The first location was just a trash dump for ancient relics that other scientists had long ago discarded, but the second was a dark, echoing, ice-enclosed cave that was well off the "beaten path" near a mountain range. It was hard to reach due to the proliferation of local toothy wildlife, but Lilith braved it. After blasting through the icy door with her trusty incendiary S&S Munitions combat rifle that she playfully called her "pet Draco," Lilith stepped into a world unlike anything she had ever seen before.
Shimmering iridescent blue concentric swirls and designs decorated the dark walls and continued down the full length of the seemingly endless cave. The designs gleamed with a strange ghostly aura that moved, changed and seemed to beckon Lilith further into the cave. As she walked slowly forward, a wintry breeze picked up and blew past her, toward the mouth of the cave, making a strange whirring sound as it escaped into the outside world. With each step forward, the volume of the whirring increased, ringing loudly in Lilith's brain. She wanted to raise her hands to cover her ears, but she kept her grip on her Draco and continued walking. As she reached a point where the path cut to the left and to the right, the awful sound suddenly stopped. A sharp crack sounded behind her and she turned to see that the mouth of the cave she had blasted through had reformed its ice wall; she was trapped. All of a sudden, something invisible but solid wooshed past Lilith and she whipped around to look for it. Panic crept tangibly through her body and she fought with herself to keep it in check.
There's more than one way out, she thought. Calm down. If there isn't, you can always melt a door again. Don't freak.
Breathing deeply, her breath forming steam clouds in front of her face, Lilith moved slowly in a circle and tried to catch a glimpse of whatever came past her. It couldn't have left, but it might have gone further back toward the entrance. She looked down and saw no tracks. It was all in my head. She closed her eyes for a second and shook her head, swishing her closely cut red hair. Opening her eyes, she continued onwards, down the right hand path.
After ten minutes of following the flickering blue markings that led the way down the narrow path through the ice, the cave opened up into a wide high-ceilinged space that reminded Lilith of the old cathedrals she had seen on Epimetheus. Unlike the path that she had just followed, the air was dead still in this area and the room glowed with a brighter version of the blue light. There were gigantic statues set at well-spaced intervals along the side walls. Lilith saw no sign of life and no exit from the room, so she lowered her weapon and walked toward the closest sculpture.
The sculpture was made of solid ice and the subject was definitely an alien creature; it had a small head perched on a long, curved neck that jutted from a powerfully built and yet thin body with elongated legs.
Facing the sculpture, Lilith backed up a little into the center of the room to see clearly. Two steps backward and the whirring sound picked up again. It seemed louder and more painful in the absent breeze and this time Lilith dropped her Draco and clamped her gloved hands over her ears, but the sound kept rising. She felt as though there were a thousand insects flying around in her skull, battering her brain with their wings and she screamed in pain as she was brought to her knees. In an instant, it stopped and even though her eyes were clenched shut, Lilith could sense the light in the room change from a pale blue to a bright orange, as though a huge bonfire had just been lit directly in front of her. Though she was afraid, Lilith opened her eyes to find herself floating in midair in the middle of an orange forcefield. She found quickly that she couldn't move her arms and legs, but she could move her head around and she jerked it back and forth, trying desperately to rock her body out of whatever force held her captive. Lilith strained with her neck as she felt her body floating upward. Though the whirring sound wasn't present any more, a strange and yet rather soothing humming noise enveloped her as she ascended slowly. Finally, she gave up. Her immobile body wasn't going to escape and she needed to refocus her thoughts on fighting whatever it was, once she got to wherever they were taking her. She tossed her head back and narrowed her golden eyes as she stared at the bright orange forcefield that surrounded her. It took her a second to focus on anything in particular, but beyond the shimmering orange she noticed that the statues had surrounding her, raising their arms. She looked again and noticed that the statues were still at the edges of the room; the figures standing in a circle around the orange wall of energy were real creatures. Lilith screamed and the orange disappeared, leaving nothing between her and the aliens. There was a crack of thunder and the figures raised their hands together; the humming was coming from them. Lilith restarted her straining and tried to break the energy holding her to no avail. The aliens lifted their heads to face the ceiling and Lilith followed their empty gazes to see a bright pale blue light hovering just under the roof of the cave. She tried to scream again, anything, but she could no longer open her mouth or move her head. She tried to blink and found that she couldn't do that either. Her eyes watered and then her breathing stopped as her thoughts slowed to a trickle. And then they ceased all together.
She awoke freezing but she shook it off as she stood. Disoriented, Lilith tried to focus on her surroundings. There was nothing in the cave except for a bunch of strange looking statues spaced evenly around the frozen room. As she squinted at the statues, Lilith's breath caught in her throat. Them!
She turned and ran back down the hall that she'd come through before, wanting only to run away much faster. And suddenly…she was. Her speed picked up without a second thought and Lilith was flying down the path. She had to hit the sealed entrance to the cave to stop herself. The wet cold of the ice that she smashed into broke up her shock as she whipped her Draco out of her holster, aimed and fired. The ice melted and she was dashing back to the nearest New-U station to escape whatever she'd met in that cave.
When she reached the station, a thought occurred to her. Maybe she could lose the memory of her encounter. The last time she'd used the New-U was only a few weeks ago. She wanted to get rid of the dawning realization that she'd changed somehow; she started to get the strangest idea that her newfound speed wasn't the only thing that was different about her.
