Hi guys! I managed to get this finished relatively early, and I hope you enjoy it! I picked up many of the things that happened in earlier chapters of both of my stories and retold them from Yami's perspective, but I corrected mistakes I had made earlier in the dialogue. Have fun, and please listen to the Background Music!
Disclaimer: I do not own Wild Kratts, they belong to PBS, 9 Story and the Kratt Bros Company. The Songs belong to their rightful owners. Yami belongs to me.
Past and present
BG-music: 4everfreebrony – House of Glass
It was a beautiful day outside. The Tortuga was stationed somewhere near the seaside, well hidden underneath a cliff, so Zach wouldn't be able to find them.
Chris came out of his room, stretching his arms. Since he had beaten Stonebreaker, his nights had been calm. He had seen his reason a few times, but most of his dreams had been fairly normal.
The others were starting to calm down again and Martin and Yami were healing, but the atmosphere still was really tense. Even if Chris had tried multiple times, Martin still refused to talk to him, unable to forget what his brother had said. The older brother knew that he had to accept Chris' apologies, but something inside of him was still redundant towards letting him talk to him.
Aviva had tried to bring them closer together, but every time Martin saw that Chris was in the room, his look got cold and he turned away demonstratively. The younger one felt his heart breaking a bit more every time it happened, but right now, he couldn't do anything about it.
Instead, he had tried getting closer to Yami. He had helped her with her work around the ship and she had started teaching him close combat, with or without Creature Powers. Now that both their evil personalities had been locked away, they had started to become friends.
One afternoon, when they were both working on her room, painting the walls in a light purple colour and decorating them with black animal silhouettes, Chris tried to strike up the conversation.
"So, looks like you're staying, huh?"
She nodded, sketching a tiger's head. "Yeah, I think so. Thanks for your help, by the way."
"No prob. It's the least I can do after...after I was so horrible to you."
She froze for a second, but quickly resumed her work. Their past was still a dangerous topic, but they both knew that they had to talk about it sooner or later. "It's alright, I deserved it. At least, now I've been able to find my place in the team, thanks to all of you!"
Chris smiled. "Yeah, I just wanted you to know that I'm really sorry for what I've said and how I acted."
"It's alright. You also weren't yourself after all."
"I know, but it was still stupid. I just let my anger get the best of me." They both went silent again.
"But I have one question. You don't have to answer, I'm just curious." Chris turned towards her, unsure about how he could ask. "Do you have, like, a place you can go to? A home? I mean, I don't mind it at all that you're here, I just wanted to know if you have a family, or friends."
He scolded himself when she didn't answer, but suddenly, he felt something strange. He couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but something told him that she was crying. Instantly, he got down to his knees and put his hand on her shoulder. "I...I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you cry." He felt her tense up at his touch, but then, she relaxed again and wiped her cheek, even though there were no tears.
"It's...it's alright. You just reminded me that...nevermind." But then, she turned towards him again. 'No.' she thought. 'I'll have to tell him one day anyway.'
"Chr...Chris? I have to tell you something, but can you promise me that you can keep it to yourself?" She looked into his eyes.
He started sweating. Why would she tell him a secret? Him, out of all people on the team? He had been the only one who didn't trust her for such a long time, and it had barely been two weeks since he had started really talking to her.
But there was one thing inside him telling him to listen to her. If she already trusted him that much, that meant that she wanted to get over the barriers between them and become friends with him, the same goal he wanted to achieve. This was the chance to meet her halfway.
He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Then, he looked at her again. "Yes, you can trust me. I won't tell anyone. Pinkie promise." He saw her twitch, but she quickly caught herself again.
"OK. You may want to sit down, this might take awhile." After they had both sat down on her bed, she took a deep breath. There was no turning back now.
"It has something to do with the ability we share. You know, shifting." He nodded. "But I didn't get mine the same way you did. First off, Yami isn't my real name. It's the name of my other side, just like Hikari is Martin's dark side."
Chris froze when he remembered his terrifying fight against his brother, but he kept listening.
"My real name is Elliana."
I was born in a small village, so small, that you couldn't find it on your everyday map. We only had a small store, a chapel and about a dozen houses. One single street was our only connection to the outside world, our only telephone line had been destroyed in a thunderstorm, but nobody really cared about repairing it.
There, everybody knew everybody. We children had grown up together, playing in the fields and the forest that surrounded the village. My mother...I...I can't even remember her name. She was a tailor, I think, and my father was helping with the crops every year.
I was five years old at the time. It had gotten dark, so me and the other kids had started to go home.
"Come on!" a small boy with red hair shouted. "We're going to be late for dinner!"
All of the children followed him. Nobody wanted to make his parents mad, and the moon was already rising above the treetops.
BG-music: Phantom Power Music – Overpowered
Suddenly, they heard the sound of engines coming towards them from behind. They turned around, only to see multiple big cars driving through the fields. One car was driving directly into their direction, so they started to run.
"Quick, we have to tell our parents!" The girl that had screamed ran ahead, the others quickly catching up to her. Somehow, they managed to get to the village before the dark cars did, and they instantly started to scream.
"MUM!"
"DAD!"
"Come, something is happening!"
Instantly, the parents started to come out of the houses and were gathering around their kids, instantly noticing the cars.
"Robin, where did they come from?" one father asked his son, motioning towards the cars, others lead their kids back into their houses.
"I...I don't know..." the boy stammered, knowing very well that something was wrong. "I'm...I'm scared!"
"Everybody, get inside. Quickly!" the father shouted, motioning towards the chapel that was next to them. Some people wanted to hide in the forest, but it was too late. The cars had surrounded the village and many men with weapons jumped out, surrounding the people that were still outside. Others started to break into the houses, pulling out everybody they could find.
The villagers tried to escape, screaming, as the men set everything on fire. Some of the children tried to hide, but all of them were found. A few tried to fight back, but they were quickly struck down and pulled inside the waiting trucks.
One woman picked up her daughter and ran, trying to protect her, but suddenly, she tripped and fell, still holding on to her daughter. Some of the armed men walked up to her, laughing, and ripped the screaming child out of her arms.
"Elliana, no!" she screamed. "Please, take me, but don't hurt her!"
"Aww, how touching!" one of them mocked, violently picking her up, tying her hands together and dragging her towards one of the trucks, while her daughter was carried towards another one. "Don't be scared, we won't hurt her. Now." All of them laughed as the little girl started crying and calling out to her mother.
She only stopped when she was thrown inside the back of the car, where the other children were already waiting, too scared to move. The man who had carried her slammed the door shut and locked it, trapping them all inside. Nobody said a word, but from outside, they could hear gunshots and people screaming, others yelling orders. Suddenly, a door at the front was opened and another man came in, sitting down next to the driver.
"Come on, drive! We don't have much time before this place is blown to smithereens!"
The driver started the engines, and Elliana only had the time to look at her home through the space between the doors for a second, before everything disappeared inside a huge ball of fire.
She couldn't remember any of the journey. The inside of the truck was dark and none of the kids had dared to speak, the past events numbing them. Even if nobody had spoken out loud, all of them knew that they would probably never see their parents again. Silent tears had covered her face, trying to drown out the memories.
Jerked out of her sleep-like state when the engines stopped again, the little girls rubbed her eyes. The door was opened, and she could distinguish a big human silhouette in front of the sunrise before it was shut again.
"More kids? Couldn't you find older ones this time? You know they don't last long enough!" she heard a female voice say.
"Y-Yeah, uh...mistress. B-But, our orders..." one of the drivers replied, but he was interrupted.
"Don't try to find excuses! Last time you brought me a bunch of children, we had to wait months before we were able to start the next experiments. Do you even realize that we can't do this whenever we want to? This requires meticulous planning!" She sighed. "Ugh! Who am I kidding. You understand nothing of our work after all. Just bring them inside already!"
The truck started moving again, and she felt the air getting colder. Sounds were echoing through the darkness, telling her that she was inside some sort of building. But it didn't last long before the doors were opened again and all of them were dragged out. She was dragged forward to some sort of cell, and before she could say anything, she was thrown inside.
