"The Experiment"

Chapter 8

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the announcer began. "This is a grade B tournament. In this corner, the Curtis Ranch's latest and most unique creation, Sandy, the Pixie/Henger!"

Sandy blew a kiss to the audience, to a thundering response. She had done well in this tournament, and the crowd loved her. Many of them had shown up to see her, drawn by the stories of her D grade victory, and her unique Rocket Fist attack. And of course, now that she had matured, she was quite attractive. The males in the audience seemed to appreciate how little of her was covered by her Henger shell.

"I must admit, I'm surprised," Swiftwind said. "I thought Curtis was making a mistake entering her in a B class tournament this soon. But she breezed through it."

"The transformation was hard on her, but it made her stronger. She's much tougher, much more resilient than she was before."

He looked at me. "Do you think she has a chance?"

I shook my head. "I told her to stay away from him. Second place isn't bad, and it's better than the alternative." I looked at Swiftwind. "I told her about what he did to Lenny."

Out in the Arena, the announcer was introducing her opponent. "Ladies and Gentlemen, he's your favorite and mine... Venom!!!"

The Naga let out a bugle, answering a roar of applause from the crowd. He scraped his claws together, making a ringing, metallic sound. Swiftwind's lips curled upward in a snarl as he watched the snake creature revel in the attention. I was watching Sandy, though. She looked nervous, but not overly so.

"I hope she listens to you. That Naga's a killer."

"I hope so too, Swiftwind. But she and I watched some of his earlier fights. She knows what he's capable of."

As the gong sounded, Sandy took to the air, her wings fluttering as she kept her distance from the Naga. She fired a few Rays at him, but the Naga was able to dodge them, easily. He chuckled, making a hissing noise.

Venom darted in, trying to slash at her, but Sandy jumped backwards. She continued to run back, until she neared the wall, and then flew forwards, using her wings to bank around the Naga until she could land behind him. According to tournament rules, she couldn't keep her feet off the ground for more than a few seconds, but she could use her wings to fly for short distances.

She turned around as she passed Venom, raising her arm skyward. A charge of electricity built in her hand, but instead of firing it, she let it continue to build. She rose into the air, with both hands high above her head, as the electricity enveloped her whole body. Then she directed the massive blast at the Naga.

The Lightning struck Venom, the shock making his body jerk around. Sandy gathered another charge and blasted him with it, but this time the Naga managed to dodge. As Deathedge had done, he dashed forward through the flash, catching Sandy off guard. His long claws caught her across the belly, and there was a shriek of metal on metal.

Sandy skipped backwards, her arm across her belly. She took a moment to look at herself. The Naga's claws had cut into the black material, and dark, oily blood was dripping from the wound. But the skeletal framework of metal had protected her from most of the damage.

The Naga kept coming at her, and Sandy found herself backed up against the wall. She brought her arm up, steadying her aim with her other hand, as she pointed her fist at the Naga. The crowd cheered, in anticipation of her signature move. But as she fired the Rocket Fist, Venom simply leaped into the air, and the missile shot underneath him. Sandy screamed in fear as the Naga came down, tail first, on top of her.

Somehow, the slender Pixie managed to dodge the Tail Attack. She fell, rolling on the grassy floor of the Arena, as Venom came down where she had been standing. Dirt sprayed upwards as the Naga's tail spike drilled into the earth. Sandy leaped back to her feet, holding the stump of her arm out behind her, as her fist rocketed back to her.

But before her hand could reattach, Venom shoved past her, and grabbed it. Sandy stared at him, her eyes wide. He laughed, then crushed the detached limb in his fingers. Sandy gasped, putting her other hand to her stump, as she stared at it in shock. Then the Naga slithered forward, and stuck the hand back in place on her arm.

Sandy screamed in agony, falling to her knees, clutching her broken hand. The Naga drew back his hand to slash at her, but somehow she managed to skip to her feet, leaping backwards. She raised her hand, the crushed one, and gathered a handful of electricity in it. Venom just reached out and grabbed her ankle, and Sandy's body snapped tight. She grunted in pain, as she hit the ground, landing hard on her wings.

As Venom charged at her, Sandy blasted him with the Lightning. She had managed to hold her concentration, even through all of that. The Naga gave out a keening sound, as it shielded its eyes from the light. Sandy took advantage of the opportunity to get back to her feet, and back away.

But as she ran backwards, her wings pumping, to help her keep her balance, I could see the strain in her face, the tears in her eyes. She suddenly cried out in pain, and there was a popping, sizzling noise. Sandy stumbled, and fell, crying out as she grabbed at her leg. Smoke began to come out of it, and she screamed, beating at the limb with her hands.

The Naga studied her, unsure of what was happening. The smoke stopped billowing from Sandy's leg, but she groaned, holding her knee with both hands. That oily blood, almost black, was oozing from around her fingers, and running down her calf.

"What... what just happened?"

"It's her Henger half. It... blew out, or something. It must have taken too much damage..."

