“Splash!” Liam greeted Ratcatcher with a pitcher of water, and the laughing girl evaded the stream of water and kicked the boy into the bathroom, where Dad grabbed him by the nape.

Dad returned home a few minutes before Ratcatcher, yawning and stretching after a hard day’s work. In preparation for the New Year, the factory got beset with the orders. Milk, after all, was a product needed by all. The Resistance made a large request; the Frontier’s cities demanded it too and were willing to pay. Morningstar wasn’t the milk-producing center in Iterna, but it wasn’t the smallest either, and the factory where Dad worked was known for producing some of the highest-quality dairy. Rumor had it that even King and Jekaterina Glawish often bought it for their needs.

The company wanted to extend the shifts to maximize profits, but the government officials were already there, watching like hawks to make sure all the workers got their rest and finished on time, no matter the moaning of the company’s managers. Still, for the past few weeks, Dad had been falling asleep after a shower, often waking up for dinner only after Mom dragged him by the ear. Even his gray fur was losing some of its usual lushness, but Mom told her children not to worry, explaining that this was a quirk of their father’s body. True to her word, Dad’s fur was almost gleaming in the morning after a well-deserved night’s sleep.

Liam too had noticed that Dad was getting tired, and no longer ran circles around him, allowing the elder Vong to catch him, offering only a token resistance instead of his usual struggling sessions, resulting in both of them rolling on the floor and laughing.

“Mom, can I ask you something?” Ratcatcher said, coming closer to help prepare the salad. In the bathroom down the corridor, Dad has been busy scolding Liam for spilling water on the floor. Their argument ended with him forcing the boy to take an unexpected shower. Liam protested loudly, announcing his burning hatred of water for the entire apartment to hear.

“Why the sudden shyness? You want chocolate again?” Joanna’s tail swung to the shelf, while she herself darted between the stove and the table, preparing new apple pies for the celebration.

Mom beamed with energy. She had taken a liking chatting with Mrs. Erickson, and the woman had become a common guest in their apartment. There was still resentment between her and Pol, but she tolerated him well enough when the two families went to a restaurant or a café to relax after a week. Mrs. Erickson helped with the pre-school education for Liam and even introduced Mom to some of her friends, resulting in Joanna starting an official account on the Net to chat with her new friends.

With Liam getting older and being just a year shy of going into school, Joanna felt herself ready to take on a job, besides her never-ending chores at home. In the evenings, when she could leave Liam with Ratcatcher, and on some weekends, Mom delivered packages all over Morningstar. She never said anything, but Ratcatcher had noticed that Mom’s shoulder’s got spread way wider than before. And treats for her two children had started to appear around the house more often.

“Am I ugly?” Ratcatcher asked, and Mom’s tail stopped. Then it closed the shelf with a tap.

“Yep.” Bloodsworn shrugged. She glanced at her daughter. “I mean, there’s no hiding it. Me, your father, Liam, we’re all ugly.”

“Speak for yourself, wretch, I’m gorgeous!” Liam yelled from the shower.

“Where did you learn such words!?” Dad roared.

“From you! Last week you screamed, ‘Wretch, please let me sleep a little!’ when Mom came to wake you up for dinner.”

“I was half-conscious, and I did apologize afterwards,” Dad said, and she heard a struggle in the shower. “Let’s clean your ears to wash the profanity out of them.”

“No! Not my ears! I am clean, Daaad!”

Ratcatcher smiled, and Mom’s tail wrapped around her shoulders as she continued to work on preparing dinner.

“Eliza, there’s ain’t anything wrong with being ugly,” Mom told her. “You had your nose broken how many times—five at this point? Dad and I are the same; you know the kind of scars a battle leaves.” She raised her arm, and Ratcatcher saw a long scar separating the fur on Mom’s left side all the way to the armpit. “If you want to, I can ask Ericksons, we can get you to go to these parlor saloons and visit clinics to have the scars removed. But where would you really be happier? There, trying to pretend to be a lady, or going to your trainings and fighting with Liam...”

“As if a weakling like Ratty could take a punch!” Liam shouted.

“Honey, don’t forget to wash his hair with shampoo, too!” Mom asked, and Liam screeched in protest. She stepped away from the table, washed her hands, and knelt before her daughter. “Ratty, what do you want? I have some friends; maybe we can help you get pretty.”

“No!” Ratcatcher laughed and felt a stone fall from her heart. Ugly, beautiful, scary, normal, unusual... Who cared in the end? “I like my life the way it is!”

