Author's Notes: Ah! No new reviews :( Admittedly, that chapter wasn't my best ::starts waving arms about:: BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO BE SO MEAN!!!! BOO YOU! ::sticks tongue out:: Hmph! Anyway, I've decided to write the continuing stories as if they were the stories in Story Mode for Bloody Roar 2 and onwards. Not in writing style, but like in 'packages' and basic situations and timeline. Hope you enjoy this chap, I know it took me way too long!
The jeep had been thundering along for about a half hour, an hour at most. The night air just got colder and colder as the minutes passed, and Xan gripped his bare shoulders and slunk down into his chair to avoid being cut by the wind. Tean, occasionally mumbling about being stuck in a jeep with a *bleeping* T-Rex Terminator and a *bleeping* idiot of a dog.
"Marsupial, NOT a dog," chattered Xan.
"A freaking dog that isn't a dog..." continued Tean, muttering again under his breath.
Silence reigned after, the forest was thinning out, and the road then felt smoother and less bumpy. They were nearing civilization, gradually.
"What are we going to do when we reach HQ?" Xan asked.
"I don't know...maybe that our whole squad was carved up and roasted by something. Oh! And that we have that 'something' with us! Oh, this is just magic..." replied Tean sarcastically.
Xan stayed silent for a while, and then replied again, "Well, if our WHOLE squad is gone, then this girl wouldn't be in much trouble, would she?"
Tean suddenly rammed the brake and the jeep lurched forward, sending Xan's head into the dashboard.
Tean turned to his hurting friend, and said with a deep voice, "You want to keep this thing? She just destroyed our squad, she killed Major like nobody's business, and last time I looked, she took on five of our best guys and killed them all in less than a minute! And you want to 'keep' her!? She isn't a pet you moron," Tean leaned forward angrily, "As far as I'm concern, Major was better off killing her, well, if he could,"
Xan groaned from his aching head but scolded back, "I can't believe this! She's just a girl, damn it!"
Tean looked at Xan's arm and grabbed it suddenly, he looked at the puncture marks, "SHE BIT YOU!? And you STILL want to help her!?"
Xan whipped his arm back, "She can't even talk, give her a break! She just got frighten and bit me, okay?! The scientists were DOING something her, I hell don't know WHAT, but she was in pain, you could tell it! I mean,"
Xan turned around and pulled back the canvas a bit, "Look at her yourself! She's morphed and stuff but she's alive! I got her out, I could only get her out,"
"News flash! SHE got you out! She just flew up and tossed you on the ground,"
"See! She's got a heart, she's not totally mindless! Come on, Tean! Just let her stay with us for a while, come on! You can't kill her yourself, can you?"
Tean sighed, "I was going to leave her, you know, just get her out of the jeep while we still can,"
"You wanted to abandon her?"
Tean growled, "It's not like we 'adopted' her, Xan. Actually, YOU did, I'm just going to drive you to the HQ, and everything's up to you, kapeesh?"
Xan grinned.
"Yeah yeah, smile, you stupid poor man's dog..."
"Marsupial,"
"IS THAT THE ONLY WORD YOU CAN SAY?!" shouted Tean as he started the jeep up again.
The girl snuffled a bit and pulled the canvas over her again.
The night was still at the headquarters, which was really a rented out hostel building. Nonetheless, for the Japan Division Squad B members, this was home away from home. Of course, only two, and an extra, had come home that night. Lights, two on the second floor, a couple more in the upper levels, were turned on and filtered through thin paned windows. Those left behind were mostly the housekeeping crew, and the Recon crew.
Tean drove the jeep along the deserted and dark street, faint light from filthy lampposts flooded down them as they parked nearby. Originally, they would've been able to enter through the gate, but as the keys were left with Major...
Parking nearby, Xan lept out of the jeep and picked up the girl, bundled up in the large canvas sheet.
"What do we do with the other stuff?" Xan asked.
"Just leave it for the beggers, I don't wanna know what that lizard bastard was doing with 'em," Tean replied offhandedly, rubbing his neck.
Xan agreed in silence, and carried the girl in his arms towards the wall surrounding the hostel.
Tean climbed up easily enough, the wall was not too high, and stretched out his hands down to take the girl from Xan's arms. With a slight look of distrust and unsurity, Tean held as tightly on the girl as he dared and lept down from the top of the wall to the other side, Xan soon followed.