The Naga seemed to guess that as well, because it slithered forward, laughing. Sandy tried to crawl backwards, but without her leg she was helpless. The Naga reached out a clawed hand and picked her up, his fingers tightening around her slender waist. Sandy gasped, trying to breathe.

As Sandy squirmed in his grasp, Venom raked his claws across the exposed part of Sandy's chest. She screamed in pain. As with human women, that was an extraordinarily sensitive part of Sandy's body, and the Naga knew it. This Naga wasn't just torturing Sandy, it was intentionally doing what it knew would cause her the most pain.

Sandy gritted her teeth, gathering another Lightning blast in her palm. The Naga just made that hissing chuckle. It slowly, almost casually, shoved its claws into Sandy's belly. The lightning sputtered and went out, as Sandy threw her head back, crying out.

The muscles in the Naga's arm started moving, and Sandy began to twitch, her body convulsing. "He's draining her!" I started to yell. But before I could even finish, the Naga's face twisted into a grimace of disgust. He flung Sandy across the Arena, and she landed in a heap, rolling in the grass.

The Naga began to spit, sticking his tongue out. "She must not taste very good," I commented, just a little bit amused. But Sandy looked in bad shape. "How much more time does she have?" I asked Swiftwind.

"Too much," he said.

The Naga was closing in on her again. Sandy stirred, trying to get back to her feet, but she could only make it up to one knee. She knelt there, her head down, one arm across her stomach, the other shaking from the effort of holding her body upright.

"Aren't they going to stop this?" I wondered, but I already knew the answer. Once in the Arena, a monster was on its own.

I slammed against the gate, snapping the lock open. "Stop!" Swiftwind yelled. "You can't interfere!" But I ignored him. I charged across the Arena, heading for the Naga.

But Venom was already standing over Sandy, his arm up to deliver the death blow. I was too far away to stop him, or even to distract him, but I was close enough to see Sandy. I was probably the only one who was close enough to see exactly what happened.

As I charged across the Arena towards Sandy, and as the Naga brought down his razor sharp claws, Sandy turned and looked up at him. The look on her face was one of sheer, uncontrolled fury. Her teeth were clenched, her lips curled into a snarl. And her eyes were locked on him, flashing hatred and anger -- and something more.

Because Sandy's eyes did not just flash, they lit up. They glowed, with an eerie, frightening green light, like a flame burning inside her. Her arm came up, her fist clenched, and there was a throbbing, humming noise. The light flared up again, this time on the back of her wrist. And then she thrust her arm forwards, up into the Naga's stomach.

The Naga froze. A beam of green light, humming with power, emerged from the center of his back. Venom made a gurgling noise, deep down in his throat, and his eyes rolled back in his head. A trickle of blood ran out of his mouth. Time seemed to stop, the two figures just frozen there, neither of them moving.

A hush fell over the Arena, the cheers and catcalls of the watching audience falling suddenly and shockingly silent. Even so, I am quite sure I was the only who heard Sandy's words. Even I, with my Tiger's hearing, only barely heard her. She almost whispered, each word drawn out, her voice low and menacing.

"You... will... never... torture... anyone... ever... again.... Monster..."

The humming sound stopped. The Laser Sword flicked out, and the Naga rolled off to the side, dead. Then Sandy fainted.

* * * * *

Sandy remained unconscious for the better part of three days, but Curtis was overjoyed by her performance. He accepted the B grade trophy for her gladly, taking every opportunity to brag about her abilities. There were a couple of complaints, mainly from the breeder who had raised the Naga, but it wasn't like his monster hadn't sent many of his opponent's to an early grave.

My entry into the Arena, on the other hand, was a more serious matter. It was finally determined that I had not been close enough to the combat to have had an effect on it. The fact that Venom did not seem to have been aware of my presence, and that I had in fact not been on the Arena floor more than a few seconds before the death blow came, went a long way towards clearing me.

Once we got back to the Ranch, though, Curtis seemed to become obsessed with getting Sandy to repeat the Laser Sword attack. Frank looked her over, but when he talked to Curtis about it, he didn't have good news.

"She shouldn't have even been able to summon the Laser Sword in the first place," he said. "Her emitters are still immature. Even on a Henger, it can be two or even three years before their Laser emitters start to work."

Frank held up Sandy's arm, so Curtis could look at it more closely. "There's no way this can emit a Laser Beam. Now, maybe she used her psychic abilities to augment the emitter, make it work somehow. But if that's the case, then it was her state of mind at the time that caused it to happen. And at that moment she was under extreme emotional stress."

That's putting it mildly, I thought to myself.

"Can you... recreate the way you were feeling, when you used the sword?" Curtis asked Sandy.

She shook her head. "I don't remember anything, from the point where he tried to drain me to when I woke up here." Sandy looked down at herself. She still had some nasty scratches across her chest, although they were healing nicely.

"With time... her emitters should continue to develop. Now that we know they're functional, we can begin to try and train her to use them. For now, though, I would treat what happened as a fluke. It's probably going to be at least a year before she'll be able to use that attack again."

