I don't own Jak and Daxter, Errol, or the KG. Lyra and Loor are mine. Do not steal.

-Insane Fangirls Productions Presents-

The Animal
Part 2

The experiment was making excellent progress. Errol had to smile slightly when he considered the fact that he'd had a monster born of dark eco in captivity. She wasn't the slightest bit happy about it, of course, but that was part of the reason he smiled. The cruelty of her bondage brought him an odd joy, watching her fruitless attempts to escape on the playback of a security camera. She'd clawed at the walls, striking sparks more than once as her body let off arcs of eco to burn the area around her, often doing some damage to her own flesh in the process. Her desperation redoubled every hour or so, throwing herself at the eco fence regardless to the fact that she knew it would burn her.

All of this gave him some insight to how her mind worked. She was perfectly primitive, without even a grasp of language beyond her own name and a few key words. Her rage made her irrational and determined, and she was quite able to ignore pain if she had a higher goal in mind.

The feed Errol watched had been monitored by another guard since he'd left her alone in her cell, the video then edited to only include parts where she'd been doing something different, the timestamp being the only way to tell how long she'd been at a single activity. He would have watched himself, but he did have other things on his plate besides the investigation of this creature. Now he was given her agony and rage in a short synopsis, watching as her image jumped from wall to wall, scratching and butting her body against the metal, leaving dents and long lines in the metal.

The eco made her body strong enough to preform these things; to take a frail human shell and make it into something dangerous. From a single overview he got to learn just how powerful she'd become, from physical strength to slinging eco away from her body as a destructive wave, making some parts of her captivity melt.

She was every bit the monster they'd been trying to create... and yet she still wore Loor's face.

That made this all the more worth while. Errol had wanted to see her like this since their first meeting.

Loor had been quite the little actress when she made her jailbreak, playing the helpless child in a big scary world. As attractive as her body had become, his true interest had been in how easily it would have been to take advantage of her... or how easy it had seemed when she'd been crying and begging for her life. Sadly that had been nothing more than a charade to distract from the fact that her sister, another experiment, had woken up and had been changing into her own dark form.

The younger sister had attacked him, and Loor had stolen his gun. She'd even gone so far as to shoot at him, hitting him in the arm. The wound had been an easy enough fix, but that wasn't the point. There was no creature in this world, human or not, that had made him bleed and lived to tell the tale. She'd used the immediate moment of pain to run with her younger sister, and they'd played their game of cat and mouse since.

He'd caught her once before, but she'd been rescued before he had the chance to exact any sort of punishment for her crimes against him.

Now, even as her other self, she was stuck in that cage. Raging at the walls and harming herself in her desperation to get free. Screams of agony and protest made a dangerous smirk spread across his face.

The video skipped forward again. She'd gone from kneading a wall with her talons to making yet another attempt at the fence. The timestamp told him she'd been at this for hours, and the rough squeal of pain only cemented that. She was becoming exhausted.

She didn't seem stupid... she was clearly self-aware, and yet she still tried and tried to throw herself through the blockade. This was the definition of insanity; trying something over and over again and expecting a different result. Or, perhaps, she didn't expect it.

Maybe she just couldn't hold still.

He chuckled as she was thrown onto the floor, once more noting the timestamp. It was almost at the end of the recording, and it wasn't too far behind the current time; the greater part of an hour past. He expected her to get up and make another try, but he blinked as she clumsily got back onto all fours and leaned her shoulder to the wall.

She became still, only her tail twitching now and again indicating that she was till alive and awake.

The recording ended.

He stood up from the station he'd been watching at; the guard who had edited it for him was close at hand in case he wanted to see any of the extra bits that had been cut out to give the commander the range of the creature's abilities in the shortest amount of time. "It took hours, but it looks like it's exhausted itself." He chuckled, still wearing that smirk.

"Yes sir." The guard nodded, moving out of the way as Errol stepped away from the chair he'd been sitting in, watching as he moved to leave the security bunker. "It is still awake for now. We will watch and note any new behaviors as they happen."

