--Point of View: Katie--

I could not help but grin. My idea may just work if Crim could pull off his part of the plan. Regardless of whether it worked or not, it was at least worth trying. We did not really have many options at this point.

“Crim, have you ever broken a claw or tooth? Like from getting a claw snagged or maybe just biting down too hard?” I asked, waiting eagerly for an answer.

“Yeah, I’ve done that quite a few times actually. Especially, when I first woke up in this body. Adjusting to the extra two legs took some time. Why though?” Crim asked, his brow arched slightly until the idea struck him as well.

“Are you thinking of using one of my own claws or fangs to break out of here?” he asked.

“Precisely! You are the only thing in here that is tough enough to break through these chains. Given the situation though, we will have to get a little creative. If you could break off a nail or something, I could probably use it to scratch out these runes.” I said, confidence booming in my voice. This had to work.

I watched Crim close his eyes and begin to meticulously tug at each one of his bindings, obviously trying to see if he had enough slack to pull this stunt off. After a minute or so, he grumbled to himself before looking back at me.

“My legs are bound too tight. I can barely shuffle around let alone raise my foot high enough to snap off a claw. It takes quite a lot of force to do. However,” he said slowly, the twinkling of an idea in his eye. “You may want to look away.”

I stared at him dubiously before asking.

“What are you about to do?”

Crim crouched close to the ground as well as he could, the chains making every bit of movement awkward. It was then I watched him bare his fangs and rear his head back.

“You are not going to…” I started to say before he threw his face into the hard steel floor.

There was a tremendous thud followed by a thunderous crack. I felt something go whooshing past my head, throwing my hair back. Without even realizing it, my hands were clamped to my face, terrified. It was only a passing scare, but a real one. Once I lowered my guard and took a look at Crim, I was not sure if I should laugh or gasp in fright. There he was, giving me his usual goofy smile but now he was short one fang. He reminded me of a child losing their baby teeth.

“You look ridiculous. Does that not hurt?” I inquired, slightly worried but knew I should probably not fret so much. Losing a tooth is probably nothing compared to getting pummeled by Ozark, a literal mountain of a man.

“No, I am quite alright. If anything, its just a minor annoyance until it grows back in a few hours.” He replied with a slight lisp. I suppressed a snicker.

“Fair enough,” I said while I turned around to see Crim’s freshly broken tooth partially embedded in the cell wall. “You know, that very easily could have been my head. Perhaps a warning next time.”

The thought of dying to such a foolish thing did not scare me as much as I thought it would. I mean, I nearly died but here I am, fine. The whole situation was horrible and to be frank, I had probably nearly died half a dozen or so times in the past week. Maybe I was just getting used to it. That thought concerned me.

After getting up and making my way over to inspect the tooth that had cleanly lodged itself in the wall, I wondered if I would be able to pull it free. My thoughts were for not because it slid out with surprising ease. I guess that goes to show just how sharp it really was. It was lighter than it looked and in my small hands could easily be mistaken for a white obsidian dagger. I gave it a few swings for the heck of it.

“Alright, I guess it’s time to see if this is going to work or not. Fingers crossed.” I commented, a deep sigh escaping me as I leaned down to begin work on one of the chains.

The majority of the chain was hidden beneath the floor, pulled taut by an unseen force. I foolishly gave it a tug before settling down to start. With Crim’s tooth in one hand, I carefully pressed the tip of it against the otherwise sturdy looking metal that made up the shackles keeping my friend in place. Nothing seemed to happen at first as I tried to scratch away at the metal but when I put some of my weight behind it, we were in luck.

The tooth sank into the metal just far enough to disturb the intricate runes blanketing its surface. I was relieved, wiping away some of the sweat that was forming on my brow. If this had not worked, we would be in a very tight spot.

“It looks like its going to work Crim, but it will take some time.” I commented, now focusing my attention on carefully carving away at the runes.

Crim shifted and nearly yanked the tooth from my hand.

“Woah, careful! What are you doing?” I immediately asked, looking up at him.

“Sorry. I was trying to see.” Came a rather abashed voice. I did not blame him. “I will try to hold still.”

“It is fine, do not worry about it.” I replied, steadying my makeshift dagger once again.

The job was tedious, and the progress was slow, but progress was still progress. As I sat and worked, my mind started to drift off to other things. Would I make it off this ship? What would become of the others? Will my family survive without me?

“It will be okay.” I whispered to myself, reassuringly.

