Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem or anything associated with it.

A/N: Here's the next chapter! As usual, I hope you enjoy, and please fave and follow if you like the story! Now, it's time to grab your popcorn and dive right in!

XXXXX

3 weeks later…

"Get up, it's time for you to leave," a soldier in black armor told the prisoner. Since they were moving him to the tower, King Ashnard had decided to give the watch highest priority and only let the most experienced warriors on the journey.

"Welp, I'm up," Khimari sighed. "I hope this tower is as pretty as you guys made it out to be." The head of the troop gave a dry laugh in response to the wolf's comment.

"It won't be pretty for you, that's for sure," the man replied as they chained Khimari as to prevent his escape. When he was bound as tightly as possible, the man looked back to the rest of the squad and nodded. In a synchronized fashion, the men surrounded him and guided him out of his cell. Sighing, the prince of wolves followed the hints and went along with the entourage of soldiers.

'At least it won't be dull,' Khimari thought, although his optimism was draining day by day. He had been here for the better part of three weeks, and he knew that as much as Ike would've wanted to drop everything and keep searching for him, he had more responsibilities than one casualty from war. Poor Mist was probably as broken as he was, but she was strong. Khimari hoped that she'd get stronger so that she could take care of herself while he was gone.

And then….Nephenee. Even though they were dating and of different races, he missed her almost as much….if not more than Ike. Everything about her was gone to him; her eyes, her hair, her voice. Khimari lowered his head at the thought of leaving them all behind. 'How could I get captured like this?' he interrogated himself. Had he been able to keep up with Nasir and his granddaughter, he wouldn't have been in this mess.

But, he knew that there wasn't anything that could've been done. Even if he was a good fighter, he was way out of his league to fight against two dragon laguz. His granddaughter, he possibly could have beaten in a solo match, but the addition of the traitor slimmed his odds to zero. Now, Nasir was out to mislead the others as much as he wanted to without suspicion, especially since everyone trusted him.

'I was so stupid…' Khimari thought again as he and the rest of the convoy reached the gate.

"Reason for exit?" the guard said to the Daein soldiers tasked with carrying him to Gritnea Tower.

"Prisoner transport," the man at the front answered.

"Location?"

"Gritnea Tower." Satisfied, the two guards gave the signals to open the gates, and they indeed opened them. "Come on," he told the rest of the troop, going to a holding cell attached to two horses and throwing Khimari in there. The wolf grunted as he hit the holding cell's floor. Two more officers closed and locked the cell door, making sure he had no chance of escape. "Advance!" the head soldier said. The two horsemen guided the horses to go.

Now, there was no turning back.

XXXXX

The next day….

Waking up early, Khimari quickly became acquainted with the increasingly hopeless situation he had gotten into all over again. Sighing, he sat in the cell in silence thinking of what Ashnard told him not but a week earlier.

XXXXX

One week ago…

"So, how are you, wolf prince?" the deranged Daein monarch asked Khimari.

"Lovely," the wolf sarcastically spat. The very presence of Ashnard drove him crazy. The madman clearly enjoyed making other people miserable, as given by his unnatural smirk. The fact that this was the third time Khimari had to see the lunatic since his imprisonment began at the castle was even worse.

"Beautiful to hear that," the man replied. "Are you in the mood now to share information with us?"

"Are you in the mood to get your head sliced off?" the wolf bitterly retorted.

"My, that type of behavior is unbecoming of a prince," Ashnard mocked, rising from the throne and grabbing Khimari's chin. "I guess you sub-human brutes don't know any better, but please try to show a little bit of etiquette….Or not," the man shrugged, letting go of Khimari. "I hate pesky formalities myself with a passion….But they do serve a purpose."

"Like what?" the wolf snapped, rolling his eyes in exasperation at this nut's rambling.

"You are royalty, you should know," the Mad King said with a sadistic laugh. "You are above everyone else. You can call subjects to do your every desire and bidding on a single whim and a command. And they have no choice but to follow you or suffer the consequences."

"That's…" Khimari bit back. He had Tora and Rikari alongside him, but if he had to do something, he would do it himself, not whisk it away to the other two to perform for him. "No, you're wrong! I am a guide for my people, not a superior that simply gives commands at their leisure. I fight with them, and I bleed with them."

