Blessed Mother.

She stirred in her dreams, unwilling to leave their embrace. Nightmares always waited for her, clinging to her each time she closed her eyes. But they were known, and they were mere memories and not physical pain. Sleep always brought succor to her, allowing her to shrug off the physical pain and maybe see an alteration in her nightmares, a different branch toward what could have been had the fates been even a little more merciful. And so she slipped into her dreams, hoping to see a different dream, and….

….fear engulfed her as she was racing down the cold corridor on all fours, afraid of hearing the sirens at any second. Even here, in these pristine corridors, she heard the roars and rumbling of the others. Luck. She had a chance thanks to mere luck. Today was a combat test day, and all the best ones were taken out of their cells and into the main area, leaving her with a chance of escaping. The floor felt especially cold today, mostly because of the clutching fear that held her heart in an iron grip.

She reached a fork in the corridor, noticing a camera on the ceiling. Lunging at the wall, she jumped off it, kicking the camera into pieces. That’s it, now the whitecoats and orange fiends know of her escape. But that’s okay. Had she left the camera in place, they would have found her much sooner.

Choosing the left turn, she ran forth, sniffing to locate a familiar trace in the air. A female smell, with a perfume smelling of strawberries. Ignoring the crimson lights flashing in the corridor, her legs carried her toward a lone door in the middle of the corridor. It didn’t open, so she sank her claws into the control panel, tearing it clear and pulling out the wires. It didn’t take long to guess the correct combination, and her bet paid off in full. In their arrogance, the orange fiends didn’t block the entire system.

Storming inside, she came face to face with her. A whitecoat. The black shirt was visible in the open slice on her chest, along with a yellowish chain, so elegant, unlike her own cruel collar. Seeing fear in violet eyes, she dropped to her knees, crawling to the woman who had taken her out of the growing tank.

“Mom.” She raised her hands, retracting her claws right back. “Please. They want to take me to the Room. Please. Save me.” She crawled closer, tugging at the edge of the woman’s coat and crying, too afraid and desperate to try anything else.

She had no one else to turn to. In the two years of her imprisonment among the walls of steel and white, only the woman never hurt her. Other whitecoats pierced her skin with needles, injecting a searing pain that set her every nerve alight and made her twitch on the ground in an unimaginable amount of pain. Sometimes whitecoats would open her wounds and make her bleed, looking unhappily at her slow “cellular regeneration”. Orange fiends beat her up for any perceived disobedience or inability to do some act in an instant. But this woman… She gave her a treat once and patted her head encouragingly after a failed training. Surely, surely, she was her rope to climb out of this madness!

The woman looked at her, now dispassionately, as she leaned on lockers behind her. Removing a single brand of raven hair from her face, the woman nodded at the airlock on the other side of the room, and her heart filled with joy. The mother tried to help her! She wasn’t alone in this madness!

She laughed and slapped herself across the face for her stupidity. But of course! A massive place like this needed a lot of oxygen, and it must have been coming in from somewhere! Tearing away the grating, she started to turn, asking the woman to follow her. She’ll protect her with her…

Ouch. She looked down in disbelief, noticing a hole in her side, the surrounding fur had burned away. A round hole, hurting so much. Stumbling, she saw a thing that orange fiends used when someone really went off the rails and tried to escape. A deadly stinger capable of existence-ending.

“Disappointing, number one,” the woman sighed. “All the money and resources that Academician had poured into your creation… And you still have nothing to show for it. Take her to the vivisectorium.”

Two orange fiends stepped into the room, their bodies locked in steel armor with glowing orange lines running across it, from their fingers and toes all the way to their blackened visors. They took out stub batons, and she leaped into the open ventilation shaft, climbing away with a single thought pounding in her brain. Alone. All this time, she was truly and utterly alone. With no one to care for her and with no one to protect. She saw how other whitecoats joked and congratulated each other, and orange fiends seemed to get along well, so why is she all alone?!

Her side hurt, but she bit her lip and crawled through the tunnel, its darkness illuminated by the faint yellow light coming from her eyes. Wounds were irrelevant, they would heal in time. A missing organ would soon be replaced if only she could find something to eat. Problems for later. Right now she has to…

Looking behind her, she giggled, seeing how one orange fiend became stuck in the narrow tunnel, bulging the metal around him and moving after her at a snail’s pace. Slow, so slow. His own armor arrested his movements. The black visor looked at her, and with almost inhuman effort, the man reached for his helmet and tore it free, showing an enraged face beneath. His features shifted, his brown skin gave in to the scales, a hissing forked tongue slid between his lips, and she screamed, climbing forward after the orange fiend slithered out of his metal shell.

