Disclaimer: Mai-Hime is the property of Sunrise and Bandai. However, I think that all of the fans of the show will agree with me when I say that nobody has more of a right to those wonderful girls, with magical powers, than the loyal viewers.
Warning: This story contains graphic violence, sex and coarse language. If you are uncomfortable with any of these, please refrain from reading.
Prologue
Undisclosed location: 8 months after the events of the Carnival
To refer to it as water would've been to refer to it inaccurately at best. It was nurturing, as water is to all living things, but it was not water. A more appropriate term for the viscous liquid in which she was submerged would've been 'plasma,' but not even that word was thoroughly sufficient. It reminded her of shampoo—the overly-priced apple scented variety that was often sold in stores that specialized in the retail of high-quality toiletries—except it was far less dense and did not smell of apples. She was not sure how she even knew the scent of apples. She had never seen an apple, nor tasted anything that contained apples. Yet, she knew the smell, as though she had been born knowing it. That was true of many things. Many facets of her knowledge. She understood things, recollected things; however, these things were not part of her experience. They were simply a part of her, engrained into the raw material of her brain like wood carvings done by an unknown artist.
But then… sometimes, they would appear. Not all at once, only one at a time, but they would appear. Images, flashes, that pulsed through her mind: strobe lights of memory. These pictures were unlike her knowledge, in that the knowledge merely existed without forcing itself upon her psyche, while the images begged to be acknowledged. The flashes were accompanied by pain sometimes, as though she was not simply living another's life vicariously, but was literally living it. And the pain was not only physical. In fact, many times the physical pain of the memories did not even compare with the emotional disturbance she felt. Many times she screamed, producing numerous, lethargic bubbles that floated lazily in her gelatinous prison. More often than not, her captors fed her sedatives via an IV in left arm, thereby gracing her with the comfort of sleep during these episodes. Albeit one that left her feeling listless and weary afterwards.
Initially, she had not thought of the men and women dressed in starched, white lab coats as her captors. No, they had simply been her strange caretakers. But there was something about them, something in her flashes, that made her uneasy. She did not belong here. That thought had intruded upon the inner calm of her mind again and again. Ever since the incident. Ever since she had been confined to the glass pool of lime-hued liquid for—as Dr. Mason had phrased it— "an indefinite period of time," she had come to the conclusion that she needed to escape. She had no idea, however, that the opportunity would soon present itself.
She had been in a restless slumber when the side of the facility ruptured, leaving several dead and several more in need of medical care. The lab technicians remained unaware of the intrusion for a brief interval, being that the area in which they worked (and in which she was held), was underground and fairly soundproof due to the layers of concrete that separated it from the upper levels. Therefore, the first thing that she saw upon being jolted from a rather vivid dream by something ramming into the front of her tank, was an intricate swirl of red that coursed down the usually-spotless glass. She stared at the red, nearly transfixed by it, while slowly…tentatively…reaching out her hand to trace the pattern with her index finger. However, just as her digit grazed the transparent surface, a hairline fracture formed in the tank. The fracture was only a few inches in length, barely a fracture at all really. After a minute, though, the fracture began to lengthen, slowly at first, but gradually gaining in speed until it raced down the glass. Breaking off into additional fractures as it continued. She gazed at it in wide-eyed wonder until, suddenly, the entire front of the tank collapsed under the extreme pressure of the liquid within and she found herself lying on the floor of the lab in a naked heap. Limbs quivering, she rose onto her hands and knees; the glass beneath her, biting into her bare flesh. Her lungs screamed at her for oxygen, and she struggled with the mask that was fitted over her mouth and nose that typically provided her with air while simultaneously filtering her exhalations into the green plasma of the now-shattered pool. She ripped the plastic from her face, and clawed at the tube attached to it that ran into her mouth and down her throat. Once the tube was pulled free, she gagged wetly, her sides heaving. She gulped air in large, goldfish-out-of-water breaths while scanning the room. Something pulsed in her mind, making her tense her muscles and narrow her eyes in anticipation.
"Help… me…" A ragged voice rasped from somewhere in her vicinity. That's when she caught sight of the man. Or, at least, what once had been a man. His legs had been mutilated beyond repair and one of his arms was twisted beneath him in an unnatural fashion. The once-pristine lab coat that he wore was soaked in blood that was now beginning to dry into a sickly shade of rust. With his good arm, he beckoned to her. She rose cautiously, her body almost fully recovered from its previous fall. After ripping the IV from her arm, as well as the electrodes from her head and chest, she gingerly picked her way through the glass shards from her tank to kneel at the wounded man's side. Once she was beside him, he motioned for her to move closer to his face. She hesitated for a moment, but knowing that the he was most-likely hemorrhaging internally judging from the amount of blood that was slowly seeping from his mouth, she did not perceive him as a possible threat and she lowered her head to catch his next throaty whisper: "They are here for you."