BG-music: Aviators – Welcome to Paradise
Everything went black for a second, and when she opened her eyes again, she could distinguish many other children standing or sitting on the floor. She couldn't see her friends, but when she looked up, she saw the face of a boy.
"They sure did a number on you, huh. Are you alright?" he held out his hand.
At first, she hesitated, but she nodded and took it. He helped her get up.
"I'm B. Well, technically, my name is Bartholomew, but that name is too long and too stupid, so everybody just calls me B. What's your name?"
"E-Elliana..." she whispered, overwhelmed by his niceness.
"Elliana? That's a beautiful name. Oh, wait! You're bleeding!"
She followed his eyes and reached for her head, feeling something sticky on her hand. "Really? I...I didn't notice..."
"Here, let me help you." he said, ripping off a bit of his shirt, already in rags, and wrapping it around her head with a fresh tissue on the wound to protect it. "All better." He sighed. "They don't care about any of us. I'm sorry I have to tell you already, but you'd have found out by yourself sooner or later. Right now, we're all trapped here. There's no way out apart from this door, but we can't open it." he said and motioned towards the heavy metal bars.
"You only get out when you're taken away, but the ones that are taken away, we...we never see them again. We can only listen to their screams."
Elliana started shivering. "What-what's happening to them?"
B. looked away. "I don't know. They just disappear after the experiments. This is the only thing we know, that they perform experiments on us. But nobody knows what or why."
Both of them were silent for a second. "But wait, you haven't even met the others yet!"
He spent the next minutes introducing her to everyone else. There were about ten children inside the cell with them, and they told her that they saw her friends being locked away somewhere else.
"They fear that, if we're too many, we could start a rebellion. And they don't want to shoot us, because they still need us."
She tried to take everything in, but she still felt dizzy. And even though the situation was hopeless, most of them were smiling.
"Why does everyone look so happy?" she asked her new partner. He took her hand.
"Because if we are always sad, we're going to break one day. With or without experiments. So we're trying to enjoy life as long as we're still alive and together. And your arrival has brought another small light into our lives, because a new friend is always great!"
"You...you think I'm a friend?" she whispered, tears rising in her eyes.
"Of course!" he grinned, and hugged her.
The tears ran over her face, but she smiled. He was right, there would always be a light inside her heart. As long as they were all together, there would be hope.
The following days, she tried to grasp her situation completely. It still made her sad that her family and old friends were gone, and she had spent the first nights crying, but she comforted herself with the thought that she had found new friends. She had found out that most of them were from the same village, B. being the oldest of them all, but some of them had been captured previously. They hadn't been used for experiments yet because the guards thought they were too weak, but they knew that, one day, they would also be taken away.
Since she had arrived, they had already lost three of them. Every time the guards came close to the door, all of the children tried to hide in the darkness, shaking, but one of them was always caught and carried away, too shocked to say anything. The entire cell stayed silent while the child's screams were ringing through the building, and it was only afterwards that some of them started crying, or saying that they wanted to go home. B. tried his best to comfort them, but sometimes they were just unconsolable.
Elliana had always been shocked to see them disappear. Slowly, she started to close up, more and more, so she wouldn't be sad when somebody else was taken. The only one she still wanted to talk to was B., and he respected that.
"I understand why you don't want to talk to the others, you know. I also just wanted to be by myself when I first got here, but I didn't manage to do it for very long. I'm a really social guy, so I'll just have to deal with all of this." He suddenly went silent.
"B-But I don't think I can take this any longer." he whispered. She tried to touch him, but she froze when she saw his eyes, staring into nothingness. "S-Sometimes, I can hear them cry in my dreams. Screaming. That I gave up on them. That I didn't protect them! Even though I said that I was their friend..." He started shaking and giggled nervously. "I...I think I'm going insane..."
But before she was able to do anything, the door was suddenly opened, letting in two guards. Too shocked to do anything, B. and Elliana just sat there, while all the other kids quickly hid in the shadows.
"Well well well. Who do we have here? Two love-birds." one of the guards laughed.
"Hey, that one seems to be pretty strong!" another one said, motioning towards the immobile girl.
"You're right. Let's take her now!" She started shaking as the guards came towards her, but suddenly, she saw something move next to her.
"No! Don't touch her! Take me instead!" B. yelled, standing in front of her.
"...B...Bartholomew..." Elliana whispered, tears of horror in her eyes.
"Haha! Sacrificing yourself for her, huh? How pathetic!" the first guard laughed, grabbing his fists and tying them together. "It doesn't even matter if we take you now, she will be next!" They all went out, roaring with laughter, dragging the boy along with them.
"...no...NO!" she cried, the tears streaming down her face.
"D-Don't worry about me." he smiled, sadness showing in his eyes. "At least, I'll...I'll finally be at peace..." Then, he disappeared in the dark hallway.
She kept crying for hours until she had no tears left and collapsed on the floor, not even moving when the guards came back and tied her up.
"What? No fighting? So they finally realised that there was no point in fighting. Well, that makes our job much easier." the taller one said.
Keeping silent, she walked next to them through the darkness before they reached a metal door. It wasn't labelled, there was just a big yin and yang symbol with a crossed arrow and sword, but she knew that it was the laboratory. The place where she would die.
"Everything is in place." a scientist said. Elliana had been suspended above a large pool filled with a blueish liquid, her arms and legs stretched out and secured with strong wires. Needles had been implanted all over her body, connected to vessels next to the control board.
"Are you sure it's going to work this time?" a female voice asked. "Until now, nobody had gotten out of this undamaged."
"Yes. I've recalibrated the amount of injections and regulated the electric current, it should work. Well, even if it doesn't, we still have more objects to try this on."
Then, there was pain. Pure, excruciating pain. She screamed, begging them to stop, trying to escape, but the wires were too strong. Injections and electric shocks were altering, keeping her from passing out. But just before she thought that she couldn't take it anymore, everything stopped, leaving her whole body numb.
"Is she...it...still alive?" a voice asked, far, far away.
"Yes! She is the first one of her age to survive. Be careful with her now! You know the procedure." another voice answered.
The wires were lowered and she was carried away by two persons in lab coats. Unable to take in details, she only felt how she was put on a bed in a small room and locked in, her wrist connected to an IV bag. For what felt like hours, she just lay there, her eyes only slowly adapting themselves to the new light conditions. But just before she was able to move even an arm, the door was opened again and the two people from before came in to get her again. She was still too weak to defend herself, so she just watched them tying her up and lifting her above the glass tube for a second time.
She still felt the pain, but the mixture of numbness and sadness prevented her from screaming.
Waking up in her room again, she realized that she had blacked out during the procedure. But now, she already felt stronger, able to move, even to stand up. Next to her, she noticed a plate with a bottle labelled "vitamin shake" and a weirdly coloured paste. Even though it looked suspicious, she dug in, too starved to resist. In her former cell, they had only gotten dry loafs of bread with a bit of water, and they were unable to relieve their hunger, but even if it tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before, she felt her lost strength coming back.
Having no idea what to do, she lied down on her bed and tried to sleep, but suddenly, everything came rushing back. All of her losses, her old and new friends, B., everything fuelled her despair. Tears started staining her small pillow until she felt completely dry. Suddenly, she frowned. Vengeance, that was what she needed. She would avenge all of them, her family and her friends. That was what she had to do. Then, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, there was a man sitting next to her. Panicked, she scurried back, but he didn't seem to want to hurt her. Still, she didn't want to take any risks, ready to bite his hand if he ever came too close.
"It's alright, I'm a friend." he said. No. He was no friend. She couldn't allow herself to make any more friends, it was just too painful.
BG-music: Aviators – Wolves
"I want to help you." She pressed her back against the wall, glancing towards the door, but it was closed. "You know, you're the first child to survive this." She nodded carefully, the scientists had already said that.
"Look, I don't have much time, they will soon notice my absence. Listen to me." He coughed. "Not everybody in here is evil. There are some people that want to destroy the clan, but to do this, we need the help of you survivors. I can tell you more later, but right now, just try to survive for as long as you can, alright?" She nodded again. He stood up and wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, but pulled it back again. Then, he opened the door and, after checking the hallway, he left again.