No, no, no! Is he one of products, like her? Why is he free, then? Why is he working for them? Doesn’t he know what whitecoats do to the other products? Irrelevant, all irrelevant. Her claws scratched against the metal, leaving markings and propelling herself forward with long bounds. Survive. If he gets her, she’s dead. To survive, she must escape!

Passing a turn in the tunnel, her heart sank. Before her were fast-moving blades, almost sucking her in. She moved a claw forward, and in a flash, the tip of it disappeared, being slashed away before her very eyes. Shrinking, she collected herself, trying to come up with a plan.

Going back wasn’t an option. She can't beat the orange fiend, he is too strong, too skilled. She tried before and ended up with broken fingers. Surrendering was out of option too. The only thing left was…

Wait. Her ears perked. The voice. Her voice. But not her. Speaking within her mind, her other self sometimes offered the most invaluable advice on how to dodge a hit during matches. But this? The fan moved so fast that its blades looked like a blur! Compress your muscles. Push every nerve to its very limit. She obeyed, bulging her muscles and gathering herself in a knot, preparing for one last leap. Abyss or life, she won’t let them have their way with her anymore! Don’t get distracted. Now!

The dim light leaving her eyes turned into literal streams of light. Never before had she felt so strong. All fear gone, she knew she could make this jump. She saw how the ventilator’s blades slowed to an impossibly high degree, leaving just enough space for her to fit in. And she took this chance, leaping to be free and escape the Room. She felt a tingle of pain when the blade sliced a patch of skin and fur off her left heel, the wound in her side spread new fire across her tiny body.

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But she lived! She landed on the steel surface, breaking it with her arms with a sudden surge of strength, she rolled across the shaft and saw how the orange fiend had appeared from the turn, moving at an incredibly fast speed.

“Stop!” she shouted, but it was too late.

He rammed into the blades headfirst, splashing blood, red blood, just like hers all across the shaft. If the man ever suffered, she never knew. The blades came down on him, first slicing through his serpentine head, then his neck, and finally starting to rework the body into a mesh. His insides got entangled with the blade, and the remains started spinning along with the movement, hitting across the wall and spreading more and more blood across everything.

Gulping nervously, she ran.

****

The world astounded her. She emerged from tunnels to discover herself on a water-surrounded island. Leaping over a fence and leaving a blood trail behind, she saw a multicolored sea of lights on the other side of the water. Orange, green, red, crimson, purple… Every single color was there! The night was dark, but the never-ending sprawling mountains made of steel banished the darkness with multicolored lights. The tips of the tallest towers pierced the skies, spreading lights that reached even here.

Going down the stone slope, she felt her snout open in astonishment. So… beautiful. And there were strange things all over the air, weaving around the steel mountains, spreading their own lights. Her ears caught words, human words, about some “special proposition just for tonight” and “best artificial limbs in the city” and so much more. Honks, the sounds of metal boxes flying, and people’s laughter assaulted her ears, and she pressed her hands together, pleading with the Spirits for deliverance. There must be hundreds… No, the word doesn’t even begin to describe how many people were on the other side of the water. Countless. Yes, that’s about right. Surely someone, somewhere, can give her a normal life!

She stepped closer to the water, hungrily stepping on her knees and gulping the strange-tasting water. Her nostrils caught the smell of something acrid, but she didn’t care. Hungrily, she drank, feeling itchy in her legs and side as her body healed. Compared to the other products, she healed a bit slower, but these wounds won’t kill her. Nothing can kill her! She broke free, and now she will survive!

Her belly rumbled, and she looked around. Sustenance. She needs just a little bit before crossing the water. Her nostrils caught the smell of something rotten coming from a garbage bin nearby, and she leaped to it. Food. Any food to supply her body and…

She stumbled back, feeling her whole world spinning around her. Her forehead was on fire, spearing her body with fresh surges of pain. Looking up, she saw a blonde girl dressed in black leather with a baseball bat marred with something red resting on her shoulder. Touching her forehead, she understood that this was her own blood.

“You?” the girl asked mockingly. “You are the reason they called us? Piss off, last time it was at least a gator-like fiend.”

She did just like the girl inadvertently advised and sprinted away, lowering herself to all fours and ignoring the pain in her legs. Us. This means more than one. Dangerous, she can’t take… No, she didn’t want to take them on. She’ll have a new life, one in which she will never again have to hurt anyone.

She almost raced to the pier’s edge when a surge of electricity forced her back. Tongues of energy came up from the stone ground, hissing and dancing on the wind, before forming into the figure of a young man, whose cheeks were sliced all the way to the ears and healed badly. Without a moment’s hesitation, the youth hit her with a brass knuckle, sending her toppling back.

