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Winding Journey

Summary:

Where does one life end and another start? From Shin'ichi to Conan, and now to this new existence--what's the distinction? Can he really say it's all the life of one person?

Shin'ichi's brain gets metaphorically shoved in a blender with Unknown Substances and he and his friends from a past life or two get to drag their relationships back from the fringes.

Notes:

Ohoho boy. Alright, to start, this is very inspired by deductionfreak and inferno-silentdragon's Zergnan comics that I absolutely adore. I also have never played any starcraft games! So while wiki pages are great and all, I mostly just threw whatever I didn't like from actual zerg lore out the window and went with what I thought was more fun. It's very self indulgent, as are the other dozen snippets I've written before this actually long one hit me. ^^

Chapter 1: Day Zero

Chapter Text

Conan squeezed himself as tightly as he could against the corner just behind where the door would open, and waited, chest pounding, for the thing to slam open.

He was waiting to die. There wasn't any other way out of here, and if there had been, those things would be pouring through it already. Given the choice to be attacked from any angle, or to know his back and left side would be clear, it wasn't a hard decision. The fewest surprises the better. Maybe he wouldn't die in a complete panic.

A shrill, familiar but abjectly unwanted, series of sounds just about made him jump out of his skin. It was coming from his pocket though. His phone. He dug the thing out to silence it or something--

Heiji was calling him.

He was some fifty feet underground. How the hell was his phone even ringing?

Right. Some of them acted like giant signal hubs or range extenders. There must've been a sizable enough nest down here that they had a line of communication to the surface, and into central Tokyo--so long as Heiji was following quarantine, and he had better be following quarantine, or he'd find some way to tear into the guy about it before he died.

He...did want to take the call. He just needed to make sure it was off before...

He needed to make sure he turned it off before he wouldn't be able to anymore. Heiji didn't deserve to hear any of that.

A quick glance, and they definitely hadn't made it to the door yet. He had...some amount of time.

Taking a deep breath, he accepted the call, and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Kudou! Where the hell are you? Nee-chan's gettin' worried!" Hattori's voice came through clearly, though he could tell there was a lot of other noises--cars maybe? and he was shouting into his phone. Conan felt one knot in his chest unwind and another tighten. It was...nice to hear his voice.

If he told Heiji where he was, he might try to do something about it, now or in the future, that could get him killed.

"...I-I'm. On one of the last buses," he started, tongue heavy in his mouth. "I got separated from everyone." That part was at least true.

"Fuck, man, you gotta be fuckin' careful." There was a pause. Conan cast a nervous glance to the door. Nothing yet. "You hurt at all?"

Not yet. "No. How's the camp? Is anyone we know hurt?"

"No, everyone's fine. Haven't seen the kids yet, you with them?" Conan let out a sigh of relief. He and Ran were at least okay...he really hoped Ai got the rest of them out intact...

"That's good--and no, like I said, I got seperated..."

He could hear them getting closer.

"...Hattori?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you feel like...how do you feel about the future, from here?"

"...I think it's hard ta say, with specifics, but we're gonna make it through."

"No, I mean, how do you feel about it? On your own."

"...I mean. I'm worried...Kudou?"

The call went quiet, save for the crackling sound of engines and a crowd coming in and out on Heiji's end. Something metal and too close screeched, presumably as it was ripped apart by those things' claws.

"I'm sorry," he managed, voice cracking. "I just. I wanted a normal conversation." He couldn't hold back the emotions anymore, from his voice or otherwise, the tears were hot and stinging, and weren't helping him keep track of the status of the stupid door.

"Where are you?" Heiji's voice was suddenly quieter with intensity. The twisting feeling worsened.

"I'm. not anywhere I know the name of. It's concrete and creep and burrows."

"It can't be that far down or the call wouldn'a gone through. Walk me through it and I can see if anyone can make it down there and get ya out."

Conan took a deep, shaking breath.

"No it's-- I have a time limit, Hattori, I just wanted to hear you. They're almost in."

Conan crumpled down to the ground, arms around his knees. "I just-- I'm sorry. I thought I could find a way out, and then I just wound up deeper, I fell down, it's--I'm sorry. I should've figured it wouldn't have worked, or found some other way but--" a loud crunching sound sent Conan's head shooting up to look at the door, body frozen.

It wasn't breaking yet. He had seconds left.

"Woah woah, Kudou, it's-- yer fine." He could hear Heiji's voice crack over the line. "You're, I, can I do anything?"

"Yeah," Something slammed into the other side of the door. "Don't hate yourself for not being able to save me."

"Hey--" Heiji started. A barb shot through part of the door and embedded itself into the far wall with a sharp sound.

"Goodbye, Hattori."

"No, no, no, Kudou--"

Conan ended the call, his heart crawling up his throat.

