Chapter 12: Escape

In a dark, quiet room, she held her head in her hands, a slow trickle of tears falling through the black and white fur on her face; fur that was now tarnished with splashes of red. She cautiously raised her head out of the minimally comforting shield her hands provided and looked into a small mirror that sat atop the desk she was leaning against. Silently, she hoped that the blood wasn't there. She hoped that nothing had happened just moments ago, that somehow she had imagined the whole thing and hadn't lost control. Her fears were confirmed as she saw herself staring back in the mirror however, the blood of Panther Caruso spattered intermittently across her face and arms. It was here she froze, terrified of herself and what she had done.

I'm…so sorry. I didn't mean to…

Her feeble thoughts were cut short and her head fell back into the artificial solace of her hands. It had been so long since she'd felt the things she had just moments ago. The feeling of excitement, the bloodlust, the thrilling contact of fist and foot against flesh and bones…

She quickly stood, preventing herself from falling back into that state of mind.

Kaya…you can't go back…

She took a few hurried steps and fell into her bed, looking again upon her bloodied and scarred arm, which she quickly hid from view. As she closed her eyes, she was brought back to those days she tried so hard to forget. Back to when it all started…

Turania, a planet that sat beyond the borders of the Lylat System, was one of constant civil war. The two factions that comprised the entire population of the planet, the Panthera and the Tigris, had been fighting for years over control of the other, both groups hoping to adapt their ideals and laws universally across Turania.

When Kaya was only nine years old, the Tigris controlled town she had grown up in was overthrown, and she, along with her family and the rest of the town, were forced into slavery for the Panthera faction.

The next ten years of her life she and her family lived as slaves. Those years were filled with difficult manual labor under terrible living conditions and daily verbal and physical abuse. She and her family would move often as they were bought and sold by different Panthera groups, all the while being constantly reminded that the Tigris faction was all but wiped out, along with most of the animals she and her family had grown up with. That news, coupled with the constant hardships that came with being a slave, would have been more than enough to make even the strongest of animals give up any hope of ever escaping this life. However, the Panthera faction was a group of warriors, and as such, they would allow the slaves to fight to the death for a chance at freedom.

For the most part, these fights served only as a quick and painful means for the slaves to escape. Kaya had witnessed many of these fights take place, and not once had she ever seen a slave best their opponents. Worst of all, after a fight had taken place, they would leave the dead carcass in the place where they died as a message to all the slaves. It was a terrifying reminder that there really was no hope of escape aside from death.

Kaya herself had often thought of what it would be like to take on one of the Pantherans and win her freedom. She played it out thousands of times in her mind, but she was not a fighter. She was a quiet, meek and nervous young tiger, and everyone knew and loved that about her. Among all of the hardships she had endured over the years, she always kept to herself, never causing trouble for her or anyone around her. However, she had been secretly trying to practice some of the hand to hand combat moves that she picked up from the many fights she had seen over the years, and to her surprise, she had become what she deemed to be fairly skilled at them. Every time she imagined actually coming into contact with another living being though, she shuttered. Inflicting pain, breaking bones, drawing blood…surely no one deserved to inflict such punishment on another.

That was until her father decided that it was time he took his chances to win freedom for his family. After ten years of faithful servitude, unable to bear the thought of his beautiful, innocent daughter knowing nothing but slavery her entire life, he chose to take his chances against the passionate wishes of both his wife and daughter.

The fight ended almost as soon as it had started. The clearly more powerful Pantheran pummeled Kaya's father in no time at all, leaving him squirming on the ground, writhing in pain. Seconds later, her father's enemy slowly approached his target to deliver the final killing blow.

It was then, just as she was about to watch her father die in front of her as so many others had before him, that something snapped in Kaya.

The usually calm and passive tiger could feel a violent rage building up in her. It wasn't just watching her father about to die in front of her, it was the years and years of being beaten and broken down. It was the friends that she had lost over the years. It was the torment, torture, sadness, insecurity, and fear that she had quietly held within herself for ten whole years. Each of them seemed to simultaneously feed into the rage she was feeling at that exact second, all coming to a vicious point as the quiet tiger let out a violent, blood-curdling scream as her emotions overwhelmed her.

Everyone in the area froze, their eyes all diverting to the source of the noise. When they did so, they saw Kaya standing with her eyes focused crazily towards her father's enemy as a smile slowly made its way across her face.

In an instant, she darted towards the formerly attacking Pantheran and struck him incredibly hard across the snout with her closed fist. She could feel it breaking against her knuckles, filling her with amazing satisfaction.

The Pantheran reeled for several feet before falling to the ground, where he was promptly met by a merciless roundhouse kick to the side of the face. As his head slammed into the dirty street below, he let out a terrible painful scream, watching as his own blood flicked into the air and splattered onto the ground beneath him.

