Eric, and Rhyzelis were traveling through the city at night wandering around neighborhoods, and across roads when the boy was taken. Out of nowhere strangers had come rushing from the darkness dragging him off into their old truck as he shrieked, and begged to be freed. A second truck (that had gone un-noticed by Rhyzelis in her struggles to reclaim the boy) revved its engine loudly, and turned on bright lights that blinded her as it lurched forward like battering ram to knock her unconscious. Perhaps if the bastards were lucky the initial blow might kill her, and if not then the broken bones and ruptured internal organs surely would. It would be a slow and painful death. The last thing Rhyzelis saw before darkness and pain swallowed her world, was Eric's screaming face.

Upon waking in the middle of the road to the loud blast of a car horn, and the burning throb of broken bones some time later, Rhyzelis immediately attempted to lurch to her feet. She staggered as bones shifted, and ground together internally. The pain was ignored as she set off to find her stolen charge,(pure humans were exceedingly rare after all) and reclaim him. Wandering about with broken ribs, damaged internal organs, and what could possibly be a fractured spine was nothing new no matter how much it hurt. It would be fully healed soon enough, and Rhyzelis had more important things to pay attention to anyway. Like the scent of her own blood and agony lacing the breeze, and mixing with the ever so delightful stench of exhaust fumes. A shift in the wind revealed the bitter, salty tang of Eric's terrified tears and left a wicked grin curling Rhyzelis' full lips. Fools like these were always easy to track.

Following the new trail led to a neighborhood with trees that lined the road on either side like a dark tunnel. They even gave the illusion of standing sentinel to the occasional lamp post and mail box, as they creaked and bent while fencing with each other in wind. All of these things became trivial details, in light of the fact that her human boy was here somewhere. The scent of her own blood on the grill of the truck that hit her, drifted along in the air. It was the rundown house in the middle of the block that caught her nose; and as she slunk closer, the faint sounds of Eric's begging cries shrilled in her ears. Darting through the gloomy shadows under the trees closest to the house, Rhyzelis came upon an extremely disturbing view. A curtain-less window brightly lit, revealed the sight of Eric naked; pinned by six insectile arms and crying while about to be sodomized beneath a woman old enough to be his mother. The sickening sight of such depravity, had her stomach rolling in protest. Between one agonized breath and the next, the teenager dashed around the side of the house intent on stopping the woman and saving her friend from such horrors.

Luckily the garage door was up, and the trucks from her previous encounter with these vermin were parked one behind the other in the driveway. Unfortunately in her headlong rush inside the dimly lit garage to rescue Eric, Rhyzelis failed to take into account the men that were lingering about inside the junk filled space. Caught by an unexpected blow to her ribs, (curtesy of a conveniently placed baseball bat) she went down with a pained gurgling of expelled air. Retching and gasping, Rhyzelis attempted to stand, only to receive a heavy stomp to her already badly damaged back. Tears flooded her cheeks, and blood poured from parted lips as the assault continued. (A collapsed lung would make running an interesting challenge.)

Fists, feet, knees, and the baseball bat rained down upon her balled up form. For every blow that fell, a symphony of gasps, cracks, and choked off cries, were forced from her body to match them. As the barrage slowly let up, Rhyzelis could hear the sound of a pair of heavy boots making their way towards her through the ringing in her ears. With one eye already swollen shut, she craned her head up to see the newcomer. An older man than the others grabbed ahold of her long white braid, and wrenched her head back to get a better look at her damaged face. "Purty li'll thing for a monster." He spat. "Think I'll make a mask out o' er face ta go with the boy's after ma's done breedin' with em." There was a shuffling of feet as another bastard spoke up. "Yew wun us ta wait fer th swellen t' go down pa?" One of the assholes to her left asked. "Nah, jest shoot er now so's we don't gotta deal wit 'er trying ta escape with the human brat." The elder sneered. Rhyzelis glared up at the older man through her good eye as he spoke, (even though it too was rapidly blackening, and starting to swell from its encounter with a fist earlier.)

