Subject A0 - The Magic

A0 - The Magic

A/n: picture is an ai generated image of our protagonist when she's first taken to W.I.C.K.E.D

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A young girl sat in a grey room, staring blankly at the mirror on the other side of the wall. She wasn't stupid, she knew it was a two way mirror. And she knew that if she was being brought in here then her time to go into the Maze was approaching. Fast.

She glanced down at the cuffs on her wrists, frowning at the intricate tech that she knew lied beneath the surface.

Mav wasn't from the land that she found herself in. She was from a land called the Enchanted Forest. And she was the only one brought to this land who was born with magic.

The cuffs put a stop to that.

She had asked the other kids who had came to this land with her if they had magic. None did, but all of them seemed to share them same story: they were orphans, Rumplestiltskin offered them a portal to a life where they didn't have to stress about food and clothes and war, they accepted. Now they all found themselves here.

Mav scoffed as she thought about the man. Technically he hadn't lied; they were fed, clothed, and there were no ogres waging war over here. But what he had failed to mention was that they'd become slaves to some company called WICKED.

They had erased the memory of their real names as a test, to make sure that they were compatible for the trials. Mav thought that that was just an excuse to start dehumanizing them as quickly as possible. They replaced their names with nicknames of reputable people in this lands history, her own name coming from Queen Mavia, who led a rebellion movement against the Roman army. Queen Mavia was said to have defeated them repeatedly until they negotiated a truce under her conditions; though Mav suspected that that knowledge would soon be erased from her head as well.

Mav turned her head to the door as it opened; a stern, blonde haired women walked into the room with an air of importance. Mav scrunched her nose and gave the woman a glare that was pointedly ignored.

"Hello Mav, how are you?"

Mav narrowed her eyes, "Worse now that you're in here, Ava." She mocked. She had no reason to be pleasant to the woman who made the deal with Rumplestiltskin to bring them here. The woman sighed through her nose, "Today we will begin your swipe process, and you will be separated from the others to prevent confusion and interference with the process." She said simply, writing something into the notepad she held.

Mav moved to stand quickly, grunting as her legs jerked against cold metal and her arms raised a mere three inches off the table before meeting the cruel, cold biting feeling as well.

Mav began to panic as doctors began to fill the room. "What?! You're not even gonna let me say goodbye?!"

"This is the path with the least resistance." Ava Paige said emotionlessly, gesturing for the doctors to continue.

Mav moved as wildly as she could, magic weakly sparking at her fingertips. "You can't do this! This is inhumane-"

"We needed subjects to help us find a cure, you know this Mav. What's so bad about finding a cure?"

"You know exactly how wrong you are you piece of- HEY!" Mav yelped, struggling as the doctors grabbed a hold of her and attempted to hold her still.

"You willingly volunteered-"

"To be free, not to be a lab rat!" Mav flinched, feeling the fight begin to drain out of her as one of the doctors managed to inject her with a clear liquid.

"By the time you wake up, you won't remember that part of your past anyways." Ava gave a frown to her hands, which still dispersed small, weak sparks. "Nor will you remember that troublesome magic of yours."