Everything felt fuzzy, in a pins and needles sort of way. Her body felt heavy, as if it were made of lead and that was all she could feel. She did her best to try and remember how to move, what it felt like to move her arms, her legs, even lift her head or open her eyes. The only avail was the slimmest cracking of her eyelids that let in a blinding light behind what appeared to be a wall of haze in her vision. Morrigan let out the softest of groans as she let her eyes shut again.

Easy there sport, you've got a world of problems and I’m working on all of them at the same time… I forgot how much multitasking sucks!

“Apollyon…” even the voice in her head was exhausted.

You had over half of your bones break in the crash girl, luckily you were passed out while I fixed that but its taking everything I got to keep these sedatives from killing you.

Morrigan gave another soft audible grunt, “what?”

Before Apollyon could tell her what was going on, her head was yanked up by her hair. She realized she could not feel the hand that gripped her hair as she fought to keep her eyes from lulling into the back of her head. Unable to focus her eyes, all she could see was a dark blob standing in front of bright lights. “Well, well, well. I have to admit you are either the toughest girl I’ve ever met or the luckiest girl in the world, either way I'm going to enjoy breaking you.” The voice was familiar, but she had to dig deep into her mind to place the voice. Amaranthe.

Realizing who was standing before her and holding her head up, her adrenal gland kicked into overdrive assisting Apollyon with filtering the sedatives from her bloodstream. She could slowly feel every inch of her body waking up as the painfully slow beep of an EKG machine began to repeat faster and faster. “Ah, I see you remember me.” Amaranthe stated before letting her head fall. She felt him release her hair, and the subtle pain it had caused her paralyzed nerves. Soon she was able to feel the pain in her wrists and shoulders as she realized she was hanging from her bound hands. With the regained strength to lift her head, she began to scan the room. The walls, floor and ceiling were various forms of metal, there was a low hum of an engine on top of the noisy medical equipment she could see; there were two marines who stiffened on either side of their commander as they watched her slowly regain a semblance of her strength back. Amaranthe had walked away from her, over to a cart of various weapons as well as implements she did not want to know the purpose of.

“I say, I think we will have to go with strongest, seeing as we have a constant amount of sedatives pumping into your body… enough to kill a Saurian twice over.” He said as he picked up a nasty looking serrated blade and eyed her suspiciously. She had no idea how much drugs a Saurian could take, but seeing as he felt it was needed to reference, well it explained why Apollyon was focusing solely on that.

Without me right now, you would have been dead ten times over within the first five seconds once they found the dosage to keep you under.

“Any idea how we can get out of this?” Her thought was more panicked than she wanted to sound but could not deny the rising fear in her stomach. Amaranthe had a sinister smirk in his face as he set the blade down and fingered through several other instruments before frowning. She made sure to note that some of the instruments were darkened with stains of dried blood and felt a cold vibration snake down her spine.

Amaranthe turned to one of the marines, “have either have you seen my favorite toys?” His question seemed almost pleading which was quite bizarre to Morrigan. She was afraid of this man, afraid of what he intended to do with her and yet, in this strange instance he seemed as harmless as a child. The marine closed to him stiffened even more, clutching his rifle tightly before responding, “yes sir, second shelf near your skinning knife on the right…” Amaranthe was quick to crouch and look before making a squeak of satisfaction before pulling out what looked like two barbed brass knuckles. This caused Morrigan to swallow hard.

“Perfect!” he exclaimed as he slid them over each hand, electricity crackling over his hand and dancing between the savage barbs that were on each object.

“Fuck me… this guy is a mage…” she thought in dread and hatred combined. In response to the brief anger, crimson sparks crackled over her body.

Amaranthe’s smug look turned into a vicious grin. Casually stepping across her field of vision and moved around behind her, “it was quite the surprise to find out that the anarchy spreading, hate filled anti-magos girl from Denver turned out to be a mage herself, and quite the powerful one too…” He held up his phone from behind to show her several videos shot at different angles of her unleashing her power and slicing into the marine in the middle of the high school’s parking lot. She bit her lip hard as she watched herself eviscerate the woman who defended her, fighting the feeling of remorse. “There were a few interesting parts to this, I for one, could see how much blood was shed, yet upon surveying the scene, not a drop was found anywhere you were.” He said as he pulled the phone back behind her.

