Strange World
C5: Forced Remember
[Disclaimer: KP and all that good stuff is owned by Disney. I own whatever I write/create. Don't steal and don't sue.]
Ron struggled to keep his grip on Lobo. He squealed as the wolf ran faster to keep up to Tao.
"Where are we going?" Ron shouted over the wind.
"Tomas' scent is really strong." Tao replied, "I could find him anywhere now."
"So where are we going?" Ron shouted again.
"To where Tomas took everyone else!"
"Oh! OK!"
Tao ran even faster, making Ron bow his head against the wind as Lobo ran faster to keep up. She felt the snowfall increase and sting against her cheeks. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to ignore a twitching in the back of her neck.
Being spliced with animals had its benefits. Extreme fitness, strength, speed, and anything else the animal's genes gave was good to have. Energy drain was fast though. That was why she ate such foods: the fast energy and cheap prices. The other problem was that her body and mind worked in the ways of animals more than humans. Love was fickle in humans, and even more fickle in animals.
And somehow, Tomas was appealing to her.
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Tomas stared as Kim Possible was hurled into a hold tank with Shego. Ion Psymon sat in a tank next to them, her hands on her head. She wasn't moving. Shego hurried to Kim and gathered the unconscious girl to her. The black-haired woman hadn't been able to see anything except the blinding white cylindrical walls of the tank. A small hatch had opened, and Kim thrown inside.
Shego nearly started to cry. Kim looked injured. She wasn't moving. She wasn't awake. Kim was the only thing Shego had to hold on to.
Tomas stood on a catwalk, staring into the one-way mirror of the tanks. He stared at Kim and Shego. Love was odd, he thought, between humans. There had to be some sort of dependence. He didn't feel that way about anything. Loyalty and devotion was his. He was loyal to his father. He turned to look at Ion Psymon. His father had told him that it was Ion's experiments and theorems that had helped create him. However, he didn't feel any kind of affection towards Ion.
His pointed ear twitched. Ion was standing now, screaming at the top of her lungs. No one could hear what she was saying: the tanks were soundproof. Her eyes were filled with malice. She was just screaming at the men that had captured her and that were trying to hurt her Tao.
Tomas read her lips carefully. She was angry, as well as scared, and near crying. She ran to the wall and rammed it with her shoulder, pounding at it with her fists. Ion pounded the wall until she had no more energy to spare. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing.
Tomas had no affection for Ion, but he felt sorry that this had to be done. Tao had to be gotten rid of, or she had to help in his father's experiments. Tomas turned away from Ion, leaning against the catwalk. Tao…somehow appealing. Animal interest, but that gave way to something else. Interest lead to stirrings of the heart. And Tomas didn't like that.
He breathed deeply. He froze. A scent hung in the air. Tao.
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Tao gripped the bars tightly and put one foot on the wall. She pulled at the bars, her arms tensing. A moment's pause, and the bars came off in Tao's hands. A small window was revealed. It was just big enough for Ron to get through.
"Come on." Tao hooked her hands together to give Ron a stair. The blonde boy stepped up and squeezed through the window. He turned around and extended a hand to Tao. She shook her head.
"No." Tao murmured, "You find Kim, Shego, and my mother. I'm the distraction. They're after me. They did this for bait. Get. Everyone. OUT."
Ron nodded, but nervously. He crawled away and vanished from sight. Tao looked at Lobo once and the wolf hurried off to hide. Tao ran around the building and found a padlocked door. She grabbed the lock and tore the lock and chain off. The door creaked open. Tao's tail tensed. It felt bad. Like a trap. Fluorescent lights shone on the stone floor. Tao reached out with a foot and tapped the floor with a claw.
Nothing happened. She lay her foot down. Nothing. Tao walked into the hallway and closed the door behind her. It was silent in the hall except for the slight tapping of her claws. Tao started to run, being completely silent. She hated the silence, but it was better.
A scream came from the dark shadows. Tao glanced up and was instantly tackled by Tomas. The two tumbled on the floor, slashing at each other with their claws. Tao managed to roll on top of Tomas and grabbed for his throat. Tomas kicked Tao in the stomach, launching her into the air. She twisted and landed on her feet, snarling angrily.
"You shouldn't try to fight me, Tao." Tomas seemed to grin, "I know everything there is to know about you."
"You know nothing!" Tao growled, "Where are you keeping my mother?"
"Nowhere in particular." Tomas started to hop backwards, a grin spreading on his face. Tao, enraged, leapt at Tomas. He threw a vial at her, and then flipped back a few more feet. She smashed the vial with one swipe of her hand.
"Was that supposed to do something?" Tao clenched her hands tight, her eyes angry. But the hand that had smashed the vial was wet. She looked at it.