"Let me see Eric!" She hissed. "You can keep a gun on me if you want, but let me see him before you kill me!" Rhyzelis gained another kick to the face for her demands. The pump of a shotgun sounded along with a shout of "Shut the fuck up ya stupid cunt!" But it was the sound of the door to the house opening that saved her from everyone's attention. "If you wanna see the little shit, here he is." A woman's voice crooned into the volatile atmosphere. "I've had my fun wit' 'im, and the drugs I used made sure he had a good time too." She cackled. The woman Rhyzelis had seen with Eric, stood in the doorway with the disheveled boy in her multitudinous arms. The realization that she had not been in time to prevent his rape, ate away at her mind like acid. The moment he saw her collapsed form, Eric bit one of the bitches insectile arms as hard as he could and wrenched himself away.

The woman shrieked, and jerked back from the boy freeing him to rush to Rhyzelis and cling to her broken body. Pulling from a deep well of strength the girl lurched to her feet in an unexpected bid for freedom. (The idiots hadn't even thought to close the garage door!) Rhyzelis bolted for the street with Eric in her arms, and heard a gunshot crack from behind them as her bare feet struck grass, and she made a sharp left turn cutting across the lawn.

Stumbling in her run as fire blossomed in her back, she felt flesh rip and bones shatter under the violent impact of buckshot. She nearly dropped her small charge as her body bent under the shotgun's second blast, though she couldn't help but be grateful that the bullets weren't slugs. Rhyzelis pushed herself to continue moving as the fear of Eric's impending death clawed at her mind. The pounding of many booted feet and the angered shouts of Eric's captors followed them, as she bolted for the end of the block.

Cutting another left through someone's lawn, and hurtling over a wooden fence Rhyzelis managed to gain some distance from their attackers even as she heard the faint sound of vehicle doors slamming, and engines starting. Several blocks down and somewhere to the right later, came the squeal of tires once again intent on doing damage. Struck from behind this time, the white haired teen toppled forward, and would have landed on the boy in her arms had she not twisted to one side at the last moment. Eric fell free of her arms and immediately rolled to his feet, running off into the darkness with the distinctive sound of his guardians spine snapping, with a wet echo in his ears. Their pursuers were already out of their trucks, and a few had taken off on foot to chase the boy down. The rest stayed to kill the girl.

Being an abomination against nature had it's own advantages as her spine had already started reconnecting it's self; Rhyzelis was soon rushing her attackers with inhuman speed, though her movements were jerky and unsure. Before they could truly comprehend just what she could do, Rhyzelis managed to kill three of them by breaking their necks just as she was dog piled. Rhyzelis steadily forced her body to repair itself as more blows landed on her still damaged frame from a host of limbs.

A change overtook her features right under the noses of the vile men intent on her death. The closer they crowded, the easier it became to alter her looks to match theirs in the chaos of flailing limbs, and bodies. Snow white hair darkened and shortened. Small and feminine, became larger and more manly in appearance. Even the clothing that she wore had altered to mimic those surrounding her. Occasionally she took to pulling one of the three corpses underneath or above her body to disguise her movements. It had helped to confuse just who she was in all of this darkness. (It also had the happy side effect of making them beat each other.) 'Too many flailing arms and not enough brains and eyes between the lot!' She scoffed internally.

It took some time but she was finally thrown from the fight, as they attacked each other rabidly and she made her escape unnoticed. Keeping her disguise, Rhyzelis took off after the scent of Eric. When she finally caught up to him, he was struggling with one of the men that had managed to catch him as he tried to scale a tall wooden fence in his effort to keep his freedom. In her disguise as one of those responsible for their torment, she grabbed the boy from the other man, and threatened the child into silence. "If ya don't stop yer struggelen boy, Im'ma gut that monster bitch we caught while ya watch." Eric froze while staring up at his new captor in mute horror.

The other man chuckled his congratulations in her stilling the child, and turned to lead the way back to the trucks. All the while failing to notice that though the pair had been walking close behind at first, now they seemed to be steadily lagging in speed. As the man looked back to make a rude comment about the boy, for his brother's amusement, he was met with the sight of an empty street. The man ran for the trucks while yelling and cussing to gather the others, and continue their hunt.

