Chapter 33: Hypnos
[A Few Minutes Earlier]
Ding!
The splinter henchmen guarding the hallway that led to the lab suddenly froze as the elevator door opened.
As far as they knew, no one was supposed to be coming down here at the moment.
Their attention was fully focused on the slowly opening elevator door, only to find that it was empty.
"Huh?" One of them let out as he slowly walked towards the open elevator.
He confirmed that it was truly empty.... Or that’s what he thought at first, but he suddenly looked up, only to be met with a smiling face.
"Hi," Zero said with a small smile, but before the henchman had the chance to say anything, his foot slammed into the man’s face, completely knocking him out.
THUD!
The sound immediately drew the attention of the rest of the henchmen to the elevator, and they noticed Zero sitting on the unconscious man’s back.
In one of his hands was what seemed to be a canister, and in the other was a gas mask.
"Did you know that breathing can help you live longer?" He said before immediately cringing at his own joke, "Come on, Zero, you can do better than that."
The henchmen soon figure out what he intended to do with that canister, and they point their guns at him.
In response, Zero just said, "Be careful not to breathe in too much. I might’ve messed up the compositions a bit."
With that, he tossed the canister, and the henchmen immediately pulled the triggers.
The moment the first bullet hit the canister, it exploded into a cloud of smoke, immediately filling the hallway.
"Let’s get to work then," Zero muttered as he put on the mask that only covered the lower half of his face.
A few of the henchmen managed to cover their noses just in time to avoid breathing in the smoke, but most were immediately knocked out by the gas.
Unfortunately, the few that managed to avoid getting knocked out by the gas were soon knocked out by Zero moving through the gas.
None of them had the chance to react before they were knocked completely cold by the hitman quickly moving through the smoke.
***
Psshhhhh!
The airlocked sliding doors that led into the main lab suddenly slid open, revealing Zero with a mask still on his face.
He calmly stepped inside with the doors slowly closing behind him.
"...."
Taking the mask off, he came face-to-face with exactly who he had intended to find in here,
Hypnos.
"I wasn’t expecting guests," the splinter with a Factor-enhancing tech on his head spoke up.
"Yeah," Zero nodded, "the reception was terrible."
Pshh-clack... pshh-clack... pshh-clack...
The sound from behind him drew the attention of the two towards the door.
"..."
Zero realized that the hand of one of the unconscious henchmen was keeping the door from closing.
"He was like that when I walked in," he defended, looking back at Hypnos.
The man, sitting in a chair, was uninterested in the unconscious henchmen outside.
Instead, his interest was in the white-haired man before him.
After all, unless you were at Beta rank, there was no way you’d be able to resist his mind control.
So how was this man completely fine?
Zero took a second to look around, noticing that most of the tech had been taken away and the absence of Dr. Crew, he guessed that they had also sent him back to their base.
Which was quite strange, after all, in the comics, they had only taken the tech from him.
His attention suddenly snapped towards a certain corner of the lab, where he suddenly felt a gaze.
"How fascinating," Hypnos’ voice immediately pulled Zero’s attention back to him.
Just to be certain, Hypnos leaned forward and said, "Kneel."
Zero watched as the Splinter’s helmet started glowing, a sign that his Factor had been activated.
And this time, the hitman felt pressure on his mind and in response, he just shrugged it off.
"Y’know, when I first saw your character design," Zero started talking, a way to distract himself from the pressure on his mind, "I was so disappointed it wasn’t bigger."
"What?" Hypnos let out, confused...
"Your head," Zero clarified, which only worked to confuse him even more, "I wished it were comically large."
"..."
Hypnos silently looked at him for a while before letting out a sigh, "Perhaps my Factor is ineffective on you because you’re mentally unstable."
Zero almost fell over as he heard the insult, but before he had the chance to make a comeback, Hypnos spoke up again.
"Either way, your mind should be pretty fascinating," he said with a grin appearing on his face, "I’ll have fun looking inside it."
"Hold still now."
Before Zero has the chance to react, something suddenly slammed into him, launching him towards the lab wall.
With a groan, he slowly got off the floor and looked at the location he had been standing.
Standing there now was a man with bright yellow hair and eyes. He had on a hoodie with one of his hands inside its pocket.
In his other hand was the mask Zero was previously holding, and the man seemed curious about it.
Zero was certain that he was not part of the Splinters, nor was he a character that ever appeared in the comic, so who the hell was he?
"It seems the purchase from the ring was a good investment after all," Hypnos said as he looked towards the Man holding the mask.
"Now then," he added, turning towards the recovered Zero, "be a good toy and incapacitate the intruder, will you?"
The yellow-haired man slowly lowered the gas mask and looked at the white-haired intruder.
Zero was reminded of Noa when he noticed the man’s expression, but he shelved that thought for now.
Because the next second, the man suddenly disappeared and the next thing he felt was a hand on his face and gravity pulling him down.
Time seemed to slow down as his brain finally caught up to what was going on, but it was too late,
BOOM!
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A/N: The Discord received two interesting things today, a matchup and a meme (Check the comments and tell me who you think would win.)
Also, JOIN THE DISCORD!!!!
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