The Tundra

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Every move hurt, the slightest gust and draft caused extreme pain that made her shriek and arch her spine as she attempted to make it stop. Her eyes were closed, her hands clawing at the fabric that covered her body that was already tearing. Finally, finally, it began to fade and Alice was able to relax. It was as though someone had taken the weight off of her chest and she could breathe once more, Alice sighed in relief, finally prying her eyes open and looking at the door that kept her from freedom. She had yet to realize that there was another in the truck and so Alice pushed against the doors, using the needle from the syringe to make small pock marks in the metal, but it hardly did much more. The needle snapped in two, rolling underneath the door and into the cold oblivion that was the tundra of Serbia. Alice sighed and leaned back against the doors, it was freezing in the back of the truck and the only thing in here were metal cages and a few tarps covering them. Making a snap decision, Alice pulled off one of the tarps and wrapped it around herself, her dress was torn to bits anyways and she would rather look stupid than freeze to death. What Alice hadn't been expecting, was that there would be someone underneath the tarp, laying in one of the cages. "Ophie?" Alice questioned, blinking twice to ensure she hadn't seen things wrong.

"...I kinda liked the view." Ophie mumbled in a low, tired voice. She was far too annoyed to even try acting cute and for once her facade was completely gone. Honestly, how could she just act as if everything was fine when locked in a cage in what seemed to be some stupid truckthing? It was infuriating that she let her guard down. She could faintly remember killing Crux off, and everything - she even remembered entertaining the idea of attacking Fey just for fun, and everything else was just a blur. And this was where she woke up - in a cage with that half naked bat. The only good thing was that she got to see a nice show. The bad part was that... well, they were probably going to die unless they did something.

"...Y'know, I don't think that syringe was gonna work." Ophie had a bitter grown on her face. "Mind getting me out of here? I... can't really move. Cage is damn small."

They didn't really get along or anything, but Ophie was smart enough to know that cooperation might be the only way to get out of this mess.

"So they got you too?" It was almost funny, arch enemies/roommates having to share a space once more inside the back of a truck possibly taking them to their doom. Alice knelt down to look at the padlock. It was an easy pick, she pulled a bobbypin out from her hair, normally Alice wore it in twintails that had the assistance of a few bobby pins she managed to sneak into their room from the infirmary. It took a few minutes, but Alice picked the lock and opened the door, moving back so Ophie could crawl out. "Do you know where they're taking us?" Alice figured that Ophie would have about as much information at her, but it was worth it to at least ask.

Ophie shook her head, still annoyed yet also reluctantly thankful. Which annoyed her even more, that she had to have relied on someone she really didn't get along with. This whole situation was just irritating as a whole. Honestly, when she first woke up, she could've mistook Alice for a succubus - she certainly looked the part with those wings. Sadly, she was mistaken.

"...No. I just woke up in here." Ophie murmured sarcastically with an unhelpful shrug of sore shoulders. With a long and heavy sigh she stared at where Alice should've had a wound - all nice and bandaged up. How irritating!

"...Shouldn't have helped you back there." Ophie grumbled under her breath before turning back to the moving vehicle they were in. There was just the smallest crack that she might've been able to stick webs through, though she wasn't entirely sure what purpose that'd serve. The arachnid narrowed her eyes, stretching as best as she could. "...So, what do we got? Anything useful?

Alice narrowed her eyes, she wasn't sure what Ophie meant by helping her. She couldn't recall Ophie ever doing anything that was beneficial to anyone, much less herself. Even though she didn't know it, Alice did agree on the fact that in this situation they would have to assist one another if they wished to get out. "No, not unless you can make something of all these cages and chains." At worst, they would probably end up attempting to lock one another in a cage or possibly using the chains to beat one another, at best, they would devise a strategy to jump on their captors as soon as the doors opened. "I don't think we're going to be getting out of here anytime soon," Alice said helpfully. She stood, a bit wobbily now that the pain medications were wearing off. The pain in her chest was intense, but Alice wasn't going to give anything away; she could not allow her enemy to see her weakened like this. "But we can try to get the jump on them next time we stop."

