Chapter Five, the enemy's ship.
Anger, the small ring came to life as it sensed the one thing it was looking for. The ring tried to turn to orient on the anger but found it's movements inhibited by the piles of junk it found it's self-burred under. Instead of moving it sat where it was, charging its self on the anger. When it was strong enough it would move.
The stasis pod door opened and Katheryn stepped out into small metal room, there were three other pods like hers and she could see people inside them, a small panel on the front of each pad was lit up red and a flat line moved across a small screen and she guessed that the occupants were dead, the loss of life added to her growing rage. The sound of static crackled form somewhere in the room.
"Hello again. I'm sorry but from my readings only one of you made it out alive, it seems Brainiac is only concerned with the retrieval of the Exobytes and not their hosts. I am very sorry about that." The voice paused for a few seconds. "First let me introduce myself, I am the Calculator and am currently working Lex Luthor to save as many of you as possible. The is another team lead by Batman and Oracle but luck you, you got me. I will try to guide you off the ship but I can't see you, only your life signs so you'll have to forgive me if go to fast of slow for you and it's possible that Brainiac or the ship will detect my transition and cut me off, in which case you'll be on your own I'm afraid."
Calculator paused, and lights flashed on the panel of a door on the other side of the room.
"Right, I'm about open the way out but, unfortunately, I'm detecting movement from the other side, it looks like some kind of guard drone. Hopefully you'll be able to take care of it."
Calculator stopped, Katheryn crouched down, as the door slid open she leaped into the air towards the drone. On seeing her the drone opened fire but Katheryn was already in the air and the shots passed harmlessly under her. Landing on the drone Katheryn unsheathed her newly found claws and started ripping at any part of the drone that had an edge, something exploded, throwing her to the ground and when she stood up the drone had been reduced to a smoking pile of twisted metal. Static hissed over the intercom as Calculator came back on line.
"Well, it looks like your still with me, that's a good start. The good news is that the next part of your journey is a straight run, the bad news is that you seem to have attracted the attention of more drones."
Stepping out of the stasis pod room Katheryn found herself in a long passage way. As she started to walk along it, a door at the far end opened up and four guard drones came through followed by something bigger.
The amount of anger suddenly spiked and the ring forced it's self-up through the piles of debris covering it. Once uncovered the ring raced round the ships corridor in search for the source of the rage.
Katheryn had made short work of the four guard drones, finding that the changes to her body had made her stronger and quicker that she had ever been, the bigger drone was proving to be a problem. It was faster and more heavily armed that it's small brothers and she had only just managed to avoid it when it had tried to leap on her and pin her down. Punching, clawing and kicking the large drone Katheryn finally damaged the large robot after it had tried to jump her again, the drone had paused after landing to right itself and Katheryn had hit it's leg with part of one of the smashed drones, the leg joint smashed and it sagged where the leg had supported it. Katheryn jumped against the wall to get above the drone and then threw the drone part at the one she was fighting. The metal pierced the metal shell and the large drone fell in a cloud of smoke.
"Well it looks like you've managed to take care of them. I was beginning to worry. In the next room you should find a vent near the celling, if you can find it you should be able to cut out half the ship without detection."
The room appeared to be a large shaft the top of which was a couple of miles high, Katheryn found that she could make out a vent near the top, improved vision seemed to be another boon of the new body, but she couldn't find a way. Then she remembered her new wings, she also remembered her last attempt of flight. After stalking around the room a few more times Katheryn realised there was no other way, the shaft had no other door and it wouldn't be long before more drones were sent to find her. Slowly she moved her wings, trying to get them to move together. As they beat faster she was lifted off the ground but at a strange angle and every time she tried to adjust her position she moved and crashed into the wall more than once. Eventually she managed to get herself to the right height and pulled herself into the vent, bruised and extremely annoyed.
The ring had found its progress hampered. It couldn't find a direct route to the source of the anger and several drones were now trying to stop sit from traveling through the ship. It had been confronted by a drone when it noticed its target was approaching very fast.
Katheryn was falling, she had crawled over a metal grate which had given way and dropped her down another shaft, panicking she couldn't work out how to use her wings to slow herself down but did manage to twist herself into a landing position. As the ground below rushed to meet her a drone backed below the opening but it didn't seem to be interested in her. The force of the landing drove her feet and one hand through the drone, instantly disabling it. After a moments struggle to get her hand from the metallic carcass she looked up to see a small red ring floating in front of her, the sound of more drones came from farther along the corridor. A beam of light came from the ring running over her.
"Oh, what now." Katheryn mumbled to herself, the light stopped, and the ring spoke.
"Katheryn Rouge, you have embraced the red rage and have been found worthy."
"What?" was all Katheryn had time to say before the ring slid its self onto her finger. A blast of red light shot from her knocking the approaching drones back, without thinking Katheryn unsheathed her claws wishing they were bigger. A red light came from the ring and formed its self into gauntlets covering her hands, clawed tips covered her own claws and extended. With a growl Katheryn through herself at the drones tearing and slicing at them until they all sat in pieces around her.
"Wow, I'm not sure what just happened but your body temperature rocketed there for a minute."
Katheryn looked around for the nearest speaker, the Calculators voice and useless advice beginning to grate on her nerves.
"You're about to pass by a reclamation dump, an area where the ship puts anything extra it brings aboard. You may be able to find something useful there, if you don't mind clearing out a few more drones. After that there's something I need you to check out for me, once you're out of the dump I need you to go left and do some damage to the control panel. Once that's down I should be able to access the cameras and see what's happening."
With a snort, Katheryn ran down the corridor making short work of any drone that got in her way. Four drones were working in the dump and when she entered they all converged on her position, fuelled by raged, powered by her new body and using her new, red claws she reduced the drones to scrap in minuets and set about searching for anything that may be of use to her. Her fur bristled with excitement when she came across a pair of hand blasters, they were cheap model and didn't have much power but they were better than nothing, after all claws were good at close range but it would be better if she could keep any threat at a distance.