She had sat there for some time until the guards came back and lead her towards the laboratory. This time, she didn't fight back at all, she just endured the procedure. The thoughts about her family and her friends kept her going, let her keep her sanity. Her thirst for vengeance was stronger than the pain, fuelled by her hatred against these people.
For the first time now, she was able to walk back to her room on her own. Her strength was increasing with every hour she spent in this lab, it probably had something to do with what they were doing to her. But she still faked that she was weak. She didn't want anyone to think that she would be able to escape, or she would never get out of there. The guards accompanied her to her cell before they left, but she still stayed vigilant. That was when she first noticed the presence.
It was weak and she didn't know whether it was in the room or inside her head, but she felt that it was a part of her. But before she could really grasp it, it disappeared again.
'Strange.' she thought to herself. 'Perhaps this is all getting to me, I have to find a way to get out of here before I completely lose my mind!'
The next few hours, nothing happened, but she refused to let her guard down. She always had to be prepared for another procedure or she would soon break. Suddenly, she heard the door being unlocked. Expecting the guards, she faked an exhausted sleep, but something told her that it was her special guardian.
"Are...are you awake? I managed to persuade them to leave you alone for today, so I should have enough time to explain what's going on." he whispered, after he had checked the hallway and locked the door again.
Slowly, she sat up again, facing him. "Can I really trust you? Until now, everybody in here just wanted to hurt me. How do I know you're not the same as them?" she asked, bitterness in her voice. Carefully watching his reaction, she waited for something that would give him away, but he stayed completely calm.
"I understand your distrust. What these people are doing is unacceptable, and that's we're trying to stop them." He took a deep breath. "This started many, many years ago. Humans, greedy for power, thought up a plan to take over the world, but they weren't able to fight against armies. So now, they're trying to create the perfect soldier, one whose strength, speed and durability exceed those of any other human being. I also don't know everything, but I want to stop them, along with many others here who don't agree with the Clan's plan and goal. Right now, we are too weak to stop them, but with your help, we have a real chance." he explained, before looking into her eyes again. "So please, will you help us? Without you, we have no way to end this."
She thought of her village, her friends, all of the people she had lost. She knew that she had no choice. Without at least knowing something about this place, she just wouldn't be able to defeat them. She needed information, but if allies came along with it, all for the better.
"I agree." she said, taking his hand. "Do you already have a plan?"
"Not exactly. It all depends on your level of power. Right now, we are looking for a way to weaken them enough to be able to defeat them. I will tell you as soon as we know more." With these words, he left again.
The next day, the procedures started again. The pain was still overwhelming, but at the same time, she started to feel changes inside her body. The cuts on her arms and legs from the cables started to heal up much faster than before, and her senses had become stronger.
'If this goes on like that, we may really have a chance to win!'
That night, she felt the presence again. It was stronger than before, but still inconsistent. She knew it was inside her head, but she also felt like it was trying to help her.
"Are...are you a fragment of my imagination? An imaginary friend? Or am I going insane?" she slowly whispered. But before it could answer, she felt pain again. It was different from the pain that filled her during the experiments, but she still thought she was being ripped apart. Darkness clouded her mind, but she knew her body was changing.
It only lasted a few seconds, but she couldn't stand up, lying on the ground with glassy eyes, panting. There wasn't much time left.
The beast had awoken.
It went on that way for many days. The experiments took place more often, and it became more and more difficult to conceal the animal inside her. Her guardian had told her about the Clan's power source: a Stone that sustained all of their systems, but they still had to find out where it was kept.
Her imaginary friend had become stronger every day, but she didn't know what to think of it. It helped her keep her sanity, but it also seemed to be connected to the times when she lost control.
One evening, she was alone inside her cell, waiting for the next experiment.
"Everybody is counting on you, you can't just give up!" the shadow said. It was the name Elliana had given her imaginary friend, since it didn't want to tell her anything. It also fitted it's dark, smoky form.
"I – I know." the girl panted. "But it's all so much...too much to handle...I don't think I can survive this much longer!"
BG-music: Thunderstep Music – Entering the Warzone
Suddenly, the shadow put a finger on her lips. "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."
Elliana flinched. The shadow only used that sentence when guards came to take her away again, and she had learned to trust it in that matter. But instead, she saw her guardian running through the door and locking it again. She gasped. He was covered in wounds, breathing hard, and she could hear other guards shouting in the hallway.
"They...they found us out! They already killed the others, quick, you are the world's only hope! The Stone is hidden behind a door in the laboratory, your only chance is to steal it! You – " but he was cut off. A powerful energy-blade had been rammed through the door and had sliced it's way through his chest. Without another sound, the man collapsed on the floor, his blood slowly drenching all his clothes.
"No...please, no..." She covered her mouth, but before she could say anything else, she felt the pain again. Her screams turned into growls and roars, her strength increased, her whole body was turning into a killing machine.
The beast had left it's cage. And it was thirsting for blood.
The other guards broke into the cell, but before they could react, they were being ripped apart by powerful claws. One of them tried to escape, but the animal was faster. An alarm started to ring throughout the facility and more guards rushed towards the cells, but none of them stood even the slightest chance.
All the animal wanted was blood, but there was something in its heart that told it to find something, something very important. So it made its way to the laboratory, killing everybody who stood in its way. Not even the doors could stop it, it just broke right through.
Elliana couldn't control herself anymore, but it didn't matter. She finally got her revenge, and her anger fuelled the fury that drove the beast forward. Now she just had to find the Stone, which she would probably destroy, but it didn't matter as long as the Clan couldn't carry on with the experiments.
Finally, she reached the room her guardian had told her about. It was dark, and the walls were covered in shelves filled with ancient books and rolls of paper. In the middle stood a metal sculpture in the form of an angel holding two parts of a stone, but the two halves didn't touch each other. Instead, she could feel a great energy radiating from the gap, energy that was being collected by a complex machine. Wires were hanging from the ceiling and leading towards that statue, and the floor was covered in a web of energy currents, the statue being its centre. She prepared herself to break the machine and steal the Stone, when suddenly something moved in the shadows. Ready for more guards, she bared her teeth, but it was no guard.
'B.?' she screamed inside her head, but all that came out of her mouth was a growl. The boy grinned at her, but something was wrong with that grin.
"Heehee...I – I wanted to blow this all up...I wanted to destroy everything...All of us will die in here...Hee...But you stand in my way...Nobo – nobody should stand in my way...Hee...I – I'm going to kill you all...heehee..." he uttered, his voice raspy.
Somehow, she managed to transform back for a second. "B., don't you remember me? I'm your friend, Elliana!" But the beast was too powerful, taking over again instantly.
"Friend? I had friends once...but I let them down...I killed them...just as I'm going to kill you...Hee..." A tear slid down his cheek.
She started trembling. He had gone insane, just as he predicted. But before she could do anything, he picked up a shard of metal that was left from the door and attacked her. The beast defended itself, even if Elliana tried everything to stop it from hurting her friend. He managed to cut its leg but was sent flying across the room, crashing into the shelves. But he stood up as if nothing happened, even though his head was bleeding.
'Please, stop! Don't hurt him!' she pleaded, but the beast just kept attacking, its fury was too great. She tried to close her eyes, but it was impossible. During the fight, it managed to get a hold of the Stone, causing more alarms to start howling. Both of them noticed the sudden loss of energy inside the room.
Suddenly, the beast managed to smash him onto the ground and tried to bite his head off. His eyes started to clear up.
"No, Elliana, please. Don't kill me!" he whispered. It hesitated.
'STOP!' she screamed. The beast inside whimpered and retreated, letting her transform back again. But the alarms kept ringing and smoke began to exit the machinery.
"B., are you alright?" He looked at her with glassy eyes as she helped him to stand up.
"The system...it's going to overload without the Stone's energy sustaining it. Everything...is going to explode..." he gasped.
"Yes, probably. But at least we were able to stop them." she tried to comfort him. It was true, they would die in here, but they would not die in vain.
BG-music: Peter Crowley – The Last Hero
"No. You have to live! I will try to buy you as much time possible, you have to escape!" He staggered towards the machine and started to work on the technology.
"But...what about you? I can't leave you here, you're my friend!" she cried, hugging him.
