(Three)

Fallen had been born Sarah Xifaras, a small town girl in a small town life. She'd grown up well and lived a normal life, becoming no one special or different from anyone else. She found the perfect husband, had some perfect kids. They lived in a quaint New England coastal town, close to the ocean. She had the pink house with the picket fence, the whole nine yards. Life was good...until the Dognan came and ruined everything.

It started out small. Groups of people would turn up missing all over the world, mostly where large groups had gathered. The Dognan were kidnapping humans to be used as drones in a slave army. When the Dognan had created enough white slaves, they sicced them back on the world they had come from in a successful bid to take them over. The white slaves came with the Dognan soldiers and destroyed their own planet. The destruction had been swift and horrible, all signs of human civilization wiped out in a matter of weeks. With the human pests removed, the Dognan then moved in to feast on the planet's rich resources.

Sarah had been one of the last humans taken from the area where she lived. She had lasted long enough to see her whole family destroyed, a fate worse than death. She was captured along with some others who had been hiding out in a nearby forest. She bitterly fought the Dognan soldiers who took her, scratching and biting. They admired her spirit and had her tested for Ristle capability. She came up positive and they had her processed.

It was horrible. She spent days in a stasis tank, awake just enough to realize with horror what was being done to her. Her body was ripped apart by surgeons who knew no mercy. Her legs and forearms were replaced with organic pilot body parts, changing her forever. There were no words to describe the pain. Still, her will to survive kept her alive. They cut into her brain and implanted microscopic computer chips and parts that allowed her to create the Ristle energy from her own body. They also implanted her with files on piloting ships, ship construction, salvage, and medicine. Her mutated body tolerated the harsh treatment and she became what they made of her.

While she was being processed, Sarah dreamed in the tank. She dreamed of the X-men legends she read about before the war and fantasized that they would come to help her. She recalled a story that had been told of the X-man Angel and how in an alternate time line he'd become an evil twisted creature called The Fallen. He had pale white skin and the sheer leathery wings of a bat, not all that different that what she was now. She now saw herself as him and took his name for herself, changing her identity now that her old life was lost. Sarah was gone, now there was only Fallen.

Fallen survived her ordeal and was put into service. She took very well to flying the Dognan ships but not so well to the harsh treatment of her new Masters. She often fought and rebelled, turning her new gifts against her Masters by zapping them with Ristle or scratching them with her new clawed hands. She was beaten and whipped repeatedly for her transgressions, but it did little to tame her. She was transferred from place to place, learning new things about her body as she was moved from place to place and made to do different jobs.

She mastered the skill of telekinetic flight and shield making while stationed out in the battlefields. Her job there was to go out and retrieve the wounded or dead flying out in the middle of battles that would have shaken the nerves of any man. Her new Masters didn't care if she got shot down, she was so unruly, but she never did. She could dip and weave with the best of them.

She hated herself and what she'd become, the loss of her humanity a bitter, blazing scar on her soul. It made her fearless and reckless and she flew bravely out into the worst battlefields and firefight, careless of her own personal safety. She would lift and carry groups of soldiers, secret messages, anything they wanted. Using her telekinesis, she was the perfect mule. She could even air lift heavy ordinance and equipment as long as it was strapped to her body. Her telekinesis was more powerful with things she touched. Having finally proved herself, the Dognan put her back into a ship. She took her skills and applied them. She was a skilled and worthy pilot.

Problem was, she was still feisty and at times uncooperative. Her Ristle was very strong, higher than normal. She learned quickly that it could do more than power up ships. It could be used as a weapon. Her temper got the best of her one day and she fired off a good sized Ristle blast at a Dognan officer who had attempted to rape her. The practice was common among Dognan men, they saw pilots as creatures to be used any way they saw fit. The man had no chance against her wrath, he was incinerated almost immediately. She had no idea she could do that kind of damage.

It didn't go over well with the Dognan either. Finally done with her, they cuffed and collared her and off to the pens she went.

Fallen was horrified in her new environment. She was sorry she had murdered the Dognan officer, but it was too late to take it back. She tried to hide in the bombed out buildings as much as possible, but her food didn't last. When she tried to forage, she was attacked by the packs. She used Ristle blasts and telekinetic shields to protect herself, killing those who threatened her. As she became more and more desperate, more and more hungry, the charred and cooked bodies of her victims became that much more appealing.

