshot, and tears gathered in the ocean blue pools.

"I… am not… Subject J-... 4UN any longer… doctor." The behemoth before the doctor spoke, his hand twisting the head of the man to the side.

"I am… Jaune."

With that, Jaune viciously snapped the man's head to the other side, and the man sagged under his own weight.

Olive dropped him like the garbage he was, and slowly lifted the forms of the other four girls from their pens without waking them. She gently lowered two of them into the cage on her back, seething at the way they whimpered and clung to one another in fear. She then tucked the other two under her arms, and with a final nod towards Jaune, stepped through the portal once more, and it winked shut behind her.

Jaune had no time to relax however, as the sirens once silent now blared their screeching tune. He hurriedly picked up the form of Violet, who seemed to have grown even paler from the extractions, and placed her inside the cage on his back.

He raced down the hallways once more, whose metal walls only echoed with the sound of both the siren and his footsteps. He crashed into another room, this one a massive hanger of sorts filled with naught but a single pod. He wanted to weigh his options, but he lacked both the capacity and the time to do so, and placed Violet as gently as he could into the vehicle.

Closing the pod, he lifted the device over head and raced to the hole in the floor just as the facility shuddered. He waded out into the water, guiding the vehicle before him as he did so.

Slowly, he forced it out into the open ocean, and held on tight as it began to float to the surface. It was slow going, but they were going to be alright.

They were safe for now, and that was all Jaune needed.