He hugged her back. "Come on, I'm not even really alive right now. The insanity was the only thing that kept me going, and they only kept me because I had survived, but I stopped living as soon as they started the experiment. But you're different. I can sense your will to survive! There are still others in here and all of them deserve to live. You must save them and get out of here. Go!"
Looking back one last time, tears in her eyes, she ran out of the room towards the other cells. The facility was already empty, but her sharp senses told her that there were still people. Following the faint smells, she finally reached a cell with five people in it. She didn't know any of them.
Transforming her arms, she ripped the door out of the wall and told them to hurry outside while she was looking for others. They ran towards the surface while she kept following smells.
It seemed everything was empty and she was ready to leave, when she suddenly heard a sound. It was the screams of a baby! Quickly, she followed them and found a single child inside a small nursery. She picked it up and wrapped some cloth around it so she could carry it on her back before hurrying to join the others. Together, they started to run as far away as they could before the facility would explode. They barely managed to hide behind a big rock when they heard the explosion and felt the heat wave. All of them were covered in dust and sand, but the rock had been able to hold back most of the big debris.
It was only then that she started crying. She had lost him again just after she had thought that he was back. Shaking and sobbing, she knew that she was alone. Suddenly, she felt something heavy inside her pocket. When she took it out, she recognized the Stone, the thing that had caused all of them so much pain. She wanted to throw it away, but something told her that she would need it.
Standing up, she noticed that everybody was looking at her.
"So, what should we do now?" a young woman asked.
Elliana looked at all of them. Their clothes were in rags, all of them were starved and most of them were covered in cuts and bruises. Only the baby was unharmed. She realised that she had to help them regain control over the situation.
"Do any of you know how to take care of a child?" she asked. Another young woman stepped forward.
"This isn't my baby, they destroyed it. But I can nurse it if we find food."
"Good." the girl answered. "Can all of you walk?" They nodded hesitantly. "Then we have to try and find civilisation. A village, a city, anything. We can't survive without food and water." She sniffed the air, looking for something edible, and they even managed to find some dried fruit that had been protected from the explosion by a plate of metal. After packing everything they would need, she carried all of it since she was the strongest right now, and they started to make their way out of the area towards the hills they could see in the distance.
BG-music: Two Steps From Hell – After the Fall
They walked on for several days, able to drink water they had found and stored in pouches made from big leaves. The fruit had been gone soon, but Elliana had gone hunting a few times. Now that everything was over, she had been able to control herself during her transformations, the beast only taking over one time after she had woken up because of a nightmare. At the same time, the memories of her life before the experiments started to fade away, but B.'s face was still clear.
The shadow had also made several appearances when she was alone, but they never spoke. It just showed her a general direction where she should explore, and she had often found sources of food and water there, but they didn't find civilisation.
Everybody started to get healthier, but they were still worn out and Elliana had to carry them sometimes when they just weren't able to go on. They still stayed silent about what they had witnessed, only the baby was laughing every time the girl transformed to carry it and its adoptive mother. They had all agreed to keep the secret of its origin, since they didn't even know who the real mother was. He wouldn't remember any of it anyway, so it wouldn't be difficult. But they still hadn't found a name for it.
A week later, while everybody else was sleeping, Elliana climbed a tall tree to take a look at their surroundings. Suddenly, she spotted lights in the distance. A small town!
"Guys, guys! I've found something!"
In the late afternoon, they finally reached the town. A few people had gathered and gave them food and water, while Elliana was brought to the mayor. Her group had chosen her as their leader, and they had decided to tell them that they were the only survivors of an earthquake which completely destroyed their village.
"So you have nowhere to go?" he asked. She nodded. "Well, you can stay here. We still have some empty houses, and if all of you work here, you will be able to pay the rent in a few months. Is that alright?"
"Yes, thank you very much!" she thanked him, before running outside to tell the others. All of them were happy that they had finally found a place to stay, but Elliana found it difficult to rejoice.
"Hey, you look sad. What's going on?" the woman who had taken care of the child asked.
There, she broke. "I – I just lost so many people that were close to me, I don't think I'll be able to accept another family." she cried. "Don't get me wrong, you were all wonderful during our journey, but – " The woman hugged her.
"I understand." she whispered, the little girl's tears dripping onto her shirt. "You were forced to live through all of this as a young child, and you grew up very quickly. You had to. But if you change your mind, remember that I will always welcome you with open arms." Then, she looked at her. "We'll prepare something for you. I hope you will find a place you can call home."
The next morning, everything was ready for her departure. They tried one more time to make her stay, but her mind was set. So all of them had come to say goodbye and wish her good luck on her journey, even the child. She secretly transformed her face into that of a lioness one last time to make it laugh, a skill she had mastered with the shadow's help. She knew that she was able to transform into any kind of cat, something that would be very useful on her journey. But her most powerful form still was the beast.
Finally, she left, a bag of food, drink, clothing and a bit of money on her back. She waved one last time before she transformed after the town had disappeared behind a hill.
Running across the plain, her paws hitting the ground in a steady rhythm, her heart pumping the blood through her veins, she finally felt free. But something was still on her mind. What would she do with the Stone? She had taken it with her because it was dangerous, and she hadn't told anyone about it, but she couldn't destroy it. Even after she had smashed it against a rock, it still didn't show a single scratch. The shadow had also told her that she should keep it, that it would be very important in her life.
But what life? What was her purpose? She had escaped, she had avenged all the people she had lost, and her former companions had found a new home. But now, there was nothing. The Stone was the only thing that was left. Perhaps that was her purpose: to protect the world from its destructive power until she died, taking the knowledge of this object with her forever.
With these thoughts in mind, she continued roaming the lands, evading every patch of civilisation on her way. She would not stop until she had found the perfect place to hide. It went on like that for weeks. She kept practising her transformations up to perfection and even managed to learn how to fight from a lone cougar. It seemed as if that would be her life, but suddenly, everything changed.
BG-music: Zack Hemsey – See what I've become
It was the day when she found the encampment. She had run out of water, so she waited for the night to get water from the spring next to it. Just as she had finished and wanted to leave, a door was suddenly opened, forcing her to hide behind a corner. She tried to escape into the other direction when she heard a voice, an awfully familiar voice.
"We underestimated her strength, this mustn't happen ever again!" it said, and she heard a glass being smashed against the table in rage.
"Yes, but without the Stone, we have no chance of rebuilding the laboratory. We would need another source of energy, but nothing would be as strong as the Stone!" a female voice answered.
'The Clan!' Elliana thought, cold sweat running down her back. 'How did they survive?' She clenched her teeth. It didn't matter. They weren't allowed to get out of here alive, who knew how many people would have to suffer their wrath?
"Wait, I think there's somebody outside." another voice interrupted them. The girl froze for a second, but the beast was stronger. She transformed, just as a guard came out of the door.
"Knock knock!" she growled, slicing him in half. Inside, one of the scientists and the general that had inspected her when she had arrived had jumped up, terrified by her. "So some of you escaped. How foolish! Now your death is going to be slow and painful instead of being rather fast in the explosion." She smiled as both of them were crushed underneath her paws.
None of them survived. One of them tried to run away, but she quickly caught up to him, tackling him to the ground. She was ready to deliver the final blow, when he suddenly said something.
"You're never going to win, there are too many of us!" He coughed as she increased the pressure on his ribcage.
"What?" she whispered. He grinned.
"Did you really think we would be the only survivors? Nearly everyone escaped, and all of us are working on a new project. The world will be ours!" He gasped when she broke his arms.
"Where are they?" she hissed, digging her claws into his shoulders.
"I don't...I don't know. And even if I knew, I would never tell you!" He wasn't able to say much more. Exploding with rage, she smashed his head into the ground, snapping his neck. Finally, she was able to calm down a bit, even if her anger was still boiling inside her. If what he said was true, then she had to find all of the other strongholds and eradicate the Clan once and for all.
She went back to the main tent and looked through everything. He had said something about projects, so if she could find out anything about them, she would perhaps be able to get an advantage over the other members of the Clan.