“Then finish your pancakes before Liam tries to gulp them again.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Soon enough, Dad joined them with the pouting Liam, and the family sat down for dinner. Liam’s tail tried to sneak to Ratcatcher’s plate several times, but she met him half-way, slapping his tail with her own, and then the two kids tried to feign innocence when their parents looked at them. The moment they got distracted, Ratcatcher and Liam resumed their struggle. Dad took several long glances at the window and even stood up to see the setting sun. He checked the clock, exchanged looks with Mom, and she nodded.

“That’s settled, then!” Dad said suddenly, making both siblings jump in their chairs.

“What? We weren’t messing much!” Ratcatcher said.

“Get yourself dressed.” Johatan Vong craned his neck and smiled. “We are heading to the pier to have a little family fishing in the moonlight.”

“Yay, fishing!” Liam cheered.

“But Dad, you’re supposed to work tomorrow…” Ratcatcher noted, and her brother darkened but gave a nod in understanding.

“Eh, we only live once.” Johatan waved his hand, accepting a cup of coffee from Joanna. “You know how the saying goes, ‘If you find a job you like, you’ll never have to work a day’. It is the same with me. So get up, you two; I am calling a taxi.”

****

Vasily gulped. Partly from disgust. Partly from the pleasant smell emanating from a large piece of meat impaled on the spit. A shawarma, or hot pocket, as the vendor called it, consisted of thinly sliced pieces of meat mixed with vegetables and various sauces. It was then wrapped in a large piece of flatbread called lavash until it looked like a cone and placed in a special heater that burned the lavash on both sides, creating a light crust and turning the food inside into something yummy. His mouth watered as he tasted the thing, and he admitted as much to himself. There was a reason why Elina was so addicted to this dish. But!

He saw flies buzzing in this open shop. Their legs touched the meat, their disgusting bodies skittered over the vegetables, and he could’ve sworn that some of them were floating in sour cream. Don’t eat that! You’ll get sick! Run! Vasily blinked twice and started a breathing technique he had learned from his grandmother. It helped him to distract himself from being called a mutant in the past and to ignore the dirt and ugliness of the world.

Ugliness. He had not even the faintest idea why it bothered him so much, and his parents weren’t much of a help. They abandoned him at birth. His father blamed Vasily’s mother for allegedly cheating on him, but DNA testing had proven that Vasily was indeed his son, despite the scales that covered the boy’s body. A genetic accident, the doctors said. In a world so exposed to either radiation or glow, such things were common. Dad didn’t believe them, and Mom refused to even hold Vasily. Grandma took him in, and while he and his sister have a friendly relationship, Mom and Dad couldn’t care less about their son, refusing to say a word, let alone call to wish him a happy birthday. The only thing they did was to pay Grandma to provide him with everything a child needs.

Grandma told him he was normal in his childhood, playing in the sandbox with other children, getting dirty in the pools after a rain, and never baiting an eye. But as he grew older and more and more people saw him for who he was, Vasily changed. People at large were right. No matter how many times you tell yourself you are okay, others see you for who you are. A mutant. Other abnormals looked like regular people, and he looked like a horror movie freak. Grandma even tried to get him to see a therapist, but he refused. Therapists were for crazy people, and he wasn’t one. He didn’t need to be locked up in a mental institution; he could handle his problems on his own.

“So, you two have known Eliza for a long time?” He asked the teens, who had been busy eating enough to get food poisoning. Or inversion of the intestines.

“Since birth, pretty much, yeah,” Wedge said, licking the sauce off his lips. He pressed a finger to his chin and looked at the ceiling. “I first saw her nearly running headfirst into a tunnel, back at Scrapyard. Ratcatcher was what… two, three years old? Her parents were worried sick, and all she could care about was catching a fat rat. I slapped her across the ass and dragged her to Bloodsworn… Joanna, her mom, in short. Seeker later tried to thank me by dragging a whole spider to my house, but I refused.” The boy’s crimson eyes flashed. “I can earn my keep.”

“I met her years later, after falling into a hole,” Nadya said. The girl took another hot pocket and spread her mouth wide, biting off a third of the treat. She continued talking with the full mouth. “Ratcatcher saved my butt from being eaten by a spider. Later, when she was visiting her mother in the hospital, she came over to my room to check up on me. Boy, was I scared when a giant half-rat, half-girl sneaked in to say hello! We sort of bonded later, over a few games.”