"Yet now, you will die without them," Ashnards cold voice interrupted, striking a chord in Khimari. "Well, if everything goes as planned, you may be the source of their death!" he maliciously joked, bellowing a great laugh of evil at the sad attempt of comedy. "Speaking of which, it may please you to know that those Crimeans you are with still remain a thorn in my side."

"Good."

"Now, why the hostility?" Ashnard asked, as if he were genuinely surprised why Khimari didn't like him. "I give you shelter, you get food and a bed, and you have someone to talk to."

"I live in a prison cell, I get the leftovers from the garbage cans, the bed is decent enough, and I can only talk to prejudiced guards and their royally messed up king. So you can shove it."

"I may have tolerance, but I won't tolerate such rudeness," the man said, his smile finally falling. "Now, hold your tongue before I remove it." The wolf said nothing, but gave the Daein King a glare of pure hatred. It seems to have rekindled the monster's cold sense of humor as he smirked yet again.

"Such an obedient pet. You will work wonderfully once you are completely willing to comply with us," the King commented. "Since you have shown such a great level of following orders, I will let you in on some information. Your friends will soon go to Riven Bridge….where they will be terminated."

"You wish!" Khimari snorted. "You'll never be able to beat them. They've outclassed your sorry soldiers at every step of the way. And when they come here, you'll get it next."

"Ha….HAHAHAH!" the madman bellowed once again. "Clinging to that tiny shred of hope, I see." Ashnard returned to his throne with a grin on his face. "What makes you think they would come here?"

"To free me and Crimea from you!"

"Hmm... I concede. However, I must say that they won't be coming for you."

"What do you mean?"

"You are no more than a pawn to the Crimean Army," Ashnard said. "They see you are just as I see you; a powerful tool to be used until it is no longer useful."

"That's a lie!" Khimari growled. "Ike would never…."

"Really now?" Grabbing some papers, Ashnard threw them over to the wolf's feet. "Those are all of my reports since the time of your capture. Read them if you must, but I can tell you myself. Not a single enemy search team, not a single rescue operation, not a single sign of demoralization. They didn't need you, and they don't need you. You, sub-human, are a broken tool of the Crimeans. As such, you are trash."

"No! You're wrong!" Khimari yowled, though he knew in his heart that Ashnard told a partial truth. They didn't need him at all. As much as he could've meant to Ike or the other mercenaries, in the grand scheme of things, he was another soldier to fight for a cause.

And with fights…come casualties.

"Am I?" he questioned, his grin growing into an ever-annoying smile. "Your words tell one tale, yet your emotions say another. However, I am not the best with petty emotions. If it suffices as comfort, you as one man's trash, will be another man's treasure. Such is the way of human nature."

XXXXX

"Human nature…" Khimari said to himself, fighting back tears. After all of these years, he had been blinding himself to the truth that Ashnard spoke. This wasn't Hatari, and it would never be. Humans hated those like him, and it would never change, no matter what would happen. Ever since that talk with Ashnard, Khimari had slowly begun to lose his willpower to keep going.

Before the wolf prince could further his thoughts, a horrid smell hit his nose like a truck. Retching, Khimari felt the need to throw up as the scent became stronger and stronger. "What is that horrible smell?" he asked himself aloud, not able to keep it in his head.

"We're here," he heard a voice from the outside say. "Release the sub-human." Hearing that, Khimari couldn't help but sigh in relief. Even though this place was supposedly much worse than Castle Crimea, he would take anything than this cage.

Even a prison cage.

The Daeins from before uncovered his cage and opened the lock to the door, allowing the wolf to get up and jump onto solid ground. Looking behind him, the wolf couldn't help but give a somewhat impressed scoff at Gritnea Tower.

The tower was rather secluded, as it was surrounded by a forest of trees with only a single dirt path serving as a connection to the outside world. The tower itself looked depressing as well, with a staircase leading to the entrance to the brown building.

"Is this the newest test subject?" another man dressed in sage robes questioned the envoy.

"Yes, General Heddwyn," the troop leader replied.

"Good, we will take him from here." As Heddwyn finished, five soldiers came from the tower to usher Khimari inside. Considering that he was in his Beorc form, it was surprising to see that the soldiers still were wary of him as if he could kill all of them with a look.

