The streets were dead silent tonight. A good thing, I suppose. This is how I liked traveling around. Most people tend to laugh at me, carrying a blade in the age of guns. But that doesn't matter much. I just ignore them. After all; what good is a gun if you're bulletproof? Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself here. No, no. The beginning of this story starts a few years ago. During the time of the intercity war, when I died and was reborn... as a monster.

















15 years ago...

Voices...

I could hear voices...

I couldn't tell how many there were, but I could hear them. Everything around me felt heavy... heavy... and my body had a dull ache that I couldn't shake off. Not that I could have shaken it off, I couldn't move. I couldn't see anything, either, my head hurt so much. My memories… I couldn’t remember anything. ‘Those voices… where are they… are they talking to me?’

“What progress has been made?” a deep authoritative male voice barked out.

“Sill no response to anything. We've been tripling the amount of Kaion, and still nothing! She should be dead with all that's been pumped into her by now.” Another male voice but the tone was a far weaker in this voice.

“Nothing? Nothing at all? You told me you would have results by now, John. My patience is beginning to wear thin.”

“We're doing all that we can sir. So far she has been the only one to survive for this long and accept so much. The Kaion seems to like her DNA; all it would do to another is kill them. If she dies this project is finished."

'Project? Are the voices… talking about me?' Forcing my eyes open, my brain surged with pain as light pierced my eyes. Groaning, I quickly shut them again. Opening them again slowly, my eyes adjusted to the light as I looked around. I was in a large room with a bunch of things that were making a low pitched humming noise. Some of them had flashing lights and round, square, colored things on them. I could see two people. One was wearing a long white thingy and the other had some sort of brown clothing on. The brown on his top had some white and a long funny shaped thing coming from his neck. That thing was black and brown.

The deeper of the two voices chuckled, and it made my skin crawl. “One is all that is needed to wipe those petty Anaris dogs off the face of Rezath.”

Looking down at my body I realize that I was in a tank of some kind...and I was breathing normally?! I felt my eyes widen reflexively as my focus shifted to my feet. Claws! My feet had claws! Small claws protruded from the nails on my feet, and, as I quickly turned my attention to my hands, I felt the blood drain from my face in horror. Sure enough, I had claws on my hands too. They were longer and slightly curved, kinda like the ones I’d seen on animals. Mine looked pretty sharp too, probably for me to attack people with. ‘But… I’m not an animal… why do I have claws?'

“She’s awake! Sir, the project has just awakened! This is great!” the weaker voice belonged to the man in white as he smiled and pointed at me.

“Excellent! Soon those filthy Anaris traitors will be crushed. Ahh today is a grand day for the Syarl!”

“Indeed it is, sir! These past five years have not been put to waste!” The one I assumed was John said as he sat down in front of one of the larger grey things and began doing something.

‘5 years? What does he mean by thaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!’ Pain flooded my body as something orange entered my body from the tubes in my arms.

‘T-this hurts… make it stop! I haven’t done anything to you! Stop it, stop it, stop it!!!!!’ Somewhere in my pained mind something clicked and at that second my memories flooded back into my brain.

The pain seemed to melt away as a furious guttural growl rumbled in my throat, another thing that they had changed. Another sign of what they had forced upon me. Barring my fangs, yet another thing to fuel my growing rage, I started testing my muscles slightly, moving about in the cylinder tank. As the orange stuff stopped flowing into my body I slowly drew a clawed hand back and slammed it against the tank, shattering it.

I had no time to be stunned as whatever fluid I was in rushed out onto the floor, my head spinning as new smells and sounds bombarded my senses. 'They've changed my ears and nose too! Wasn’t there anything they left alone!?' Struggling to stand I heard one of the humans move towards me. I could smell both of them and I could hear the footsteps of many more approaching. A loud blaring noise was going off and it was stabbing at my already pounding head. Making it to my feet I saw the man in the white smiling at me.