Once out of view with the struggling Eric clutched in multiple new arms, she shifted form. Rhyzelis gently shushed his struggles and spoke. "It's me, it's me." She murmured in her own voice. "Now hush up so we aren't noticed!" Looking up into the man's morphing, and increasingly familiar face, Eric went limp with relief. The sound of distant yells spurred her into action. Swinging him onto her mostly healed back, Rhyzelis then dropped to all fours as her arms lengthened and began running with great speed as Eric flattened himself, and clung to her bloody frame for dear life. They made their way down another street, heading towards the predawn light, and the scent of the bay. Hands and feet striking the ground in a rhythmic tattoo, Rhyzelis watched the purple grey light of dawn grow. Too much light too soon would reveal them to anyone who might chance to look, and this was not a neighborhood that took kindly to strangers without the prerequisite number of extra limbs. But she could already see the road dead end into the bay. Even with burning lungs, and still shattered but healing ribs the lithe girl continued on. As she drew near the end of the road, a flock of startled seagulls took flight. "I hope no one sees them, and thinks it's us." Eric whispered, as Rhyzelis paused to evaluate their potential escape routes. "Same here," She rasped as she scanned the sea wall and surrounding docks. Spotting a floating dock with what looked to be pool toys, and a couple of blow up rafts, the girl darted along the sea wall on all fours and jumped for the nearest edge of the floating structure.

Only just making the several meters distance. Her bare feet, blackened by all of the dirt and grime she continued to run through were given a short and unexpected dunking in the water, as she scrabbled for purchase on the slick platform. Looking about, Rhyzelis spotted a small kayak, and the oars that went with it. Quickly, Eric was slipped from her back and settled on the dock, as she grabbed their new mode of transport and shoved it into the water. As she turned back to grab him, she found him already with life vest in hand and bent over an open cooler. Slipping up beside him and looking in, Rhyzelis took note of the water bottles, and bags of trail mix held inside. He grabbed one in each hand as she once again looked about.

Mutely Rhyzelis scanned for anyone that might have seen them, or anything else that might prove useful from the other docks. But it was Eric that spotted a net bag of small pool toys off to one side, and rushed over to dump it out, after having dropped what he previously held back into the cooler. Every bottle of water, and bag of trail mix was taken and stuffed into the emptied net bag. Just as Rhyzelis settled Eric in the kayak and buckled him into a child sized life vest, some very useful items caught her constantly roving eyes on a different dock. With another leap, Rhyzelis soon gained a tackle box with some sunscreen, and two collapsible fishing poles to go with it. The jump back was considerably harder without the use of her hands, and growing extra limbs that she wasn't used to would only serve unbalance her even more. She shot through the air, and only just stuck the landing at the docks edge. (Though her still healing spine seemed to disagree with the whole idea of moving.) She shivered at the assault to the nerves in her back and shuffled over to the kayak. Rhyzelis handed off her load to Eric and they were soon on their way.

Even in the light of the rising sun, Eric could see the damage to Rhyzelis' back gape, and stretch grotesquely while it slowly began to mend its own external wounds. Little bits of metal and grime were pushed out of her flesh, and anything he could liken the sight to would make him ill. A shudder of revulsion shook his small body at the gory sight, but it was tempered by the knowledge that she would live through this.

Eric's experience at the hands of the woman that his captors had given him to, rose within his mind's eye. The repulsive creature, had only slapped him around a little before she made him undress. The only highlight of that disgusting moment had been that it was a woman this time, not a man like the first time he experienced such things. Nor was it like the second most recent encounter with a man who liked to watch his pets take the dominant roles in his "games". Though he had not told his new found guardian of his previous experience with such things, he knew that she had taken note of any physical damage to be found on him both when they first met and now. She was too observant by half when it came to him physically, and would soon want to know of his wellbeing. Her potential reaction should she find out, was what scared him. He knew that she wasn't the most mentally stable thing to wander the world with, and her inhuman gifts were powerful enough that she could be quite destructive when provoked. In order to avoid her pending questions, and the memories associated with them; Eric opened the tackle box that had been balanced between his knees and got to work looking for something to help lessen the damage to his friends back.

Sitting on the back of a one man kayak, was definitely a new way to learn how to keep things from falling where he didn't want them to. Searching through the various removable layers, of the tackle box produced a serrated fishing knife that he quickly used to cut away parts of her shirt. The sight of her flesh growing over some parts of the fabric, had him cringing as he used the blade to free the material from her ravaged body. Rapid healing did have its own disadvantages no matter what anyone said, and bloodied white locks of hair sticking in her healing wounds kept him from properly assessing the work that he needed to do. A piece of fabric was salvaged from the scraps to act as a makeshift hair tie after he worked it all free from the clotting scabs. Eric pitched the filthiest pieces of cloth overboard. Carving new marks into her flesh just to remove the fabric, and hair was pushing Eric's ability to hold in the contents of his stomach.

