"The Experiment"
Chapter 4
"Which stall is he in?"
"Shh. You wanna let the patrol know we're out here?"
"Heh. I think Gene's supposed to be on patrol tonight. I'd say he's probably doing something else right now..."
The voices awakened me from my sleep, and I lifted my head, my ears perking up to pick up more of the sound. It was a group of Dinos, I could hear their claws scuffling on the ground outside of the stable. The sound moved over closer to the door, and then there was a quiet scratching as one of them lifted the bolt.
It had to be Dinos, of course. Or those skinny, massive-legged bird-headed things that passed as Dinos on this continent. No other monster would be stupid enough to believe it could sneak up on a Tiger, while yammering its fool head off.
I watched as the door inched open, a pale sliver of white moonlight falling into the stable. The shadowy forms of the... Zuums, they were called... slipped through the door, cutting off the light, and then they closed the door again. I laid back down in the darkness, waiting for them. Might as well play along for the moment.
The scuffling reached my stall, and one of them peeked over. I could barely see him, in the small amount of light that filtered in through the small window above my stall. "He's asleep," he whispered to his cohorts. "Open up the stall... quiet, now!"
I forced back a chuckle as the latch rattled loudly, and the door creaked open. Did these morons actually believe no one could hear that? They filed in through the door to stand around me. "Look at the little puppy..." one of them commented. "He's been a bad, bad puppy."
I heard the scratch of his claws on the wood as he drew back to kick me, and leaped upward. I turned a backflip in the air, over the heads of the two Zuums behind me, and landed on my feet. The one that had tried to kick me cried out in confusion as he realized that his target had moved.
With only a little concentration, I let a charge build up in my horns. The blue light of the electricity lit up the stall, letting me see my attackers. There were six of them, three regular Zuums, two that were Pixie subs, and a red, scaley one. The red one was the one that had tried to kick me, and I figured that it was a Dragon cross. Under different circumstances, I probably would have marveled at all the new types of monsters I was getting to see over here.
"Well, well, well. Let me guess. Inferno sent you to teach me a lesson, right?"
"You're smarter than you look, puppy." The Dino... Zuum said. "But not smart enough. You don't humiliate Inferno and get away with it."
"No? But it was so easy..." As one of the Zuums kicked at me, I leaped out of the way, bouncing off of the side of the stall to land on the other side of them. "And you guys are pretty stupid, too. You might have had a chance when I was asleep. But now I'm awake, and from the looks of you, you aren't even close to Inferno's level." I chuckled. "As low as that was..."
"Why you smart-mouthed little..." One of the pink Zuums was getting mad, but his leader silenced him.
"Inferno told us all about your little tricks," the red Zuum said. "He told us how you ran like a coward and hid behind him, where he couldn't reach. Well, there's six of us, now, and you can't run from all of us."
"Who needs to run," I growled. "I'll take all six of you on. Come and get me! Unless YOU'RE the cowards..."
As expected, that enraged the whole lot of them. They rushed at me, the Zuum/Dragon in the lead. I let my Lightning go out, and the stable was once again plunged into darkness. As the Zuums stumbled over one another in their blind rush to hit me, I leaped onto the railing of the stall, and raced along it until I was once again behind them. Then I opened my mouth and exhaled a Blizzard at them.
Unlike Lightning, the blast of cold air did not light up the stall. And so the Zuums were still blind, unable to find me up on the railing. There were screaming and yelling at each other so much, though, that I knew where each of them was. I homed in on the red Zuum's voice and jumped down on him, pummeling him with my feet, before dancing off to one side.
Outside the stall, I heard another voice. "The little silver one is in trouble." It was a deep, thick voice, slow and dumb-sounding. It was the big tan canine creature, whatever it was.
His Dento friend answered him. "Stay out of it, Lenny. You'll only make it worse on him."
Not likely. It was nice to know the big creature had compassion, though, even in a place like this. The Zuums' eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, though, and as I leaped back up onto the railing of the stall, to escape a kick, another of the dinosaurs fired a fireball at me.
"No, you idiot!" The red Zuum said. "You'll start a fire!"
It was too late, though. As I jumped down off of the wooden rail, it was engulfed in flame. The fire quickly spread to the wall of the stable, and started to rise up it.
The Zuums were no longer in darkness, and took advantage of the situation. One of them Scuffed at the floor, sending wood chips and dirt flying into my face. I shied back, my eyes stinging. The Zuums jumped on me, kicking me with their claws, and even my toughened skin wasn't hard enough to repel their scratches.