….That logic of thinking made sense considering the wolf was glaring bloody murder at them. If looks could kill, they probably would be dismembered limb from limb right now. Khimari found himself feeling like he wanted to do that to them anyways, experiencing an inner animosity he hadn't felt in years as he was led to the inside of the tower.

When they entered the building, Khimari found his nose overwhelmed by the foul scents that plagued the air. It smelled like so many things….Sorrow, rage….pain, suffering, and death. Before Khimari knew what to expect, a rumbling growl snapped his attention to something that would scar him forever.

A transformed tiger laguz stood behind the bars, his mouth foaming and his eyes seemingly glowing a pinkish-red color. As soon as the two Laguz met eye contact, the tiger jumped at the bars, unsuccessfully trying to rip Khimar to shreds.

"What in…" Khimari started, not even able to finish his thought at the sight of the tiger's behavior.

"Ah, so our newest guest has already had the opportunity to see my great work in progress!" a high-pitched voice said, breaking Khimari away from the tiger to the owner of the voice.

It was a crazy looking man with purple-blackish dreads who looked like he hasn't seen natural light in ages. The cackle he was giving also betrayed his very likely identity as a mad scientist.

"What you are seeing is my greatest work! And one you will soon become, my future Feral One!" he quickly explained, touching Khimari's skin as if he were being examined. Startling back, Khimari couldn't help but feel utterly disgusted.

"Stay away from me, you psycho!"

"Psycho?" he repeated, looking extremely angry at the blink of an eye. "One must know that true genius cannot be called psycho! My unparalleled intelligence is so great that even the word psycho is an insult to my great cerebral ability!" he rambled, making Khimari sigh. This guy had severe mental problems, intelligence or not. "Hmm…You look powerful," the man started again, looking Khimari up and down like said wolf would look at a piece of steak. "You will be one of the greatest of my experiments. Put him in the cage next to my quarters!"

"Uh..Izuka?" a soldier said, making the madman turn around with an expression of pure annoyance.

"What? What? WHAT? What do you imbeciles have to say now?" he basically blew in the soldier's face.

"Well...umm….Your quarters is on a floor with no holding cells." With that information, Izuka's expression became one of shock, before it became a thoughtful one.

"Yes….Even with scholars such as me, we can overlook one small detail in the grand scheme of things," he admitted, which made Khimari want to gag. "In that case, take him to the empty cell pass the hallway of the dragon Laguz!"

"Yes sir!" they quickly agreed, beckoning Khimari towards said hall. As they took him through, Khimari only found more horrors of this place.

Laguz were now Feral, panting in pain and anger. Others simply rotted as their corpse laid on the stone floor. Others kept roaring in bloodlust until a soldier came to quell them on the order of Izuka.

"What….is this?" he muttered in disgust. Before he could even begin to digest everything he had seen, they had arrived to their cell.

"Get in," they said, before forcing him into said prison and shutting the door. Before Khimari could even retort, the soldiers were on their way out of the hall.

Alone again, Khimari could do nothing but sit and think about what Ashnard said once again. "Humans…." he said quietly, before an unmatched fury blazed through his body like a bolt of lightning. Khimari simply screamed, he didn't care who heard or what happened.

He wanted human blood. He wanted to be free. He was angry.

XXXXX

Six years ago…

Twelve year-old Khimari and Ike stood before Greil once again after training. Ike had felt really sore after he got smacked around by the older man. Khimari, who was more fortunate, didn't get hurt as badly as his adopted brother.

"You two did good today," Greil showed, before turning to Ike. "Ike, your power is getting better, however you lack the skill and speed to make any use of it." With that, the mercenary commander turned his head to the other person in the clearing. "Khimari, you are fast, however you must get past your hate for using Beorc weapons. Even though you may be stronger transformed, that may not always be the case in a battle."

"But I can stay transformed for as long as I need to!" the wolf rebutted, before slightly shrinking back after a glare from Greil.

"Don't give me back talk," he sternly said. Khimari gave him an indignant look, but kept his mouth closed. "You have potential with the sword, however it can't be realized until you stop treating it like poison." Khimari didn't care to hear this lesson again, but simply huffed and nodded.