“You are correct. Everything will be fine. I know it.” Remarked Crim, still doing his best to remain perfectly still. “You are strong, and we all have faith in you.”

“Thank you, Crim, I appreciate it.” I replied tiredly, setting the tooth down to rest my hand.

“Why don’t you take a short break. You have been going at this for an hour now. A small rest will do you some good.” He added, his ears rotating to face my direction. It was kind of cute.

“Maybe you are right. My hand is starting to cramp. It looks like I’m about two thirds of the way done. You said I have to erase the entire run sequence to make it stop working, right?” I asked, wanting to make sure I was not wasting my time when it was not needed.

“That is correct. While simple enchantments can be undone by damaging any part of the runes, more complex ones have protections in place so accidents do not occur. The entire rune sequence must be removed or damaged beyond repair.” Answered Crim quickly, sensing my worry.

“They are almost like the redundant systems we have aboard our ships. You would need to turn all of them off to take a single system offline. Pretty smart.” I commented, rather impressed by their ingenuity.

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We both went silent again as I rested, leaning back against Crim. He was far softer than the floor and did not seem to mind the fact I was using him like a chair. With the silence, my mind drifted back to my family. It had been over a year since I saw them. In fact, our fleet was scheduled to return home after this mission, and I would be a be able to see them again for a month before we departed again. I missed them so much.

“Something on your mind, Katie?” asked Crim.

“I am just thinking about home is all. About my family I left back there.” I answered, somewhat happy to talk to somebody else about it. Regardless of what Crim may look like now, he did mention a family in his past.

“Ah, that makes sense. I often think about mine as well but only for a moment. The memories are still too painful for me. Hopefully one day I can come to peace with what happened.” He said, his ears laying flat across his head, his muscles tensing up for a split second.

“Oh, that is right. I am sorry Crim, I completely forgot what happened back then.” I added quickly, regretful of the fact I brought the subject up.

“No, it is quite alright. Though I will insist you tell me about your family.” he replied, his ears still twitching slightly.

That was just like him. I knew he was hurting but he still insisted on trying to help me. He was very stubborn, but I knew better than to fight it. Plus, I kind of did want to talk about my family. It sounded nice to just chat with somebody else about how I was feeling.

“Well, both my mom and dad are still together. Quite rare now-a-days. I have an older brother and a younger sister.” I started, closing my eyes and picturing them all in my head.

“A middle child. That explains a lot.” Crim snickered. I lightly smacked him on the side.

“Oh, hush and let me talk. Both my parents work for the warehouse district of our mothership. I was working there as well before Robert pulled me out of there.” I continued, thinking back to how hard they worked us there. It was akin to slavery.

“Robert took you from there. What for?” he asked, once again trying to tug as his chains so he could turn to look at me. Eye contact seemed overly important to him I thought.

“The warehouse district might as well be a slave camp. They work you to the bone and what little money you do make ends up getting paid back to the company. They own the properties, the stores, the banks, everything. Escaping them is downright impossible unless somebody lends you a hand from the outside.” I explained further, getting up from my comfy seat to sit along the wall in front of Crim. He seemed to appreciate the gesture.

“Slavery was outlawed in my time. Has that changed?” he inquired, still squirming around in his chains.

“Oh no, downright slavery is very much illegal. They just ensured you were never paid quite enough to leave them. You could try but it was so hard. My brother managed to, but we have not seen him in years. Some people suspect the higher ups hired somebody to put him in his place. Us commoners are very much looked down upon.” I sighed, covering my face as images from those painful days flooded back to me.

“And Robert saved you from all of that? He sounds like a good man.” Crim commented, nodding his head in agreement with himself.

“He really is. He told me he was down there on personal business when we first met. I gave him some directions and thought nothing of it. Well later that day I bumped into him again and he gave me his card. No idea why and he claims it was just a gut feeling. Regardless, I was able to enlist thanks to him. I owe him so much.” I said quietly, tears trickling down my cheeks. They were quickly wiped away on my shirt cuff.

I felt so bad for leaving them, but my parents could not have been prouder of me. They were so happy that I was able to get out. I promised them I would do everything in my power to get them free of this horrid life, but they waved it all aside. I was told to do what makes me happy and put myself first. My mom and dad only wanted what was best for me even if it meant I would spend most of the year away from home.