Ophie sighed, sitting herself back down. Clearly they weren't going to accomplish anything for the time being. So instead of doing anything productive, she decided to do something a little more fun, perhaps as a reward of sorts for Alice pretty much showing off all the yummy bits for her eyes to save to HDD and store in permanent storage, for science purposes, obviously. She forced a grin, trying to clear out the discomfort she felt being so close to Alice, as well as the whole being locked in a truck thing. They had no real way of knowing how long it'd take until their next opportunity, so...

"Hey, I have... a story to tell you. Y'know, to pass the time." A mischievous smirk danced on the spider's features as excitement rose within her. And thus, with all the detail she could muster, Ophie recounted the story of how Crux died, with all the gorey details. Though, of course, giving herself far more credit than she actually deserved, and leaving most of Fey out of the picture to begin with. She wanted the glory, of course.

Alice listened eagerly and with wide eyes, excited to hear the details of Crux's death. "I never liked that two timing back stabber," Alice muttered in between. For the most part she was quiet, taking in every bit of the delicious details and savoring in the warmth of blood even if it was imaginary. Halfway through the story, Alice noticed a scratch on Ophie's forehead, it was bleeding a bit, but it was nothing to be worried about. She was mesmerized by that glistening blood though and waited for Ophie to finish the story before standing up and walking over. Alice leaned over and licked the blood off of Ophie's forehead without even giving it a second thought. Her touch was gentle, she wasn't sure how hurt Ophie was and this was no situation to injure her further. "Sorry, you had something on your forehead," Alice murmured before going back to her side of the truck and pulling the tarp over her once more.

If there was something she prided herself on (well many things, but one in particular) it would be that Ophie was a sadist. She was the one who was supposed to put in the effort to mess with others and ruin their day. Entertainment at everyone's expense was her motto, and it was something she did well. But when the tides suddenly turned, and Alice of all people decided to come and lick her head in a way that made Ophie's body stir in ways that they honestly weren't supposed to, especially not about this weirdo, she simply paused and blinked a few times in an absolute stupor. Nothing happened for a few moments. Then, something between rage at being a toy and fury at being looked down on burst. A combination of a tackle and webs later, Ophie was on top of Alice, pinning her limbs down.

"...Really?" Her voice was high and shrill. "Is this a joke? I'm the one who's supposed to - you just seriously piss me off, you know that? Why? Why did you just come and - I -"

Her voice trailed off as her thoughts were interrupted yet again. If she was the master at infiltrating people's minds, why exactly was her own being messed with? This was beyond ridiculous. It pissed her off more than Crux's betrayal did. Everything about Alice always did rub her the wrong way, after all. But words wouldn't form so she simply scowled as deeply as she could, knowing full well she was failing to be anything near intimidating.

That bit of blood was enough to satisfy her desire to mutilate for the moment. She had been looking down at her hands, debating sucking off the blood of her fingers when Ophie attacked. "What are you doing!" Alice screamed, the two rolling, tumbling into walls and cages. Alice had the jump on her at first, but that stupid chest wound ensured Ophie's victorias. The pink haired girl was pinned down to the floor, webs ensuring she would stay down for the moment. Ophie was sitting on her torso, the tarp that had been covering Alice's exposed body flung to the side. Alice glared, this was the reason she hated Ophie, the girl could be so... So... Infuriating! Alice just wanted to kick her across the room and suck her dry. "I'm a vampire bat, what do you expect!" It was her nature to be attracted to blood, to crave it like a human craved water or a dog craved a big juicy steak plopped down right in front of them. "If anything, you're the one that's tormenting me! Just letting the blood roll down your forehead so casually like, like you don't even feel it!"

The prey was caught in the web. That skin was exposed and her body was immobile - Ophie was free to do whatever she wanted. Yet despite everything, she didn't feel the rush of victory that she normally would have. If anything, straddling the bat to the ground like this only pissed her off even more. Ophie was restless - she wanted to tear Alice apart; she wanted to stab into her eyes and gush over her innards. Yet she knew that that still wouldn't give her the satisfaction she was craving. Any thought of their captors was completely gone - Ophie focused single handedly on one of the biggest headaches of her life. And then, a thought came to mind. A sinister smirk - did she finally discover the string that'd make Alice dance? With as much grace as a spider could muster, Ophie slid one of her claws across a vein in her wrist, letting blood flow out. She then put the wrist to Alice's mouth with an expectant smile.