Greil did an internal sigh upon seeing the Laguz's reaction to his criticism. Between Ike and Khimari, the latter quickly proved to be the most rebellious, and although the man had a good inkling of why that was, he couldn't be completely certain as of yet.

"Can we go now?" the wolf asked impatiently. After a moment of thought, Greil nodded his approval. Without waiting, Khimari turned and ran off further into the forest, not stopping despite Ike's calls. Although his biological son looked worried, he simply didn't mind it too much and picked up his wooden sword to practice alone. For the past couple of years, Khimari would go off by himself for a while. It was never for a period longer than a day, but Greil couldn't help but be mystified why that was so.

XXXXX

As Khimari walked through the neighboring town with his cloak on, he fumed at what Greil had told him just a little while earlier.

"How can he tell me that I have to use a stupid sword? I can do way better without making myself like a dumb human," he spat as he moved into the village outskirts. "I don't need some dumb metal to fight." He angrily kicked the ground before he heard a yell coming from the woods. Running over, he found that the yell belonged to a woman that was getting attacked by a brigand.

"Someone, help!" she cried out as the bandit laughed at her distress.

"Scream all you want, little damsel," he taunted. "No one's coming to get cha!" Slowly, she backed into a tree, defenseless as the bandit with the axe approached her.

"Hey!" Khimari yelled, jumping from the bush that served as his cover. "Leave her alone!" he growled at the older man.

"Heh, a little pipsqueak?" the bandit laughed. "What are ya gonna do if I don't you little wimp? Cry to your momma?"

"I'll make sure you hurt," the wolf pledged, before transforming. The bandit was completely caught off-guard by Khimari being a Laguz and fell into a mess of stutters. "S-S-Sub-human!" he yowled.

Khimari simply roared and jumped at the bandit, sinking his teeth into his throat with satisfaction as the warm blood gushed from the dirty human's body. Seeing that the man was clearly dead, Khimari untransformed and faced the woman. "Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked, seeing as she looked like someone drained the life out of her.

For a few moments, she stood in fright, before her expression became angry. "Get away from me you sub-human disease!" she yowled, throwing something at him. "You're a monster!" she said, running away and leaving a confused Khimari.

"But...I just saved her," he said to himself. If he hadn't came, something bad couldn't happened to the lady. "Why does she hate me?" His expression turned from sorrowful to spiteful in the blink of an eye when he realized it himself.

"She's just another human," Khimari ruefully declared, spitting on the bandit's corpse in pure anger. He helped the best way he knew how, and she HATED him for it! Feeling the need to blow off steam, he retreated deeper into the woods, where no one should find him.

Immediately, he pounced on the bark of a tree, clawing it until the front layers of the tree had been completely ripped off. Even then, he was still angry and seeing red. He wanted some blood to be spilled before he could get over what that lady did.

It wasn't the first time. Ever since he ended up in this dreadful place away from Hatari, everyone treated him like he wasn't anything. Greil forced him to wear a cloak in public to hide who he was. All the humans hated him when they found out he was a wolf, or they stayed away from the cloaked weirdo he had to be.

'Why!?' the pre-teen internally screamed before he heard a loud gasp from behind him. Snapping his head back, he found a man that looked at him with the same look all the other humans gave him.

Fear. Hate. Ignorance. "S-Stay away!" he yelled, before turning to run. Khimari; however, was still in a frenzy. Quickly chasing the man down, he jumped on his back and pinned him to the ground.

"P-Please spare me!" the man pleaded, crying for his life. Unfortunately for him, Khimari didn't care, and sank his claws into the poor man's neck, similar to the bandit from earlier today. As the human went limp, he jumped off the body before another voice broke into him.

"Khimari!" a male voice yelled. "What are you doing!?" it demanded. Not even caring to listen to see if he recognized the voice, he turned and pounced, nothing but blind anger in his eyes.

Unlike the other two victims, however, this one fought back, only making the wolf angrier. Leaping forward, the wolf scratched the man's arm before he was forced down to the ground. Before he could get back up, Khimari found himself meeting black as he was knocked unconscious.

XXXXX

Groaning, Khimari woke up to see himself in the bed at the mercenary base. Wondering how he got here, he looked around before the door to his room opened to reveal Greil. The man had a serious look on his face and Khimari did not look forward to whatever conversation was about to take place.

