This story is now mirrored on Sufficient Velocity! If you want to give more than 1 comment per chapter, you can comment on there. Reviews are still nice though.

Spoiler tags make everything better, and neater :)

edit 2/23: Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I officially hate this chapter. Its much more in line with the other chapters now, but considering what it was before, nope.

WARNING: LIKE CHAPTER 7, THIS CHAPTER IS DARKER THAN MOST OTHERS

Chapter 10, Mary: Time to see a healer. Wait a sec, why is this chapter from my perspective? … Carp.

"Nice job Greg! Everyone else, go another round before you can even think of going to Othala!"

I watched Victor training our soldiers, proud to be part of the master race. We were obviously better than those other races. We knew that as an undeniable fact. Even if we didn't do anything with ourselves, we were still better than those subhumans by default. However, if we didn't push ourselves, didn't prove that we were undeniably the best in every category that mattered, the lesser races may get the wrong idea about their place in life, and that just wouldn't do. Greg, as the winner of the last bout, had the right to get access to my regeneration, but he refused it out of pride. I approved, partly.

We were strong, we could handle pain far longer than any of those blacks or other lessers, but I thought there was a point where enduring pain when you didn't have to was bordering on foolish. Oh well. I would respect his wishes.

I heard a phone ring out quietly and I frowned. No one should have their phones with them during training. Someone must not be taking this as seriously as I thought. We would have to make an example of them, force them to do extra work or get kicked out. Shame too. These were looking to be some fine recruits.

Then I realized the phone was mine. Oops. I picked it up, and noticed it was Hookwolf. No, I'd rather not listen to him yell right in my ear right now. I let the phone ring without picking up. If problems arose later I could always say that I hadn't noticed it.

Then I saw something odd. What was Cricket doing here? We didn't really get along well, and she generally tried to stay out of my way. Maybe this was about what Hookwolf was calling about? She came over to me. This must be important.

"Hey Othala. I got shot. Heal me." Cricket demanded.

That stopped me cold. Cricket never asked me for healing. Ever. It was a point of pride with her. Either this wasn't Cricket, or she was being mastered. I needed to find a way to signal Victor something was wrong, but how?

Victor apparently noticed something was wrong, as he turned and ran towards Cricket. "Well, that makes this quicker." She said.

She forced us to clasp hands. If this imposter thought I was going to grant them regen-

eration they were sadl- when did Victor get so close?

"Thanks." The imposter told me. Before casually breaking my right arm with a quick two handed attack.

I fell over in shock more than pain though that was definitely there, as Victor and the recruits arrived to fight the imposter Cricket. Who was noticeably healing and managing to fight them off. She was also mimicking Crickets ability to disorient her opponents, if the actions of the recruits relative to before were any indication. So she had more than just Cricket's appearance, but her powers as well? This, in addition to the fact that the recruits had already been exhausted, meant it was more a slaughter than a proper fight.

Victor, Greg and two other men had managed to make it over to me while "Cricket" was fighting the others. I didn't want to unclench my hands, it hurt so much. "Othala, we need invincibility, or else we're gone. We need it now!" Victor roared at me.

I was one of the peak of humanity, and would not let something simple like a broken arm stop me. Hell, the imposter could really be one of them, and the thought of one of them winning against us was simply unthinkable. I thrust my still fully functional left hand to him, granting him invulnerability. I was reaching for the others, when I heard a siren, extremely loud, right at the very top of my range of hearing and I stumbled, trying to fight through the onrush of noise with my ears feeling like they were about to explode. This was one of Crickets techniques that she held in reserve. She never revealed she could do this unless she was truly desperate. How would the imposter know she could do this?

Suddenly two of the three remaining men were dead on the ground and Victor was holding off Cricket, who had gone back to her simpler, and quieter hypersonic siren, if the fact that I could no longer hear anything at all was any indication. Though that could have just meant her ability to deafen people had already taken affect. I granted healing to the remaining member. Almost all the recruits were dead or knocked out, save for two worthless cowards who had left when the fighting with Cricket had started.

Fortunately, if the fight continued long enough, Victor would win. The regeneration would eventually wear off, and would do so much faster with Victor's ability in play. He moved so beautifully too. Watching him fight always filled me with a sense of pride and satisfaction.

