Chapter 2
So what do you think of your new lord and Master chummy guy ain't he the voice asked, speaking to her once again for the first time sense the altercation in the hallway between her and the twins in white who were now escorting her to someone who was meant to "train" her... train her in what? What, not talkative?
"What do you want me to say you're a voice in the back of my head!" Faina finally shouted out loud, much to the surprise of the twins who had drawn their razors before realizing what was going on. With that, they chuckled and pushed Faina along, though they did not return their weapons to their places of rest.
The voice chuckled inside her head like a resounding echo that she could not escape nor drown out with something else. A voice in the back of your head, cute. Yes, I am a voice in the back of your head. But what's more, your thoughts, your memories, they are open to me like a book. I can read them just as words on a page. I suppose that makes us, intimately, close, doesn't it. I know what drives you, what makes you afraid, the things you have seen, the things you wish you could forget in that war, the thoughts that raced threw your mind as you-
"Shut up, you don't know me at all. As far as im concerned your still a figment of my imagination, a bad one who can go away with a pill im sure."
The voice outright laughed at that. You still think your dreaming don't you. That as soon as you wake up everything will go away, that you will be in your nice warm safe bed in your family's house after you came back from your tour of duty, course you never told them what they had you do, oopsie my bad.
The trio finally arrived at a door, opened it, and entered. Inside was a cavernous training room. Various stations filled the room from sparing areas to shooting ranges. Men and women in military clothing were at nearly every station honing their skills to perfection. In the center of the impressive training room sat a large boxing ring that a crowd of people had gathered around and were shouting in cheer.
As the trio approached, Faina noticed the ring had several people in it all seemingly attempting to dog pile someone else. "Seems the general is having a light work out."
"That he does."
In a sudden burst the men in the dog pile were thrown back in all directions, some beyond the rubber ropes and into the crowd gathered around, knocking them down along the way. Several of the men got back to their feet and jumped at the man they had but a few moments ago pinned in the dog pile. The would be attacked took a step back, allowing the men to land right in front of him. Not wasting a moment of time he sprang into his counter attack, the man closest to he reached for his head and brought it flying down to a climbing knee. The sound of bone shattering could be heard by the closest in the ring as the man went down, unconscious or dead neither was known other than he wasn't moving.
The next two managed to get their hands on him, but only to his advantage as he grabbed both their wrists and with a sickening snap broke their hands. As the pain in their hands distracted them for a moment the man did a round house kick, sending one man into the other and both to the floor. Looking around, the man standing eyes seemed to dare anyone to get up to challenge him. The room was silent for a full ten seconds before those gathered around the ring began to cheer and chant the mans name. "Gnaeus, Gnaeus, Gnaeus, Gnaeus!"
Walking around the ring he would thrust his arms up as if to conduct the crowd in their chanting of his name as several men entered the ring to retrieve the others who were foolish enough to attack the man. The men retrieved from the ring were carried away by their fellows to another room out of sight of Faina. What a show off. Look at him, he actually thinks that was a work out! And those men, cheering him like he's some sort of savior.
Spotting the trio the man climbed out of the ring and approached them. "Ah, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, come from wonderland with Alice have you?" The man smirked.
The twins merely chuckled, as if convinced that it was merely an underling lashing out at their superiority that they barely tolerated. "The master wants you to train this one."
"Make her into a killing machine, hopefully better then you."
"Teach her the nature of this place." With that, they shoved her forward, causing her to fall to the ground, turned and left.
As soon as they were out of the room the man laughed as he put his hand forward to help Faina up. "Tweedledee and Tweedledum, don't know why he keeps them around, just a pair of opium smoking ghosts." The man laughed.
Faina chuckled a bit with him. "Thank you, um, is that really their names?"
"Honestly, I don't know, though I love calling them that, they may hide it but if they could they would cut me to shreds with those razors of theirs. Course if they did the Merovingian would have their bodies hanging in his club. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Gnaeus, leader of the wild squad."
-TFH-
"You are what they call a blue pill, blue, copper top and so on. Basically those terms apply to any human still hardwired into the machine system." Gnaeus said as he walked her threw the training room, watching his soldiers train in their various martial arts.
"Who's they exactly?" Faina asked. Things had started to make a bit more sense to her, or she was starting to accept things, whichever it was it didn't matter, she was stuck in this situation so she might as well get as much information she could, to help her survive.
"Redpills and Exiles, watch his feet! -Gnaeus shouted to one of his soldiers- A redpill is a unplugged human, someone who took a Red pill to be exact. An exile is a being who is not supposed to be in the matrix."
"The Matrix? What exactly is that?" Faina asked.
"You might find this hard to believe, but the Matrix is this -Gnaeus said gesturing to the room and beyond-, its your entire world, in everything, in you. In short, it is a giant computer game and everyone is playing in it."
Faina stopped, and began to laugh hysterically. "Your right, that's just plain nuts!"
"You think so huh? Tell me then, how come the twins can pass threw walls? That a main entrance can lead to a busy kitchen? That a voice in the back of your head is actually another entity all together?"
"You know about that?" Faina asked, she was no longer laughing as things started to make sense with what she had seen today so far.
"I know that he's going to help you become more then a mere human, that's assuming you can stand his smart alack remarks, yeah im talking to you death boy."
When I get her hands on your neck im going to- Marriths voice promptly dropped off from in her head, as if he had said something he hadn't meant to "say". "So, what's the plan then?"