Giving him no chance to recover, and reveling in seeing blood leave the animal's body, Kaya reared up her foot once again and violently stomped her helpless opponent's head into the dirt, causing his skull to savagely crack and rupture. This freed a new stream of blood from his body as he futily gurgled for air before life suddenly left his body.

Time stopped at that moment. Pantherans, slaves, her parents, they all stood in shock as Kaya stood and stared down at her kill, breathing heavily as she did so.

She felt alive. For the first time in her life, as she watched the animal below her dying, she felt like she had a purpose. She felt free.

Kaya looked over the defeated animal with great pride as he continued to bleed out of his now disfigured head. No longer was she the slave. No longer would she have to answer to anyone, be pushed around, berated or told she was nothing. She was everything she ever wanted to be, and once again, she smiled.

Kaya suddenly and unexpectedly turned, her menacing eyes locking on another Pantheran that stood only a few feet away. He took a fearful step back as she suddenly charged toward him, quickly and effortlessly grabbing him by the head with both hands and wrenching his neck around until it snapped, causing him to fall dead instantly.

Kaya's mother rushed over to her husband's side as they fearfully watched on. She shortly after buried her head into her husband's shoulder, crying violently at what their formerly peace-loving and mild-mannered daughter was doing. Unfortunately for them, Kaya wasn't done yet.

Her violent rage kept fueling her with strength unseen as she raced back and forth between every Pantheran in the area, most of whom were now fearfully retreating. One after the other, she effortlessly and brutally killed, enjoying every second of it. Blood and sweat began to mat her fur, seeming to quickly transform her previously beautiful coat of black and white into something much more malevolent.

As the body count continued up into double digits, a full team of Pantherans approached her position, looking to put an end to this sudden threat. Kaya's mother screamed out as her daughter began to charge towards the group, pleading for her to stop.

Kaya heard her mother's words and slowly came to a stop. She turned to see both her mother and father on the ground crying with each other, still fervently asking her to stop. She faltered for a moment, looking down at her now outstretched hands and arms, and saw all the blood that drenched her fur. She quickly scanned over the bodies that now littered the streets, then back to her parents.

Then there was black.

She awoke several days later in a Pantheran prison, her hands and arms tied down to a very uncomfortable bed inside of a cell. Even with her confused state of mind, she was quickly reminded just why they would take such precautions. She briefly scanned what she could of her body, noticing the blood was no long apparent on her body, but she could still feel it. It was on her arms and hands, her cloths, dripping into her mouth. She could feel bones breaking, bodies bruising. Flashes of animals dying by her violent hand coursed through her head. Then she remembered her shocked and sobbing parents watching it all.

As she struggled lightly against the wrenching restraints that held her firmly in place, the tears began to fall.

She was held there for several days with minimal interaction of any kind, leaving her to stew in her own thoughts; thoughts of confusion, sadness, and fear. Fear, not of what she had done, but what she might do in the future.

As word spread across Turania about Kaya's assault on the Pantherans, several Tigris slave groups rose up, inspired by her fearless and brutal actions, to fight their captors. As the days passed, the Tigris slowly began to regain traction after having been defeated for more than ten years.

Because of this, the now reeling Pantherans were forced to reach out to a well-known mercenary group that was in the area, Star Wolf, hoping that they would be able to tip this newly rekindled war in their favor. In a matter of days, they succeeded, and soon the Tigris were once again subjugated back into slavery.

As reward for their successful mission against the Tigris, the Pantherans offered the mercenary team the life of one of the greatest warriors they had ever seen. One that they both respected and feared so greatly, that they had kept her safely locked away from their ranks since the incident.

The next day, Kaya walked gingerly behind her new owners, restrained still by a harshly tight collar around her neck. She and her new "team" strode through a crowd of Pantherans, who all jeered and scoffed at her as she stumbled forward, but they were all quickly stopped as they reached the feet of what seemed to be a high-ranking officer of the Pantheran forces.

Moments after this, Kaya's parents were pushed through the crowd to face their daughter. As she looked up towards her father and mother and met them with hopeful eyes, they replied back with looks of confusion and fear. In that moment she was instantly brought back to the moment she had killed all those guards, it was the exact same way they looked at her then. Her head fell to her chest, knowing she could not blame them for doing so.

With no warning, Kaya was tossed to the ground and quickly restrained by the wolf, lizard, and pig that she had been walking behind only seconds before. Holding her in place, as well as forcing her to hold out and reveal the tender underside of her left arm, the high-ranking officer proclaimed that this murderous Tigris abomination would be forever exiled from Turania for her crimes against the Pantherans. Revealing a strange device, the officer placed its solid surface against the skin of Kaya's arm and activated it, unleashing a searing hot blast of heat into her arm, which caused her wail out in pain, a reaction that was met with the booming cheers of the crowd that surrounded her.

She looked down at the mark through teary eyes, watching a fine line of blood drip from around what was a crude looking letter "T." She wasn't allowed much time to dwell on its meaning however, as she was quickly pulled to her feet and ushered towards a moderately-sized ship that sat in the distance.