“Eugenia, watch out! The bitch is fast.”

“Yeah, yeah…” The space next to her trembled, and the girl from before stepped from an oval-shaped portal, raising her baseball bat.

“Please,” she whimpered, looking into the face of this Eugenia. She was about her age, so why was she hunting her? Weren’t people from the outside supposed to be better than the ones in the lab? “It must be a mistake. I didn’t mean to do anything bad. I just want to li…”

The baseball bat came down, breaking her nose.

****

The orange fiends came a few minutes later, dragging her by the collar and giving something to Eugenia. She thrashed and kicked, clawing in desperation at their impregnable armor, lashing out in maddening fear as they took her down in the basement, dragging her across the corridors.

No! They’ll take her into the Room! The Room! No one who went there ever came back! She saw, just once, how the Room’s doors opened and revealed rows of examination slabs. And on them lay monsters in various stages of being taken apart. All of them were howling in pain while the cursed whitecoats reached inside the helpless bodies, taking out still-living organs. But she can’t go into the Room! She didn’t hurt anyone! Only monsters belong there! Only…

****

Blessed Mother!

She stirred one last time and awoke, accompanied by reddish spots blocking her vision, and pain that threatened to tear her brain in two. Half-groaning, half-growling, she spread her arms to their full span, enduring popping in her shoulders, and looked at the night sky. The pain receded but refused to disappear. It always lurked in the back of her mind, an old friend who never left its claws off her. A multitude of smells assaulted her nostrils, and sounds came to her. Boastful words of her rough kin, the sound of grinding gears, the hushed whispers of people. She heard how one soldier admitted the pregnancy of his wife, and his fellow soldiers laughed, promising drinks to celebrate. The Wolfkins were at it again, provoking their white-furred cousins into combat. With the Twins no longer around, she must keep them safe, always keeping whites at arm’s length to prevent her madness from seeping into them. Unlike her own kin, they were unspoiled, pure even, with a grand future. She shook off her sadness and concentrated further. She heard jokes from the mechanics as they finished the final adjustments on the power armor. So many wonders in this world!

And none of them were meant for her. She looked at her paw, surprised at this sudden thought and remembering her true purpose in the world. Why not for her?

Her paw, with fingers the size of a human torso and claws that could rend everything in her path. The claws gleamed white despite dried-up blood marring their surface. Her body was covered by thick black fur, darker than any night, and the light from her eyes illuminated her weapons of murder. Smiling with a long snout, she let out a laugh.

Oh… Right. I am a monster. Ravager thought and looked at her army, remembering the look on the whitecoat’s face. The woman thought to cut her open, thinking she was just another victim. Ravager plucked one of her eyes, leaving the other one for the traitorous doctor to see how the failed experiment feasted on her insides. The one who got dragged into the Room vaguely reminded a human, both in shape and in mind. A simple girl who never wanted to hurt anyone. The one who left the Room was someone else entirely, a monstrous creature whose innocence and body were forever twisted and whose head always boiled with pain.

And I deserve this. Murderer. Kin-slayer. A monster. Suffering is the least I deserve.

Ravager saved herself. In the meantime, the world died and suffered a brutal rebirth through the fiery flames. Flying vehicles fell, and skyscrapers soon followed, littering the lifeless ground with their remains. But people remained. Mad, strong, weak, good—all sorts of people. And now it fell to her to save the others the only way a monster could.

The Wolfkin looked around, noticing Dragena, Alpha, Zero, First, and Camelia all standing on one knee before her. Behind them, in the distance, was the looming city of the local warlord. More of a fortress, really, with tall walls surrounding it. The skies above and the land around the city were brightly lit by the light of hundreds of projectors, and the defensive arrays and turrets came online, preparing to repel any intruder.

“Blessed Mother.” Alpha raised her head, looking at Ravager. “The offer of reunification was denied. Our envoy has been killed.”

A growl left her lips, and she felt her muscles contorting and twisting, fighting back against the bloody urge that demanded her immediate advance. No. Going in alone is not efficient, it brings only more death and destruction.

She warned the fool that this would happen. But no, he claimed his duty before the state and left his guards behind, walking alone to his destiny. Another life that she failed to save.

“Rouse the packs, Alpha,” Ravaged looked up, inhaling the air filled with toxic fumes coming from the city. Her amber eyes briefly focused on the distant white disk high above. “The city will be brought back into the fold before the first ray of sunlight. For Dynast and the Reclamation Army!”