jun and the terrible horrible no good very bad day

“Hurry up Legion! Don’t wanna get caught in the blast do you!?” 

The woman he had referred to as ‘Jinyu’ today ran ahead of him, guns blazing. She mowed down all the guards in the hallway with her automatic and sprinted ahead. It was always stop go, stop go; so Jun didn’t bother running himself. They were here to capture some scientist, and running wouldn’t do too much to finish faster. He squinted up at the harsh lights on the ceiling and paused a moment. 

He adjusted his mask from his neck up to lock onto his face, then a small amount of gas flowed through the ventilator. He drew the shadows out of all the guards dying on the floor. It was simple enough to avoid their dying efforts to hurt him; his shadows disarmed any last attempts. They couldn’t even manage to touch him. Are they all dead yet? He stopped walking down the hall. They were all hastily disarmed if they tried to pull a weapon, but what if one wasn’t as fatally wounded as he thought and was waiting for an opening? Jun felt his heart rate rising fast so he took a deep breath. His shadows moved out over the bodies in a wave, using distorted limbs or claimed weapons to shoot and hack. To Jun’s terror, there had been some alive. He continued down the corridor, hoping Jinyu was more careful with her attacks further in the building.

The hallway opened up into what would have been a large pristine lab space, but instead furniture was sinking into the floor. Falling bodies mixed with stray bullets destroyed glass equipment. His penumbrae moved into the room in a group and easily overwhelmed each individual they isolated. The army only grew as Jun directed them through the room. 

Jinyu approached Jun glaring. She wiped some of the blood off her face and onto Jun’s sleeve. “Ugh you’re so slow. There’s your fair share, show up in time for the real fight next time?” He used to be more afraid of inciting her moods, but time and the medication gave him some numbness to it. He doubted she actually wanted or needed his help clearing the room.

“Sorry… I’ll-” An explosion rocked the room and cut him off. He stumbled and covered his head as Jinyu dove for cover. Already? 

“Damn it, are they trying to screw us over?! Come on, hurry up!” Jinyu ignored the jolts going through the building and dashed down the passage. She was determined to get every hit, have a perfect record of success, even if it meant risking their lives in a collapsing building. “We’re getting Zhou no matter what Legion! I know what you’re thinking, and no, we aren’t leaving empty handed.” She shouted to him from the next hall and the start of his reply was drowned out by the echo of gunfire and disgruntled cries.

He couldn’t run on the unstable ground nearly as easily as Jinyu. He took shaky breaths as he tried to steady himself. He didn’t have a strong grasp on the form of his penumbrae. The shock to the building and Jun’s system was reflected on their forms. 

Leaning on one hand and braced against the wall, he lagged behind his shadows’ charge. The first time he looked up he saw Jinyu’s long hair disappear around the next corner. He didn’t know why it made him nervous. “Hey! I saw him but he disappeared! Don’t let him get past you!” 

Jun went on high alert and used his shadows to completely barricade the pathway they came from. He continued through the room where Jinyu was busy shooting anything that moved. The room was much more cluttered than the previous, so said movement was mostly precariously balanced piles of junk collapsing as the building shifted. Jun headed through the only other way into the room. It was a near empty armory. The unused gear was scattered and knocked off their places on the walls. They would never be allowed to leave the house if they left the armory this messy.

As his eyes combed the armory, a rifle floated into the air and shot him through the shoulder. He had missed him the first time around, but Jun’s eyes widened as he saw the light warping around the figure of a small man, now made more obvious by the fully visible gun. 

“I-I’m going to back away now! You don’t move! O-or I’ll fill you with bullets!” The gun he was holding was clearly too large for him to handle and his shaking voice gave away his limited resolve. Li hadn’t even meant to hit him with the first shot. He had closed his eyes when he pulled the trigger.

Jun had left all his shadows except his own in the hallway. The pain in his shoulder swirled in and out against the effect of the gas. His mask was still infusing small amounts into a steady aerosol. 

He only had two shadows to attack and defend himself against this gun. One hand clutched his shoulder to slow the bleeding, but he would grit his teeth and continue forward. His target was trembling and patches of his body were becoming visible again. This person was Zhou. 

Jun had been chasing the scientist’s group with his sister for the past few months now. It all started with small skirmishes over shipments of supplies. Supplies they were hired to protect, but then failed to. Jinyu dug into the group and took every job involving them. He was forced to become incredibly familiar with the group’s famous toxins that made even graze wounds excruciating. It crippled their assaults and put plenty of people Jun knew well in the hospital. Jinyu was determined to see this person bagged, tagged, and tortured for the rest of his life in some dark and dank basement in the belly of one of their compounds. Put behind her, but still captive to return and see a reminder of her eventual victory and rightly avenged allies.

Jun could sense his blood pressure climbing as he approached Li. Jun’s tactical gear included thick gloves that he wouldn’t get stung through. His shadows stood ready to take any shots for him, but he wasn’t firing very much or very accurately. Jun felt a little too light- The gas was starting to do more harm than good, so he reluctantly pulled the device off and tied it to a hook on his belt. 

“J-jun?! From the rescue course?” Li’s eyes widened in recognition as Jun removed the mask. Li hadn’t been back to the nation’s top training center in a while himself, but if his memory served him correct, this person was someone he met back then. His face read guilt and shame at the reminder of a past life. He couldn’t just shoot Jun as if he were another criminal. 

Jun froze upon hearing his name. Who was he to Zhou? We met in a few joint exercises between classes, but that was it. This was the person frustrating his family and giving them long hours. He’d waited by the bedside of people Zhou’s drugs and toxins incapacitated. Jun had to work to settle his own nerves for once if he wanted to do anything right. They were here for a reason, but he didn’t call for Jinyu.