She dialed in her password and started to insert her hand for a DNA check when she noticed the marks on her left arm. They were the same type of designs that she'd seen in the cave. Her eyes widened and she started clawing at them, trying to erase this new obvious sign of her contamination. She clawed up her arm, following the tattoos to her shoulder, down her side, hip and leg. She flung herself into the snow and ripped at her clothes, scratching every mark she saw with the fingernails on her right hand. She grabbed handfuls of snow and tried desperately to erase the designs until she spent every ounce of her energy and was left panting in the blood streaked snow at the foot of the New-U station. It was all to no avail; the marks were permanent. Lying in the snow with a cold wetness stealing into what was left of her clothing, Lilith stared at the bright blue sky above her. To her, it was the same color of her new brandings and she squeezed her eyes shut. By the sheer force of her will, Lilith calmed herself down and swallowed the panic that was rising by the second.
No one knows but you and them, she thought. In her mind's eye, she saw her naked self covered in the blue markings that snaked around the left side of her body. They're tattoos…and they don't look bad. A small flame of pride ignited within her as she pictured the way she looked now: pale milky skin tattooed in graceful blue patterns, bright gold eyes with dark lashes, long limbs, bright red hair…Lilith smiled and opened her eyes. I've changed.
Lilith stood and shook herself free of the clinging snow as she re-entered her information at the New-U station and inserted her left hand for the DNA check. Her eyes went wide as the screen flashed an error message: "DNA Match Incompatible." A flicker of panic crossed her mind and it was quickly subdued by a growing flame of pride, which was now a sizable fire burning within her spirit. She kicked the station and tried it three more times, all with the same results. Now she knew. She was absolutely certain that whatever had happened to her in the cave had completely changed her entire genetic code. Her smile grew as she turned her back on the New-U and headed back towards the town.
As she walked, Lilith pored over all that she could remember of what happened in the cave. She stopped as a dark form darted into her path. Looking up, she saw three skalves that banded together around her. When she first arrived on Mimas, Lilith was intrigued with the amount of long hair on the bodies of these wolfish creatures when she ran into a few tame ones in town, but this would be her first encounter with wild ones. For some reason, Lilith felt unusually calm and noted all of their strange characteristics, from their bulging yellow gold eyes to their long caverat-like tails. Their massive claws made interesting tracks in the snow as they circled her slowly. Lilith braced herself and readied for their attack, locking her gold eyes with those of the one closest to her. All outside noises trickled away and Lilith was left listening to only her breathing and the heavy breaths and footfalls of the skalves. A tremor rippled through the body of the one Lilith watched as its muscles tensed for a jump. Lilith whipped a Vladof repeater from her holster in the same instant that the skalve pounced; she blasted a clip into the first one and the world burst into flames as the creature fell dead into the snow. Without thinking, Lilith launched herself at the fresh warm corpse and leaped over it, landing gracefully and, without pause, breaking into a full-out sprint, leading the other two skalves in a death race across the tundra. The atmosphere merged into a white blur as Lilith continued to run, willing herself to go faster as she headed back toward the town. Within seconds, she skidded to a stop at the door of an abandoned shack on the outskirts of the main village. She turned to face the skalves, expecting to see them at her heels, but they were nowhere in sight. For some reason, Lilith was unsurprised. The inhuman speed at which she had traveled had brought her back to a place that would have taken her hours to return to. The beasts would be forced to hunt her trail or give up and move on to prey much more attainable. Lilith burst into laughter as she turned away from the tundra and walked into town.
Her mind raced as fast as her feet had as Lilith headed into the bar where she'd first overheard the scientists talking about the hidden alien technology cache. She pondered her new speed and the flames that had erupted around her just as the first skalve fell down dead in the snow. The aliens had imparted some strange powers to her and she needed to learn about them. She looked around for the scientists and found one of them sitting alone, nursing a tall mug of steamy cider. Lilith sat down in the stool next to him.
As she sat, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror hanging behind the bar and she gasped. Her hand flew to her head as she stared at the shocking pink hue of her hair. Dark pink at the roots, it faded gradually to an almost-white shade of pink at the tips. Used to and proud of her beautiful naturally red hair, Lilith was caught between tears and rage, but the intensity of the feeling died in an instant. She shrugged at her reflection, winked at herself and plopped down into the bar stool. She turned to the scientist. "So…I hear you're looking for alien technologies."
Talking to that scientist led her to other scientists, who led to other scientists as time wore on. She traveled from one planet to the next, talking to one after the other, searching for answers. As she traveled, she noticed the strange looks she received from people everywhere as she tested her powers and learned through experimentation on bounty runs. Over time, her lone wolf status really started to grate on her; she greatly missed the companionship she'd so cherished back on Prometheus. Though she remained focused on her main goal of finding out more about her new abilities and the creatures that had given them to her, she also continued to follow up on bounties and added in a quest to find her childhood friends…all three of which had landed her on Pandora.
As the rushing of the Fast Travel system subsided and the purple tunnel faded from her vision, Lilith looked around and smiled silently to herself. Mordecai was standing beside her on one side and Brick was on her other; Roland stood in front. Some things just happen for a reason, she thought.
Roland turned to address his "squad" of friends. "We need a vehicle and we need it fast." He turned to Lilith and raised an eyebrow, a grin plastered on his face. Lilith nodded. Whump.