Vasily half-expected the teens to drag him out to try some seafood, but this place wasn’t half bad either. The group sat at the pier in one of the newly opened stores. The interior of this place mimicked the crude structure of the similar places scattered all across the Ravaged Lands. In place of regular milk, they were serving the coarse green milk of cusacks. Chairs, counters, and even walls themselves bore traces of bullets, slashing knives, and even burn marks. The windows were wide open, letting in the cool air and the winter flies, a most annoying species of insect that came from the far north and could ignore the cold. The staff working were cheerful people who had immigrated not so long ago. Their skin still bore a few scars and was almost orange because of the tan.

Night was creeping into the streets of Morningstar; the sun’s disk was half hidden on the horizon. Several cruise ships were ferrying passengers across the water, and families came from all over the city for a chance at some quiet fishing before the authorities closed the beach for the duration of the holy days. The piers themselves, and the alleys behind them that led into town, were half empty, most of the shops were closed by now, but the main street that separated them was still as busy as ever.

Eliza saved someone as a kid? Wow. He thanked the store owner and took a glass of juice, flicking away a buzzing fly with his finger. I am an asshole for teasing her. His plan was simple. Eliza’s face and tail irritated him. But so did his own scales before he finally convinced the grandma to let him visit the clinic and change. Before that, he sometimes felt the urge to just rip the scales off his body, especially when he looked at the family photos. He combatted it by remembering various things about himself, like how he helped Granny with her luggage or a game he played with his sister. Positives outweigh negatives. If he could just learn more about Eliza, he could replicate the process.

Dealing with someone like Jumail was easy; the boy wasn’t in his class, and Vasily saw him a few times a week at best. He could keep the utter disgust about Jumail’s face at bay. And during the last training session, the adrenaline of his near-death experience pushed the usual problems aside. But Eliza was a member of their group, with whom he interacted on a daily basis, and this time he will get better and overcome this flaw of his. He owed her that much. No one should be put down just because of their body.

“Is she always so…” Vasily stumbled, looking for a word. “Shy?”

“Totally,” Wedge said.

“She is a shut-in.” Nadya nodded. “I had to drag her by the tail to the cinema just to prove to her that no one would bother her because of her looks. She is a good friend, but geez, would it kill her to loosen up a little and not assume the worst about herself?” She gave him a strange look. “How’s she doing in training?”

“The first time we worked together during the Misery Week, she pulled a student out of a swarm by the hand, so our team got more points before we failed the next test. Elina looked for her to thank her, but Eliza avoided us after the test,” Vasily said, and the teens burst into laughter.

“And she thought...” Nadya giggled.

“I just...” Wedge shook his head. “I can’t with her. A whole hour.”

“What?” Vasily asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No-no, it’s Ratcatcher’s secret; if she didn’t tell you, then we won’t either.” Nadya pressed a fist to her mouth, giggling and coughing at the same time. “Four hours. Freaking four hours. Over nothing! Oh, I am so not going to let her live this one down!” She wiped her mouth clean with a napkin. “Speaking of training, Ratcatcher does shed off her shyness during them. When it comes to asking how to punch or kick someone properly, she can work out for days. Only Wedge burns through more calories than her over a training session.”

“The day I lose to Ratcatcher in a sparring match will be the day I die,” the boy proclaimed, closing his jaws on the cone of meat, chewing it to mush, and swallowing it with an expression of pure bliss on his snout.

“Why do you call her by this nickname?” Vasily decided to ask, and the teens looked at him as if he were crazy. “Listen, nicknames are good and all, but isn’t it denigrating to call a person ‘rat’? What if someone overhears you and starts teasing her?”

“It’s her name, and whoever is bothered by it can piss off,” Wedge said simply. His beady eye moved, focusing on Vasily. “Why are you so interested in Ratcatcher? Are you two dating or something? Cause if so, there is no need to circle around a subject for so long. I and she are not into each other. We are only friends. And sometimes competitors when it comes to eating free ice cream.”

This made Vasily choke on the juice. Come to think of it, he came across as a bit of a creep with his questioning of who Eliza was as a person. He started to think of an excuse when he heard a faint scream. Vasily and Wedge both stood up, leaving the startled Nadya sitting there.

“What? What happened?” Nadya demanded to know.

“Stay here and call a taxi home.” Vasily put in the money for the dinner and enough credits for the kids to buy a ride. “I’ll go check it out.”