Finally, after several hours of putting everything she had found onto the table and connecting the different plans, she tried to remember all of it. It was much easier now, the experiments seemed to have increased her memory capacity. She only kept some of the blueprints, they could always be helpful. Then, when she was sure that she had gathered everything, she covered everything in alcohol she had found, put the bodies inside one of the tents and set it on fire, running away before it was too dangerous.
'I swear that I will destroy them. And if it's the last thing I'll do, none of them can be allowed to survive!'
Her goal was set. It was difficult to find the second stronghold, but she noticed that she was somehow able to sense them, something that she associated with the energy of the Stone. After she had been injected with its energy for such a long time and because of carrying it with her close to her body, she could perceive changes in the earth's magnetic field caused by the Stone's energy-waves, which were also emitted by the scientists' bodies because they had been exposed to it for their entire lives. With every passing day she got better at localising them, even over extremely long distances.
Every time she found one, she would await the night before she went out to kill everyone, gathered all the information about their own projects and proceeded towards burning the entire place to the ground. Thanks to her new-found ability, she was also able to quickly find survivors before they could tell anybody about her. Sometimes, she even came across infants inside some of the tents, but since she wasn't able to sense them, she reckoned that they had been born after the Clan escaped. She always spared those children and brought them to the nearest orphanage, it wasn't their fault that their parents had made so many people suffer.
But on her longer journeys when she had to hide on cargo ships to get from one continent to another, she sometimes regretted her actions. She couldn't do anything to stop it, though. If she stopped eradicating their strongholds, they would be able to rebuild the shattered Clan, and as soon as she had reached another one, the beast took over her body until every last person was killed. She knew that she would never ever be able to live a normal life again, that life had ended with the appearance of the Clan. And she couldn't even tell anybody about what had happened, because, even if they believed her, they would try to dissect her, or more people would try to continue what the scientists had started.
So it went on. For many years she travelled the earth, the next stronghold being the only thing that was on her mind. Only speaking to people when it was really necessary, but being on her own for most of the time. There was nobody who could have helped her, it was her destiny to keep doing this, alone.
She didn't notice her body changing. The experiments had already done their part, but she grew taller, stronger. All the years of training paid off, even without her heightened abilities she would have been able to effortlessly beat an average grown man in a fight, but with the additional strength she would have even been able to defeat a professional wrestler. In her free time, she had also been studying the blueprints she had collected, and reckoned that she could perhaps build a suit of armour so she would be prepared if they had suddenly developed a weapon with which they could beat her. But she knew that she would have needed armour that could change its shape and adapt itself to her other forms.
But the more she kept going, the more socially awkward she became. She was now almost terrified of speaking to people, and never stayed in one place longer than necessary.
BG-music: Tom Day – Who we want to be
And then, suddenly, it was all over.
She had just snapped another former guard's neck when she felt it. She couldn't really describe the feeling, but what came closest to it was...empty. Something told her that this had been the last stronghold, that she had finally completed her mission.
After she had set everything on fire, she slowly walked away, before stumbling and collapsing on the ground, her eyes filling themselves with tears. As the fire rose into the sky, her desperate screams echoed through the night. There was nothing left for her now, the only purpose she had found had just been completed. What was she supposed to do now?
Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her. She didn't react, there was no point to it anyway. Perhaps it would be better if they just came to kill her.
"Hey, miss. Are you alright?" a children's voice asked. She didn't answer, but tensed up at the child's touch, ready to fight. It sensed her tension, retiring its hand instantly. "I – I'm sorry, are – are you hurt?" Finally, she looked up, straight into a pair of light green eyes belonging to a little boy. "Oh, you – you're crying. I'm sorry...I'm really sorry..." he hiccuped, on the verge of tears himself.
"No, no, you didn't do anything." She was surprised at how raspy her voice was. But she hadn't spoken for several weeks, so it was no wonder it sounded that way. "I just had a really bad day, that's all. Hey, you don't need to cry." she said, carefully stroking his hair. 'Strange.' she thought. 'Why am I feeling so confident? Perhaps it is because he's a kid.'
"But what are you doing here anyway? It's the middle of the night, shouldn't you be at...home, or something?" she wondered.
"Yes, but I couldn't sleep. And when I saw the fire I sneaked out to look." Suddenly, he gasped. "I have to go back now! If they see that I left my room, they will beat me again." It was then that she noticed the many cuts and bruises that covered the boy's arms and legs, some of them even infected.
"Who...did your parents do this to you?" she asked. The boy shook his head.
"It was Auntie Smith and Uncle Miller. They are the owners of the orphanage here. I don't have parents, Auntie and Uncle told me that they abandoned me because I wasn't a nice boy, and that I would be taught manners here. But they're not really teaching us anything, they just beat us whenever we do something naughty, even if we just wanted to play." He was close to crying again.
With every sentence Elliana just got angrier. Nobody had the rights to hurt children, even if they made mistakes sometimes. This boy wouldn't get a beating, not if she had anything to say about it. Suddenly, all of her memories resurfaced, everything she had tried to forget, all of the children that had to suffer...
"I'm coming with you." He looked at her, surprised. Nobody had ever wanted to help them, but perhaps she would be able to do something, to end all of this. "Where is the orphanage?"
"Behind that hill over there." he said, showing her the general direction.
"Well, let's get going then, shall we?" She took him by the hand, determined to help him get back the childhood he deserved.
The sun had started to show behind the horizon when she knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it was opened, and she looked into a pair of small eyes belonging to a big woman. The small boy had hid behind her back, but the woman still noticed him.
"There you are, little rascal. Thank you for bringing him back, these kids just don't know how to behave." She tried to leave, but thanks to her good eyesight, Elliana had already spotted the man holding a rod who stood in the dark hallway, and she put her foot in the door.
"Wait just one second. This boy told me that you are not taking care of these children the right way. Why do you beat them?" she said, crossing her arms.
The woman turned around again to face her as the boy hid in a corner, while the man also made his way to the door. "You're new here, aren't you?" The young woman nodded. "Well, we have something here that we will be willing to give you if you don't tell anyone about this." With these words, she handed her a big bunch of green dollar bills.
She snickered. "Corruption. So that's how it is. I believe everybody here is willing to look away when they hear the children screaming." Her eyes narrowed. "But it won't work with me. You see, I've met so many people like you in my life, and there is nothing I despise more. So let these children alone, or else..."
The man laughed. "Or else what? The police are on our side, what could you possibly – " But he was cut off by a claw that was being pushed against his throat.
"Or else you're going to regret to have ever taken that rod into your hand."
He had started shaking as she pushed him inside the hallway. "You – you don't have the guts..."
"Try me!" she hissed. "One hint: that fire tonight, let's say that these people ticked me off. So be careful of what you say." Suddenly, she whirled around and kicked the woman in the chest who had just prepared herself to bash her head in with a huge stick. The man gasped, this young woman had just taken out his wife with one hit! "And now you've made me really angry!"
A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived to take away the couple. Elliana had forced the police to tell the truth about what had happened, and all of the children were going to be take to other orphanages after a doctor had taken care of them. She had watched all of that from far away, satisfaction and happiness filling her. Then, it hit her. This was what she was going to do! She would protect people from suffering like her, she would help where others turned their head. She would become the avenger of the weak.
Her work was different every time. For the first few months she went around, actively looking for people who would need her help, and took out gangs, group of corrupted policemen or other cruel and powerful people, but she also helped with catastrophes, freeing people that had been trapped by rocks or trees, carrying food, water and medicine where it was needed and built shelters.
She had chosen a katana and a small blaster she had constructed as weapons and a black and elastic training suit for her work, which gave her the nickname of "Dark Angel", and that name was travelling faster than her, along with her reputation. Soon, people actively asked for her help when there was nothing they could do, and she gladly helped, but never accepted more than some food and water and the thanks she got from the people she had saved. Sometimes, children wanted to offer her toys, but she always declined the offers, except once, when a child had put a little handmade sheep plush into her hand and had just run away before she could give it back. So she just smiled and kept it, putting it inside her bag.
The few times when nobody needed her, she worked on armour that would expand when she transformed. It was difficult because she had to move around so much, but with every passing hour of working on it she came closer to success. Then, finally, it was finished. She had used all of her knowledge and had developed the finest piece of technology that existed until then. It was armour, but more than mere protection. It also increased the power of her abilities, making her even stronger, faster, and more agile.