Already Cricket was slowing down. It was only a matter of time till reinforcements came. I had never liked Cricket much, and if her life was the price of ending this? I was ok with that.

I turned to give the remaining member invulnerability instead of regeneration.

When I turned back, my heart almost stopped. There was another girl, one of a lesser race no less, standing behind Victor who had somehow stabbed him in the back with some kind of dagger, and he fell. But he was invincible! He shouldn't have been able to be hurt, much less killed! How?

Cricket charged the girl only for the newcomer to disappear a half-second later.

Cricket then picked up the dagger, faced me, and grinned through her cage.

The last man, John? It was hard to remember, got up and tried to defend me, but Cricket was too fast. What was worse, was that it seemed that dagger broke through my invulnerability. He had been one of the better fighters, but Cricket had superhuman reflexes and quickly ended him with the dagger.

I then thought I saw her mouth say a curse, though my hearing was temporarily gone so I couldn't be sure. Cricket charged me,and cut through my left shoulder before turning and running away. I crawled over to Victor.

I barely registered reinforcements arriving as I made it to him, and pressed my left hand against his chest. I couldn't feel anything. My power just wouldn't come. I pressed harder.

Someone came over to me and their mouth made the motions to ask me for speed to take me to Panacea. "You have to take Victor too." I told him.

He made gestures at me, but I held firm. Another man came over and I gave them both speed and they rushed us off to the hospital and Panacea.

I must have blacked out along the way.

I woke in a hospital, Panacea holding my healed right hand and arm. Hookwolf, in his human form, Krieg, and Stormwolf were all standing around me.

"There. She's healed enough, she'll survive. Now leave." I heard Panacea call out, bitterly.

I saw my allies nod, but there was something missing. "Victor, where's Victor?" I rasped.

Strangely Panacea was the one to answer me. "He's dead. There was nothing I could do. I can't bring people back to life."

"You're lying! You sick -! You just wanted to see him dead! You don't deserve to be an Aryan! You're as bad as them, fine with watching us die like dogs! You could have saved him! He wasn't dead! You just didn't want to save him! You'll pay for this! I swear I'll make you -" she touched me and all I knew was darkness.

Author's note:

1) What did you think of this chapter? Did you like it, did you hate it, did you think I had abandoned the story (it's only been two weeks...)?

2) Next chapter probably involves Shikako meeting Panacea. That, or an idea of what she's doing on Earth Bet.

3) edit: I think that in the future, I should post chapters in a spoiler tag for one day in SV before posting here, to make sure I know whether or not the chapter will be dark ahead of time, and thus plan for that. This will also allow me to add any last minute feedback edits in before people see it on this site.

edit 2/23: I hate this chapter now. I really, really do. I managed to write it and post it, then check it twice, and not realize what I had actually wrote. No, I will not have a character cry out that hard for a loved one and have them not be saved. Nope. Nope. Rewriting this. This fic was never meant to get darker than chapter 7 (and even that was pushing it somewhat) and this has, so nope. that part has to be removed, to lessen the impact.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

The story part of Chapter 11 is about 5700 words done by now, and a lot of what I'm doing is editing, thinking of what I want to happen for chapter 12, and trying to write an at least acceptable explanation for why what has happened, has happened. I will wait a few days after all editing is done, and make sure to go through a checklist of what I will not include in future chapters (basically, anything that happened in this chapter) before I post them in the future.

If you really think the first version was better (where she tries harder to save him and voices her thoughts), I have a version of it on Sufficient Velocity.) Personally, I think it goes into areas this story shouldn't.

Edit 2/22: I realized this chapter was more gory than I intended, and there was no need for that. I have fixed it. I do not want any chapter of this story to ever get much darker than chapter 7, except for possibly emotional distress like in this chapter. I will be checking this more diligently in the future.

I am going to make a checklist of things NOT to include in this story to keep it from getting too dark. This chapter will serve as an example of what not to do.

Even then, I hope to only have that in "Villain perspective" chapters, and put them in spoilers so people can identify them early and avoid them if they want to. Shikako chapters may have emotional distress, but hopefully I will be able to navigate the story at least for a little while so that they are only bittersweet emotions, like missing her family, rather than ones like in villain chapters.