Aden was feeling a bit strange as he strode along with a literal rat man priest, off to now see their royalty.

Something about this all seemed so bizarre.

“Come now Lord Aden, the king and queen await.”

Yet the nagging in the back of his head kept dying out, replaced with a need to know just who were these people?

Aden started to feel woozy as he got closer and closer to the castle that appeared.

Which was too big for such an underground society to have.

Especially without anyone knowing about it.

The nagging died down…

NO!

Aden felt his eyes open, and once again found himself in a medical wing, tied to a table.

He noticed that both Aura and Crysa were nowhere to be found, and the table was set up vertically as his arms were latched in place and he dangled from his restraints.

“Damnit Crystal, you said that the false memories would hold!”

Aden turned to see a gruff man with a beard, aging features, and silvery hair. He walked with purpose despite his age, with a solid body fitted around a lab coat of all things.

He was yelling at another girl, one that Aden recognized immediately.

“Crystal? Wait… I fought you… why are you here?”

Crystal turned to glare at him, “it’s the genes, Poxus. The memories won’t work for long on him or Sarah, it seems.”

“This was something you and Monica were supposed to fix! We’re at the moment of Genetic Liberation, these delays can not continue!”

Crystal turned to the doctor, her face drawing a clear image of distaste.

“Rewriting a person’s memories only works on humans, you insufferable clown! The test subjects aren’t able to process the memories, and can spot the fakes. What do you want, your Huma revolution, or working memory alteration, because I can only make sure one actually works!”

Aden turned to the old man, his features now seeming to match a certain old man from his past.

“Pox!”

He tried to wrench himself free, only for the latches to freeze his arms in place.

“Don’t move, unless you wish to be a popsicle…”

The chill from a hissing noise alerted Aden as he started to lose feeling in his hands. The cold air spread to his body as he felt his muscles lock up.

“W-What i-is thiss?”

Crystal moved in front of him, a cold calculating look in her eyes, “you almost did get away, that much was true, but not before the protocol to knock you out was engaged. Did you really think I had nothing planned in case I failed to beat you, brother? Foolish.”

Aden felt heavy as the hissing stopped.

“Now, you’re going to be my test subject regarding our… other R types. Since you already possess the genetic template for Crimson R, these should be an… interesting bit of fun.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Y-you… w-won’t g-get away w-with it! S-Sarah-”

“Oh I know brother, she’s probably on her way right now, just as we planned. After all, we need our vector to make the Huma Project reach its final conclusion.”

Vector?

Crystal laughed haughtily as she pulled up a monitor, showing the image of the rat man Rubeous, the very same one he saw.

“It truly was a beautiful image, real too. We just had to dissect and catagorize them, for science of course.”

“W-Wait… those r-rat people, y-you killed them?!”

Crystal smiled, a menacing thing that seemed to drink in his horror.

“One of Chimera’s little accidents, which spawned an entire race of sentients. Too bad they were rather simple to spot, and so helpful! They led me right to their leaders.”

“What an innocent species…it was such a shame they were vermin.”

Aden tried to move, tried to reach out with his teeth and bite her, anything to rid this world of the ‘sibling’ he had in front of him.

“Why?!”

Crystal turned back to him, the cold look in her eyes betraying no emotion.

“They were not the ones to be uplifted. That is humanity’s place. We have no room for ratmen.”

“That doesn’t excuse anything! You monster!”

Crystal shook her head, “enough of your foolishness, you don’t have the breath, and I don’t have the time to speak about poor unfortunate souls.”

Aden watched as a cart was pulled around, each one filled with a different liquid from the look of them.

They all seemed to match the colors of the rainbow, and Aden could even see something moving inside the vials.

“Ah, the samples have arrived. Brother, you are about to be part of a wonderful experiment. This will change the world forever!”

Aden felt an instinctual horror come over him as he saw Crystal change into a blob version of herself, her blue color the same as one of the vials she was now pulling out.

“Open wide, Aden.”

…

Crysa felt something squirming inside her as she woke up in a fright.

“What… what the hell?!”

She looked around the room that she found herself in, her body tied to a table with latches. She was wearing a straight jacket with tubes coming out of her arms and legs.

And in front of her was a covering, showing a surgical smock over her abdomen.

With a hole across her stomach.

“Well, it appears the anethesia has worn off.”

The voice that she heard reverberated deep into her mind freed her from staring at the open wound in front of her.

“No…”

She turned to see him!

“Welcome home, my dear daughter.”

…

Aura felt a weight over her body as she opened her eyes, air gently being compressed and pulled out of her mouth.

“Where…”

She tried to take a breath, only for a spike of pain to jab into her body.

“Ahh! W-What is this?!”

Aura spotted a massive rock over her that threatened to crush her, and along her sides she noticed harpoons aimed at her.

“No! Not this… not again!”

As she tried to find a way out of the compressing cage she found herself in, she spotted someone.

It was her sister… the one that tried to have her killed.

“Engaging… air test.”

“Stop! Stop it Monica!”

But the harpoons didn’t stop,,. The weight only got worse.

Aura was slowly sinking into the pool she found herself in, a familiar hell that her sister reintroduced her to.

The same one her Father used to test her.

…

Chimera, her clone and Sarah dropped into the ventilation system as an alarm sounded in the building.

Strange as it was, the alarm was already sounding by the time that they had entered.

That would mean it was already activated before we arrived.

Chimera felt a chill as she and her comrades worked their way to the staircase, deeper into ChemTech, and the horrors that awaited below.