"O-Orgon," Ezra finally stutters, unable to drag any form of combat out of his countless memories of fighting. His conductor is alone, but still Ezra feels outnumbered, shrunken down under the gaze of the collected man.
"That is my name, yes," he says, smile almost apologetic, "I know it's been quite a while, but I didn't think you would forget about me so fast.
"You seem to be doing well, though," Orgon continues, pulling his hands from behind his back as he steps forward. Ezra watches with only his eyes, unable to move his feet. How can just the sight of this man plant him in place, completely immobile?
When Ezra doesn't open his mouth he continues speaking. "You do know this sort of rebellion comes with consequences, correct?" Orgon asks, stopping only a few paces in front of the vampire, "and why are you shaking so much? I thought we broke that habit."
Ezra tilts his chin down, squeezing his fists tight to try and stop their trembling. He did break that habit, by beating him into exhaustion.
"You've cost me a lot of money, you know," Orgon continues, raising his finger and stepping around to Ezra's side, "but you can't really blame me, can you? This is all on you, and a hell of a lot of people want to see you punished for it."
Orgon raises his hand, making the vampire shrink away as he grips his blood splattered sleeve. "Pastel?" he asks, cracking a smile, "what kind of pansy shit is this?"
Ezra doesn't respond, making the man shake his head. "I worked so hard to build up that reputation of yours, so no one would mess with you, and as soon as you have a free will you step out of line and stomp all over it. Take this off, and the glasses too."
Orgon takes a step back as Ezra shifts, watching him pull his bloody hands up to tug the ruined sweater and new glasses over his head. Leon had just given it to him only hours ago.
"Well look at that." Orgon whistles, leaning down to look at his bare stomach, "I knew you got messed up in your teams last crash, but I didn't know you got shot! That must'a been a shock to the system, huh?"
Ezra grips the crimson smeared top with his injured hand, shifting his eyes away as the conductor raises his hand to poke the bullet wound. "Silver too," he says, drawing back after studying the black ring of skin that halos the mark, "that's quite a well healed scar. Some new injuries to show off upon returning you to fight will just make you more interesting. A new story to tell, right?"
Orgon reaches up with one hand, gripping Ezra's disheveled hair and yanking his head up. For once the younger doesn't bare his teeth in defense, remembering how long it took to beat that instinct out of his system.
"Did you really think you would pull off this little stunt?" he asks, making Ezra focus down on the two fangs jutting from his top jaw; he had forgotten the news Gabe had given him what felt like forever ago. Orgon isn't human anymore, he got turned.
Overpowered.
"You're mine to own, do you understand?" the conductor pulls his hair, sending ripples of a headache all the way down to his faded red eyes, "no one else is allowed to touch you, talk to you, or give you instructions. You became an obedient bitch to any lowlife in less than a month, when you're supposed to respond to me. What happened to that? What happened to my good little fighter?"
Ezra finally shifts his eyes to meet Orgon's, glaring into the shallow pools of vibrant red. "Sanguinarian," he hisses, immediately earning a hard punch to his jaw. He spins in place, all the training he had ever received keeping him from losing balance and staying on his feet.
"You better watch that sharp tongue of yours," Orgon laughs, cracking his knuckles, "or soon you won't have it."
Ezra raises a shaky hand to his face, touching his split lip. His own blood smears over his dirty finger, mixing with dirt and dust.
"Now turn to look at me, boy," Orgon demands, making Ezra stand up straight and face him again. The man relaxes his shoulders, fixing his wrinkled suit sleeves. "See? It won't take long to get you back to your normal self. I honestly don't know how you survived out there, wandering that big city. I can't imagine how anyone would want anything to do with you."
"I'm not your fighter," Ezra hisses lowly, finally allowing his lips to creep up and show the bottom tips of his fangs.
Orgon raises his eyebrows, seemingly impressed by the younger's speech. "Oh, is that a sentence?" he asks, gripping the shorter's chin and forcing him to look up, "I haven't heard you speak fluently in a long time. Who taught you that?"
"I'm not your fighter," Ezra repeats, this time louder. The conductor's face falls slightly, still maintaining his collected composure.
"No one else will ever want you," Orgon says smoothly, leaning down close to Ezra's face, "but I do. Why won't you see that? You were nothing- but I turned you into something glorious. I made people afraid to look at you, and gave you a title no one could touch. You're powerful, oh so powerful, and I made you that way."
Ezra keeps his jaw closed tight, making the muscles in his face ache with the pressure he puts on his teeth. He says nothing, making Orgon sigh into his satisfied smile.
"You know I always get my way," the conductor says finally, pulling back and opening his arms. He smiles wide, purposefully flashing his newer, cleaner fangs. "So, will you come back to the life I built for you, or am I going to have to take you the hard way?"
Ezra draws up his shoulders, fighting the urge to turn in his feet and shrink down. No matter how many times Amelia, Clover, Lora, Gabe, Mahin, Rin, or Leon told him he didn't belong to the rings, or how he was bigger than what he was forced to do, or how he really was important to the world, hearing the words that they were meant to drown out again cuts back into his mind. It raises the mentality that had been beaten into him back up, swimming before his eyes in shades of crimson and black.
"I am not, your fighter," Ezra hisses finally, watching the man's smile finally fall.