The question of whether or not the creature was actually capable of sleeping was left unspoken. This... Lyra was a mystery. She was everything they'd wanted out of the Dark Warrior Program; wrapped up in a shell that was incapable of any sort of communication, and impossible to persuade or manipulate.

"I think I may visit it." Errol snickered, reaching the door and letting himself out before the guard could even manage a salute of recognition.

He enjoyed her suffering, but he was also curious. There was a reason he headed up this program and spoke with all the egg-heads; he was interested in all of these things. Manipulating human genetics was a concept so delicious he spent his fair share of time in the labs himself. There were plenty of scientists, all drafted for the war effort, who were more than happy to explain anything before he'd even asked the question. All he had to do was look at a project, and they'd start babbling before he started shooting, or playing with dials and switches on containment tanks. If they didn't explain it, he'd dive right in to figure it out for himself.

His curiosity could prove dangerous now and again; the pale spot on his arm reminded him of that. The bullet Loor had put in his arm had been the first time he'd ever been shot by a test subject, and it had taken long enough to get ahold of a health pack that it had permanently scarred.

He'd never forget the damage she'd done. Granted, if she'd never ran he would have shot her right there, and he would have never known just how effective the IV branch of the Dark Warrior Program had been.

His expression turned somewhat irritated as he remembered these facts, walking down several metal corridors to return to the prison blocks. The damage he'd taken had been something of a necessity to the current situation... but nothing changed how badly he wanted to make her suffer for thinking she could get away with it.

But the experiment was allowing him that. Trapping her was as good as torture, if her noise was any hint. That brought his smile back.

The current plan was to learn as much as possible about her powers, see if she could be controlled, and then use her to spearhead an attack on the metal head nest. The egg heads were already figuring out a way an eco source could be strapped to her back during battle, but the fact remained that she didn't understand the spoken word. If they had no way of communicating with her, and that was assuming she'd even cooperate once she knew what they wanted her to do, she'd be another failure to dispose of.

And if that were the case, he would gladly be the one to dispatch her. He'd cut off her eco supply and let Loor come back to the surface. He'd watch her face as he explained to her; she was smart and able to understand all of the things they were doing. She'd be insatiably curious, but the despair would take soon enough as she realized there was no escape; that she would die here.

Even if they could use Lyra, she'd still have to be gotten rid of after the war was over to cover-up what went on inside the fortress. The townies just might be sparked into a rebellion if they knew by what means the war ended. Either way, he'd have the pleasure of putting a bullet between her eyes.

He stopped; he'd entered the prison blocks and now stood outside of the door the custom cell he'd designed for her. With a quick correspondence with the scanner outside he unlocked the door and allowed himself in.

She was still leaned against the wall he'd seen her against on the video feed. She'd come down to her knees and elbows, talons still tensing against the metal floor and leaving little scratches whenever she managed to get the edge to drag. Fangs were left on display as her jaw hung open, soft panting coming from between her lips as her body moved with a regular sway, still hitting the wall with her shoulder. There was no strength behind it, but she seemed simply incapable of stopping.

Her black eyes were half-closed and dull, her ears fallen as her head hung most of the way down. Her hair was still held back by the red scarf her host wore around her head, though it was messy and unkempt from all the struggling she'd done.

She didn't react to the sound of the door. She just kept thumping her shoulder against the wall. Her tail lay on the ground, exhibiting only a small twitch to the left or the right when she made impact with the wall. From the way she depended more on the arm away from the wall to hold her up, he had to guess she'd damaged the one she was still drumming on the metal. Dislocation was possible, but a break from the way she'd been throwing herself around was more likely.

And she was still abusing it, even though she knew her attempts were beyond futile at this point.

She had to know.

He watched her quietly, noting other ways she's harmed herself in the mere hours she'd been stuck. Red welts that would likely bruise covered all of her exposed skin, layers of skin missing where she'd taken the toughest impacts, bleeding dark purple at some points. The smell of burnt hair hung in the air, and the dark imprints of sparks showed on the brown leather of her shirt and belt.

And still she beat upon the wall. Fruitlessly, likely overloaded with pain.

He grinned; she probably couldn't even process it. An unstoppable force of strength and power.