As soon as Xan's feet reached the other side, Tean shoved the girl back into his arms, "Don't EVER make me hold her again,"
"What's with you?" Xan hissed back as they silently trudged towards the entrance to the building.
"I got a glimpse of her in the jeep and another glimpse of her when you pulled back the covers. She ain't normal, that's an understatement. Scales, pointy ears? She's like a Gremlin or something,"
"Oh shut up! She's no Gremlin,"
"Really? You don't seem too comfortable carrying her too, you know," Tean jeered, noting that Xan kept shifting the girl about.
"That's because my arm's hurt stupid," Xan replied.
"Aaaah," replied Tean with realization.
The two entered the silent building, walking into the sparse lobby with an empty receptionist desk in a corner and dead potted plants. Only one elevator was provided, and they promptly headed towards it.
"I'm thinking you're gonna bring her to YOUR room, right?" asked Tean as he pushed the button for his level. He stayed on the third level, Xan on the fourth.
"Yup,"
"What if she wakes up?"
Xan was silent for a while, thinking, "Get her something warm to drink and find some clothes?"
Tean looked at him with a dazed face, "If she was normal, yes," then he shouted, "BUT NOT WHEN SHE'S CRAZY!"
His voice was extra loud in the confined space, and the girl stirred. Tean's eyes widened in horror and he backed away quickly, the elevator reached his floor and opened, causing him to fall backwards out of the elevator.
With a quick mutter of, "Good luck," he dashed down the corridor.
Xan grinned and guffled quietly, pressing the 'Close Door' button on the elevator and felt it lurch upwards.
On his level, Xan walked towards his room and opened the door. Once inside, he locked the door and placed the girl gently on his bed. She was still pretty much unconcious, but since she was stirring, Xan assumed she was more like being asleep than anything else.
Xan sat beside her for a while, looking at her curiously. Only part of her head was visible, revealing her jet-black and long hair. He daringly pulled back just a bit of the covers on her face and noted the sharp teeth sticking out of her mouth. He looked to his own arm and winced as he remembered how she attacked him.
*Just, really, what am I really going to do?* he thought to himself as he got up.
The room was really devoid of any form of luxury, typically because he was also a pretty low rank on the totem pole. All he had was a single bed, a window and a bathroom, which luckily, was at least complete with a sink, shower and toilet. He grabbed a cup near the sink and filled it up with hot water to about a third of it, and the rest with cold water. This really was not what he meant as a 'warm drink', but it was the best at short notice. Besides, it was for himself.
While Xan was in the bathroom, the girl slowly began to stir again.
At first, it felt like she was coming out of a cave, dark then suddenly bright. The strange thing was she had not actually opened her eyes, but the light was bright enough to filter through her eyes as bright red eyes that pierced her aching head.
Slowly, with a soft growl in her throat, the girl pushed herself up with difficulty, from her lack of strength and from the tightly bound canvas about her. With a groan, she sat up, slumping forwards with a hand on her forehead. She felt feverish, and like her stomach was turned upside down, which for all she knew, literally happened at one point.
"Aaaa..." she moaned again, hitting her forehead with the heel of her palm. Her headache seemed to get worse with each passing moment.
Xan reentered the main room and turned to face what he thought would be an unconcious rescuee, but what now was a sitting up rescuee with a visible headache.
"Yargh! Ah...um," Xan mumbled as he held his shout of surprise in check.
The girl turned to look at him sharply, not with an expected feral-wild gaze, but more of contempt and indifference.
She looked at the semi-empty glass in his hand and for the first time in a long while, she spoke her first full sentence, "If...*cough*...if you...don't *hack!* MIND *cough cough*," the girl stopped for a while, coughed a few more times, pounding her bare chest with loud thumps and then continued,"...could...I *cough*...have some water," she finally finished before coughing again.
Xan was shocked at the request, until the girl peered at him curiously, causing him to gulp and reply immediately,"Sure sure! Just a minute,"
He quickly went back to the sink, poured in part hot and mostly cold water and staggered back to the main room where the girl was sitting quietly on the bed, seeming to be in deep thought.
"Um, your water," Xan said arkwardly, the girl looked up and took the glass from Xan's slightly shaking hands. He had been talking calmly before, but he suddenly found himself lost for words, and even afraid, now that the girl was awake.
