Lizzie stared up at the shrine. The concrete statue posed for all to see; a cat girl in a frilly dress. Lizzie tucked her brown hair behind her ear as she stared up at the figure. This was the grave of Mew Ichigo. Lizzie crossed herself out of respect before lighting a candle that sat atop the statue's base. She prayed; not to Ichigo, but about her. Lizzie prayed to find the strength and the fighting spirit of the dead warrior. She would need every ounce of courage that she could get. The wind picked up and carried with it voices; voices that spoke in a foreign tongue. Lizzie's head shot up. They were here for her. She stood and ran down one of the tunnels of the catacombs. As she vanished, the light of the candle flickered out in the wind.
Eliza watched them as they took Sarah. Eliza shook her head. She had warned Sarah time and time again not to anger them. She had told the girl that her plans would amount to nothing but her death. Did Sarah listen? No. None of them ever did. Eliza had seen the start of thirteen different rebellions ever since she had been captured and forced into the System one year ago. She had also seen the end of all thirteen of these rebellions. She knew what she was talking about when she told them these things. Why did they never listen to her?
Eliza sighed. Everyone knew the story. There had been five great warriors. They were called "Tokyo Mew Mew". The Mew Mews had fought to protect the Earth from the Cyniclons. This team of teenage girls had done a surprisingly fair job of it, too. But then Deep Blue manifested into one of their allies, and it left their leader, Mew Ichigo, heartbroken. Supposedly, Mew Ichigo had loved the boy whom Deep Blue had chosen to possess. When the other Mews rushed to fight their new enemy, Mew Ichigo stood back and did nothing. When Deep Blue opened a rift in the earth that Mews Lettuce, Zakuro and Pudding fell into, Mew Ichigo did nothing but cry as her teammates met their demise. When a Cyniclon by the name of Pai had struck down Mew Mint, Mew Ichigo finally managed to stand. She walked slowly toward Deep Blue, no weapon in her hand. She stood in front of the demonic alien that had taken over her beloved's body. But Mew Ichigo knew and believed that her true love would show his face again at her words. When she said, "Aoyama-kun, I love you," Deep Blue merely raised his sword to strike her down. But the demon never finished his blow. A Cyniclon by the name of Kisshu stabbed Deep Blue in the back – both literally and figuratively – because he had fallen in love with Mew Ichigo. But when Kisshu had offered her his love, she rejected it. She picked up the sword of the fallen Deep Blue. Her last words were, "I cannot live without Aoyama-kun." And then she fell on the sword and died.
Since that day, the Cyniclons had begun to take control of Earth. Eventually, the entire planet was conquered and the first three warriors sent to conquer it were given authority over various regions of the globe. Taruto was in charge of Africa and Australia. Pai was ruler over Europe and Asia. And Kisshu was given dominion over North and South America. These three aliens were the three princes, and each of their territories was run differently. Taruto was childish and silly, making cruel laws to serve as his own means of entertainment. Pai was strict and merciless, but every law that he made was just and fair, at least in the eyes of his own race. Being human was torture in Pai's zone, as racism ran rampant there. Kisshu ruled his area with a rather light hand in comparison to the other two. Some said that because he had once loved a human, Kisshu could not lack compassion for the "lower race".
"But those compassions didn't prevent him from enforcing the System," Eliza thought. "Any human thirty or over was murdered. Children as old as eleven years were also executed. The only humans allowed to live were between the ages of twelve to twenty-nine. Those were enslaved; like me. Males are forced to plant and gather crops to feed the Cyniclons. And females that are considered ugly are given to these farm-slaves as wives. But females that are thought to be beautiful…" Eliza shivered. She was one such female. Beautiful human females were kept in a Home to be cared for until they were sold; sold to Cyniclons for whatever purpose they desired. And many had a purpose of doing the unspeakable by force.
As Eliza watched Sarah disappear in the arms of six guards, she mused that perhaps death was the better option. Such reasoning may have been part of why rebellions started. Eliza sat herself down on her trundle and wondered about the next girl who would come to fill the empty bed.
Lizzie ran until there was no place else to run. She was cornered in the catacombs; backed against a stone wall. A hand flew to the quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She prepared the shot and steadied her breathing. The Cyniclons could fly and teleport and speak in a language she did not understand. They had better hearing and better eyesight and better training. They had every advantage. But Lizzie refused to go down without a fight. She let the arrow fly. It hit one of her pursuers dead in the heart, and he collapsed to the ground. But four still remained. She nocked another arrow and aimed for another one's throat, but he saw the arrow coming and ducked out of the way. The air shivered as two of them disappeared and then reappeared beside her, grabbing her arms and wrenching her weapon away.
Lizzie kicked and bit, but she was alone and outnumbered. How stupid she had been to come to the catacombs! But she just had to see Ichigo's shrine. It was the only Mew grave in the zone, brought here because of Prince Kisshu's adoration of the cat-girl. As Lizzie struggled against her captors, she thought about how much this visit had cost her. She had been a Wild ever since the Cyniclons had taken over a little more than a year ago. Lizzie had avoided them and outmaneuvered and outsmarted them countless times. She ate rabbit in the woods, along with berries. All of those classmates that had made fun of her for archery classes and her knowledge of plants had been forced into slavery while she had run free. And now Lizzie was about to join them.
The Cyniclons assessed her; all four of them prodded and pulled and observed her. And she knew what they were doing. They were appraising her; deciding where to sell her. Lizzie knew two words of Cyncloni; "Ancht" (ugly) and "Keedeen" (pretty). She prayed that they would say, "Ancht." She promised that if they said "Ancht," she would never kill another animal as long as she lived.
The male with dark purple tresses that flowed to his waist gripped her chin and forced her to look into his eyes; his haunting orange eyes. He said, "Keedeen." The others began to whoop and holler as they pushed her along, up out of the catacombs. When they passed Ichigo's grave, Lizzie spat on it.
