Good afternoon.
So here is the first installment of Fang's story, setting up some back story and providing an explanation of the different splicer types that have been covered in the original document. Note that while some resemble the types seen in the games, going on the idea that splicers degenerate over time has lead to the new ones.
Anyway, this will update once a week. Once complete, Mutant Graveyard will restart and update once a week. Enjoy.
Chapter 1: A History
Despite the fact that Jeb had promised him an upgrade to a large dog crate almost a fortnight ago, Fang still resided within a medium sized one. As such he was forced to slouch against the bars behind him so his head had enough room, and compensate for this slouching by holding his knees to his chest.
At five foot four inches, the nine year old was much taller than average for his age, but this was probably the least interesting thing about the boy. Beneath his otherwise normal if not unusually thin exterior, the preteen was unusually strong due to increased muscle mass and outer bone thickness, unusually light due to the latticed nature of the insides of his bones that mimicked that of a bird, and could devour a staggering 4000 calories a day without gaining a single pound.
But what was truly startling about the boy was none of this data; tucked on either side of his spine and only just visible through the rough slits in his grey shirt were the tips of a pair of midnight-black wings. With a span of ten feet and still growing, simply releasing them required more space than he was usually ever confronted with in the narrow corridors and small square rooms of the School.
Fang had lived in this room for his entire life, at least what he could remember of it. He supposed that as a baby he may have been afforded something other than a dog crate, but his earliest memory consisted of a four-year-old version of himself reaching out through the bars for a present Jeb was giving him; a candy bar. It had been his birthday.
It was just months after this gesture that Jeb stopped being his primary carer. From then on, young Fang was subjected to the indifference of laboratory assistants, the carelessness of shift runners that forgot to feed him and the brutality of Erasers tasked with holding him down for blood tests day after day.
Almost two year passed before he saw Jeb again, and then only for a minute. He'd come in to check on a recent experiment that was obviously dying, a failure of the fusion of human child and chameleon, that was placed three crates away from Fang's own. Without even glancing at the familiar dog crate he'd moved to leave, returning only when Fang called out to him; this was the man who had cared for him when he was sick, sung him to sleep as a kid when he'd been upset by an experiment, his Father figure.
Jeb knelt down to look into the lad's crate, the smile on his lips oddly false, as it had been the entirety of the time Fang had known him. "How's it going, Champ?" He asked, his tone as calm and collected like he hadn't just been about to ignore the child.
"My crate is too small," the preteen replied, closing his fists around the bars separating them. He'd just wanted Jeb to come and say hello to him, as he had done daily before his sudden disappearance, and hadn't planned anything to say once he did come over. But the statement was true; at six years old he had outgrown the small dog crate he'd had all this living memory a few months before.
The man nodded sincerely. "I'll fix that for you, Fang." He added before standing up, striding from the room without a farewell. The child sat back in his crate, feeling defeated but unsure where the feeling stemmed from.
Jeb no longer cared; this was the conclusion he came to.
A few days later he was transferred to a larger crate after his daily tests and exercise, but when Jeb failed to show for a further three months Fang decided that he'd had enough of being silent and compliant. He spent the nights awake and staring at the opposite wall, planning an escape.
Before Jeb had abandoned him to the other lab assistants, Fang had always been co-operative, especially when Jeb himself had come to escort him. He would leave his crate with the least of fuss and follow whoever it was silently down the hallway, ignoring the sniggering of the pair of Eraser guards that had to accompany them by School policy.
This time, when the assistant opened his crate, Fang came out fighting.
His fist connected with the scientist's nose, forcing the man back into the Erasers as a burst of blood escaped from his left nostril. Utilising the small window of opportunity this gave him, Fang snatched the key card from the man's belt and made a bee-line for the door.
He'd just managed to scan the card when one of the Erasers was on him, holding so tightly that claws dug in his shoulder and drew small pinpricks of blood. The Eraser spun him on the spot and pinned the boy to the wall, his foul warm breath causing Fang to crease up his nose in disgust.