A longer, painful, drawn out screech of metal ground out from just next to his head. Conan stared ahead, every nerve in his body screaming. Of course the sight of the first one rounding on him still sent his body into a panic: sharp limbs and glowing eyes and toxic looking green drool spilling out from more sharp pieces of carapace--

His hindbrain tried to convince him to phase through the solid wall behind him or climb it--but that wasn't possible. More of them were pouring into the room: a sea of deadly scythe-fins and other bug bits, and then the one in front of him was slowly closing in, and he didn't have time to even react when it lunged in, teeth that could cut through metal sinking into his arm, that sickeningly bright ooze spilling over onto his skin and clinging to it. He kicked, he screamed, more teeth sank in, and then he was being dragged across the floor, pain and fear drowning away eventually into a choking feeling, then blackness.

 

-

 

Black turned into light, eyes opening., blinking. Quiet. Thrum of noise--comforting, safety--but unfamiliar and wrong.

A need to struggle--

A sudden overwhelming blanket of mental pressure weighed in, pressed, eased. Hive. No need to run unless they ordered. Too soon.

No--No. Too long. Out, out, out out out out out out---

Pain--everything was wrong. Abandoning orders was emptiness, following was terror, and wrong, and not--him. Him? What?

Nonsense. Nothing made sense. Nothing-- Out!

Something broke, released, slid into a pool and heaved the fluids out of the lungs.

If hive is ready for fight, then fight.

No--this wasn't out--this was still--

Blinking against the ooze still caught in what was being seen from--this was wrong. He...He was one person.

Something like a mental scream ripped through his head, screaming, screaming, he screamed back, defenses raised, ready to attack, bite, cut--

The pain eased back. That part had been correct.

He shook his head. No-- Wrong. It was wrong.

It...

The limbs in his field of view were...wrong.

The fingers moved when he made them. Extra limbs even--sharp--

Hyperventilation.

He took a step forward, fell, something dragging behind him that moved unconsciously at the thought of it--for balancing and attack--no...no...

Curled up, tail over head, safe, cry--foreign--but cried.

Urgent. Attack. Surface. Attack. Move to Surface.

He curled in around himself tighter, and willed Hive out.

There was no silence. He laid curled for many, many alerts, then desperately crawled on his legs to the green goo and shoved head first into it, let out as long of a breath as he could, and then let himself breathe it in.

Darkness.

-

He opened his eyes again to the feeling of severance, and sat up, coughing up clumps again, to utter silence.

It was gone? All of it? Hive and all?

He sat, mind turning in slow circles.

That was...bad.

Alone...

This was what he'd been so desperate for...but...alone was a gnawing hunger, empty, pitiful, weak, afraid.

He Needed. He needed to find Hive.

Dim memories--loose and centered and different--but Hive. That. He wanted that.

Standing, he stumbled forward again.

Standing again, he pulled the balancing part forward until his spine was perpendicular to the floor. It was sticking in front of him, awkward, impossible to aim, but taking steps didn't trip him anymore. This was how he was supposed to stand. This was 'walking.' It required two legs.

And it was so slow.

Slow steps out of the room, through the collapsed and then burrowed through corridor, into dimly memorable places he'd walked before. He could retrace most of this. He'd find Hive.

-

Walking was...he needed to stop thinking everything he did was 'wrong.' It was uncomfortable. Bracing against the wall as he moved, spine still stung, hot pain, bad.

He wasn't a monster. He needed to find Hive. If he crawled, Hive wouldn't see him, they'd see a monster.

-

Voices. Near, whispering. Surging hope filled his chest as he stumbled forward, then went back to the slow pace he'd had before. Found him, they'd found him--

Rounding the corner, a hulking mass of metal stood towering in smooth, bolted shapes, armor, he reminded himself, not carapice, another hunk of metal guarded in its hands--a gun. Big. Dangerous. He stopped, frozen, instincts screaming to attack or run.

The gun levelled with his eyes. He felt something at the skin level sharpen outwards, like hair stood on end.

"...Oh that's different. Can you hear me?" A voice. Speaking to him. He blinked, eyes now trained on a smaller form, no armor or different, much smaller gun, pistol.

He eyed the gun still aimed at him, then looked back at the less towering one.

Yes --Talking. He knew what it was, in theory, but throat heavy, mandible twitching against his lips, teeth suddenly feeling awkward in his mouth, tongue too much for words...

Slowly, he drew his head up, then back down. Nod. Agreement. 

"It's coming back, then, Kameyo."

"It's tiny; you think it's infested?"

"There's an elementary school in the radius. I'm positive."

He took a cautious step forward, hand still braced. The taller one's eyes and gun never leaving him.

"What about the previous target?"

"That would be riskier--this one's passive, for now. They're probably going to send us down here again, anyway."

The tall one sighed. He stared between them, body still shaking from the angle he was standing in.

"Come on, we'll get you somewhere safe," the short one said, taking a step back. There was something off in the way they were talking, but...That thought in and of itself made his head hurt.