“My name is John; I am the head developer that created you,” he introduced himself.

I couldn’t remember how to form words yet and to be truthful; I only wanted to kill this guy, not talk to him. He trailed off and paled slightly but quickly brought a fake smile to his face and I took a step forward and nearly fell to the ground. I wasn’t used to my legs yet. Growling to myself I took another step and John realized that I wasn’t happy. He started backing up as I continued walking towards him. Two feet felt… so unnatural, I didn’t have time to care about it. I put my faith in my instincts as I fell onto my hands suddenly feeling much more stable and confidant on all fours.

“John! What is going on!?” the other male demanded

“I’m not sure, sir. She seems to be volatile!” John inched back again as I snarled and moved towards him the glass cracking beneath my hands and feet.

Suddenly, I felt something within me snap and I launched myself at John, knocking him to the ground, slashing at him with my claws. He was screaming in pain as my claws dug into his flesh. Soon his blood stained my hands and the ground. My head snapped to the other male as I drew a claw across Johns’ neck getting off him as something warm sprayed onto my side. I ran at the other human in the room as he fumbled with something in his jacket.

I let out a small roar and pinned the top part of the guy against the big grey thing, grabbing his neck and slowly tightening my grip on it. The man tried throwing me off but whatever these guys had done to me had enhanced my strength beyond that of a human. I waited until the man stopped moving and watched his eyes roll up into his head before I let go of his neck. I jumped to the ground accidentally knocking over a few things. ‘Oops… I better go before I get in trouble.’

I started for the door when I heard a spark and then a pwhoosh sound from behind me, a sudden intense heat licking at my bare skin I heard myself yep as I ran to the door on all fours. ‘Out, out! I need to get out of here!’ I slammed a shoulder into a door and I was momentarily shocked still as it literally flew from its hinges knocking over more humans that were trying to enter.

‘What am I?’ Those words repeated over and over in my head. A mantra of disbelief. A loud sharp sudden sound brought me out of my thoughts as something hit my chest bouncing off of it. I howled in pain.

'OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! THAT HURT! OHHH! SOMEONES GONNA PAY FOR THAT!’ I mentally roared as I looked to my left seeing a bunch of humans clad in black and dark blue/green, with… something funny that covered their heads. It was black too and had something clear covering their eyes. They were holding something black in their hands that had a cylinder pointing right at me. The human in the middle had one that was letting of something whitish greyish from the end, and were looking at me stunned.

I couldn’t stand them all just staring at me so I moved first and lunged at the humans clawing and slashing my way through them and slamming a few through the walls as I went through them. I could smell the outside air. I was almost there. Pain came from several points on my back as more of the hard small things hit my bare flesh. Then I was falling to the ground, the loud sharp sound from before repeated a few times over ringing through the halls and my ears. Stumbling slightly in the mass pain I pushed forward towards the scent of the outside air. I felt like I’d been stabbed all over my back.

I lost count of the amount of footsteps that came from behind me and skidded past the door that was seeping the outside air as I tried to stop myself. Doing a quick turnaround I threw myself at the metal door and, just as the other, it flew off its hinges. I bolted through the door into the cold dark night air, barely making it to the trees as more piercing sounds came from behind me a few of those small metal things embedding themselves into the trees.

I kept running through the trees my hands and feet thudding against the ground as I moved faster then any human could ever go. Easily jumping over fallen branches and logs I kept on all fours, panting, just wanting to get away from the other humans. Reddish yellow light illuminated the trees around me as I looked back for a second to see flashes, a deep resonating sound cutting through the air over and over as darker grey stuff floated upwards towards the starry night sky.

‘Hey… that looks like a cloud. But clouds are already up in the sky… did the cloud fall?’ Shaking my head I put the questions about the fallen cloud away for now and turned my attention to the path ahead of me I kept running until I could run no more. I collapsed quite sometime later near a large rock that had a small hollowed out area in it. Forcing my aching body over to the hollowed out area I hid myself in it barely noticing the now lightening sky before sleep claimed me.