It wasn't long before she took the final, inevitable step towards cannibalism. She had the advantage over most of the prisoners here, her telekinetic and Ristle production capabilities giving her the clear edge in any fight, even against multiple targets. She became merciful death, ending the prolonged suffering of the weak that ended up in the pens. She hunted the packs, dive bombing them from on high, grabbing whomever fell into her path.

What made matters worse, was that as time went on, she found she enjoyed the hunt. Considering herself damned, she gave into it, embracing her darker self, and went all the way over the edge. She no longer selected her prey at random, no, she chose who she wanted to kill and how. She toyed with them, improving her hunting and telekinetic skills all the time. As her skills grew, so did her power. She used her Ristle all of the time, firing blast after blast at her prey. She realized now what her Masters had before, that she was stronger than most of the other pilots who'd been made, her Ristle strong enough to incinerate. This power and her ability to control it made her the Queen of the pens. She nicknamed herself the Hunter, proud of what she'd accomplished. She no longer foraged at all, but lived exclusively off of her kills. She grew sleek and fat, living quite well.

She thrived now in this new environment with no Dognan masters holding her down. But she was still human enough to grow lonely as time went on. She began to hang out near the main gate to the pens and kept watch as the occasional pilot was tossed in with the rest of the slaves. She would fly in and try to make them join up with her. She met with no success until Carma. Carma was a true sister to Fallen. She embraced the life and together they were merciless, the scourge of all who entered the pens. They killed often and ate well. Gradually others joined them and they became the Angels of the Fallen.

Meanwhile, the Clan was gearing up in their resistance efforts against the Dognan. Cerebus knew he needed pilots and ships to do this. He led raiding parties into the pens and tried to capture as many of the pilots as he could. He avoided the Angels because of their violence and savagery, but soon he had his eye on Fallen when he saw how powerful she was. Here was a pilot strong enough to jump, to cross dimensions. He had to have her. He set up traps but she and Carma were much too clever. Finally, Cerebus resorted to shooting her down with arrows treated with sedatives. It was crude, but got the job done. She fell and Carma was left behind.

When Fallen awoke, she was tied up and collared with restraints, her Ristle power robbed from her. The Clan knew the restraining devices used by the Dognan for the alphas worked just as well on the pilots and were sure to keep some around for times like these. Fallen was in the hanger of Clan Station Nine and helpless against her rescuers. She howled with rage and fury as Cerebus and his son, Jaska, stood over her laughing. They untied her carefully, waiting to see if she would calm down once she was freed and listen to their proposal of service. Almost all of the pilots they'd taken so far were eager to work for the Clan and exact some revenge against the Dognan who had mutated them so horribly.

Enraged by their lack of compassion, Fallen wasn't interested in talking. She came at Jaska with her clawed hands out and savaged his face, scarring him forever. She dove in to finish the job, but was grabbed from behind and wrestled to the floor by two more of Cerebus' men.

"Kill her!" Cerebus ordered, outraged by the damage done to his son. He had no idea she would be so savage, it had never happened before.

"Wait!"

Cerebus turned to see who had spoken. It was Valentin, one of his up and coming young officers. "Yes?"

The man's eyes were full of interest of this newly freed creature. He wanted her for himself. "Why waste such a fine pilot? I can tame her for you."

Cerebus laughed contemptuously. "You are welcome to try."

"If I can, may I have her? I have need of a good pilot for my reconnaissance missions."

"Be my guest."

Valentin walked up to her as she was once more released and they squared off against each other. She hissed at him like a cat, but he wasn't afraid of her mouth or her claws. He was quite tall and sturdy, quick on his feet and more than a match for her. "Come, pretty, lay down your hate and come with me," he whispered softly.

She spat in his face, hitting him square in the eye.