Bile rose in his throat as the boat swayed, and her arms, and back ceaselessly flexed, and bled while she continued to row. He could only hope that she wouldn't get an infection from the knife, let alone anything he might not have been able to clean out fast enough while securing her wild hair. Water from one of the spare bottles was pored onto her back in small doses to help cleanse her healing body, but as it touched her back she went ridged and hissed at the sudden introduction to a new form of pain. Trying not to throw up, or cry too much at his guardians obvious discomfort, and the crack, snap, pop, crunch of her broken bones realigning, Eric searched the tackle box again for something to aid in the removal of the smaller objects lodged within her back as she could only heal so quickly. (Not everything was pushed from her wounds in enough time to prevent it from being healed over.)

Tweezers were produced to pick and pull out the threads, and fine fibers that insisted on sticking in areas they shouldn't. But the buckshot lodged in some of her bones was another matter entirely, and he feared that even she might be permanently paralyzed if he slipped and hit the wrong thing while digging out the ditrus in her back. Trembling hands once again moved to resume their work, and were stilled at a small sound of triumph from his friend. She had found something of interest while rowing.

Though she felt him working at her back with an shakily industrious air, the distinct smell of his apprehension, and concern had Rhyzelis sorting through the various smells around her. Nothing stood out to her nose as a potential danger to them so, she continued to paddle through the waters of the wide bay. Taking note of the scent of food, and alcohol drifting over the water to them, Rhyzelis turned the kayak to the right heading for a break in the canals nearby, as a low hum of satisfaction purred from her throat. Hopefully they would acquire more useful things left out on other docks like the ones from before. She debated about what could have disturbed Eric so badly to smell the way he currently did as the rape he had gone through had produced less emotional turmoil than she had expected. He did not always react the same way as the few humans she had previously encountered would when confronted with adversity; and she was often times not quite sure how to broach certain topics. She knew that it wasn't the first time such things had happened to him, sex left a distinctive scent after all. (Animal or human the scent of sex didn't make any difference to her nose.) Unfortunately Eric had been raped before, and he had been covered in the stench of multiple bodies when she first found him. But the real question that plagued her mind was how she could help him overcome it. If he needed her help at all for such a thing was also an issue that nagged at her mind. (Humans were forever a mystery to her no matter how much she might look like them.) Perhaps a healer of some sort could be obtained. The decision was put off at the last moment, in favor of a likely looking dock that seemed to have the remains of a late night party in evidence. Such happenings tended to produce drunk, and forgetful people that might have left things unattended, perhaps even a door or two would be unlocked. If not then the locks could always be picked.

Stopping his work on her back Eric used a new scrap of her damaged shirt as a slightly cleaner way to hold her hair out of her wounds and discarded the previous piece, which joined the others in the canal. As he watched Rhyzelis row them toward a dock, the relief that she hadn't asked about what that hag had done to him, was enough to make him heave a small sigh. The feeling was rather short lived as her head snapped around, and mismatched blue and green eyes locked with his brown. Seeing her nostrils quivering subtly as she scented the air around him, was a sharp reminder of just what he was trying to hide parts of himself from. Her gimlet eyed glare might have chilled him at first, but over time he found it to mean her mind was merely calculating her next possible move, and though she could be quite annoyed with him at times, he also understood that she would not harm him intentionally. Though she would ask him questions, it seemed she would put it off till later; perhaps after searching the house, if she could get in. Keeping his secrets from her was always difficult, but previous experiences led him to believe that she would give him time until he was ready to answer her questions. The only exception to this general rule would be damage to his person, or potential diseases he could contract from others. Eric's mind drifted back into focus as a tan house and its adjoining dock grew closer. Soon enough his companion was pressing the oars into his hand, with strict instructions to stay in the boat and row away should anything go wrong in her search. Eric watched the ropy muscles in her still damaged bare back bunch, and bleed sluggishly as she launched herself up onto the dock, and couldn't help his awe of her thin, but deadly frame. Resilience, grit, stamina, and an almost bull headed determination to continue moving in the face of incredible pain were enough to impress anyone.