Crim and I discussed a bit more about my life back at home before I got back to work on his chains. I felt like I had wasted enough time. This needed to be done and soon. As I approached the end of the chain link, I would periodically tell Crim to give it a good yank to see if the spell’s effect had disappeared yet. It took a few tries but eventually the chain snapped, nearly sending Crim doubling over onto himself.

“Finally!” I said excitedly, jumping to my feet and retreating a safe distance. “Do you think you can take care of the others now?”

“Let us see and find out.” Crim said with a toothy grin.

I watched Crim slowly lay down and position himself so his could work at the chains with his free paw. At first, he was being super delicate and precise with his attempts, but I could quickly tell he was getting frustrated.

“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” He growled as he fumbled around.

“Do you need a hand?” I asked, walking around the edge of the room to ensure I did not get caught up in his flopping around.

“No, I got it. Let me try something a little more my style.” He replied.

I was not sure what he had in mind at first, but it soon became obvious. What he lacked in finesse he more than made up for in brute strength. I watched him hook a claw between one of the loops and start pulling on it with all his might. His muscles bulged, veins grew large, and for a while, I was pretty sure I saw bits of mana radiating off of him.

It took him a few tries, but he was successful. His razor-sharp claws managed to slowly dig their way through the loop before being completely cut through. The rune just could not keep up with his constant efforts now that he had just a little bit of leverage.

“There we go, two down, two more to go” I chuckled, wondering why I was even worried at the start.

“True, but we have a small problem.” He commented, his ears pivoting like turrets. He must have heard something.

“The guard?” I asked frantically.

“Regrettably. You should be able to hear him soon and he is not alone. Hide behind me and stay down. I will cover you.” He said calmly, laying back down so he was parallel with the window. “They probably will not notice the chains unless they take a closer look.”

He was right. I heard the now all too common stomp of heavy armored boots coming towards us down the hall. And, just like he had said, there was another much quieter footstep with them as well. I did my best to tuck my body up against Crim’s side so I would only be seen by somebody who actually walked into the room. For our sake, I hope nobody did.

“Well if it isn’t Experiment 001 or should I call you Crim now? You caused quite a ruckus.” Came a familiar, cold voice. It was the Old One that had treated my wounds earlier. What was she doing here?

“Crim if you may.” Crim responded. “What do you want? Am I due for another beating?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. I would rather not dirty my hands on your filthy fur. I just wanted to see you with my own eyes is all. Finally captured after all this time and with a bunch of humans. How strange.” She replied.

“It’s a long story.” He replied simply, shrugging his shoulders.

“And one I do not have time nor the desire to listen to. I am simply here to inform you your little friends are alive and well. For now, that is.” She sneered.

“Why do you care?” barked Crim, a hint of anger in his voice.

“Oh, I do not care but Ozark wanted you to be aware of the fact. I am sure you are aware of your situation.” She remarked.

“Yes, Ozark made sure to beat it into me. Now if you do not mind, I would like to sleep. I have had enough of all of you.” Crim countered.

“So be it. Take care little wolf. I am sure we will be seeing each other again soon.” She finished before turning to leave, the sound of her footsteps trekking down the hall.

We both laid there motionless for what felt like an eternity until Crim spoke up.

“She is gone now. We can get back to work and with much haste.” He said urgently, waiting for me to be clear before returning to working on his chains.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, giving him an odd look.

“I do not trust what she said. I want to see the others with my own eyes and sooner rather than later.” He responded cleaving one of the three remaining chains free. He was getting serious.

I nodded as he made quick work of the last leg and neck restraint. He was finally freed from his prison. The first thing he did was give a big stretch that almost knocked me over when his tail came flicking around happily.

“Woah, be careful with that thing.” I laughed, swatting it away. “Happy to be free of those I take it?”

“Very much so.” he said before setting his eyes on the door. “That should be easy work but what is the plan?”

The plan? I guess I had not thought much about it. The biggest concern on my mind up until this point was just freeing Crim. What came next was up for debate, but one thing was for certain, we needed to break the others out as well.

“Well, we are going to need to find out where we are and get back to the others. I tried to keep track of all the turns I made on my way here, but it was too much. All the hallways look the same. “I said slowly, closing my eyes as I tried to come up with some ideas.

“We managed to find them before so we can do it again, do not worry.” Crim suggested, always trying to look on the positive side.

“Yeah, you are right. After that we needed to find the gate and go home. I guess it really was not that complicated, but I have a feeling it is going to be much harder than we think.” I added.

“Agreed. Let’s go!”