Curtis paused a moment, then he looked at me. "I wanted to thank you, Gray Wolf. I had some tough explaining to do, and a pretty hefty fine to pay for you charging in there like that, but if Sandy hadn't acted when she did, you'd have probably been the only chance to save my investment. So it may have been an embarassment to me, but it was the right thing to do."

I showed no reaction, even when he called Sandy an "investment". "Thank you, sir," I said.

"What about the Naga owner?" Frank asked. "Is he going to ask for any kind of restitution?"

"I'm probably going to pay him four or five thousand just to keep him quiet. But he doesn't really have much say." He looked down at me. "While you were on the floor charging to the rescue, I was up in the judge's box trying to stop the fight. If they'd called the penalty when the Naga picked up Sandy like that, he'd still be alive today. They know it, and his owner knows it."

"Well, the damage to her leg turned out not to be that serious," Frank told him. "She just needs a little bit more time, to let her body heal, that's all."

"You can get down now, Sandy." She hopped down off of the table. Her long legs were just barely shorter than the height of the table, now, so she did not have that far to drop. She was only a little shorter than Frank. She tested her leg, gingerly putting weight on it, and winced. But she was able to stand.

"Well, keep me up to date on it." Curtis walked out of the lab.

Sandy limped a few steps. "I can walk on my own, Frank," she said. "Come on, Steppenwolf."

We walked out into the sunlight, and towards the stables. Sandy looked at her hand, flexing and extending the fingers. "How's it doing?" I asked her.

"It's tougher than it looks," she said. "I still don't know how I was able to feel it, when it wasn't attached to my body. But even though it felt like it was broken, it really wasn't. Or maybe it fixed itself or something."

"What about the voices? Are you still hearing those?"

She shook her head. "It's been integrating itself into my system. I think of it less and less as another voice, and more and more as my own." She looked at her hand. "I guess I think of this thing the same way..."

But there was a note of sadness in her voice. "That's good," I said.

We walked along in silence for a while. Her gait was precise, measured, even a little graceful. It hadn't taken her long to learn to walk again, to fly, to run, in the aftermath of the sudden and violent changes to her body.

"Steppenwolf..." She finally began. "Do you... do you think I'm attractive?"

"What?" I shook my head, to clear it. "Of course I do."

"No, I mean... you know what I mean. Do you think I'm... pretty?"

I looked up at her. "In human terms... yeah. You're... you're gorgeous. You could hear the way that crowd reacted to you." A lot of that was due to the fact that she wasn't wearing a bathing suit any more. Her Henger half afforded her enough modesty, and of course there was nothing human left of her hips and stomach. But she still had plenty of bare flesh, and didn't seem shy about showing it.

In fact, as I looked at her, I realized that she was not quite built like other Pixies. Her skin was pale, almost like a Mint's, and her build was very slender and delicate. In fact, for all the strength of her Henger half, it still looked like it wouldn't take much to snap her in two. I had noticed that, when she was fighting the Naga. She seemed so... helpless.

"What's the problem?" I asked her. "Are the Pixies picking on you again?"

She shook her head. "No, actually, they've been leaving me alone lately. It's Gene. He..."

"He didn't..."

"No!" She shook her head again, looking down at me. "He just... um... he said I was pretty, that's all."

"He made a pass at you."

"A what?" She looked off into the distance. "Is that what he did?"

I was about to ask her more about it, but some harsh voices interrupted me. As we rounded the corner of one of the stables, we came into the view of a group of Zuums. Crimson was sitting amongst them.

"Hey, look, it's the puppy!" Crimson said. His Zuums laughed. "I hear you ran out into the Arena when another monster was fighting, puppy!"

"Who knows, Crimson, I might do the same for you if you're about to be killed by a Naga. Then again, I might not."

A couple of the Zuums laughed, again, but quickly squelched the reaction when Crimson scowled. He stood up and walked closer to me. "You don't interfere in another monster's fight, puppy..."

"Leave him alone!" Sandy protested. "He saved my life!"

"And you!" The Salamander turned on her. "You're a murderer! A monster killer!"

Sandy blanched. "No! He was going to kill me! I... I had to defend myself!"

A few more of the Zuums called out "murderer", and Sandy blinked back tears. "That's enough," I said to Crimson. "You and your cronies don't mind jumping a monster in the middle of the night and beating him half to death, but Sandy tries to protect herself from a monster killer, and all of a sudden that makes her one? Somehow I don't see any of you holding back. You're probably as bad as Venom."

"That tells you how much you know about me, puppy." Crimson shoved his beaked, dragon-like face right up to mine, staring me in the eye. "You don't kill a monster in the ring. That's the Code of Honor."

"Honor among thieves, huh?" I looked up at Sandy. She was sobbing, her hands over her face. "Come on, Sandy, let's get out of here."

"Watch your back, puppy!" Crimson called out, as we walked away. But as I spared a glance behind at him, I found myself wondering. What kind of a monster would he have been, if he had been raised on my Master's ranch, instead of this place?