I fought through the pain, calling on the power, channelling it out my horns. The stable lit up again as the Lightning ripped through the Zuums, throwing them off me. I leaped up, bounced off the stable wall, and sailed out of the stall, running as I hit the floor outside.
The Zuums burst out of the stall, but the big tan creature was waiting for them. "You burn down stable! You bad!" It let out a groan, and the wind of its breath sent the Zuums tumbling back towards the far end of the stable. The rush of air also whipped up the flames. Lenny started to trudge forward, after the Zuums again, but the Dento stopped him.
"You're only making the fire worse! Stop it!"
"Fire worse?" Lenny repeated stupidly. He looked back at the flames, that had now engulfed my stall completely.
"We've got to put that fire out!" I yelled to the Dento. "Can you use Blizzard?"
He shook his head. "Just Ice Bomb."
"It will have to do. I don't know if I can do this alone."
"Wait." He turned to his friend. "Lenny, I want you to sing at the fire."
Lenny shook his head. "You say I make it worse."
"And you would, Lenny, but not if you sing RIGHT AT IT. And Gray Wolf here will help you."
I exhaled another Blizzard, and Lenny joined me with his groaning attack. The two blasts mingled, forming a cyclone of supercooled air, which put out the flames in moments. I breathed a sigh of relief, as did, I noticed, the Zuums.
Lenny jumped up and down excitely, his ears flapping. "We make fire go out!"
"That we did," I said with a smile. I looked at his friend. "Sing? Odd name for an attack."
"Lenny's not very bright. He thinks it's singing... I'm Swiftwind."
"Good name for a Tiger," I commented. "I'm Steppenwolf."
I looked up as there was movement from the door. A group of handlers came in, and the stable was lit by moonlight, flooding in through the open doors. "What's going on here?" One of the men demanded.
"Stay out of this, Gray Wolf," Swiftwind hissed as he stepped forward.
"Some Zuums tried to attack Steppenwolf while he was sleeping, Gene," he told the handler. He was a tall man, somewhat handsome, in human terms. He looked a little disheveled, and none to happy to be there. "They started a fire, but we were able to put it out."
The Zuums crept from the back of the stable into the light, looking somewhat sheepish. The red one took a position in front of them. He stood with his neck a little straighter than his fellows, his head high. He was obviously ashamed that he got caught, but willing to accept the consequences.
"I apologize, sir," the red Zuum said. "We were only going to rough the newcomer up a little, you know. But things got out of hand."
"Hazing, eh?" Gene frowned as he stared at the Zuum. "Did Brom put you up to this for what he did to Inferno?"
I started to speak, but again Swiftwind interrupted me. "I said, stay out of it." He whispered, in a voice only a Tiger could hear.
"No, sir," the red Zuum said. "This was entirely my idea, and I accept all responsibility for our actions."
"Are you sure?" Gene sounded as if he were trying to catch Brom in something.
"It's been almost a month since that incident, sir. We'd all put it out of our minds..."
"You know what the penalty is for damaging ranch property, don't you?"
The Zuum swallowed. "Yes, sir."
"Very well. Take these Zuums back to their stables," he said to the other men. "Make sure they are locked down. They are to stay locked in their stalls for at least a week. I'll take Crimson to solitary."
Solitary? I didn't like the sound of that. But again, Swiftwind brushed me with his shoulder. I studied his face as he looked at me, and then said nothing.
Frank appeared at the doorway, and then ran inside. "What's going on?"
"Nothing serious," Gene told him. "A little hazing prank that got out of hand. Your Gray Wolf's all right."
Frank knelt down next to me, looking me over. "You okay?" he asked me.
"Actually, they bore the brunt of it. I'm pretty sure I hit that Dragon Zuum pretty hard. You might want to look in on him."
"I'll check on him," Frank said. He gave me an odd glance, but then shook his head. "You've been scratched a bit, but it's nothing that won't heal. You might come by the infirmary tomorrow so I can put some salve on those cuts. Unless you like scars." He grinned at me.
I shook my head, grinning back. "Okay, then." Frank looked back at my stall. "He can't sleep there tonight," he said to Gene.
"We can move him to another stall, but one won't be ready until morning."
"Would it be all right if I slept outside?" I asked.
Gene looked at me. "It's unusual..."
"I understand that. But I'm used to it. My first trainer really didn't have a lot of money, so I slept outside a lot."
"He IS a Tiger," Frank added. "So you know he's not going anywhere."