Her hand was covered in red. Her black eyes widened. The scent of blood, not her own, wafted in the air. Her eyes widened even more. She held her hand away from her, as though she didn't want to have her hand anymore.
"Hate the sight of blood, don't you?" Tomas ran circles around Tao, hissing in her ears, "You hate seeing it on your hands. That's because it reminds you of thirteen years ago, doesn't it?" He pulled another vial from his pocket and poured more blood onto Tao's other hand. Tao held both hands away from her now, her lip twitching.
"When you killed someone." Tomas said in a softer voice, stopping his run and standing behind Tao. He reached around her and took her by the forearm, lifting her hands up towards her face. Tao tried to move back and away, but ended up leaning into Tomas. He forced her arms up easily; Tao was paralyzed with terror. He made her touch her face with her blood-covered hands. Tao started to shake terribly.
"That's why you haven't used your electric eel gene for thirteen years." Tomas would have been gentle, if his voice hadn't been hard as steel, "You didn't want to see anymore blood on your hands." He let her hands go away from her face. On an impulse, it seemed, he kissed her cheek. Tao went limp. Tomas grinned. That's what he wanted.
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Shego and Kim were dragged outside their tank. Once their eyes were used to the dim light, they saw that Tao's mother, Ion, was being shoved alongside them. The men that were poking guns in their backs were the same men that had attacked Tao many days before. Kim and Shego were helpless in their shackles; whoever was behind this knew that Kim and Shego would escape from chains just on their wrists. They locked chains around their arms and shackled their ankles.
"Welcome, my dear friends, to the beginning of my greatest experiment." Ion stopped walking for a minute. Her eyes widened. The man behind her shoved her forwards. The three women were led into a huge room.
A catwalk surrounded the perimeter of the room. The women stood there, not knowing what to think. The catwalk hung above the floor of the room, which was filled with water to almost right beneath their feet. Something hung from the high ceiling, covered by a large sheet. A platform extended over the water to float by the thing hanging from the ceiling. A man and Tomas stood there.
"Ion!" the man called, "How are you, my old friend? I haven't seen you in seventeen years."
"Sean…" Ion whispered. She stared at the man.
"Yes, hello, Ion." The man, Sean, chuckled, "Isn't it nice to have a reunion?"
"Why are you doing this?" Ion shouted, "Why are you after Tao?"
"I need her for experiments."
"What experiments?" Shego asked, "I've seen the kind of experiments evil scientists do."
"Now who said I was evil?" Sean asked, "Tomas, if you would." Tomas whipped the sheet off the thing hanging from the ceiling. It was Tao. A weight was shackled to her tail and her wrists were tied to the ceiling. Her hands were covered in drying blood. Her eyes were blank and staring off into space.
Ion suddenly tried to run forwards. The men behind her grabbed her roughly and held her back.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Ion screamed, "LET HER GO!"
"What kind of sick experiment are you going to do?" Kim growled, "How much weight her tail can take?"
"How long she can stay underwater." Sean smiled darkly. Tomas slashed through the rope. Tao fell into the water and sank without moving.
"NO!" Ion tried to jump after her daughter. The men restrained her and started to drag all of the women away. "TAO!"
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Ion sprang up immediately when the three women where thrown into a large holding tank together. She ran to where the hatch faded and pounded her fists against it to no avail.
"So what's wrong?" Shego let Kim sit in her lap and bury her face in her chest, "Can't Tao just break those chains or something?"
"She can't." Ion murmured, pacing in complete hopelessness, "She can't. She's in shock. She can't swim."
"So you're telling me that Tao Psymon, the big animal-spliced kid that can run like a cheetah and climb like a monkey can't swim?" Shego stared on in disbelief. Ion nodded nervously. Shego just started to hold Kim tighter.
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Tomas stared down through the water. It was become slightly murky and red from the blood on Tao's hands and face. Tao wasn't moving, staring at nothing. He wasn't sure if she was drowning.
"Father, we are going to get Tao out of there before she does drown, right?" he turned to his father, Sean Green, "We need her for more experiments."
"No, not before." Dr. Green frowned at Tao, "We will just use her body to see what kind of effects that time may have on you later on."
"Father!" Tomas blinked in shock, "You can't be serious! We can't kill her!"
"If I want to kill her, I will kill her." Green snarled, "I will create an army of spliced creatures, and I will be the ruler because I have the knowledge."
"You never created anything!" Tomas' vision of his 'father' was fading away to pure hatred, "You stole Dr. Psymon's ideas! You stole ME! And now you expect ME to kill?"
"You will do as I say." Green grabbed Tomas by the throat, "I created you. I can kill you just as easy."
"You never created me." Tomas growled, "So you can't destroy me. But I'll destroy you." And with that, he jumped from the platform, dragging Dr. Green with him.
—to be continued—