Eliza faced that night alone. The Home for girls had lost six of its charges today. Along with Sarah, five other members of the rebellion had been beheaded. The Home Owner had made his guards paint designs on the doorposts with blood. Swirls and dots and Cyncloni words decorated the posts of the front porch in crimson stains. And Eliza had been punished for not telling the Home Owner about her roommate's actions. Her blanket had been taken from her, so now she huddled freezing underneath the thin sheet. Punishments never wounded the girls' bodies. The Home Owner would never be so stupid as to do something that could scar his Keedeens' beauty.
Lizzie didn't sleep that night. She didn't eat either. They hadn't given her any food. The violet-haired ringleader of her captors told her why, and she was startled to hear him speak English. "We are going to break you. We get a better price for submissive ones. If you're smart, you'll give up now."
Lizzie stared back at him defiantly. "Sorry. My mother taught me perseverance."
"Yes," he replied. "And your mother is dead." Then he cackled some sort of horrid laughter that turned into coughing. Lizzie didn't care why he was coughing. She hoped he choked and died. When she closed her eyes, the memories flooded back to her.
It was after ballet class. Lizzie had just finished a rehearsal for the big recital. She had finally made prima donna. Her parents were so proud.
She was walking home when she saw it; smoke. Running to see where it was coming from, she dropped the point shoes that were slung over her shoulder when she reached her destination. Flames roared up into the sky; billows and curls of smoke blocked the sunlight like an intense front of dark clouds. This was her house. And it was on fire. She screamed at the top of her lungs and dashed for the burning building before she saw them; Cyniclons that must not have heard her over the roar of the flames. They conversed in English; like no Cyniclon before or since had done until she had been captured. The first said, "That's it. The energy readings have gone dormant. There's nothing alive left in there."
"Good," the other replied. "Let's leave." And then they had both vanished.
Lizzie wasted no time. She slipped into the woods that ran beside her house and scurried through them as fast as she could, rounding out to the back yard and opening the gate to free the dogs; three corgis and two border collies. She whistled for them and they followed her. She made a mad dash for the shed and grabbed some survival supplies; a bow and a quiver of arrows, a tarp, an old blanket and some rope. She slung the rope over her right shoulder, the quiver over her left, and gathered the other things in her arms as she ran away from everything that she had even known. Everything – she had to remind herself – that no longer existed. "Nana, Kipper, Molly, Beth, Pixie!" she called her dogs. She was the only mistress they had left.
She found shelter in the forests. And thank God that people littered! She was able to find several old water bottles to carry the precious liquid that she had taken for granted before. Stretching the rope from one tree trunk to another, she built tents by draping the tarp over it and securing the edges with sticks and stones. The blanket lined the inside, and she always had her weapon close by.
One day, two of the corgis – Beth and Kipper – ran off into the woods with Nana, one of the border collies. They never returned. The blanket soon became moldy from all the moisture of the forest floor in spring, and Lizzie decided to leave it behind. On an especially windy night, the tarp blew away. The next night a storm rolled in, leaving Lizzie and her two remaining dogs rather drenched. But on the bright side, she had three bottles full of rain water now. She had tried building lean-tos out of wood as they traveled along to avoid any more damp days. But the shelters were semi-permanent and made it easier for Cyniclons to track her, so she had stopped making them.
It had been two months when they came to a place where the game was scarce. Berry bushes were stripped bare in this area too. Lizzie hadn't eaten for two weeks. Focus was crucial, but it was so very difficult. She cried when she realized what she had to do. Her corgi, Pixie, looked up at her with big brown eyes that seemed to say, "I understand," as Lizzie let the arrow fly. Then she wept. She had taught Pixie how to ride a skateboard. It was her special trick. The two had had a special bond; Pixie even gave Lizzie love nips. But Pixie was a lot smaller and slower than Molly and wouldn't be of as much use out here in the woods, so all of that had to end. When Lizzie and Molly had finished eating, Lizzie burned the rest. She took the ashes and put them in one of her bottles and sat the bottle among the roots of a tree. "I'm so sorry, Pixie," she whimpered as the tears began to stream down her face again.
But Pixie's sacrifice was not in vain. Three days later, Lizzie and Molly found the Wilds' camp. A whole group of people lived here; that was why the game was rare and the bushes were bare. The Wilds had accepted Lizzie into their populace, and had she gotten there an hour later, it would have been too late. The Wilds were moving on that very afternoon to a new place with more food. Lizzie was paired up with a guy around her age named Gabe. They were hunting partners, and with him she took down a deer. Together they outsmarted Cyniclons hunters. And Molly did a good job of catching rabbits and squirrels.
Lizzie had been among the Wilds for six months. It was the dead of winter, but food was not a problem thanks to the stores of dried fruit and smoked meat that had been gathered and cooked during the summer. Gabe showed Lizzie how to raid a squirrel's cache of nuts. And if the squirrel got angry and came out, then it was more fresh meat. Lizzie was out with Molly doing this when it happened. A lone Cyniclon hunter appeared out of nowhere. Lizzie managed to get away only because Molly flung herself at the hunter and bit him. As she ran away, Lizzie was sure that Molly would catch up later. But she never did. When Lizzie returned to that part of the forest with Gabe a few days later, Molly's carcass lay under a thin blanket of snow. Lizzie's last dog had sacrificed herself to keep her mistress safe.
Lizzie had been through a lot. So no, she wasn't about to let some stupid Cyniclon hunter intimidate her into breaking. Lizzie would never break. Lizzie wouldn't even bend. And if they couldn't get a price for her because of that, then Lizzie would be victorious as they cut off her head. She just hoped that Gabe wouldn't worry.