'Ironic, isn't it? The Clan has disappeared so many months ago, yet I just reached their goal. I have created the ultimate warrior!' she thought to herself, a sad smile on her face.
This kept going for more than two years. She was now almost nineteen, fourteen years older than when she had been taken away. The Stone was still the same as it had been when she had brought it along, but she had built a metal case for it to protect her environment from its radiation. She knew what power it yielded, and she didn't dare put the two parts together, because she didn't know how strong the energy output would be, so it just lied there, immobile.
One day, she was in a shop in a rather small town when suddenly two children came inside. She had put on normal clothes so nobody would recognize her, and the town was so calm that she knew there was nobody who would need her.
The children were both wearing blue jackets with different animal's fur patterns, but she could already see that it was fake fur. They were really excited about something, and even though she didn't want to listen, she still caught a bit of their conversation.
"Aren't the new jackets cool?" a little boy with red curls asked.
"Yeah!" a girl with darker skin and a black ponytail answered. "It was so nice of the Wild Kratts to send us some for free. And this design really is amazing!"
"I remember how they gave us advice when we found that injured eagle who had been caught inside a car. Without them, I think it would have died!" This made her listen up.
"It's just great how they help all of these endangered animals and teach us about creature powers." the girl went on. Elliana went to pay just as the children wanted to leave the shop, and she quickly managed to catch up to them.
"Excuse me?" she politely asked.
"Yes, miss?" The children turned around.
"I've heard a bit of your conversation. Who are these "Wild Kratts" you've been talking about?"
"Oh, you haven't heard of them?" The young woman shook her head. "They are amazing! It's the Team of the Kratt brothers, they are scientists who go out and learn all kinds of cool stuff about animals. And then, they make suits with which they can transform and get the creature's powers. They also defend and free animals which have been captured by Zach, Donita or Gourmand, who want to use them for their own profit!" the girl explained with sparkling eyes.
"And we're members of the "Wild Kratts Kids". There are hundreds of us all around the world, we call the Wild Kratts if there are problems with an animal in our neighbourhood, and we teach other kids what we have learned so we can live in harmony with all creatures!" the boy took over.
Elliana listened to them, getting more and more interested. These Wild Kratts were following the same cause as her, and perhaps she would be able to help them with her power. Now she just had to find them.
"Do you know where they are right now?" she asked. The children shook their heads.
"No, since Chris died, they didn't contact us at all." the boy sighed, lowering his head. She assumed that he was one of the brothers. Perhaps they would even need a new teammate.
"Well, thanks for telling me about them!" she said as they walked away.
BG-music: SharaX – Lockdown
She spent the next week looking for them, mainly staying in her animal forms so they wouldn't notice her. But one day, when she was roaming the forest as a cougar, she suddenly ran into a wolf pack! Their leader was ready to attack her, and she didn't want to fight, so she backed down. But something was off about that alpha male. His scent and also his aura were more similar to those of a human than those of a wolf, so she followed them, curious about that leader. But she lost their trail during a thunderstorm, so she had to leave them and resume her search for the Wild Kratts.
Finally, a month later, she found a big ship in the form of a turtle that stood in the middle of a big clearing in the forest. She quickly changed back into her human form and hid between the branches of a tree to avoid being seen, but they weren't paying attention anyway. They seemed to be having a party, and from what she could hear, this 'Chris' wasn't dead, in fact, he had been a wolf for two months. She smiled as she thought of the alpha male. So she had been right, there really had been something weird about him. But suddenly, one of them turned around and scanned the trees, as if he had felt her presence! She froze and held her breath, only letting it out again after he had turned away. He was a young man, perhaps a couple of years older than her, with dark brown hair and slightly tan skin. His aura was slightly similar to that of the wolf, so she reckoned that this was Chris. Smiling, she leapt towards the next tree and disappeared in the darkness.
She followed them for the next few weeks, ready to react if anything dangerous happened, but there was nothing. She was always close enough to listen to them, but not too close, so they wouldn't notice her. Soon, she knew them as well as if she had spent months in their company: Martin, the eldest of the team, about twenty-eight years old, but still with a lot of imagination and an explosive and open personality; Chris, his younger brother, about twenty-four years old, the calm and rationally-thinking one, a perfect leader; Aviva, the inventor, about a year older than Chris, and Martin's girlfriend; Koki, the computer expert, the same age as Chris, also very open like Martin and also really sarcastic, but she was also the one who distrusted the animals the most, often sticking to first impressions; and finally Jimmy, the youngest one, one year younger than Chris, a great pilot and very skilled as soon as it came to anything video-game related, which included an extremely short reaction-span. They were all relatively young, but very capable and they had all developed different skills which made them one of the best teams she had ever seen.
And Elliana always came along on their adventures, but she never once interfered. She wanted to join them so badly, but she was just too shy to even let them know she was there. So she stayed in the shadows, waiting for a perfect moment that would perhaps never come.
One day, they were in the snowy forests of Canada, probably looking for grizzlies. But they didn't find them. She had just managed to catch up to the two brothers, just in time to hear the taller one speak.
"I'm contacting the others. You try to follow the tracks and send me your location as soon as you detect him." She saw the wolf nod and run off and, in a second, chose to follow him. It was more likely that he would be attacked. And she was right. He had quickly found a place where the tracks ended and had called the others, but suddenly, a huge tree-trunk came swinging in and hit his head, knocking him unconscious before she was close enough to stop it. Instantly after he had hit the ground, a net was lifted up with him inside and a system of lines pulled it away from the clearing. It was difficult for her to keep up while avoiding being seen by anybody, so she only reached the plane when he was already inside.
Gourmand had just left to feed what she saw were grizzlies, and Chris was lying on the table, still trapped in the net and unconscious. But it was too risky to rescue him right away, she didn't know what the cook could have had in store for attackers. So she hid in a place where she couldn't be seen but saw everything.
For some time, nothing happened, but a few hours later a bright pink plane and a black jet flew closer and hovered over the clearing, looking for a place to land, before they both disappeared between the trees. Soon after, a tall woman with dark red hair and a pale man with black hair walked closer before sitting down at one of the tables that had been set up by Gourmand. He instantly came over to take their orders, and a few seconds later, he disappeared inside his plane again, while the man and woman who she presumed were Zach and Donita, started to chat. Carefully, she crept closer, but nobody saw her. Climbing on top of the plane, she was fast enough to hear the cook speak again.
"Let's see, what would be the best way to grill a wolf? Ah, I know! Gigot de loup en croûte et son museau farci. Wolf's leg in crust, accompanied by its stuffed muzzle, that sounds wonderful. Now, just getting my ingredients..." She froze, realising that she had to act fast. But before she could do anything, she noticed another presence. Scanning the trees, she saw a man in a blue suit and a woman in a purple jacket, Martin and Aviva! They had come to rescue Chris, but if she didn't want them to see her, she wasn't able to do anything. So she waited. She watched Aviva morphing into a squirrel to distract them, as Martin climbed into the plane. She couldn't see him, but she felt the vibrations his steps sent through the metal, too weak to be felt by a normal human.
"Don't worry Chris, I'll have you out of there in no time." she heard him say, as he cut through the net.
"Oh, really? I don't think so." Gourmand suddenly said, before he trapped Martin with his dough. She heard them talking as she silently crept around, looking for the restaurant's energy source. Martin desperately tried to save his brother by telling the villains not to eat him, but they didn't believe him. She could feel his fear, even though they were separated by a thick plate of metal.
"You're a monster!" he screamed, as the others prepared the grill to finish off his brother and his girlfriend. That was when she took her decision.
"I think now is the time to make my move." With one precise blast, she took out the energy source, extinguishing every last bit of light in the restaurant. Before they could even realise what was going on, she had already swung herself down and knocked two of them out with her feet, both groaned as they hit the floor. The cook was a bit tougher, and it took two hits before he also fell down. Her feline vision allowed her to instantly spot Chris, and she quickly cut down the net and checked his pulse before she went over to the small cage to free Aviva, then, she faced him.
"Look out!" he suddenly yelled, and she whirled around, just in time to stop the frying pan in the cook's hands. She silently scolded herself for letting her guard down, but thanks to Martin, nothing had happened.