He stormed out, leaving Wedge’s questions behind. Vasily hurried to the street, now hearing the screams loud enough through the working engines. At first he thought it was a drunken cheer, but the words “Help” were repeated through the shouts. The trainee leapt, landing on a lamppost, and jumped off it, grabbing a traffic light in the middle of the road. With a single swing, he sent himself across the rest of the street and landed nimbly on the sidewalk, creating a small explosion of melted snow around himself.

The screams were coming out of the alleyway to his left, now a little muffled. Vasily followed them and ran into the group of three people, dragging what looked like a knee-high ball of tentacles into the large truck parked a few dozen meters away. All three people were dressed in black jackets and cargo pants, often used by the workers who came to Iterna for temporary jobs, but their skin lacked the usual tanned color of the Ravaged Lands, hinting more at someone from either the Oathtakers’ lands, the North, perhaps the distant Pearl..

One man was forcing the ball of thrashing tentacles to move by wrapping his hand tightly around one and squirming it while holding another hand over the top of the person’s body to silence the screams. Another man held himself by the forearm, cursing as he went. The fabric of his jacket was rapidly soaking through a wound. Vasily was about to ask what the hell was going on, but when another person, a woman, raised a hand with a syringe in it, he sprang into action without thinking.

He kicked the woman’s arm, sending the syringe flying. Before she could say anything, Vasily had landed a punch under her ribs, forcing her to bend over in pain. Neither of her accomplices had time to react either; the trainee shoulder-locked the man holding the small creature and threw him against the wall. There wasn’t much resistance; the man’s body gave way like a piece of cloth. A Normie. Unsure if these were bad guys or not, the boy pried the hand holding the tentacle without breaking the fingers and jumped back, holding the ball made of tentacles in his hands.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“What’s the big idea?” He demanded to know.

“This is my fault, mister!” A girl’s voice squeaked in his hands. “I got lost and decided to go to the subway to ask a policeman for help when these bad people came and dragged me from a playground all the way here. I tried to scream, but they gagged me, so I stabbed one of them. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!”

“We are returning the stolen slave to her original owner. One chance. Give us the girl and leave, pup,” the woman said, rubbing her hand.

Slave. The way the woman said this word made Vasily worry. In Iterna, you could easily be sued for calling someone a slave, and these thugs didn’t even blink at the word. He looked down. The small body in his hands had a single stem in the form of a stalk, serving the girl as a torso, with a mouth filled with teeth, each as thin and sharp as a needle. At the top of the stalk was a green eye with a purple pupil, staring at him with genuine fear. Tentacles extended from this stalk, gray and cold to the touch, giving the boy the impression that he was holding a bunch of slithering eels. Where normal octopuses had fangs in their suckers, the girl’s were little more than rings of flesh. At the end of each tentacle, the girl had a long, hooked claw. An acidic substance dripped from the end of one such claw, hissing when it touched the concrete.

The girl was dressed in a strange blue jacket with countless sleeves and pants, if pants could have a few dozen sleeves. There was symmetry and space in her deformity, not the random growths prevalent in Malformed. A mutant, like Eliza or Wedge. She was disgusting; everything in Vasily’s being cried out for him to throw her away before he caught some disease or a germ just by touching her.

“These are very bad people, mister. My Da took me away from Pearl,” the girl whispered and gulped. The simple motion created a rolling ball of flesh all over the stalk. “Run, or they might hurt you...”

“Your father probably misses you a lot and is worried sick. Let’s make him happy, ‘kay?” Vasily whispered and forced a smile. He looked at the group, deciding on the plan. It was a stupid and rash one, but he wasn’t Elina, and simple stuff was the best. “If you want me to leave the girl, the least you can do is throw in some credits, no?” He made a small step toward them, placing his foot closer to a pebble on the ground.

“What a clever pup! We might throw a few pearls your way if you are willing to look aside.” The woman smiled and reached for her pocket. “And if you want to make a profit, we…”

Vasily kicked the stone right in her face and turned to head for the street. Face a group of thugs in a dark alley? Why bother? The police can take them on! A fist greeted him, almost driving his nose into his skull. Vasily tilted his head to the side, and the fist missed him, splitting his ear in half and leaving a hot sensation on his skin, as if a glebe had touched him. The trainee barely took a step forward when the punch turned into an elbow hit, sending him against the wall.

“Wrong choice, pup,” the man standing in the middle of the alley said in a mundane voice. “Now we have a body to dispose of.”