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she tried her best to turn around in a panic until he presented the phone again. This time was of the two cops she and Torvil killed. “This here was even more interesting. A little investigation showed the same kind of exsanguination, which is truly impressive seeing as your family is so… supportive of the men in blue.” His voice was in her ear, his mouth so close she could feel the heat of his breath; she hated him. Tapping his thumb, it moved over to two blood covered bullets, “these were far more interesting, the DNA on these two bullets match none other than your DNA. Yet… you have no wounds, not even after being shot out of the sky.” Amaranthe circled around and leaned down into her face, “as a matter of fact, your DNA does not hold the genetic precursors for someone to develop mage abilities! So little girl, what exactly are you?” His question was enlightening to Morrigan; there was no way anyone would be able to discover Apollyon. That was not necessarily true, she actually had zero idea how Apollyon would affect her body, but this conversation was informative at least.

Morrigan spat a large wad of spit into his face, “Check that.” It still took a good amount of energy to try and speak as her words came out slightly slurred. Amaranthe took the insult in grace, standing upright and retrieving a cloth from inside his jacket.

“You know, I am so glad you did that,” he stated with a smile as he wiped her saliva off his face.

Her ribcage screamed in pain and forced a feeble cry out of her as Amaranthe slammed a fist at blinding speed into her side. The barbs of the knuckles pierced her skin and the weight of the impact felt like it sank farther into her body than it should have. He stepped to the side of her and brought his right elbow into the center of her face and connected between the bottom of her nose and top lip. Blood immediately began to pour down her face as blood vessels ruptured in her nasal passages.

Fuck me! Are you serious about this woman?

The blood quickly began to cease flowing as Apollyon seemed to divert just enough energy to staunch the bleeding. Amaranthe seemed to have noticed this as he eyed her suspiciously. “You my dear are absolutely fascinating, looks like we will be able to play for quite a while,” he said with a malevolent grin as he pulled back an electrified fist and began pummeling her body like a training bag.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Mere hours felt like days to Morrigan as the mage beat, cut and abused her body. Every minute, every single second was blood and pain. Amaranthe broke bone with fist, cut meat with blade and singed nerves with electricity or flame. It was worse than torture, it made her wish for death; with each strike she hoped it would be the last to end her misery. However, Apollyon kept her alive with no regard to how she felt; closing each new wound just enough to keep it from killing her as it fought the deadly drug pumping into her bloodstream. It was hopeless. The pain overcame the effects of the sedatives and she could feel every aching, damaged inch of her skin that had been slowly coated with her own blood. What she would give to pass out and not feel, if even for a minute yet her body wanted to fight. Her body knew better than to submit despite facing crippling exhaustion.

“My, my. It seems to call you strong is an insult,” Amaranthe sneered as he reached for a long stiletto knife, turning back with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “If I’m being honest, you’re significantly tougher than any of my men… Those green eyes of yours are beginning to annoy me and you know what they say; the eyes are what make a soldier.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m sure it applies to women as well, let’s find out.” Morrigan instinctively tried to jerk her head away as he stepped up to her, however her muscles screamed, and she could not move her head as she hung from the ceiling by her arms.

She watched in pure terror as Amaranthe lifted the stiletto up and lined it up with her right eye. She watched as the tip of the blade inched closer and closer to her eye, waiting in horror for the agonizing pain that was to come.

Her moment of reprieved arrived in an abrupt interruption of a marine who ran through the door without discretion. “Sir!” the marine announced. Amaranthe on the other hand, was already in the process of turning towards the doorway and the stiletto, mid sail. The marine’s interruption was cut short as the blade was thrown with terrifying precision and imbedded into the marine’s throat.

With a strained gurgle, the marine dropped to the ground in front of the doorway dead. There came a voice deep from the hallway that seemed to grab everyone’s attention, especially Amaranthe’s.

“I see your reflexes are as sharp as ever though I hope that knife wasn’t intended for me seeing as your man was, I’m sure, coming to warn you of my arrival.”

Who stepped into the doorway was a short, fat balding man in a white admiral’s suit with full decorations, the weight of his authority carrier with him as both marines on each side of the door quickly snapped to attention and saluted the man. Even Amaranthe, though slower on the draw, stood to attention and gave a salute. The man carefully stepped over the dead marine in order to avoid stepping in the growing pool of blood with his white dress shoes. Everything about this guy reeked of Federation military privilege, Morrigan already hated his existence.

The problem with the reprieve from the torture was that her body had the moment to relax, to let the exhaustion really set in and every ounce of pain she felt magnified three-fold. “I see you have taken upon yourself to play with my prize,” the man in white said regaining her attention.

“His prize? This is the fucker who caused all of this?”

It seems we are now face to face with your true hunter.