Gnaeus smiled and continued to walk, keeping his eyes on the training stations and taking a look at Faina from time to time. "Your going to be trained in every form of martial arts that we know, refined into a swift killing machine. No what you know now won't help you so don't think that this will be easy, you will learn that things are going to be easy for you. What you will become is something more then a mere soldier, yes something more indeed."
"Uh-huh. Look I've been in special..." before Faina could finish her sentience she began to feel hunger pangs like she had never felt before in her life. As she began to double over it was as if the essence of her body was joining in league with the pang. Soon her entire body ached for some form of nourishment, not for food, but for something deeper. It was as if she needed something that could feed her very being, her very soul.
"I think, I think I need to go and eat something." Faina said, barely being able to control the shakes that were now threatening to take her over. Gnaeus looked down at Faina's body, a frown across his face. A quick hand motion brought two of the training soldiers to him as he continued to watch her.
"Take her to her room." Gnaeus said before turning and walking away. The two soldiers grabbed Faina by the arms and brought her to her feet and took her to her room. Gnaeus wondered briefly how long it would take her to finally accept her new life, how long she would hold out, and would she go insane.
-TFH-
Faina bolted upright in her bed. Everything seemed sharper even though her room was dark. Shapes were crystal clear and even carried some color to them, she could detect the faint scents of the perfume that lingered around the bottles on her dressing room table in the far corner. Sounds were sharper as well, the sound of someone breathing could be heard far off in the distance to her, she could even tell the direction and roughly how far it was.
An overwhelming urge soon to hold of her. Getting up out of bed she didn't notice nor care that she was still in the clothing she was in earlier that day. Opening the door she also failed to notice the albino twins and their hookah were no where to be seen. She didn't care, her ears were trained on the heartbeat somewhere off in the distance. Almost as if she felt which direction to go, she took off, the heartbeat clear in her ears, and growing louder.
As she continued down hallways, turning when she felt it was time to turn, stopping every now and then when she needed to listen for the heartbeat. Finally, after searching for several minutes, she came within striking distance of her prey. Pressing her body up against the wall, she turned her head around the corner. She saw him, the back side of him anyway. Judging from the tails of his coat, he was a butler. He didn't notice her presence as he continued on with his work of cleaning the small ornate furniture.
As she continued to look at him, her vision began to change, golden lines of "sweat" began to cascade down and all over the man. Soon it engulfed his body completely, looking more carefully she could actually make out the shape of his beating heart. Her pulse quickened in anticipation of what was to come next. She felt something under her right arms skin begin to bulge in several areas, like welts rapidly forming, quickly the tops began to split and the peel back, like eyelids revealing their eyes. These "eyes" were a solid, deep emerald green, all the size of a dime and dotted her arm in random locations.
As Faina's body prepared, the program continued his work without thinking of the danger he was in. He continued his work cleaning the furniture of dust for his master as he had done countless times before
Finally it happened, Faina moved with speed no human should possess, in seconds she had plowed right into the man, pushing him to the ground turned him to face her and pinned him to the ground with her body. Her right arm was poised and ready to strike deep into the mans chest to pierce into his heart, to end his life and take from him what she needed to end her hunger. For a brief moment that seemed like an eternity there they were, Faina on top of the man, her eyes and his locked. His eyes full of fear, her eyes full of blood lust and death. Some how, she could taste his fear, taste the sweet realization that he was about to die. Her eyes began to glow an eerie red as the climax of her hunt was about to come to pass, her hunger would be slated and satisfied for the time being.
Just as she could feel the muscles in her arm began to tense to release the arm straight down into the mans chest, something happened. She could feel the command being given to force the arm to dive into his chest, but it wouldn't obey, it froze there, shaking as if two wills fought, one to release and one to hold it back. "What, am I, doing..."
The lids of the green "eyes" along her right arm quickly closed, their seems disappearing and the welts receding back into her arm. The sight of the man in golden code disappeared, revealing the trembling old butler beneath her. Her eyes reverted back to their original color, the sound of his heart beat was replaced the sound of the man begging for his life and screaming for help.
Jumping off the man she scrambled along the floor, trying to make sense of what was happening, what she was attempting to do, and what was happening to her body. Don't just sit their fool finish the job! Kill him, absorb him, feed me! Don't you see, he's a gift from The Merovingian to us, he's outlived his purpose to the man and so he gave him to us to feed off of. Don't let this opportunity pass us by, not when we were so close!
"No! No! No! Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! This isn't real, this isn't real, I'm not a monster, I'm not a monster, I'm not a monster! Get out of my head! Get out of my head damn it!" Faina screamed as she clamped her hands to her ears and closing her eyes tight, as if to try to drown out Marriths voice in her head, commanding her to finish what she had started.
It was a start to her when she felt several strong men grab her and pull her to her feet. Opening her eyes, she saw him, the french man. "So, your more strong willed then I gave you credit for, eh. Won't give in and just begin doing what you were meant to do. Very well, there are, alternatives, though in time you will welcome your true nature. Take her back to her room, give her the medication." With that, the french man turned and left.
Dragged back into her room by the twins she saw out of the corner of her eye a man in a white lab coat holding a long silver box. Before she had time to react the twins had over powered her and held her down to her bed. She didn't struggle, either out of exhaustion or somehow Marrith was forcing her to relax. As the doctor approached, he opened the silver box and produced a long syringe needle, already full of a glowing green liquid.
"No..." Was all she managed to moan out loud before the syringe was gently stuck into her arm. As the liquid was injected the hunger pains suddenly began to lessen. As the syringe was finally pulled out from her arm she slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep, the hunger pains completely subsided.