I didn’t hear him coming! The boy thought in panic. The man was dressed in a brown leather jacket and black business pants, with elegant shoes on his legs. He was tall, and his shoulders were wide. Black gloves were pulled over his hands. The man’s skin was almost crystal white, as if he were some sort of vampire. In a blur, the Brown Jacket’s leg moved, cratering a stone wall where Vasily’s head had been a moment ago, as the boy rolled to the side, trying to keep the girl safe and not vomit in disgust. The burning sensation, the pure hatred of something disgusting, rose in him and made Vasily’s head spin. He bit down on his lips.

Elina, Carlos, or Eliza would never leave a kid in peril. And neither will I.

“I am going to skin this son of a bitch!” the female thug shouted, holding a hand to her nose, and a bloodied stone fell to her legs. She brandished a knife and pressed a button to release the gleaming steel. The truck door opened behind her, and several more thugs stepped out and rushed to join the others.

Bad. Vasily decided, standing up. There were a lot of them—over two dozen people. The crowd rushed at him. Only the Brown Jacket stayed behind. The trainee started putting the girl aside, praying to all gods that she would be reasonable enough to escape, when the nearest thug jumped, aiming his kick at his face. The kick never reached its mark; a sneaker hit the leg halfway, crushing the boot and the foot inside. Vasily ignored Wedge’s sudden appearance and leapt to his aid, grabbing another thug’s arm before the man could bury a shiv in the boy’s side.

The claws came from the tips of Vasily’s fingers. They weren’t long, but they were sharp. The boy pressed his natural weapons into the man’s body, creating wounds on the skin. And he forced his fingers deeper, widening the bloody gashes, ignoring the man’s thrashing. He only stopped when he reached the bone, forcing himself not to think about the possibility that the man might bleed out. Ain’t no one is stupid enough not to treat a wound. Without mercy, the trainee added a kick to the groin, making the scumbag howl in pain.

“Where’s the girl…” Vasily glanced back, feeling himself ready to explode with rage. The mutant was in Nadya’s arms. “What are you idiots doing here?! Get to safety at once; I’ll hold them off!”

“Aye-aye, boss.” Nadya saluted. “Have fun kicking the baddies’ assess!”

“This looked interesting, so we cut in,” Wedge said. A thug tried to punch him with his left hand, and the Abnormal swatted the fist aside with his right, followed by a brutal elbow that split the thug’s side of the throat. There was no hesitation, no fear of accidentally killing an opponent. The teenager wanted his opponent dead. His tail smacked into another thug’s eyes, distracting him long enough for the abnormal to grab him in a clench. “I’ll take them all, if you are scared.”

A trained fighter’s normal kick to the hip is excruciating enough. A kick delivered by an Abnormal is doubly so. And when Abnormal trained to fight since his or her birth, the results were drastic for most Normies standing in their path. Wedge delivered two kicks, turning the man’s hips into a pile of bone powder, and threw him at the bleeding thug.

Of course. Vasily dodged a crowbar aimed at his head on instinct. Scrapyard. These people were going to kill them. If one of them fell, these bastards would stab and beat whoever it was to death. No place for gentleness. The trainee kicked, piercing his own shoes with his claws and sinking them under his opponent’s kneecap. His claws were small, gentle things, the only remnants of his innate ugliness. Normally, the boy kept them hidden out of shame, and he always trimmed them. But right now, he thanked the heavens for them. With a single jerk, he broke the man’s kneecap, then added a merciless kick to his midsection. The thug who had swung the crowbar at him advanced again, and Vasily caught the metal on his palm. He nearly popped the man’s eyes, stopping only at the sight of horror in them. He changed his thrust mid-swing into a punch, shattering the man’s nose and upper jaw and sending him into the bastard behind him.

The thug stumbled into the knife-wielding woman and ended up with the full length of the blade plunged in his back, so deep that it could have injured a lung. Without a second thought, the woman ripped her weapon free, leaving her partner bleeding on the ground. Barbarism. Such barbarism was uncommon in Iterna; most of their gangs had long since been introduced to the other side of the bars, and the most unrepentant spent their days in behavioral health hospitals. There were some crimes, to be sure, but even the Corporation dialed back on any overt aggression, putting an end to anyone who broke the status quo in the shadows to preserve limited freedom.

In Iterna, human life was precious beyond all worth. Even Vasily, who knew that one day he would have to take a life if he will work as an explorator, found it hard to watch the woman carelessly drop her badly wounded partner like a sack and others run over him. The shock lasted a second, but in that second a thug pushed past him, reaching for Nadya. Vasily started to turn when the thug behind him screamed.