She looked back to her parents, knowing that this would be the last time she would ever see them, but they merely looked away. Her father held his wife close, both with teary eyes, not willing to look into the eyes of their daughter. She turned away as well, silently understanding their plight, as she willingly walked into the confines of her new home.

Over the next three years, Kaya was a reluctant member of the Star Wolf team. They would always keep close watch on her, not fully understanding what she was capable of, but allowed her a freedom that she had not known for the last ten years of her life on Turania.

They taught her to wield a blaster, fly in their Wolfens, how to survive in battle, and most of all, that the greatest threat to their team was a group of rival mercenaries named, "Star Fox." Star Wolf's leader, Wolf O'Donnell, seemed to especially resent the Star Fox team, retelling stories about how their evil team prevented the great and powerful Andross from achieving his ultimate goals, as well as prevent Wolf from achieving the status that he felt he deserved.

After hearing so much about this Star Fox team, Kaya took it upon herself to research this terrible team of mercenary's, quickly finding that they were actually much more closely aligned to her ideals that Star Wolf. When the usually quiet and obedient tiger brought this to Wolf's attention, he snapped and Kaya quickly lost many of the freedom's she had begun to become accustomed to.

Wolf, as well as the other two members of Star Wolf, made it their goal to coerce this powerful rage that they had heard so much about when they first took her from her home world. The hope being they could use this as a powerful weapon, along with her quickly developing prowess with a blaster. The methods they used to do this were in no way conventional, mostly torturing her physically or mentally to get her angry enough to show her hidden power. No matter what they did, however, they could not get her to break. Years of constant suffering and anguish had hardened her in a way, and she resolutely refused to let the rage overwhelm her, as much as she wanted to at points. And so, week after week, she would be locked in her room, bloodied and beaten, waiting for the morning to break when it would all happen again.

Then one day, news came through about Star Fox's successful mission on Dinosaur Planet. How they had saved an entire planet from the hands of Andross, just like they had eight years earlier on the planet Venom. Then only a short while later, Star Fox felled an attempt at mass mind control, effectively saving more than a handful of planets from that terrible fate. Even taking down the evil tyrant General Scales, who had been working closely with Andross, and was said to have an unbeatable energy at his disposal.

Hearing all this, something snapped in Kaya's mind. She had to escape this life, the only life she had known for the past thirteen years. She wanted to follow in Star Fox's footsteps and take effective action against all the evils in the galaxy, so that animals everywhere would never have to know the pain she had to endure. This was now her life's goal, and she wasn't about to wait to accomplish it.

When Wolf and his team approached her door as they had so many times before, they could not have imagined what was waiting for them.

Even with three of them, they stood no chance being so caught off guard. With fiery, wild eyes, Kaya quickly took each of them down with quick, precise blows. She was not interested in killing them, she was too interested in making her way off of this spaceship, and seeing their bodies struggling to move or breathe as they each writhed on the floor was enough for her.

Commandeering a Wolfen from the main hanger, she boosted free from the ship and set course for a planet that she had only heard about; a planet that was home to the biggest military in the galaxy, and the same planet that the fabled Fox McCloud called home. With a few quick button presses of the ship's console, the tiger began her way towards Corneria, hoping for a fresh start and a chance to revenge all the wrongs that had befallen her.

After a few months of training at the Cornerian Academy, she was assigned to a squad of mercenaries that included two of Fox McCloud's former teammates, Falco Lombardi and Slippy Toad, along with another new member, Ayame Mirraz, and they successfully set out to end what the original Star Fox team had started in liberating the few remaining mind controlled planets. It was fulfilling, but she often found herself holding back, unwilling to open up either personally with other crewmembers or in combat, for fear that they would see a side of her that even caused her own parents to turn away in terror.

And now, after all this, she found herself travelling with the legendary Fox McCloud, taking on a mission of seemingly great importance. She didn't know Fox personally, but after all she had heard about him, Kaya knew that everything he did was for the right reasons, and whether she spoke about it or not, she would follow Fox to the ends of the earth if it meant that even one more animal would be spared from the pain and suffering that she was all too familiar with.

As Kaya quietly escaped from her thoughts, she found herself blankly looking over her arms. Quickly refocusing, she could see the brand that had been imparted to her arm before her exile. Every time she looked at that simple letter "T" since it was given to her all those years ago, she was filled with a different emotion, but having had time to herself to look over everything she'd come through to be where she was now, she slowly started to fill with pride. It was a feeling that she had almost never felt in her life, but it was a welcome one.

Wiping the remaining tears from her eyes, she stood from her bed and made her way towards the shower that sat in the adjacent room, eager to remove the stains that took her back to a time she readily wished she could forget.

It will be ok…Kaya…

She smiled for the first time in years.

Author's Notes: What's up?

(Collective Energy)

One Spirit Link down, three to go. Star Fox starts their way to the next planet, Krux, and Katt's starting to get a little curious about this Energy Fox seems to believe in.