He needed Hive.

He could move a little faster if he let the balancing part slide behind him again, let himself stand at an angle. Back still ached, but at least he could take the next steps forward without bracing on the wall.

Two sets of eyes stayed on him as they walked through the burrows and hallways, still as oddly lit as they had been when he'd come down the first time.

"Can you speak, kid?" the less tall person's voice cut through the quiet. 

He worked his throat, which clenched taught after a humming sound he'd intended to make came through. Irritation. It was psychological. He could speak. 

He nodded again.

"...Right. What's your name then?"

'Name'--did he have a name? There was Shin'ichi, and then there was Conan, but those were two different states, and this was a third.

He shook his head. There wasn't a name for this yet.

"Great name, 'No,'" the taller one said this time. Fine. That would do for now, if they really wanted. He didn't care.

He was leaving, at gunpoint, but he was leaving.

-

Half way to the exit a twinge of pain sent him to the floor. It was embarrassing. When he thought about the gun trained on him, embarrassment twisted into something else, and he scrambled onto his feet again, felt another ache, and slowly lowered himself to all fours, mind buzzing with a nervousness that had him needing to force his tail down--it was armed. They were armed. If he was a threat they'd shoot.

After a tense conversation he wasn't a part of, they returned to their previous pace. Now, despite the fact that his body clearly preferred it, he couldn't shake the sense that he was crawling away from them as they led him to--something.

Maybe he should've run when he heard their voices.

At best it was humiliating, and he wasn't thinking about the worst. Shaking, tail pressed low into the ground he passed over, too aware of the weapon pointed at him. Too late to run without a distraction. Too late...

Why wasn't he ripped to shreds in the corner of that room--what happened to him--why was any of this happening?

When they reached a point near the surface, a barricade, the other two shouted out ahead of time that they were carrying conscious cargo.

The reaction was immediate, more heavily armored units arriving in a swath and surrounding him. Orders. He followed them, laying himself flat onto his belly, limbs spread, heart pounding. Another wave moved in, more of the less armored ones, to put heavy equipment on each limb.

Then they rolled him onto his back without warning, and connected the bindings on his hands and legs together. A heavy material they'd placed on his back pressed a third set of limbs into his sides.

A syringe came next. His teeth were bared by that point, eyes wide. It didn't knok him out, but his vision started swimming soon after, and then he was in a metal container--probably a 'truck'--with two heavily armored and armed guards. His head cleared not long after they'd started driving, but he kept his eyes on the ground, hands distantly scratching at the metal capping off his tail. It hurt.

Were they planning to get him on an operating table and cut him open immediately, or was this going to be something more drawn out?

Maybe he was catastrophizing. Maybe once he forced his vocal cords to work, and he showed them that he wasn't violent, he'd get some autonomy and space, and maybe he could leave wherever they were taking him after that...eventually...

He closed his eyes, hands clenching. Unrealistic. That was unrealistic. He'd really fucked up somewhere in there. Should've corralled the kids better, kept them from sneaking away, kept them from falling through that gash in the floor...Let the first one of those things he'd found eat him and get it over with.

---

Eyes opening: bright lights and empty walls save for a camera and a wide mirror--like an interrogation room, one way--his body looks too dark, plates on his limbs, uneven, unorthodox--

When did they take him here?

He can remember the drive over, bright light as they lead him out, the warm sun on his body almost pleasant despite the smothering nature of everything, then...

He blinked. Nothing. Then it was now.

Okay. He was still alive. That was a good sign.

...Could he move?

The things tethering his limbs were heavy, but he could. His tail--and he really did have that now, ugh--was difficult to raise. He tried; the sharp barb at the end was covered meaning it wouldn't really be considered a threat to anyone.

He could still walk, though he wasn't going to be propping himself completely upright again anytime soon, especially with the bindings there.

...It was so quiet.

He made his way to the one way glass, looking at it as though he could see through it if he tried hard enough; his eyes were different after all.

Nothing. Figured.

He blinked, mind slowly turning, then closed one of his eyes. Almost nothing changed. He closed another, and the walls looked suspiciously greyer. Looking down at himself, purple and red were still visible, but that meant only one of his eyes was seeing in normal color, and he had at least three now.

Closing the third eye--just above the first he'd shut, he breathed out in relief. There weren't any more. Just the one extra.

Holding his hands in front of him, he opened the color seeing eye.

It was...dimmer. A dark sheen of brown reflecting some purple in the fluorescent light, but the paler parts of his hands weren't the brighter purple hues color he'd been seeing before. A look down at his feet--not as different, but still missing those colors, and then over at his tail--very different--

He opened his other eyes, then closed them. Opened them again. Was he...seeing ultraviolet light?

Maybe, he determined. There was no way to be sure...

Maybe the people who worked here would be able to answer that in a non-obtrusive way.

He was already feeling a lot more optimistic. Amazing what not having a gun to your head could do.