The building shook and Jun jolted back into the moment. Weapon. Li’s own shadow disarmed him, then the gun clattered across the floor and slid towards Jun. The tremors in the building seem to schronize with Jun's body and extend through him. Jun dissolved Li’s shadow and the ones outside. They were just sapping his energy and he doubted he could do anything with them in this state anyway. He towered over Li once they stood face to face. Li’s face showed a flash of hope in the moment before Jun grabbed him by the throat. 

Li looked too shocked for a person with a price on their head. Jun couldn’t help but think that Li should have been more cautious, expected a raid on his compound. Defended himself with more than useless fodder two skilled fighters could cut through. He knew too well the measures one had to go through to feel any security as they descended into this life. His grip tightened from holding him in place to cutting off his air. Jun was hurting people to claim and keep his ugly place in the world just as much as Li was, if not more. There were far worse, more disgusting people to kill than either of them. Jun was the sort of scum that threw off responsibility and constant worry for his own comfort. In his mind, the reverse could have easily happened instead.

Li’s head clouded and burned, but Jun hesitated. Li slipped out a small device the size of a ballpoint pen and stabbed it into Jun’s side. One of the many versions of Li’s venom lit Jun’s entire nervous system on fire. Jun released Li and cried out. His head spun and he pressed his palms into his eyes. The light felt like it was stabbing through his retinas and ramping up the pain through the rest of his body. Jun crumpled to the floor and the pain wasn’t subsiding.

Li coughed from the floor as well. “H-hey the pain’ll wear off, so can you do something for me? Do villains get last requests…?” 

Jun opened his eyes to see Li pinned on the ground by his shadow. The formerly human shape had deteriorated to a dark mass that didn't resemble anything. In the moment Li stuck Jun with the needle, Jun’s shadow had blown up into a fluctuating mass of spikes. Li’s body had been shredded in a second. Li could’ve counted the body parts he could still feel on one hand, if his hand had been one of them. Li didn’t have anything left to stop the life from leaving his body.

“I’m glad it’s the central control team, I thought it was… this one crime group, it’s been crazy… Can you bring my research back to the R&D course? I think they should have it… Or do what you want, I can’t stop you.” Li laughed reflexively to break up the mood but it came out as a rasp and he couldn’t push his chest back up to inhale. After a minute, it was clear that was his last breath. 

“Ju- Legion- Oh whatever! Everyone’s dead anyway! Jun! Cmon the building’s about to be blown to hell!" Jinyu, or rather, Mei, frowned at the corpse. "Wait, why did you kill that guy- The one guy we weren’t supposed to kill-? Nevermind, hurry up!” 

Mei groaned at the butchered body. They didn’t have time to bring it as proof of death. Jun had made a real mess of it anyway. She grabbed Jun’s hand and dragged him out of the building to where their ride was waiting. She cleared the entire building and Jun was just waiting around with the target. 

She clicked her tongue as she remembered the body again. Jun must have totally lost it- but she didn’t have any clue as to why. Jun was just kind of like that sometimes. It never really made much sense when he could kill without a second thought. 

She glanced over at Jun and away from the concrete scenery outside the car window. He wasn’t responding to anyone’s questions. Not even when the driver was being really gentle about it, and that usually worked. Jun even took his mask off at some point while they were in the building, and he hadn’t done that on a job since he came back home. When Jun went on a brief stint as 'hero', training at some fancy government facility in another country, all their relatives hoping Jun would take over the family business someday got a little twitchy. Mei was allowed a rebellious phase too, but for Jun of all people to go that far was- kinda out of left field? But their parents let it happen, and sure enough, Jun came back. Mei was relieved, annoyed, but not surprised. Though... she did feel bad that the first major thing she could remember Jun choosing for himself ended so abruptly. The least she could do as a sister was get him that mask so he could reacclimate.

It was starting to become frustrating. Jun had gotten all touchy about taking people out now. He didn’t like looking at bodies, much less helping clean them up. It was a pain to do it without Jun’s shadows or strength, dead bodies were heavy as hell. She was trying so hard to make the second chance she got work, but Jun was practically ignoring her unless it was absolutely necessary for work. 

It got way worse, Mei could hardly find Jun anywhere anymore. She’d wander the house looking for him and nothing. She’d knock on his locked door, and he was either keeping silent and ignoring her, or was never there in the first place. She only saw him occasionally on jobs, and they supposedly lived in the same house. He was even skipping out on jobs sometimes, which was bringing a whole new storm of problems to them. Nobody knew what he was thinking, so obviously they turned to her to keep him on a tighter leash. Jun needed to get it together before they were both in hot water. 

As it turned out, Jun was thinking as little as possible. He was drifting around, anywhere, he didn’t really care. He never really liked this house, now it was worse. Anywhere he was, it was like he could see his ex-classmate torn up and bleeding on the floor. He remembered now, ‘Li, Li-Feng Zhou, first year research and development course[ ! ]’ If they had never met, he would have been “Li-Feng Zhou, third year research and development course!” by now. At that moment, Jun had assumed that he must have been in a similar situation to him, but Li still intended to do good with his life. Jun wasn't even good enough to want it. Li wasn’t being pushed along through a life he didn’t have anything left in. Jun knew he was a thoughtless husk of a human being, so why was he alive instead of so many other people. 

He didn’t know where he was, but his surroundings changed again. The torn up body on the floor was his. The loved ones of the people he killed must have finally ripped him apart, because it couldn’t have been his own shadow. The human shapes of his shadows were a cold reminder of what he had to fear. Distant faceless victims that didn't forget him as easily. But the soulless figures controlled by his power couldn't hurt him. Nothing was certain anymore, but he was still pretty sure about that.