He swung and dealt her a heavy blow across her jaw, almost spinning her tiny body around. He was stunned that she didn't fall, it was rare that anyone could take a hit from him and not collapse in a dead drunk heap. This pilot just looked up at him as her blood began to flow and laughed crazily, her eyes wild with madness. He could see she was insane and he spoke to her again, gripping her with his voice. "Well, pilot, guess we know each other well enough then, huh? Guess what? You're in Hell and I am your Devil. You've given up your soul, now it's time to pay the price." He reached out and took her chin in his hand, fixing her with his penetrating, withering gaze. "You will be mine. You know this now. Accept it." He leaned in and kissed her, slipping her his tongue.

Fallen was mesmerized, her tiny mind reeling. In her deluded state, his comments about her being in Hell and his owning her soul made perfect sense. She had done such horrible things and now she had to pay. Pay in full. She accepted his kiss and gave herself to him, giving in to fate. Cerebus didn't quite know what to say as Valentin led her off, docile as a lamb.

Of course, Fallen didn't tame as easily as all that. She did have her moments and Valentin dealt with them in his usual harsh manner. He beat her senseless more than once and eventually she did get the message. The incidents of her violence became less often. Fallen returned gradually to a more civilized frame of mind, her feral Hunter moving into the past. The horror of what she'd done to survive still tormented her. She refused to eat meat and couldn't stand to be around anyone else eating it. It made her violently ill, destroying her appetite. Valentin knew this and would sometimes use it to beat her spirit down. Forcing her to eat meat was the height of his cruelty.

Fallen did have her highs and lows and succumbed to drug use in an attempt to blot out her darkest thoughts. The Clan often raided Dognan storehouses and narcotics were easily available to someone in the know. She dreamed of the pens but in her nightmares, instead of being the predator, she was always the prey. Night after night she would wake screaming as the ghosts of her past came and hunted her down. Valentin tried to comfort her, but he couldn't play the role of Master and Mother at the same time, she wouldn't have it. She wanted only one thing from him; his fists and as hard as possible. She would be good for a long time, then deliberately bait him until he was in a fury. She needed him to punish her. She wouldn't allow herself to forget what she'd done. She never let Valentin into her cold dead heart, not the way he would have liked. He went along with her because he had fallen in love with her in his own twisted way and took what he could get from her.

Valentin compensated for not being allowed to show her any tenderness by bringing her Maylee.

It wasn't long after the Red Sky had crashed. The Red Sky was one of the few working Clan ships and required a pilot to fly it. The Red Sky had been shot down by a Dognan patrol while running a recon mission for Valentin. Fallen was at the helm and the blast from the Dognan ship caused her Ristle to overload the stick and it back washed into her, damaging her brain. When Valentin brought her in to the medics, she was barely alive.

The Clan doctors didn't know what to do for her strange injury until she told them of the White Lightening. They didn't know if it would work but she was dying anyway. They had some of it around from raiding Dognan storehouses, but never knew of it's purpose. They gave it to her, addicting her while saving her life. She recovered from her injury but suffered from even more severe mood swings. On a particularly low day, Valentin brought her a present.

Maylee was a tiny child, no more than six. She was the offspring of a Dognan officer who had raped a white slave. Maylee's mother escaped to the Clan but was horrified by the monster she'd given birth to and killed herself. Maylee was moved around from place to place, never being accepted. She'd tried to steal some food from Valentin one day and he caught her. At first he was just going to kill her for annoying him so, but then thought better of it. Fallen never seemed to get pregnant no matter how attentive he was so he figured Maylee might be a good enough substitute. A child might raise Fallen's spirits, he reasoned.

Valentin had no way of knowing that Fallen had already been compelled to abort herself of his offspring three times by then already. She used harsh chemical potions that ravaged her body and almost killed her. She accepted this as part of her punishment. He was puzzled by her illnesses because she never really got sick any other time. He wasn't always around and she always seemed to recover from her 'spells' so he didn't question her about it.

Fallen embraced Maylee and having the child did lift her spirits. They both thrived from each other's love and Fallen started to feel a little better about herself. Maybe she wasn't really this terrible monster after all.

Fallen got better rapidly, but was still addicted. Having her self esteem boosted gave her the strength to try and overcome her addiction to the White Lightening. It was a long and painful process, but she did manage to pull it off. Her low spells remained however. They were usually prompted by a sudden longing for the hunt again. Some part of her, the one she called the Hunter, still craved the power and blood. When the urges became very strong, she would send for Valentin and he would beat and rape it out of her. It was the only thing that worked. Until Seth came along that is.