The teen wasn’t a fighter. In their brief conversation, Vasily learned Nadya was a member of a tennis team, but she had never been in a fight. But after the distant attack of the Numbers, Nadya always carried a portable stun gun in her pocket, and that is exactly what she used on the assailant, causing the man to twitch and fall to the ground after two discharges. The thug tried to get up, and Vasily stepped on his leg, breaking it mercilessly.

Wedge got pushed back. The Brown Jacket stepped through his thugs, throwing two of them aside. The teenager used the moment when the man’s arms were still outstretched to try to get his claws into the man’s ribs, and the Brown Jacket responded with a quick swinging blow that left the boy’s fingers bleeding and made him take a step back, looking at his opponent with a newfound wariness.

“Interesting,” Wedge said. He paused, raised his right hand in front of him, and began to jump up and down slightly. With a flick of his hand, he knocked one of the attackers back; the man’s face turned crimson from the mere touch of the boy’s fist. Splinters of bone shattered the skin, and the man gurgled, spitting blood as he toppled back.

“You are going to box with me, mutie?” The Brown Jacket mimicked Wedge’s stance. “Want to die this badly?”

“We’ll know when we cross this bridge,” Wedge said.

“You won’t be crossing any more bridges in your life, mutie,” the Brown Jacket said in a bored voice.

The man struck, lashing out with three punches. His first reached Wedge’s nose, drawing blood with the sheer air pressure alone as the teen leaned back to evade the punch. The second missed his shoulder. Wedge brought his hand down on the third one and wrapped the tail around the man’s hand, pushing it aside. The Brown Jacket frowned in disgust and met Wedge’s incoming thrush with his own fist. His gloved fingers slipped beneath the outstretched claws, breaking Wedge’s knuckles. The Abnormal sighed and splashed blood from his fingers onto the Brown Jacket’s sunglasses. With his opponent blinded, he turned his own thrust into an elbow strike, aiming for the man’s neck. The blow still cut the skin on the man’s chin despite the Brown Jacket’s well-timed dodge.

“Little shit,” the Brown Jacket cursed.

Wedge let out a groan, raised by a knee to his midsection. The Brown Jacket headbutted him, shattering his own sunglasses against the boy’s head and leaving a shard in Wedge’s eye. The impact knocked the teen off balance, opening him up long enough for the thug to free his hand and unleash a brutal beating. Four punches landed on Wedge’s chest, each tearing skin, tearing clothes and leaving purple bulges. Wedge raised his arms, intending to take more blows to his forearms.

A mistake! Vasily kicked another thug back, no longer caring if the man was impaled by his own allies or not. The Brown Jacket struck twice, and Wedge’s left arm fell, snapping under the onslaught. The boy’s counterattack—his kick that had so easily broken the bones before—got blocked by the man’s own leg, and the two ended up being almost face-to-face.

The trainee had reached Wedge before the Brown Jacket could land a chop at the boy’s throat. The chop fell on Vasily’s own hand, and he clenched his teeth, feeling his pinky snapping and going numb. Strong. Almost as strong as Carlos, only this guy had no intention of going easy on them. Vasily shoved Wedge back to Nadya, and to his credit, the boy quickly grabbed the girl, who was holding a terminal in one hand and the scared kid in the other, and ran.

Vasily screamed, eating a sweeping kick against his forelimb from the Brown Jacket. He had endured a training session against a pissed-off Eliza and even left her with a black eye and himself without any broken bones. He had survived being toyed with by Carlos. This was worse than any of their punches and kicks combined. It was as if someone had slammed his poor leg with a halberd; even his abnormal muscles had failed to dissipate the kick in any meaningful way. He felt a swelling growing and limped away, cursing at the pain in his leg and doing his best to ignore it. The only reason his bones were holding up at all was his abnormal elasticity, but even that wouldn’t save him again. A shiv flew past him, cutting his shoulder as the weapon made a turn in the air. He ignored it and kept on limping, shielding the kids with his own back.

By some miracle, they made some distance from the pursuers. The Brown Jacket, who Vasily assumed was the leader, walked rather than running, and he was still gaining on them. But the rest were closing in on the teens, and fast, all because Wedge had slowed to keep up with the limping Vasily. Again. The thought pounded in his head. Again, I am the hindrance. Like in the training. Only this time, there is no one to save us.

“Run!” he ordered, fixing his eyes on the exit of the alley. Run out and fall on the road. Let the car hit you. The impact won’t kill him, but it will pull him away from the killers behind him. Soldiers, police, corpos, and even explorators often used this road, and with any luck, some of them would come out to see what had caused the traffic accident. “Run, I have a plan...”