The man stepped around Amaranthe and stood face to face with Morrigan. Hanging from the ceiling, the man was even shorter to her than he would have been had she had been on the ground, it made him slightly less threatening all things considered since Amaranthe stood over a head and a half taller than the man. “Erm, Colonel… I only…” Amaranthe stammered out before the man raised a hand to silence him.

“I will address you when I deem it appropriate Lieutenant.” The man locked eyes with Morrigan with a small smirk on his face. “You know, I often wondered what would be done with you once you were in custody… I originally just wanted your head on a platter, but think Amaranthe here has done a good start, I can see you’ve been given the pain you deserve but there are so many other ways to make you hurt,” the man reached up and grabbed her dried blood-stained chin which she flinched out of.

“Why?” she forced out in a growl. Hate and contempt burning in her eyes.

“Oh, where are my manners, I am Colonel Theodore Sanders, Commanding officer of the 151st Regiment… and to answer your question, the man you brutally murdered three years ago happened to be my nephew.”

Morrigan could only manage to growl in response.

Her response only made him smirk, “yes I agree, the foolish body wanted to make an ‘honest living’ as a police officer. The imbecile.”

Morrigan jerked towards the man, “he was a murderer!” she forced out as her strength failed her. Sanders smiled warmly at her in return. “The only murderer was you dear child. I read the report, I am well aware of your stance on the aliens who scuttle about our planet,” his tone hinted disgust as he flourished his hand in emphasis, “however, their lives do not fall under the same sanctity human’s do. They are no better than animals and an officer putting one out of its misery is only doing the Federation some justice in cleaning their filth out of our home.”

This sent Morrigan into a torrential rage as she thrashed against her bindings and straining every muscle to follow her command. “I’ll kill you, you sick fuck!” she snarled as she called to her power, fighting to pull it from Apollyon’s grasp to end the man’s retched life.

Would you fucking stop! Apollyon's voice thundered in her head as he lost control over some of the power resulting in the deadly sedative flooding her system once again. Morrigan instantly felt the effects of the drug, her movements stopped immediately as the drug induced lethargy set in. Darkness creeped in as her focus began to blur and her body began to numb and slip into forced slumber. Fucking hell girl, you almost killed yourself, I can’t fix death…shit.

Sanders chuckled at the girl who seemed to lose all fight in her. “That’s cute but you are inconsequential to me. I on the other hand, have very, very consequential plans for you. It’s about time all your senseless words and deeds come back to bite you in the ass.” Sanders turned to the marines that stood guard and addressed them, “prepare my prisoner for transport. I have a ship ready to take her to Castile V.”

Both marines shifted their attention to Amaranthe who began to protest.

“Sir she may be a problem if you…” he was cut off again by then colonel.

“You are lucky I don’t have you court martialed for this. You are to report back to base, file what I expect to be an extensive report on this, then await further orders, is that understood?”

“Yes sir… understood,” Amaranthe replied in defeat and motioned for his marines to follow the orders given. “Make sure you chain the brat,” he added. After everything they had witnessed, they took heed and grabbed heavy chains and started the process of getting her down and bound.

Amaranthe stepped up next to the colonel and watched the marines go to work, disgusted in the fact that the colonel was stupid enough to leave the girl alive, and cutting his experimentations on the girl short. He knew there was something remarkably different about the girl and her mage abilities, but without the proper time and equipment to do the proper research on her, there was little to find out aside from what he had already discovered. Her resilience was beyond anything he had ever seen in a human, and the ability to stave off death was certainly useful at least for her. What he could do with an army resistant to death? He would rule the galaxy. Not to mention the power she used, the ability to slice through armor as if it was paper was equally as useful. Alas, he would no longer have the chance to unlock her secrets, for the time being. “So, Castile V?” he inquired to the colonel.

The colonel nodded sternly, “yes, you managed a good job breaking her body, but I think it needs to be taken a step further, the penal mining colony will be just what is needed to break everything else; her mind, her spirit, to shatter the very core of who she is. Only then will my nephew be avenged. Wretched alien loving bitch.”

Amaranthe gave the colonel a smirk he did not see. There was a nice notion in that plan, an admirable goal that he could appreciate, however he believed the colony would have a hard time breaking this soon to be prisoner. That was their problem now, he had other things to focus on now. “With your permission sir, I’ll take my leave and get started on that report.”

Sanders gave an amused snort, “that’s fine, I expect it by the end of the day.” He dismissed his subordinate with a wave of a hand, one the lieutenant colonel took advantage of as he heard him walk away in wounded stride.