Prologue:

(Airplane over Lian Yu)

Nikita struggled to open her eyes, a soft groan escaping. She didn't know where she was or how she had gotten there. She tried to concentrate on her surroundings but she was too drugged to focus. Every nerve in her body was on fire. She was beside something loud and roaring and it hurt her sensitive hearing, causing her to flatten her ears against her head. Something felt...off...wrong. There was an uncomfortable force pressing down on her and she was finding that the air she was breathing sat heavy in her lungs. She tried to shift into a better position but her foot hit the wall. There was an intense second where static electricity caused her hair to frizz. She knew this meant something but her foggy brain just wouldn't work right. A second later the static was followed by a POP and then pain blazed through her body, causing her muscles to contract in on themselves. When the electrical surge passed, she lay there panting. She couldn't move her muscles now even if she chose as the after current of the electricity pulsed through her.

"Is it awake?" someone asked as light suddenly flooded into her confines. Her eyes tried to focus beyond the light but sleep was starting to pull her under again.

"No." The darkness returned. "It must have just twitched."

"So why are we bringing it to the destination? Why don't they just destroy it?

"Do you know how much money they put into their experiment. This was the only one to survive."

"So what are they going to do?"

"Training."

# # # # # # #

The night was fading away to dawn by the time that Nikita once more opened her eyes. She was laying on a rocky out cropping of land. Somewhere close by there was a sound of waves lapping on stone. The air was like nothing that Nikita had ever experienced before. It was fresh and clean, not polluted. Not chemical laced. She forced cramped limbs to move, biting back pain, as she sat up. She took a minute to catch her breath as she looked around. Water lay in front of her...as far as she could see. The sand and rock she was laying on gave way a few feet behind her to clumps of grass and forest beyond. Her nose twitched lightly as she turned her head to survey the forest. She couldn't identify most of what she smelled.

Musk and mud.

Decay and death.

Metal and...**Humans**

Nikita forced weakened muscles to work as she climbed to her feet. She stood, swaying unsteadily for a second, as she fought the effects of the sedatives they had pumped into her. She took stock of her wounds. Sore and weak but nothing major. She knew by the soft continuous beeping behind her head that she was collared. The humans could track her any time they wanted. She had to find a way to get the collar off. The acidic scent of the collar burned her nose. Her thick mane might protect her neck from it's burn but she knows from experience that any bare part of her that touches it will be severally damaged.

**One problem at a time**

She turned away from the water and started to silently pad towards the forest. Instinct told her to run and put as much distance as she could between herself and the water. Experience made her patient. She crept forward slowly, her belly scrubbing the dirt as she moved. The rocks grew in size as she went closer to the forest. These she used to hide behind. Her keen ears swiveled towards every little noise and her sensitive sense of smell revealed every worm that crawled under the dirt at her feet and every bird that silently watched her from above.

The fear of pain and experiments demanded that she just break from her hiding place and into the forest. It was so close. Once she crossed the tree line she could...what? escape? Not while she was collared. She needed to find a place that was safe. Where she could hide and heal. Let the last of the drugs bleed out of her system. She had no idea where she was or what they planned for her but she had no intention of ever returning.