The girl silently downed the water, licking her lips once she finished, and took in a deep breath of air. Xan almost thought she was going to breathe fire when she finally said, "Thank you,"
"Welcome," he replied meekly as he took the cup back from her and sat it down on the floor.
The girl was silent again, her eyes closed in thought.
*What's she thinking about?* Xan thought before he finally ventured a question, "Um, what's your name?"
The girl seemed oblivious to the question, deep in her thoughts as she was. She was trying to remember, remember everything about herself which she seemed for the life of her, not to know at all. She was clear on several aspects, she knew she was a lab rat of sorts, she knew she was a human, 'was' that is, she knew she was a zoanthrope although she did not know where she got the term from, and that she was potentially dangerous.
That was inferred.
She remembered, in a thin haze, how she was overcame with a bloodlust, than the searing pain, the great pain...
The girl winced, unknowingly baring her sharp fangs. Xan backed away with a jerk, expecting an attack. The arm with the freshly healed bit marks, was awfully close to the girl again.
This sudden movement of the bed brought the girl back to reality. She opened her eyes and she looked at Xan with her red scarlet eyes, with predatorial slits, focused on him.
Xan gulped.
"I'm not...going to attack you...or eat you," she said with some difficulty, she felt a sudden dizzy spell come about and supported herself as she threatened to topple over.
Xan only felt just a little less threatened, that was because he realised that the girl was not a mad, berserk beast like she was when she first sprang out.
"Are you okay?" he asked as he noted the girl was about to collaspe.
No reply was given, but the girl suddenly yelped as she felt an unexpected sting of pain as she accidentally clawed herself with her unnatural fingers. A thin trickle of blood began to seep down from a long cut on her forehead. She looked confusingly at her fingers, which seemed so new to her.
"Yikes! Here..." Xan quickly reached for a tissue box placed on the floor, near the bed, and grabbed a wad of tissues in his hand.
Despite his initial fear, he placed his hand on the girl's forehead to stop the bleeding, only to find just a faint smudge of blood on the tissue and seemingly freshly healed pink line on the girl's forehead.
The girl did not notice, she just kept on staring at her hands.
Or claws, she did not know the difference. How did she get these? These were not her hands! They were claws, and yet, not even true claws. Half-formed, uncompleted, so full of pain now that she realised they were there. The rings digging into the flesh, now scarred and warped as it healed and was injured and healed again over and over again.
Her tongue flicked over her pointed teeth and fell over them slowly, inspecting the sharp points and curved edge meant for ripping through flesh.
*What am I? This wasn't what I was before! But...what was I before? A zoanthrope, the word's familar, but...a zoanthrope...I'm not a zoanthrope...and not...a human?!*
She hugged herself, her hands feeling the cruel openings and large holes, left by the injection machines and tubes, feeling too, the smooth flesh-covered scales and brown fur left behind by her false genetic heritage.
*What am I...what am I! What am I! WHAT AM I!!*
She screamed, or rather roared, a twisted roar of human and inhuman sounds, strangled and bestial. Her head tilted back and she shouted up to the sky that was blocked from her, her teeth bared and her hair falling all about her cascading on her shoulders and face.
Xan fell back in terror, falling all about himself, and ultimately becoming a terrified heap at the bottom of the bed.
Finally, the horrible sound stopped, and Xan, keeping it low at the base of the bed, half-expected the girl peering over him from the top of the bed, ready to eat him.
Which she did, but not to eat him as he thought. The girl merely peered over the top of the bed down at Xan with a look that purely said 'what are you doing there'.
"Get up," she said simply, pulling and shifting the canvas sheet about to stick out where hand, offering it to Xan.
Although he could easily get up himself, he decided it would be unwise to reject the offer.
He grasped her hand and she easily pulled him up without having to brace herself. And she really, pulled him up, Xan found himself on his feet without the slightest effort, and the girl pushing him up to allow him to balance himself easier.
"Thanks," he said in surprise, and felt unsure whether to seat himself again on the bed, it seemed to be a bit too close to the girl than he liked.
"Where did you find me?"
"Huh?"