"Alright- I see how it is," Orgon murmurs, stepping back and tilting his chin down. He folds his hands behind his back, making Ezra sink into a fighting position. He grips the sweater and glasses still in his bad hand, soaking the soft fabric with crimson. His wound had almost healed already.
"You're just making this harder on yourself, Ezra," Orgon says, waving one hand up in the air. Ezra tenses as three people enter from the back of the room, emerging from the shadows with dark hoods hiding their features. He takes a step back, whirling around as the door behind him opens. Another ominously tall man strides in, face blocked by a baseball hat.
His instincts scream at him to run, but the logic he had been taught by Gabe told him to not get ahead of himself. There's five of them, all supernaturals of some kind, and only one of him. Even if Orgon still thinks he's a champion fighter, he's never won a fight this unfair.
"Don't say my name," Ezra growls, backing away from the man that had entered behind him. His lips pull up in a warning hiss, jaw almost locking from having been in one place for so long.
"I'll say whatever I want to say," Orgon challenges smoothly, watching Ezra slowly back closer towards him, "I'm top dog, and you're just the mutt; you'll relearn that eventually."
Ezra casts another rattling hiss towards the approaching man, hesitating slightly as a familiar face catches his eye. Gabe?
He takes another step back, defiant still as he gives in to the pleading look he sees from his friend's face, slowly dropping to his knees.
Gabe lunges over Ezra's head as he suddenly falls forward and ducks down, covering his head as Orgon grunts in unpleasant surprise. He screams furiously as Ezra wraps his head in his arms, squeezing his eyes shut and hiding his face from the sudden screaming.
Maybe Leon was right when he had said there are rumors about Orgon training to be a vampire. Although there are no cries of pain from Gabe, the inhuman screams the conductor uses to deafen the others sends rivets of bubbling anxiety through Ezra's chest and stomach. He swallows hard as the man is audibly gagged, struggling to hold his stomach and not throw up on the dirty floor.
Ezra used to use that ability a lot during his own fights, and the crowd always loved it. It was very intimidating for the fighter on the other side, though. So loud, so distracting, and so liberating for the one using it.
"Ezra? Don't panic, okay? It's just me."
A gentle hand touches the vampire's bare shoulder, making him flinch. He doesn't draw away, letting Gabe rest his palm over his shoulder blade and slowly calm his burning nerves.
Gabe yelps as he's suddenly pushed over, landing on his back as Ezra wraps his arms around his neck and hugs tight. A hand behind his head keeps it from hitting the tiled floor, but the sudden blur and force to his chest still knocks the wind out of his lungs.
"Thank you," Ezra whispers, voice trembling as he speaks through clenched teeth, "thank you, thank you, thank you."
Gabe huffs out a breath, chuckling in Ezra's ear before wrapping his arms around his chest. He blocks the smaller's view as the three others drag Orgon out by his bound arms.
Gabe pulls his head up to address the last person in the room as Ezra puts together the pieces on his own. Orgon had ambushed him, and S1 ambushed Orgon.
"Just, give him a moment," Gabe says quietly, struggling to move through the vampire's grip.
Ezra lets out a short breath, rolling off the werewolf and onto the floor instead of having to sit up and look him in the eye. He lays on his back beside the other, staring at the ceiling with burning eyes.
"I'm okay," he whispers, the adrenaline in his system shaking his chest and making his words tremble.
Gabe sits up, looking down at the blood smeared on the vampire's skin. His hands look matte with the dried crimson, cracking on his knuckles and smearing up his left wrist.
"Did you get hurt?" Gabe asks, pushing to his knees. He scoots closer, opening his hand and waiting for Ezra to lift his arm and place his wrist in his palm.
The man waiting for Gabe crouches down by Ezra's head, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks from under his hood. Ezra glances up, glaring sharply into the shadows that cover the stranger's half illuminated face; he doesn't recognize this man.
"It's okay, Ezra," Gabe assures him, flipping his injured hand over to check the nearly sealed wound on both sides, "he's one of my old friends, now working at S3. Raj, meet Ezra; he's one of my new friends, now working at S1."
"Nice to meet you," Ezra says hollowly, taking his hand back as he sits up and pushes to his feet. "Where's my shirt?"
"It's ruined; just take this," Gabe says, shrugging off his black jacket. Ezra looks down and around, glaring daggers into Raj as the other holds out the pastel sweater for him to take. Although significantly smaller, Ezra challenges the other to do something as he pulls it harshly from his grasp.
Ezra carefully pulls his glasses from the wad of fabric and hangs the beaded chain around his neck, not bothering to put them on his face with how dirty they had gotten on the floor.
"There's a car waiting in the ally outside," Gabe says, draping his jacket over Ezra's shoulders and helping him put his arms through the sleeves. He finally breaks eye contact with the other werewolf, now being able to catch his scent with how close he had gotten. He isn't going to do anything, but that doesn't mean Ezra likes him; he still isn't fond of werewolves.
"Come on." Gabe nudges him, putting his hand between Ezra's shoulder blades and gently pushing him to the exit. Another unfamiliar male waits by the wall, holding the door open and letting the others out into the darkness of the shadows.
"We have Orgon in our custody now," Gabe says, opening the car door and letting Ezra inside. He climbs in after him, letting Raj take the passenger seat before they slowly pull out of the bumpy ally. "We won't take him back to S1, so you'll be safe coming with us."
"I know I'm safe with you guys," Ezra murmurs, making the werewolf frown, "but I can't follow in your footsteps forever."