"Where do you think you're going, little piggy?" The half-wolf man asked, tightening his grip on the boy's shoulder and bringing the other hand up to hold his throat. The boy struggled in his grasp, but as strong as he was, a full-grown Eraser was simply too much stronger. Fang could feel his heart pounding in his neck as the hand closed around his windpipe.
The Eraser sneered. "Such a weak little piggy."
Folding his knees to his chest, Fang planted his feet firmly on the Eraser's chest and kicked out with all his might. Taken by surprise and the wind knocked out of him, the Eraser fell to the floor with a grunt, his claws leaving thin gashes along the length of the preteen's neck, who deftly landed on his feet and sprinted from the room.
Having never seen an Eraser in action before, it was a surprise to Fang to learn that they could easily outpace a grown adult, let alone an enhanced six year old kid. Before he knew what had happened, he had been slammed into the nearest wall then hoisted into the air by the second Eraser, a clawed hand fastened securely around his neck and cutting off his windpipe. Clawing at the hand seemed futile, and just as he thought he was about to pass out or die he was dropped abruptly to the floor.
"He's worth millions of dollars," he could hear a voice saying sternly, though he was too busy coughing and sucking in breaths to pay closer attention. "You damage him and it won't just be him that's put out of commission."
The Eraser grunted before dragging the kid back to his feet, pinning his arms behind him. Struggling in the Eraser's hold as he was dragged down the corridor towards his first trial of the day, he heard the scientist with the bloody nose mutter in bewilderment.
"But he was so well behaved yesterday."
Since then Fang had refused to go to any tests quietly. The last three years had been an interwoven mesh of struggling, sharp cuffs about the head from Erasers and, when he'd been able to injure one of the white coats, days without food or water despite the continuation of the tests.
Throughout this time Jeb only came to visit him three times; never on his birthday but always after a serious incident, such as the scientist he'd put in a coma for two weeks by roundhouse kicking him to the skull. Every time Jeb simply asked by he did it, and Fang would remain silent, staring at the wall past him until he shook his head and left.
Sat in his medium dog crate with his eyes closed, Fang pondered how long he would be denied food and water this time. During the previous day's blood tests, the most common time he acted out due to a hatred of needles that bordered on hysteria when they were in close contact with his skin, he had accidentally impaled the white coat's left eye with a needle meant to collect a blood sample. Incidents like this were becoming more common now he was getting stronger; it had recently been decided that he needed three erasers minimum to escort him anywhere, and there had only been two in the tiny blood room.
He hadn't meant to stab the man in the eye, but these things happened when you tested a needle phobic's resolve ten times every day.
He wondered how long it would be before Jeb came to look at him disappointedly again, and how long the man would stay. He wondered if he would ever figure out that he was the cause of the bad behaviour. Finally, he wondered what could possibly be taking up so much of Jeb's time that he couldn't be his carer anymore.
A gentle swish told Fang the doors had opened, but he didn't open his eyes, sure that it was Jeb coming to try and make him feel bad about what he'd done. It was only when the overly-familiar stagnant scent of an Eraser's breath wafted up his nostrils that he angled his head down and opened his eyes.
An Eraser had his face right up against the bars of the crate, a claw hooked around one of the bars and a sneer plastered across his face. "Guess what, little piggy." His warm, foul breath filled the entirety of Fang's crate, but he resisted outwardly gagging in front of the moron. After a few moments silence, the Eraser continued undeterred. "You're going for the long walk, Fangy. Expensive or not, they don't want you anymore."
With that his crate was pulled open, and Fang was pulled out by the ankles, banging his head on the edge of the crate on his way down to the floor. Slightly disoriented, he put up little fight as two Erasers hoisted him to his feet and pinned an arm each behind the preteen's back. A single finger slips under his chin and draws his focus up, past the white lab coat to a familiar face, a glass eye where a real one resided the day before.
The smirk on the scientist's face was almost painful to look at. "Congratulations," the man sneered inches from Fang's face. "You're the first experiment stupid enough to get themselves decommissioned. Enjoy your death, Fang."
Fang spat in the man's good eye, gracing him with a smirk of his own before the Erasers began hauling him away.