"Where did you find me. I'm assuming that it was you who found me, I recognize your scent,"
Xan scractched his neck as he explained what happened, "Well, it's kinda complicated. I'm from a group that's dedicated to liberating zoanthropes, the Zoanthrope Liberation Front, but we're just called the ZLF. Anyway, our squad was ordered to attack this lab facility in the middle of nowhere, and I went into one of 'em and found you. And I kinda, got you out of this giant tube thing and you, um..." points to puncture marks on his arm, "Bit me,"
The girl looked closely at the arm, and pulled herself closer to it, then suddenly bit it.
"ARGH!" Xan shouted as he pulled his arm away from the girl.
"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
The girl rubbed her mouth clean of any blood and tried to look closely at the arm again, but Xan kept going further and further back, the girl frowned, "Show me that arm, I'm not going to bite it again,"
Xan looked at her warily, still keeping a distance.
"Show me your arm or I will pounce on you and rip it from you, understand?"
Xan gulped and stuck his arm out gingerly, which the girl inspected and nodded, "Identical bite marks, I did bite you,"
"Why would I want to lie about something like that?!"
The girl looked at him with a detached air, "Because there is a chance I might kill you right here and now if you hadn't been the one who helped me,"
Xan wanted to gulp again, but this time he was just too creeped out, something in the girl's eyes told him she was not kidding.
"Continue," she ordered.
"Right right, well, after that, I kinda...knocked you...unconcious..." the man was frightened as to whether he was risking a possible attack with such a confession, but the girl disregarded it, and looked intensely at him, waiting for him to continue.
"Okay, and then, I tried to carry you out of there, but the fires were big in the basement, and I was trapped. In the end, something hit him, and I guess I fainted,"
Xan sighed at that point, "I can't remember what happend then, but when I came too, I was outside, and you," he looked nervously at the girl, "You, I think you transformed into your beast form, but it was, like, well,"
The girl began to growl, "Stop that incessant stuttering,"
Xan sighed again, "You were a dragon, a really big red dragon with wings and, a mane that looks kinda like your hair," he pointed to her head, "And two big horns that kinda came out like this," he stuck out his fingers behind his head to demostrate, "And another horn on your nose that looked like a rhino,"
The girl looked at him with a kind of confused and unbelieving look, "Judging from YOUR description, I look like like an idiot,"
Xan laughed a little but hurriedly continue when he notice the girl staring at him again, "I think you brought me out of that building, I don't know how, Tean said that you picked me up with your foot and flew out of the building,"
"Tean?"
"Yeah, cause there was a whole squad there, like I said, and..."
"Where's your squad now?" the girl asked.
Xan stopped short and felt a bit of reality sink in. His squad, probably everyone single last one of them...they were...
"You...killed them, most of them," he said softly. He did not want to leave, but he was torn between being hospitable, and the fact the girl was and probably still, hostile. He could run away right now, right now and get some help or a gun and shoot her dead in the head. That was what he should do...that was the protocol for intruders and such...but it was not something he COULD do.
The girl comtemplated on those words for a while and shrugged, "Really? I must be rather powerful to do that much damage to an entire squad, or it could be you're squad was a pathetic lot in the first place,"
"Heeeeey..." Xan said disgruntledly.
The girl sighed this time, "Ai ai...whatever. Now explain how I got here,"
"Let's see, you kinda got shot a lot when everyone else got together and fired at you, you looked like a bad way that time. But me and Tean were already running away with some of the other guys,"
"You deserted your squad?" said the girl in seeming surprise.
"Well, yeah, it wasn't like I could do anything you know and,"
The girl laughed lightly, "You misunderstood. I wasn't reprimanding you, I was commeding you. Loyal you may not be, but at least you had some brains to preserve your own life instead of trying to resolve with bravado, a situation you can't control,"
Xan looked at her blankly.
"You were smart to run away now go on!" the girl snapped.
*Idiot...* she silently thought.
"Okay, we were running near the road. Then suddenly this jeep comes along. We wanted a quicker way outta there, so we tried to hijack it. But the driver was some zoanthrope working for Tylon, a really weird zoanthrope, and he gave us a lot of trouble on the way. Lucky, I got rid of him eventually, and we kinda found you in the back,"
"And here I am now. Interesting,"
Xan shifted his feet a little. The girl was no longer paying any attention to him, and was delving into her own thoughts.
"Um, what's your name?"
The girl looked back at Xan, "Name?"
"Yeah, name. You've only just started talking now. When I first saw you, all you really did was growl and roar,"
"I see...name eh? Can't really remember," the girl said calmly.