It took some time for Seth to work his way into Fallen's heart, but eventually he did. He showed her that there was another way to redeem herself. It wasn't as easy as Valentin's beatings, which made it seem all the more right. Retrieving alphas from the pens was the way. Fallen became more and more independent of Valentin, even going so far as to achieve the rank of First Pilot. She left on her own missions now, and aided by Seth and Kimble, saved herself by pulling more flesh alive from the pens than she killed during her seven month stay there. The more they did it, the more she realized she was no longer a monster, she was just a lost soul who'd strayed a little off the path. Her Siskan pilots had propped her up and set her right.

Her Hunter spells came less and less but still occurred. She sent for Valentin less often. He didn't like it and felt neglected. Valentin vented his frustration by beating her more and more savagely at each visit. He would follow her, seek her out and it became a game to him. Fallen was trapped by the monster she had created. Valentin would not leave her and now had managed to talk Cerebus into marrying them.

It was the last straw. Fallen did have some sense of Honor. Rather than break her bonding, she chose instead to give up everything and kill them all. It had cost her Seth and now she wasn't quite sure what to do about it. Her biggest fear was that she'd never hold Seth ever again. She needed him more than ever now that all this had happened. What was she going to do about Valentin now?

Kimble had nodded as Fallen had spoken these things to him, stroking her hair back ever so gently. He was an inorganic being, but that didn't mean he wouldn't understand something like this. " 'S okay, darlin'. You done what ya done ta survives. Ain't nobody gonner hold that against you."

"No, you don't get it. There's more. I wasn't just a cannibal, Kim. I liked it, don't you see? I liked the hunt. I liked hunting them down! I called myself the Hunter and made a game of it! It was the only thing that made me happy there!" she sobbed, curling up that much tighter. "I liked it! And when that wasn't enough, I taught others to do the same!"

Kimble closed his eyes, trying to equate his tender Mistress with someone who hunted down her penmates like prey. It was hard. To him she was soft and warm, strong willed and sturdy. He hadn't realized where that inner strength had come from, how being a survivor meant more than just having lived through something traumatic. Kimble understood a great many things about human behavior, but this was a little out of his range. What he could do was offer her comfort without his judgement. He was perfectly honest when he had said that there was nothing she could say to make him hate her, not even this could scratch a dent in the vast love he had for her.

He wasn't the only one. Seth was horrified by her tale as he would be by anything like it, but he still had this to say. "You did what you had to, Fallen. What I don't understand is why you thought you needed to be punished for it. The only one who needed to be punished here was Valentin for not helping you through this. How was him beating you ever supposed to make you better? All you had to do was forgive yourself."

"How can I?" she sobbed.

Seth just smiled. "You already have. Think back on all the lives we saved from the pens. It was dangerous to do it but you kept it up. Don't you see? You've saved so many, how could that not be enough to make up for what you did?"

Fallen looked up at Seth then. She was warm and safe in Kimble's arms, but it was the look of absolute love on Seth's face that finally convinced her that what he spoke was true. "I love you," she breathed. It was meant for them both, but it was Seth's eyes she saw as she said it.

"And I you, my Mistress," Seth replied, his eyes sad for her pain, but his mouth in a tender smile.

Fallen relaxed, crying just a little more, her agony finally released, and Kimble held her close until she was asleep. He then rose carefully and lay her gently on the floor. He opened a glass jar and gave her a mild sedative so she wouldn't dream that horrible nightmare again. He could see Seth trembling and shivering in the control room and spoke to him gently.

"Go to the Black Room. I'll be right there," he said, seeing that Fallen wasn't the only one who needed him.

Seth nodded, weak with tears, and disappeared.

Kimble stood over Fallen as she slept and wiped away an angry tear that dribbled down one cheek. She was his Mistress, his only reason for being, and he couldn't bear her suffering. The best he could hope for was that she would be better off having finally gotten all of this off of her chest. Maybe she could leave it all behind for good and be stronger. He sank down to the floor next to her and lay still, transferring his consciousness along the invisible link back into the system and to the Black Room.