Her eyes widened at his statement, just as a bullet zoomed within six inches of head and buried itself in the man's brain. Flicking her gaze in the direction from which the shot was fired, she saw a man dressed in black fatigues grinning at her appreciatively from the steel footpath that surrounded the upper portion of the lab. His dress suggested some kind of military Special Forces but his bearing suggested otherwise. Even though he was armed, she made no move to retreat, she simply stood up and cocked her head at him in interest.
"Well, aren't you a cutie. You know, they said you were something, but I never imagined I'd be allowed such a… good look at you," the shooter mused. She absently noted, from the man's comment, that she would need to find clothing soon. Other than this thought, though, she regarded his statement with indifference.
"Stop playing with her, and finish setting the charges so we can get the hell out of here," growled a husky voice from the doorway. She turned towards the voice to witness a stockier man enter the room, followed by ten or fifteen others, all dressed in black fatigues identical to those of the shooter.
"What, I can't fucking talk to her?"
"Can't you see she doesn't understand you? She's probably a goddamn doll just like all the others," the stockier man retorted.
"An anatomically correct one," the shooter replied, while eyeing her body hungrily. Again, she dismissed the comment, paying close attention to the stockier man who was apparently in charge and who was casually advancing on her as though she was merely a piece of furniture.
"Don't even think about it Hart, if something happens to her, we don't get paid. So if you fuck her, it fucks us. And if we get fucked, I will personally see to it that you never get it up again. Get it?"
"Yeah, whatev-" the shooter's response was effectually cut off when the stockier man, having reached her, had his throat severed by is own bowie knife and consequently dropped to the floor where he bled out at her feet. The shooter murmured words of disbelief as he glared down at the scene before him in shocked confusion. What the hell just happened? His thoughts were interrupted, though, by round after round of artillery that succeeded in cutting him in half at the waist. She turned toward the remaining men; the stockier man's AK-47 (1) gripped loosely in her left hand, and dispatched them before they could even fully register the death of their comrades. Once this task was completed, she picked one 'soldier' who appeared to have sustained the least blood loss during his demise and stole his fatigues.
After dressing, she made her way to the steel walkway suspended above the lab and glanced over the charges that the shooter had been setting. Two packs of C4 (2) were haphazardly strapped to the concrete pillars that supported the roof, and the fuses had been rigged to a timer that had yet to be set. She picked up the timer and, after studying its design for a few seconds, set the explosives to go off in approximately thirty minutes. After completing her work, she nodded in satisfaction and made her way to a small office that was accessible from the lab. The door was normally secured by means of a key code, however, she correctly surmised that the abrupt invasion of the lab had prevented anyone from locking it. Upon entering the office, she approached a large, grey filing cabinet and fingered the lock in amusement before driving a swift kick at the drawer. The lock gave way, and the cabinet drawer was easily pulled open. She licked her finger and picked over the files until a particular tab caught her eye: "HIME PROJECT: CHIMERA." She smiled wanly, almost grimacing, before tucking the file under her arm and swiftly making her way out of the lab.
25 minutes later
From her seat in the snow tractor (3), she smiled her wan smile yet again as she watched the facility in which she had spent her entire life implode in on itself in a spectacular display of fire and smoke just a few hundred feet away. From the parka that she had commandeered from the snow tractor's previous driver, she withdrew the manila folder and glanced over its contents for the second time. As she flipped through the file in an almost absent-minded trance, her hand momentarily hovered over a photograph paper clipped to one of the pages. Her hand then came to rest on the photo and her fingers tingled as she traced the features of the two women in the picture. Upon touching the image, her face contorted into a silent mask of agony as her previous dream flashed before her mind's eye. The dream in which she saw raven black. The dream in which she saw eyes like her own. The dream in which she died.
As the horrifying images faded, her expression slowly softened, but her crimson eyes took on a distinctly determined glow. She removed the picture from the file and placed it in the breast pocket of the bloody fatigues that she wore, as she mouthed the words "I will find you" to the Arctic sunset.
Author's notes:
(1)- An AK-47, for those readers who are not familiar with guns, is an automatic machine gun that fires multiple rounds.
(2)- C4 is a type of high-power explosive.
(3)- A snow tractor is a lot like a regular tractor, only with tank-like treads that can be used for, as my readers may have guessed, traversing over snowy terrain.
Additional comments:
I have never written fanfiction before, but I am an enormous fan of this series, and this pairing (ShizNat). I would really appreciate any advice or reviews that people would be willing to give me. Ookini.