Euna glanced down, and then frowned. Struggling feebly in her arms was an... Augmented soldier. She had never seen a man like this before. His limbs were torn away and yet... he didn't bleed. There was no blood, or muscle tissue. Not even exposed bone. Just cable-looking fibers hanging limply from sockets and the occasional spurts of translucent fluids.

"W-what are you going to do with me?" the Augmented soldier whimpered.

Euna blinked. That was a very good question.

What am I doing? Euna wondered as she flapped her wings of feathers and scale, keeping her just above the canopy of trees.

"I get it," the soldier mumbled to himself. "A hostage--wait, no. That would be foolish. I'm worthless... and the Augmented Empire would never negotiate, and..." he trailed off.

Euna tried to remember the visions she saw. She winced, shutting her eyes tight. It hurt every time she tried to recall the voice and the--

"Watch out!"

Euna's eyes snapped open in time to see a barbed tree limb pointing her way. She folded her wings and twisted in midair, just avoiding being skewered, then followed up with a dive towards the floor of the forest. Just before she hit the ground, she unfurled her wings and slammed her feet into the dirt. It wasn't enough to slow down her momentum, so she skidded forward into a roll and then a handspring into the air before landing on her feet. Although she had never particularly trained herself in acrobatics, her body had reacted with a catlike litheness that was naturally inherent in all Altereds.

Euna brushed off a leaf on her shoulder and then realized that her hands were empty. The Augmented soldier was gone.

"So this is it huh? This is why you caught me?"

Euna perked her head up at the voice.

"To make me a display - a warning to all of the Augmented Empire. Behold the Augmented shish kebab!" he flailed his metallic stumps dramatically.

Hanging helplessly from the limb of a tree poking out of his shoulder, was an Augmented soldier. It looked bad but if he could make a joke, then it must not have been a life threatening injury, thought Euna. But above all else, it was a pitiful sight indeed and Euna couldn't help but end up stifling a laugh, then shouting up at the poor soldier.

"Um, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to!"

The soldier frowned, speechless for a moment.

"You're... sorry?" he said to himself, barely a whisper but Euna's inherently altered ears heard.

She nodded, then began climbing up the tree. It was at least a hundred meters tall, and its massive branches extended outwards viciously, joining the canopy of trees in the forest. Euna could tell that the tree was old. Ancient even. She could feel it as her claws cut into the bark. It didn't take long for her to make it to the top. From there she crawled gracefully onto the branch where the soldier hung.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to skewer you on this tree. Here, let me help you."

The Augmented soldier eyed Euna cautiously, slightly startled by her gracefully swift display of tree climbing. He leaned back and tried to raise his arms defensively but then he remembered that he didn't have any limbs.

Euna twisted the barbs off of the branch, then yanked the soldier's torso. He slid off and she caught him before he could fall. Once again, the soldier found himself cradled in the arms of an Altered.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"What's your name?" Euna asked.

"M-my name?" he stammered and paused for a moment, deeply in thought. Then he finally answered. "It's Hiro."

"Hero?" Euna wondered aloud.

"Not that Hero, H-I-R-O, Hiro."

"Oh. That's a... weird name."

"You're the weird one," Hiro snapped. "First you saved me, then you skewered me, then you apologized and now you ask me for my name? What kind of Altered are you?" Hiro asked, bewildered.

Euna flushed, "W-what do you mean?"

"I mean... why are you not a monster? Like the ones flying above us," he pointed his stump at the sky.

Euna paused for a moment. She was surprised too. Her father had never altered his body to the degree that she had saw today. Nor did any of the villagers. Even more so, she was disappointed in herself. She hadn't disagreed with Hiro that they were monsters. When everyone including her father had changed into hulking amalgamations of nature, she had been afraid. Afraid that the people she had lived with all her life was a lie. But her father spoke, and even though his voice had changed, it was still him underneath all the twisted mass of flesh and sinew. She couldn't change like them. She could feel it and she didn't know why. Maybe it was because she was still too young. Regulus always said that with time she would obtain new Alterations. But above all else, Euna felt a dissonance with herself and her people and it saddened her.

"I can be monster if I want to be," Euna lied.

"Oh. Okay, that's... great," Hiro said cautiously as he nodded, then he lowered his voice and narrowed his eyes, "but why did you save me? Aren't you going to kill me?"

Kill? Euna thought, and then she remembered. It was like a memory that had been with her since the beginning.

'Aren't you going to kill me?' the man in her arms asked.

And then the world started spinning, her vision suddenly becoming hazy and blurred.

Voices. They were different this time, like a faded memory.

'How naive can you be?!'

Blinding lights and the smell of burnt skin.

'-before we uncover the mysteries of the Genetic Alteration matrix!'

'W-what have you done!?' a man with ageless eyes shouted.

A metallic syringe lay motionless, a sliver of black refracting light.

'No... This... this is what I wanted. To just be a -'

Euna blinked. She looked around quickly, and then saw Hiro starring up at her quietly. Suddenly, she knew what she needed Hiro for.

"A-are you okay?" he asked nervously.

Euna looked up at the sky. It was too quiet. Night had fallen, but she could still see the clusters of Augmented Vessels with her enhanced vision. Their thrusters were on full throttle as they tried to engage on the Altered who have scattered into the night, turning the fight into guerrilla warfare.

"Bring me to General Corax," Euna said.

"W-what?! How do even know General Corax?" Hiro exclaimed, incredulous.

Euna pointed into the night sky. "Which one?"

Hiro took a moment before he answered. "It's too dark, I can't see."

"Liar," Euna snapped. "Look at the state you're in. You're practically a walking machine if not for your missing limbs."

"Look I've only got basic Augmentations. That means general-grade Augmentation limbs, organ and bone structure reinforcements. That's it. These eyes I have? They're all natural," Hiro smiled.

Euna lifted Hiro away from her chest with one hand clenched around his neck. "I could drop you right now, or even worse, I can stick you back on this tree."

Hiro made an unpleasant face, then sighed. "The one in the very back. That's where General Corax should be."

"But how do I get in?" Euna said quietly.

Hiro frowned at that, but continued. "Can't you just break your way in like--Oh," Hiro nodded understandbly, "You wanna do it like an infiltration mission. That's cool. But that's practically impossible. I mean like--what could you possibly hope to achieve on your own? Against hundreds of Augmented soldiers and Vessels? And getting through the defenses and bypassing security?"

Euna smiled.

"You're going to help me Hiro."

Hiro took a moment to process that. "I don't have a choice do I?"

Euna wasn't sure what to say. Does anyone really have a choice in what they do? she wondered, then answered on impulse.

"You do."

"Clearly, I don't," Hiro said as he waved his stumps dramatically.

Euna laughed, then tossed Hiro over her back and secured him to her using vines she had extracted from the tree.

"But what are you going to do if you make it to General Corax? Negotiate? Execute him? Use him as a hostage?" Hiro asked.

Euna looked at the horizon where the forest met the sky. For all her life this was her home. Now it was a battlefield. "I-I don't know," she said honestly. "But I just want this war to end. I want my life back."

Hiro couldn't see, but he could feel Euna stifle a sob as they took to the skies.