"Grr, did you come to help blueberry?" Gourmand asked, his teeth clenched. He had no chance of beating her without a more powerful weapon, even though she had to admit that he was stronger than average, but still no match for her. She didn't respond and just hit two pressure points on his chest, making him twitch and fall over, finally knocked out. Turning around, she pulled her blade out of its scabbard and cut through the dough that was holding Martin, before she ran away.
"Wait, who are you, and why did you save us?" she heard him scream, but she didn't turn around. She only stopped a mile away, when she was sure that nobody had followed her.
"One day, we'll meet, Wild Kratts. One day..."
The next morning, she reached their ship again, but something was weird. All of them were outside, standing around a decorated pine tree and singing songs. She stayed in her cougar form so they wouldn't spot her, but suddenly, a memory resurfaced:
The entire village had gathered in the church around a tree covered in colourful decorations and sweets. They were all singing carols, and the adults exchanged presents while their children were playing with the costumes of the nativity play.
A tear slid down her cheek as she remembered her last Christmas celebration, when she had still been able to live the childhood everybody deserved. While the Kratts were laughing and singing together, she lied alone in the forest, crying silent tears as big snowflakes slowly covered her body.
The next few weeks, it was rather calm. The team celebrated the new year with one of the Wild Kratts Kids whose family had invited them over, and Elliana silently watched them as the entire town watched the fireworks. With every passing day, she felt like she was drifting further and further away from them, and joining the team now seemed to be an impossible task. They were like a family, and there was no way they would accept her, who had killed so many people, who could lose control any time. So she still watched them, taking care that nothing else happened to them. For most of the time, she could do it without being seen, holding off a big rock that would have splattered them after a small earthquake, intimidating a tiger that had prepared to pounce when they had been sleeping outside, even secretly leaving tracks that lead the team towards an icy pit where they had fallen into while looking for an Arctic fox.
BG-music: Aviators – Mechanical Instinct
One day, they were in the African Savannah, wanting to observe the nocturnal behaviour of lions. They had decided to stay there for some time, so she had built an underground shelter in case she had to wait, but she soon saw them pick a relatively small pride of about ten lions. The next evening, she had already camouflaged herself as a lioness belonging to the pride they had chosen to observe, but she still had to wait for a couple of hours before she saw them creeping closer and hiding behind a big rock. She acted just like she had seen nothing, so the lions wouldn't notice them. They were taking turn in observing and taking notes, but suddenly, the full moon was revealed by the vanishing clouds!
'Oh, no!' Elliana thought. 'I completely forgot about that, I have to protect them!" But the pride had already noticed the two men after they had heard Chris howling in pain, and before she could react, the alpha-male had already attacked them, smashing Chris against the rock as the other lions surrounded them. She ran closer and saw Chris being tied up by his straps, otherwise a protection, but now taking away his ability to defend himself, leaving Martin alone in front of the entire pride.
"OK, I'm very sad I have to do this, but you leave me no choice." he said, pulling out what she recognized was the Cheetah-Disk and activating. She felt the anger and confusion of the pride, and she knew that she probably couldn't protect the brothers without hurting the lions, but she had to try. Pouncing in front of the lions, she tried to stop them from attacking, but just before she had landed, she felt something slash her shoulder. Martin stood there, blood covering his claws, which was the last thing she saw before her vision exploded. She ran away, incredible pain filling her body, and hid inside her shelter.
Everything came rushing back, everything that had happened in the laboratory, everything she had tried to forget. The hate she had thought was long gone settled in her mind again, and the shadow, whom she had not seen for years, directed the hate towards a special person. She shifted back, but the pain only became stronger. Her face twisted in agony, she clenched her teeth.
"You will pay for this, Martin Kratt! And then, you will wish that you had never been born!" she hissed, crushing the rock beneath her with her fist.
The shadow didn't leave her anymore. It helped her keeping her sanity as it fed her hate against Martin. Soon, she didn't know any other feeling anymore, the anger and the pain clouding her mind, and only hate still driving her forward. Using all of her knowledge, she had managed to construct a hidden laboratory underground, and after she had taken a blood sample from her shoulder, she started analysing it to find out what was causing all of this pain.
But one night, it was just too strong. She grabbed her shoulder in agony when suddenly a part of her skin fell off! She looked at her shoulder, and gasped: The flesh had started to fall apart, decomposing itself. Instantly, she analysed the new sample and compared it to the old one. But what she saw made her stumble back. Whatever had gotten into the wound, it destroyed her human DNA, and only the fact that she also possessed different DNA had allowed her to stay alive for such a long time. She had to act, and fast.
"Let me help you." She suddenly felt cold. The shadow was standing right behind her, putting a dark hand over her own. "I can save your life, give you the strength you lack. And, most importantly, I can help you get your revenge."
Revenge. The shadow was right, she wanted to get her revenge. Martin had to suffer, just like she did right now. The more she thought about it, the more the shadow started to merge with her body, and the more did her hate against Martin grow.
"Yes. The stronger your hate is, the stronger I become. I am the beast, your darkness. I am Yami."
She was now working on two different projects. On one side, she tried to develop an antidote to stop her flesh from disappearing, and on the other side, she worked on a way to replace the body parts that would soon go missing. At first, she had thought about growing artificial body parts, but the knew that, if the poison that had gotten into her body also started attacking those, she would have to start all over again. So she decided to modify her armour and turn it into a robotic body. She worked on it day and night, not getting any sleep, anger driving her forward, until she finally finished a left arm. And it wasn't too soon; she had continuously injected herself with anaesthetics to numb the pain, but her arm was literally hanging only by a thread.
In a painful surgical operation, she connected the arm to her body and even managed to insert a miniaturized robot that would build a connection to her brain. Now she only had to find a way to power it. Then, she remembered the Stone. She quickly went to fetch the metal case and opened it, both of the parts lying in it, inert at first, but when she took both parts inside her hand, she felt a burning sensation coming from the white half, while the black half started glowing.
Carefully, she placed the black half into the power source, ready to take it out again if anything unexpected happened, but instead, the dark grey metal became darker and darker until it was pitch black with purple lines of energy leading towards the different parts. Stunned, she watched the transformation until it was finished, that was the first time she felt anything that wasn't anger or hate. She finally had a realistic chance of surviving this.
BG-music: WoodenToaster – Prototype VIP
Three months later, she finally found the antidote, even if it almost didn't matter anymore. The poison had already made its way into almost her entire body, only her right arm had been spared until now, and this antidote would not stop it completely. Both her legs and parts of her torso had already been replaced, and even though she knew that she lost more of humanity with every new bit of metal, she enjoyed working on it. These were the only times when her dark side wasn't that strong.
"Shatter the flesh and reinforce the bone." she sometimes chanted, "Embrace this carbon mesh, this power's all my own. These simple parts of mine are interchangeable, unlimited connections when you're digital. Becoming one with wires is sensational, go out with the old and in with the new."
Even after she knew that she wouldn't be able to save what was already infected with the poison, she still didn't give up, inventing a hardware that was an exact replica of her brain, with all its connections, and storing it inside her now mainly robotic head. Her eyes had become cameras with many new functions, including x-ray vision, night vision, infrared, something new she called metal-detection and many more.
"My hunger for perfection is insatiable, a prototype that's fully operational. This armoured alloy shell is unbreakable, my existence is irreplaceable."
She was right, her body was unique, the "perfect evolution" as she called it. A fusion of flesh and metal, bones and steel, combined with an artificially reinforced intelligence with almost infinite memory capacity. But the closer she came towards finishing her new body, the weaker her feelings became again. The thirst for revenge became stronger, and she started to install weaponry and new features that would help her win a fight. She also had to find a way to counter their ability to transform using their suits. Destroying them would be the easiest way, but she wanted to be more subtle, using the same ability as them but perfecting it. While she designed new weapons, the poison reached her right shoulder, where it finally stopped. So she just replaced the last parts, the only things remaining were now her left arm, one of her lungs and her brain, even though those were still sustained by technology because they were unstable, and she didn't really need the lungs anymore because her machinery now carried oxygen towards the brain. Her outer shell, immune to water or even acids and solid in even the hottest temperatures, and a special system that retrieved oxygen thanks to a chemical reaction even allowed her to stay underwater for several weeks, an ability she didn't think she would need, but it was better to be prepared.