Then, her head dipped further. It was as if it were suddenly too heavy for her neck to hold up, her shoulder hitting the wall and staying there. Soft growling that had been coming from her now faded even further, her panting calming down to a smoother rhythm.

Had she fallen asleep?

Her body suddenly jerked back, falling away from the wall and onto her side as she gave a cry. It wasn't like the pained screams she'd been letting out, or the enraged roars that left her exhausted. No, this was surprised.

Frightened.

Her black eyes were now wide as she looked around herself, laying on her side and her tail whipping about as her body wiggled to roll over and get back up, agitated.

She was scared of something... but she didn't seem to be a creature capable of fear. What could she fear? She was strong, armed, dangerous... not even the fact that her form was ultimately female hindered her. She bore no sensitivity; he knew that from the way she'd looked at him. She glared with murderous intent before; he knew that look from himself, and it was most entertaining to see it on someone else who was incapable of harming him.

But now she was terrified, like a child waking up from a nightmare but sure the monster was still under their bed.

It was now that she noticed him. She looked up from where she lay and saw him, staring as her nose flared, finally flipping over from her back to stand up completely; instead of sitting low to the ground on all fours she brought herself to stand like a human, like Loor, on two legs with her shoulders pushed back.

The shoulder she'd been beating on the wall, the right shoulder, didn't shift back. It hung limp and low. She had dislocated it; something that would require a re-setting of the bone by outside hands.

Once she'd drawn to the full height of her fleshy shell, she hissed at him, attempting intimidation. This made him smirk at her again; so she had a sense of pride. She didn't like that he'd seen her fearful reaction.

He approached the fence, not touching it but simply standing a little closer to look at her. Pure black eyes stared at him, but they were still dull despite being wide. She was exhausted... as impressive as it was that she'd struggled for so long without rest, she would need to sleep some time... and this cell hadn't been meant to contain her for more than a few hours. They had another one ready for her, with another fence and another eco feed for the receptacle on the back of her neck. It also had a low bed and a toilet, like any other prison cell.

But that cell was waiting for his order to move her... and he hadn't given it yet. And he wouldn't until she was truly worn out; it wasn't safe to move this monster until she was beaten into submission.

Her body wavered on the spot. Her tail, having been hanging limp, suddenly raised to help her balance, a deep growl coming up from her chest.

"Can you sleep...?" He wondered, mostly to himself since he knew she didn't understand.

Which made it more interesting when she reacted. At the last word, the mention of 'sleep', she yowled and hissed again with greater intensity of protest, actually backing up; away from him. Her fear was etched into her pale features, clenching her fangs as if she could scare him off.

Could it be...?

She feared falling asleep.

The very idea was confusing, but at the same time it made a small semblance of sense; she'd never done it before. She took Loor's body for her own, wreaked havoc on the world around her, and then faded back. She knew no rest, only life and stasis. She didn't understand the true meaning to having flesh; injury and death were things that happened to others, not her.

Sleeping had to feel like dying to her. It ignited her exhausted body to be tense, all the fur on her tail standing up and making it look uncharacteristically fluffy.

He crossed his arms over his chest, still wearing his smile. The merciful thing would have been to sedate her and move her; force her into sleep and prove it wasn't something she had to fear.

But he had never been very merciful. When he spoke it was to the guard he knew would be watching the security feed. "Move it when it falls asleep of its own accord. I'll be in tomorrow morning to see how it's holding up."

Again, at his mention of sleep, she yowled.

He realized then that there was something still strange... how did she know that word? Her own name made sense, and eco was a word she understood probably because it was her life-blood... but why would she understand, and fear, sleep? What did the word actually mean to her, and how did she know it's sound?

She was a source of curiosity, but those trivial things were of little interest. Unless it would help him control her, he really didn't have the time to care. Knowing her fears meant he knew how to threaten her. Leaving her to struggle against her own terror would only cement it instead of alleviating it; once she knew it he'd teach her about ways he'd be able to force her into it.

Properly leashed, she'd be every bit the weapon they'd hoped for.

He turned to leave her alone in her cell once more, shutting the door as her head drooped and she began her squeals of protest once more.