He choked, struggling to gasp for air, when a knife hit his back, reaching all the way to the lung. The boy made two steps further, feeling how the tissues of his damaged lung were scraping against the blade, and made a step out of the alley. He didn’t reach the street; halfway down the sidewalk, the foot hit him behind the knee, bringing the trainee down. A hand grasped his hair.

Wedge and Nady stopped. They stopped! Wedge and Nadya turned and stood with their backs to the road. The boy’s muscles bulged as he was ready to make a somersault back at any sign of the thugs’ approach.

“Give us the girl, mutie,” Vasily heard the Brown Jacket’s command and felt how someone tore the knife out of his back. The woman stepped forward and pressed the knife to his throat. “Her in exchange for his life. We will not hunt you. We’ll even leave the thief who brought her to Iterna alone. If you’re worried about the mutie, know that she won’t be killed either. Throw her to me, and it will all be over.”

“Yeah?” Wedge asked with a chuckle. “Over indeed! You’ll kill him the moment we give you the girl. I can see it in your eyes. And I don’t trust you one bit about the girl’s fate either, so suck it, friend.”

“The girl has a… unique gift that is of interest to our employer,” a growl appeared in the Brown Jacket’s voice, breaking his usual boredom. “Believe whatever. Do as I say, and all will be well. Refuse and the situation will not be so good. Know that if you don’t hand over the girl, the next thing you’ll hear is the knife screeching against the bones of his throat next. Then I will take both girls and sell the normal one as a whore. As for you, I will take all your organs, one by one, and sell them. But you won’t die, oh no. We will use you as a farm to grow up more organs, mutie, and you will live in perpetual suffering, knowing that your lot is that of a livestock. All because you refused to see reason.”

“He’s not lying,” the mutant girl whispered. “I can see it in his thoughts. Your friend will die if he doesn’t get me this instant. No, I am coming, I am...” Wedge held the girl tighter to his body, ignoring the frantic swinging of her tentacles.

Nadya held the terminal high, her face pale with worry and fear. Wedge glanced left and right, licking his lips. Vasily wanted to yell for him to run, but only an inaudible gasp came from his lips. It became hard to breathe, and he half expected the blade to cut deep into his neck. He could see nothing but burning hatred in the woman’s eyes. No way will they let any of them go. Run! Dammit, run already…

Suddenly, the woman before Vasily disappeared, her body thrown to the side. It shocked him, but more importantly, the sound of the tires screeching against the stone had distracted the Brown Jacket. The boy used this moment to push himself out of the hold, leaving part of his hair in the man’s hand, breaking free and rolling forward. As he spun around, he saw the yellow taxi stopped against the wall and the woman standing up, the knife in her hand. She lunged after Vasily, intending to end him this time.

Then something strange happened. He could’ve sworn that the taxi had four doors. But when he rolled again, he saw that one door was missing, and a figure appeared beside him, stopping the boy’s rolling with soft mittens. The female thug continued to charge, pointing her knife not at him, but at the strange figure in a weird fur coat and a green dress with polka dots.

“Mom!” Vasily heard Eliza’s voice and wondered if he was getting delirious from blood loss.

The knife struck right into the beady crimson eye of his unusual savior. And stopped. Only then did it dawn on the trainee that he wasn’t being held by mittens but by hands. Hands covered in thick, gray and black fur. And the thug got shocked too, only at the fact that her knife was stopped by a closed eyelid that caught the tip of the blade. The woman tried to reach for her knife with the free hand when the larger, much bigger, and far hairier copy of Wedge broke the blade with a single flick of her head and turned to face the opponent. Vasily heard the crack of a whip, and the thug screamed, reaching for her head. Where her shocked eyes had been a moment ago, there was now a wide, uneven, bloody gash, revealing the glistening shards of bone inside. Blood spilled onto the pavement, mixing with the falling snow.

“Did you really expect this to catch me off guard?” Vasily’s rescuer spoke with warmth in her voice. She flicked her tail, cleaning the claw of blood and flesh. “Ratty, grab a medical kit and get to work; we have wounded. Seeker!”

In a flash, the abnormal handed Vasily over to Wedge and punched. She swung wide, almost carelessly. A dent appeared in the thug’s shoulder; every bone in the path of the blow, down to the collarbone and clavicle, was shattered. The woman crashed to the ground, bouncing with the sound of a snapped spine, and flew over the backs of the other thugs, landing in the alley.