But the most important thing was her own version of the poison. It was faster than the original, and she had also developed a liquid that reinforced sensations, so she could finally pay it back, all of the pain. She wanted to pay it all back tenfold!
At the same time, she also developed a "realistic mode", where her armour imitated skin, hair and eyes, and even blood so nobody would know she really was a cyborg would she ever get into a tricky situation. But she didn't know if she would ever get into a situation like that. Her sanity slipped further and further away, and, just like in the laboratory, there was only her hate that allowed her to keep insanity at bay. Her entire existence was now focused on destroying Martin Kratt, and she would do anything to achieve that goal.
Anything, that was also what Zach would do to get rid of the Kratts. Yami knew that, that was why she wanted him as a partner. She knew she had made a good first impression when she broke into his house without any of his systems noticing, and thanks to a bit of his technology she was able to include a morphing function in her body. Now, she only needed the disks to get enough information, and she would be ready for her first and hopefully final fight. Her feelings had already vanished, leaving only hate behind, something that didn't fail to intimidate her new, oh so naïve partner.
But he was right, the Tortuga was a fortress. She had installed wings on her body that would expand when she had to fly so she would be able to make her approach from the skies, but that wouldn't matter if she didn't manage to find an entrance. She would have been able to analyse their security system and find a breach, but she could only do that when she was close enough, and the risk that one of the Kratts would see her was too great, so she had to find a way to lure them away from the ship. When she had tried to get close enough once, she had overheard a conversation between Martin and Chris where they talked about wanting to study Bengal tigers, so she tried to use that to her advantage.
With Zach, she captured all of the tigers to lay a trap for the Wild Kratts, and they walked right into it. Hacking into their computer system had been easy, even from a distance, and even though Zach had wanted to follow his own plans at first, she had been successful. She also knew exactly about his plan to steal her technology, but while she was slowly going insane, she still wanted to protect the world after she had destroyed herself, and if Zach ever got a hold of her technology, she knew that nothing and nobody would be safe from him. He was extremely stubborn, and panicked easily, both things that made his plans fail again and again, and she didn't want that to interfere with her own plan, she just needed him so the Wild Kratts wouldn't suspect anything.
Finally, she had managed to gather enough information on the security system of their ship, but she only wanted to break in once they were all there, because then was the only time when she could be sure that all of the disks would be there, but she had to be careful because Chris with his sharp senses would have been able to feel her presence and alarm the others. Even if it was contradictory, if he left, she would have a better chance at succeeding. That opportunity came two weeks later, at the time of the full moon, when Chris suddenly left the Tortuga. The next night, she broke in and copied all of the disks, almost succumbing to her hate and ruining her plan beforehand by killing Martin, but she managed to leave before she could do anything she would regret.
BG-music: Aviators – Losing Control
After that, she prepared the laboratory she had established in the jungle a couple of weeks ago where she had everything she could possibly need for the fight, including the right arm in case the poison became stronger than she had anticipated, and of course the other half of the Stone. It was very well hidden, far beneath the warehouse Zach had built with her help, but he had had fun designing the labyrinth beneath it with her. At least there was one enjoying himself during all of this. She knew exactly that, the closer the date of the fight came, the closer her death was. After her plan had been completed, she would lock herself inside the laboratory before self-destructing, taking all of the technology with her. With a bit of luck, the Stone would be destroyed in the process, but just in case, she planned to hide the white part far away while the black part would be buried hundreds of feet beneath the ground.
For a long time she worked on the information she had gotten, modifying them and installing them onto her body so she would be able to use them. That was also the time when she had gotten the visions about the origin of the Stone, but contrary to her anticipation, her hate didn't get stronger. Instead, she was reinforced in her thoughts that she had to protect the world from the Stone's destructive power.
It took her several weeks before everything was ready, but in the end, they could quickly start the operation. The Zachbots were told to bring as many animals as they could to the warehouse, where they were locked up inside the labyrinth until everything would be over. They would all be released and Zach would also leave before hell would break loose.
After the bros had left the Tortuga, some Zachbots with the orders of bringing one of the team's members back were sent out and abducted Jimmy, who would be the bait for one of the two brothers, it didn't matter who it was, because Yami would always follow Martin, she didn't care about what happened to Chris. But it was Martin who stayed inside the main hall, and so that was to be the place of their battle.
Even when I was able to hit him, I didn't feel anything. I only felt satisfaction when I injected him with the poison, but then, you broke in. Nothing mattered to me anymore apart from my revenge, that was why I didn't fight back and only tried to knock you out. But you proved yourself to be a capable fighter, and I didn't really want to kill you because you didn't do anything to hurt me, so the fight was difficult for both of us, especially when insanity's grasp on me became stronger.
"But then..." She swallowed. She was about to tell him about her feelings, but what if he rejected her? Would she survive it? Would THEY survive it? She tried to ignore these thoughts, she couldn't go back anyway. "I suddenly felt...strange. Then, everything went white, and I woke up in an empty room, in my normal body. The first Guardian of the Stone I had seen in my Vision explained that I had finally found the balance I needed through another feeling: Love. I – I've fallen in love with you, Chris." She carefully watched his reaction, but he just seemed to be surprised for a second.
"Afterwards, I – I just felt bad. For everything I had done. I have hurt all of you so much, for almost no reason. That's why I came back. I knew you would need me because of all the mistakes I've made, and that's why I did everything in my power to fix them." she sobbed. "If you think that I'm a freak now and don't want to have anything to do with me anymore, that's alright." He didn't say anything at first, so she prepared to leave, perhaps forever. 'How stupid of me, to think he would ever like me back. I'm a cyborg, and I tried to destroy his family...'
But before she could finish that thought, she felt a hand on her shoulder and Chris pulled her into a tight hug. She froze, but quickly relaxed and carefully hugged him back.
"I don't think you're a freak, not at all. I know our situation is, well, complicated, and I – I've also felt similarly the last few days, but...I'm just not sure about it." He released her, his eyes full of hope. "But together, we will figure it out, alright? Until then, we should keep working together, so we get to know each other even better."
She smiled as he took her right hand into his and they left the room, the small sheep plush still sitting on the bed. Yes, together, they were able to do anything! Two shape-shifters, both heroes, and both part of the same family.
Far away, somewhere in the jungle, a man tried to free himself from a bunch of plants.
"Stupid Yami! Leaves me on my own. At least I was able to get out of th – Eeek!" He screamed as he suddenly fell down a hole and landed on a pile of dead leaves. Moaning, he stood up, inspecting his environment. It seemed to be an abandoned shelter, but everything was still lying around as if the people living there had had to suddenly leave it. As he walked around, he suddenly stepped onto something that made him jump three feet into the air. It was a piece of bone.
After that, he noticed many other bones and even an entire skeleton, so he assumed that they had been attacked by tigers, when he tripped over a loose stone.
"Ugh." he sighed, his face pressed into the dirt. "This day can't possibly get any worse! Wait, what it that?" He lift up the stone, discovering a smaller hole that concealed a metallic chest. He forced it open, curious about what was inside, and saw that it was filled with notes and blueprints. But when he saw what was written on them, a wide grin spread on his face. There were many symbols he did not yet understand, but most of them were universal, and the pictures were clear.
On the blueprints were pictures of giant robots and machines destined for fighting, surely powerful enough to destroy armies. They were still unfinished, but it was something he could work with. A plan formed in his head as his laughter filled the jungle.
He had not noticed the giant paw prints and claw marks on the ground and bones, clearly not belonging to a tiger, but to something much bigger and wilder, and the symbol on their blood-stained clothes. A yin and yang symbol with a crossed arrow and sword.
I really hope you liked it, and if you did, or if you have any questions or corrections, please leave a small Review, it really helps me out!
I also wanted to thank all of my faithful Readers for sticking with my Story, even though updates are slow. Nothing could replace you, and I love all of you! Here are virtual hugs for all my Readers.
See you next chapter and happy Halloween!
GreenxLady