"You're awake now," he said simply, leading the wolf to nod. "Do you know why I'm here with you?"

"How should I know? I'm not psychic," Khimari rudely replied. Hearing the response, Greil simply sighed and shook his head.

"Khimari, this has to stop," the man began, earning a questioning look from the wolf. "You murdered an innocent man yesterday in one of your rages."

"So?" the wolf coldly replied. "He was far from innocent."

"How so?" Greil asked, an eyebrow raised.

"He's a dirty human. None of those things are innocent," the Laguz hatefully said. Now Greil knew the problem behind Khimari's attitude shift.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything!" the wolf hissed. "All you humans are evil! Every last one of you are selfish and hateful!"

"Khimari, all Beorc are not the same."

"Yes, they are!" the wolf retaliated. "They don't care about anyone except themselves, and they are rude, ungrateful, and diseased!"

Despite his calm outside demeanor, Greil was shocked such a young child could display that level of hate. "Why do you feel that way?"

"You ask me why?" Khimari asked coldly, in cold anger as his two eyes turned into cold blue and green slits. "You've been here all along since I got to this horrible place, and YOU DON'T KNOW WHY!?" Greil began to stiffen, as if Khimari would go on another rampage, but the Laguz stayed in his untransformed state. "Humans give me those looks. They speak at me like I'm nothing. They treat me worse than dirt, when I didn't do anything to them! You could help save their life, but they'd reward you with spit in your face because they're dumb humans!" he ranted, shaking in pent-up anger being released. "I'm sick of them all. I hate those stupid glares I always get. I'm tired of always being the only Laguz here. I'm sick of these humans! I WANT THEM GONE!"

"..." Greil couldn't find a word to say immediately after Khimari vented to him. "Am...I one of them?"

"Yes, you are!"

"How so?" the man asked, genuinely curious. "I thought I was helping you."

"All humans have two faces," Khimari spat. "You force me to use those stupid weapons, make me hide who I truly am from everyone, and I have no say."

"I told you to use a cloak to protect you from those who may not like Laguz."

"You just didn't care enough to do anything about it," Khimari growled. "Instead of getting rid of those humans, you make me act like one of them. The looks never stopped, no matter what I had on. In the end, you humans hate Laguz like me." Greil sat in silence as he absorbed what the wolf revealed to him.

"Is...Ike evil?" he then asked. "And….Mist?" The wolf was completely caught off-guard by the question.

"N-no," he stuttered, knowing that the man's children were the only ones he could trust. "They aren't evil!"

"Then, are all humans evil?"

"Yes!" Khimari thought, before his two adopted siblings came back into mind. "No?" he questioned, before he shook his mind. "Of course they are!"

"But you don't think my children are evil."

"They're children," Khimari countered. "Eventually, you humans will poison their minds and they'll hate me, too," he spat, before looking down. "I'll just be nothing more than a hairy monster…."

Greil looked at the wolf with such pity. "You are the same age as Ike, yet you are so much different."

"..." Khimari didn't say a word. He couldn't say another word. He only looked at his hands before he noticed a bandage on Greil's arm. "What…happened to you?"

"Your Laguz form is very powerful," Greil responded. "Had I not been able to calm you down then, I would be in much worse condition."

Khimari looked on with sadness. He had hurt someone who treated him nicely. Despite what he said, he wasn't truly mad at Greil. He was just confused right now. "Am I….a monster?" he asked quietly.

"Do you want to be?"

"...No," Khimari answered, looking at the hands he killed humans with.

"Then don't give in," Greil said, standing up from the bed. "If you give in to those Beorc that harbor hate against Laguz, you become what they say you are. Instead, look to a brighter future with those that will accept you for who you are." The mercenary leader went to the door and left without another word, leaving Khimari to think about what he had said.

XXXXX

After the memories of that time, Khimari stopped in his tracks. He was no longer angry, and he stopped screaming behind the damp cell. He just….stared. Thinking of everything that happened on that day. Then, all of the memories from the past started to surface again.

"Revenge is a sugar-coated name for murder, and I fell for it," he told Reyson back in Serenes Forest.