"Can't remember?"
"Yes, I can't seem to remember a lot of things. Basically, everything about myself beyond the fact I never wanted to be captured and experimented on to become this," she almost hissed at the last word.
"Hmmm...but we gotta call you something..."
The girl concentrated a bit more, in trying to remember in non-existent memories. Splintered words and voices, images too. All too jumbled to interpret in the slightest, with nearly no connection.
"A tiger..." she whispered.
Images flashed past her in a blur, but something that seemed so predominant. The orange fur and black stripes of a tiger, mixed with blurs of people running, roars, screams. She saw them, the tiger, and something else, something large, she couldn't tell what.
"Run..." she whispered subconciously, Xan looked at her curiously.
They were fighting, she saw blood flying, flying everywhere. And fire, a whole forest of fire. And she, floating away from all this. The tiger had won, had won somehow and the thing, the beast before, was now just a man, a man gore-flecked and mutilated, beyond recognition. But she could recognize him, he was...
"Papa..."
She was floating away. Away to somewhere dark and everything echoed, noises sometimes so loud and sometimes in deep silence. And then,
"ARRRRRRRRGH!" she screamed out loud, and Xan screamed as well, jerking back the hand about to offer help.
"Jeez! Stop screaming and roaring already!" he shouted, but gasped at the strange look in the girl's eyes. They were wide open, glazed over as in in a trance, and stared into nothing while shaking in their sockets, moving back and forth with no direction.
She was breathing heavily, her mouth agape and her arms shaking badly from shock and suppressed rage.
'...operation...Dragonfire...no survivors...exceptional...last one...give...no...ultimate...record...' meaningless words collected together violently within an already troubled mind, one which could no longer take the pain that she remembered. The only she could remember, pain, pain and more pain. Pain she could not stop, could not control, and yet, could not yield. She slept in pain, woke in pain, given pain that always got worse, pain that grew, pain that lived only to torture her, to only stop when she herself was dead.
'...deletion...noone cares...name?...unimportant...'
"No..." she groaned through the haze, she shut her eyes tight and pressed her hands to her ears to keep out the voices.
'...unimportant...prepare...'
"...I'm...I'm..." she continued, crushing her ears into her head as the voices seemed to grow louder and louder.
'...noone...will...remember...'
"Noone...noone will remember, you're a memory lost now," she said in a gentle voice just louder than a whisper.
Xan looked up at her voice, his heart still beating with quicken pace from his previous shock.
"Noone will remember your family, your home, your name," she said in a detached tone, one which was too calm compared to the anguish on her face.
"Noone will remember you, Crimson, noone will remember you," her voice dissipated into a silence, as she slumped forward in exhaustion.
The room was quiet for a while, Xan staggered and stood up, looking at the girl with renewed fear. Her face was darkly covered with her hair, and Xan was unsure whether she was awake or unconcious. Finally, a tired sigh from her gave him his answer.
"That's what they told me before I was placed in the tube," the girl said, "Crimson...heh. They didn't even call me by my name, they thought it was 'unimportant'. But I remember what I was called before them," she said, being quiet again.
'Say your name,' it was a firm voice, firm yet unthreatening.
"My name..."
'Don't let go of it, use it when you survive,' the voice continued.
"The last one..." she hissed.
'Your home, your family, your father, are gone. Forget them, if you want to live. Remember yourself, you is all that matters,'
"Ai...my name is Krislan," the girl said simply, as if in answer to the one who talked with her before.
"What?" asked Xan, finally summing up the courage to speak to the literal live wire on his bed.
"I said, my name is Krislan, my last name is unimportant," she repeated calmly.
She looked up at the staring Xan, "Call me just Kris from now on, Krislan is no longer my name,"
"What?! But you just said..."
"Krislan was the name given to me by those who are now dust and bones. Nothing is left for them to be remembered by, and that includes me, because I am not the one they once called Krislan. Kris is enough,"
"Okay okay, Kris then. That show was a lot for a name though," Xan commented.
"Hmph, whatever. Would you be kind enough to tell your name?"
"Oh, sorry. My full name's Alexander Brockett, but I hate that name, way too long,"
"At least we agree on something,"
"So, I like it better when people just call me Xander, or Xan,"
Kris nodded agreeably, "It's a good name,"
Xan was a bit surprised, "Really?"
"It sounds good,"