I awoke sometime later, the sky a bright light blue now and I sat down for a bit to think. ‘Okay… I was in that place for fives years. I was three when they got me so that makes me… eight?’ I blinked. ‘When did I learn to count? Where did I learn all these words from anyway? Why do I- those bad guys, they did this to me! They just couldn’t leave my mind alone could they!?’ Shaking my head with a growl I began looking myself over for any other changes that I missed yesterday. Other then the red stuff that coated my side and a bluish purple bruise that was in the place of where that small metal thing had hit my chest. I sniffed at the air, once again trusting my instincts and I moved towards the watery smell that was off a bit of a distance.

I was forgoing the idea of ever being on two feet again as I ran through the forest hurriedly, heading for the water. It wasn’t long before I reached the source of the smell, a small lake that was there and I neared the waters edge looking at my reflection.

My eyes... they...they had altered my eyes. No longer were they the deep silver that I had been born with. No longer were they the deep silver I was born with, they were now a deep red that looked exactly like stuff that Johns body had covered my claws, well when it first had. It was much darker now, almost a brown on my hands and side instead of that deep red. My pupils were no longer round as a human had. They were slits now and my hair was shorter then when I had last seen it. Much shorter. Thankfully it was still the same deep brown, only it came to just below my ears instead of my shoulders.

‘Why me, what did I have that was so special from everyone else?!’ For many months I stayed near that lake asking myself those questions over and over, sorting out my mind and testing what I could and could not do. I learned how to hunt with my bare hands, make makeshift clothing from the skins, and make fire with stones, fighting to defend my makeshift home. Finally, after relearning the basics of speech, I steeled my will and headed through the woods to where I had smelled lingering amounts of human life.

For days I traveled and after six nights I came across a small village. Weak, weary and tired I went to the nearest building and fell asleep under the small wooden steps. It wasn’t until I awoke, that I realized it was a dojo.

I remained hidden in that village for years, learning in secret the art of the sword, hand to hand combat, how to wield knives and daggers, blacksmithing, and how to use, clean and carry guns. It was a military village. I learned about the past and what was going on now. I learned of speech and language and after my eighth year I decided to leave. I had learned all that I could there, the people who altered me had done something and I learned extremely fast. I had stolen clothing long ago and continued stealing them in order to fit me. I had grown and, while I wasn’t the tallest creature, I was not the shortest either. I also forced myself to lean how to walk on two feet. Keeping my hair tied up in the back, it was now to my shoulder blades, I left the village and headed to the main city looking for the enemy of my enemy, the Anaris…

Present Day…

This brings me to where we started.

The war was won before I had been able to find the Anaris; the Syarl had won after the leader of the Anaris betrayed his people. I have spent the past seven years furthering my knowledge in the art of combat. Now I can walk amongst humans, granted I hide my feet and keep my hands to a minimum. My fangs I can do nothing about, my fangs poke out slightly from my lips and my eyes I can do nothing about either. I hide my eyes behind sunglasses and my fangs I leave alone. My handcrafted blade rests on my back-it can withstand the strength that I wield it with-as well as some throwing knives and handmade daggers. I wear nothing out of the ordinary for this day and age. Some loose black shorts with a black leather belt running through them, and a tight black tank top that goes an inch and a half below my breasts. This is predominantly for flexibility in battle, but more then a few perverted humans have found themselves at the sharp end of my blade for thinking otherwise. My shoes are standard Syarl military issued long distance mountain boots with a steel toe and heel. I modified mine to have a heel blade.

I paused for a moment looking at the unchanging night sky. Something is different about the air tonight. With rumours of a second war and a woman known on the streets of Sariona as the ‘Bladed Dove’ creating the Anaris anew floating around… there’s only one thing you can be sure of.

“This is going to be a lot of fun.”