“What are you doing?!” A man stepped out of the cab, grabbing his head. “Why did you rip out my door?! Why did you turn the wheel and crash us into people?!”

“It’s okay, mister, we’ll explain and compensate everything later!” A male voice said, and another Abnormal climbed out of the car.

Vasily’s eyes were getting weary, but he saw how the man jumped away, leaving footprints on the solid stone. He landed next to a thug who pointed a gun at the female Abnormal. A tail wrapped around the man’s wrists, breaking them, and then the thug gasped as a thrust lifted him into the air. The Abnormal’s leg came down with full force, shattering the pistol. Seeker, Vasily assumed that was his name, let go of the man, jumping to his partner, and shook blood off his claws.

“Dad, did you kill him?” Eliza’s voice asked in shock.

Vasily didn’t go crazy. Eliza emerged from the car, holding a long staff in one arm and closing the door behind her with her tail.

“No-no, he’ll survive…” Seeker spoke rather fast and pressed a finger to his lips. The fallen thug lay motionless in a pool of his own blood. “Maybe.”

“Why are you breaking my car?” the taxi driver shouted. “Stop it, kid. We have to call the police!”

“It’s for a good deed, mister!” another male voice shouted from inside the car. A medical kit flew out of the car, landing in Eliza’s hands.

“Thanks, Liam! Stay inside!” The trainee rushed to the teens.

“But I want to see…” the boyish voice whined.

“Liam! Sit in the car, or you won’t have any cartoons for the rest of the year!” The female version of Wedge snapped, slapping the ground with her tail. “Sweetie, no murdering in front of the children!” she scolded Seeker.

“You’re right, Bloodsworn. Children! Please close your eyes. It won’t take long,” Seeker said, dropping low. His partner came closer, and their tails intertwined for a second.

“I mean, try to take them alive,” Bloodsworn said.

“You’re one to talk, honey,” Seeker said, and the edges of his fingers touched the pavement.

“Fair,” Bloodsworn laughed, and ripped off her own dress, leaving her in a white t-shirt, boots, and tracksuit pants. She clenched her fists, and the fur on her hands parted to reveal rope-like muscles running the length of her arms. Bloodsworn leaned toward the attackers, and the same process was repeated on her body and legs, revealing a tapestry of scars intermingled with the muscles. Even her tail grew thicker, bulging with muscles. With a snap, one strap of her t-shirt got torn.

Seeker looked serene, glaring at the thugs with his unusual white eyes. Compared to his partner, he looked small, but there was something about him that made Vasily’s skin crawl. It was like a snake frozen in place before making a deadly lunge at its prey.

“Miss Joanna, mister Johatan, be wary.” Wedge nodded at the Brown Jacket. “This dude got hard fists.”

“Does he now?” The female Abnormal glanced at him. “Is he the one who did it to your arm? Well then! These hands of mine like serving food. But just tonight, I don’t mind using them to serve you your deaths! Come at me, fuckers! I swear it’ll hurt!”

“Language, honey! The kids are watching,” Seeker said.

The thugs hesitated. One of them took a step back after hearing the desperate gurgling of the man on the ground and seeing the rapidly increasing pool of blood. He turned around to run in the alley, and the Brown Jacket caught him by the neck, lifting the man high in the air.

“Where do you think you going?” the Brown Jacket asked.

“Bryn, we have to run!” the thug spat. “The police will be here any minute…”

“The police won’t kill you.” Bryn’s hand disappeared. He slapped the thug across the air, leaving a fingerprint on the man’s skull, and Vasily saw how blood and bits of brain spurted from the man’s other ear, pushing through the ruptured eardrum. Bryn dropped the body and snapped his fingers. “But I will. Never... Never have I returned without the quarry. And today will be no different.”

Dead Vasily felt a chill run down his body, not from the loss of blood. He half ignored how Nadya and Eliza pulled his uniform from his body and cleaned the wound before starting to work on it. The injury wasn’t that bad for him to keel over it. But to see a person die in front of him. A life snuffed out in a heartbeat—no, even faster. It shocked him to the very core. Wedge. Nadya. That girl. Any one of them could have been in his place. Even I.

“Killing your own. You are beyond salvation,” Seeker said.

“I don’t care about any salvation, rats,” Bryn said with a growl, and the seven remaining thugs around him reached for their weapons. “Only about retaliation! Get me the mutie or die by my hand!”