"I'll come back to the stable for breakfast in the morning."
"All right then... You've got your night outside."
I lay in the darkness, under the trees. I was tired, but it had taken me a while to calm down enough to fall back asleep. Even so, it felt like only a few minutes before I was awakened again. A shadow drifted across the moonlight, and I looked up, to see a figure winging its way across the lake. A Pixie, Sandy, it had to be. She coasted over to her rock, and fluttered down onto it. She sat there, staring at her feet.
What was she doing out? I knew good and well we weren't supposed to be out at night, so she had to have snuck out. I hadn't seen her in a while, I'd been so busy. We hadn't really had a chance to talk since the last time we met at this lake.
As she sat, silhoutted against the moonlight, I noticed that she was a little taller than before. Her body was longer, leaner, and there was just a bit of a curve to her chest. And there was something else, something wrong with the way she looked. I couldn't put my finger on it, but in the back of my mind there was a sense of foreboding, a feeling that things were not quite right.
I suddenly found myself worried. Frank had said that she was being watched, all the time, for any sign of the self-hatred that had destroyed her predecessors. She was definately entering puberty. So where were these handlers?
"Hey, Sandy... you okay?"
Sandy leaped from the rock, startled by my voice. Her eyes were as wide as they could be, but as she recognized me, she relaxed. She settled back down onto the rock. "Hi, Steppenwolf," she said. "I didn't see you there."
"I guess I blend into the shadows," I said.
"What are you doing here?"
I didn't want to worry her, so I decided not to mention the fight. "Frank gave me a night to myself, for good behavior. What are YOU doing here?"
"Gene," she said. "I thought he'd left for the night, but he hadn't."
That was the handler that had shown up to stop the fight, the one that had seemed so angry about being interrupted. "What was Gene doing at your stable?" I asked, but the answer occured to me even as I said it.
"He and Molly sometimes spend the night together," Sandy said. Her voice was so emotionless, so matter of fact, that I shuddered.
"Molly's... one of the Pixies."
She nodded.
There was a long, long, silence. "He hasn't... asked you to..."
She shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think he likes me very much."
"Thank God," I said. She was silent again. But there had been a tone, a sadness in her voice that I didn't like.
"Sandy, you understand that you don't HAVE to do that, don't you? And that you don't HAVE to want him to like you..."
She nodded. "I don't really like him. I don't really like any of them."
I got up and walked over to her. "Sandy... you know, humans aren't like us. There are... male humans, and female humans. We're different. We're... well, what we are."
"You can't waste your time wishing you were something you're not. And you certainly can't waste your time being something a human wishes you were. In the end... in the end, your friend Molly is just going to end up losing him."
Sandy frowned. "But... She said that... she said that he loves her..." She finally said.
I shrugged. "Maybe he does. And maybe... well, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's just using her. I mean, even if he's not, and he still cares about her, loves her when she grows old, eventually..."
"They'll never be able to raise a family together. They'll never even be able to TELL anyone how they feel. They'll have to hide it... for the rest of her life..."
"But she loves him, too!" She put her hands over her ears. "And she really does! Why... why would she feel that way... if..."
Her voice became quiet. "And why does it... make me feel... so alone..."
"Would you rather life the rest of your life in loneliness?" I asked her. "Never able to touch anyone, or be touched? You have to take the bad with the good."
She looked up at me, her eyes starting to glisten. "When I was young", I said, "Ralph once told me something. 'Humans and monsters have only one thing in common. Neither of us know why we're here. All we can try and do is live the best lives we can, while we still have time left. Every moment is precious.'"
Sandy was quiet for a long time. Then she turned and wrapped her arms around my neck, tangling her hands in my fur. "Steppenwolf... you... you love me, don't you?"
"Of course I do!" I told her.
She sniffled, "But not in that way, huh?"
I stepped back, nudged her under the chin so she had to look up at me. "There is no 'that way'. Either you accept someone the way they are, and try to make them happy, or you don't."
She looked at me, confused. I sat down, then lay down, crossing my paws. I put my head down over them. "Lay down next to me," I said.
She did so, curling up by my side, laying her head against my shoulder. "I am going to take care of you, and protect you, and make sure nothing ever happens to you," I told her. "I promise you that. You're going to live a good, long time, and I'm going to make sure you become the best Pixie/Henger you can be."
"No matter what you may decide that's supposed to be..."
I shifted to one side a little, to better shelter her against the coolness of the air, and then we fell asleep.