"All humans have two faces," he told Greil, which was the exact same thing Lethe told him at Gallia.

"No they aren't. Humans are despicable things, caring for no one but themselves and how they can make them and only themselves better, while leaving others to suffer. Those are what I hate the most, because if you try to look for anything positive, you just find that they're twisted and evil in every form of the word," he told Tora in Begnion.

"You should know that all Beorc are not the same. If you took the time to look instead of judging everyone at face value, you would figure that out," he told Lethe when they met up with Ike after Greil died.

"I….I can't give up now," he told himself. Just then, a door opened and down the hall came Izuka the creepy scientist. "What do you want?"

"It's time, my darling!" he said, opening the cell. It didn't help Khimari's nerves that he had a needle with him. "Usually, I would just put it in your food, but I can't contain my excitement any longer!"

As much as Khimari struggled to get away from the madman, he was chained and could hardly move. All he could do was scream as the needle was stuck into his arm. Although he wasn't transformed, he used his teeth and almost bit Izuka's hand.

"Careful, my beautiful sub-human wolf!" the man said. "You will have plenty of time to kill to your heart's desire soon." With that, he went to the other part of the tower, leaving Khimari alone again. The wolf prince simply went straight to sleep as the shot made him incredibly sleepy.

XXXXX

The next morning…

Khimari woke quickly, not sleeping for very long in the damp dungeon cell. Recalling the events of the previous day, he quickly checked his body for any changes, only to find nothing irregular with him. He started to believe that it really was a dream, but it wasn't.

Everything that had happened was real, and Khimari had to deal with it. Sighing, the Laguz sat back to do nothing but listen to the annoying drops of water.

"Oh, this is infuriating!" the wolf suddenly shouted, anger overtaking him. Without knowing, he started to transform into his wolf form. "What's going on?" Khimari asked as he forced himself to revert out of his transformed state. "What...is happening to me?"

"Wee-hee-hee!" He heard a laugh. "I'm glad you're seeing the results of my ingenious research take fruit!" The voice belonged to Izuka, who watched Khimari with interest.

"What did you do to me!" Khimari yelled angrily, wanting to tear the man to bits.

"I injected you with the medicine that all Feral Ones are given. Soon, you will only be in your transformed state, and you will listen only to me!" he explained. "Sadly, you don't have a choice in the matter, but don't worry, my strong prince! You are special!" With that, Izuka left Khimari alone again in the lonely dungeon.

Unknown Days Later...

As the days progressed, Khimari's condition got worse and worse. First, he would get strong bolts of anger that would course through his entire body. Then, he would transform in and out of wolf form involuntarily. Now, it seemed his very consciousness was being eaten away.

"Help…" he pleaded, yet he knew no one would hear him. Transforming into wolf form on his own, he laid down on the ground and decided that fighting against it wouldn't work anymore. He would be turned into a Feral One; a mindless beast….a monster.

Khimari cried. After everything that happened, this was how it would end. Becoming what he worked so hard not to be. Because of a sick scientific madman and an insane King. No one could hear him here, no one could see him here.

As he felt his sense of consciousness slip away almost completely, he heard a voice call in his head.

"You can't….give up...now."

All of a sudden, a blue glow surrounded Khimari, not unlike when he held the medallion in his hand. He could feel himself return completely, and as quickly as it came, the glow left.

Khimari couldn't place who that was, but he knew it was the same person from all those other times before.

"...Thank you," he said to seemingly nothing but the air, as he closed his eyes to plan his way out of this hell.

XXXXX

A/N: I wrote this in one day….which was today. See, the reason why I didn't do this sooner was (in addition to lack of a computer and laziness) because I hit a hard spot. I had actually written about half of the chapter weeks ago, but I couldn't feel right finishing it. So, today, I erased the whole thing and just let my imagination take me away, and I am very pleased with how this chapter went. Although it's not as long as the other ones I've produced before, I am glad because this chapter wrote itself. I didn't have to spend days thinking of something. I just gutted it out in one long typing session. Now, I was thinking of adding another part or two, but I'll end it here because I don't think I'll be spewing out 12K word chapters for a good while.

Anyways, that's all for now! I already have the next chapter planned out and am already preparing for a super typing session!

Blizzard, out!