"...Well? You like blood, right?" She giggled maliciously. "But even think about drying me out and I'll strangle you, got it?"

If she wasn't surprised before, Alice sure was now. Alice couldn't tell what game Ophie was playing and so she was guarded, knowing that she was currently at the mercy of the spider. Both of them were weakened, but Ophie had the upper hand, she was holding the key to victory in her fingertips and could make Alice dance like a puppet on strings if she wanted to. "What do you think you're-" Ophie suddenly sliced open her wrist, holding the dripping vein over Alice's mouth. Instnatly, greed and lust for blood overcame her. She sucked on Ophie's blood greedily, careful not to take too much. Any blood was good blood, but Ophie's had a certain flavor to it that made it almost pleasant, sort of sweet, like chocolate. "Why did you do that?" Alice only thought ask then, once she had already drank from Ophie's wrist. The way they all regenerated, Ophie would have been healed from such a small wound already.

The sensation of Alice sucking her blood was peculiar. Honestly, Ophie enjoyed it in many ways, the most important of which was knowing that Alice was now her toy. A plaything for her to use as entertainment. If Alice craved blood, Ophie'd be able to extract favors in exchange for a nice bloodletting sensation. And it wasn't like she particularly minded the cutting - it was nothing but a bee sting compared to the kinds of things she and the other experiments have suffered. For such a tiny price, and Alice tamed, Ophie was more than satisfied.

"You're mine now." Ophie had her candy-like voice on yet again, giggling with childish flair. "I really hope you never forget that, okay? Between you and I, Ophie's the superior one. And I always will be!"

Ophie then climbed off of Alice's body and gave it one last lust-filled stare before using her claws to cut through the webbing freeing her. Of course, she remained on guard just in case the succubus wanted to attack and try to claim dominance. Still, it wasn't as if Ophie was just going to let that happen.

"...Now, we should work together to get free, shouldn't we?"

Alice thought about it, blood for a favor? From that view point, it didn't seem like a bad exchange. "Fine," Alice agreed, although she made it seem as though she weren't willing. She didn't want to give Ophie the satisfaction of thinking she had won. The truck stopped then, the doors being thrown open almost instantly and letting the cold in. Naturally, bats needed humid/warm climates to thrive in and so she hissed and clawed at the cold as though she were allergic, grabbing the tarp now that she was free and pulling it over her head. It did nothing to deter the stupid humans, Alice was scooped up easily, as though she weighed nothing. She dug her nails into the floor, satisfied at the screech her nails on metal made as the human attempted to drag her out. He dropped her to cover his ears and Alice pounced, throwing away the tarp and jumping on him like a bat out of hell. She slashed at his throat, figuring it was the fastest way to get them out. "Come on!" Alice grabbed Ophie's hand and jumped out of the truck, tugging the girl with her. Brb, cookies. There was a gate at the other end, if they could make it there, they would be free.

The cold was sudden and unlike Alice, Ophie didn't have a tarp to grab or anything. As she blinked, many things happened in a split second - and before she knew it, Alice had grabbed her by the arm and dragged her along. Ophie wordlessly tore the bat's hand off of her, but grabbed on with her right hand - freeing her left wrist to be aimed behind her. At this distance, she couldn't really pin their captors down, but she could shoot her silk out to intercept any tranquilizer darts that may be fired. With the deftness of a marksman, she more or less snagged a few out of the air, as the two girls rushed towards the gate.

"...Too bad you didn't kill him more painfully." Ophie said with a slight snappish tone to her voice, though silently allowed Alice to take the lead. "Hey, can't we just fly or something? Those wings gotta be good for something, right?"

Ophie was cold. She had a headache. She just wanted to sleep. She stifled a yawn, forcing herself awake with another slash at her arm with her claws - pain to stay awake and alert. She wasn't going to get caught yet again. And, hopefully, her new toy would escape with her. There were too many uses Alice would be good for for her to just die to a random human asshole. Only Ophie was allowed to kill the bat - and she fully intended to, once her use as a toy ran out. But for now, allies would be a fine enough term.

Alice grit her teeth, she was sensitive about her wings because they were useless, they could only carry Alice a few feet off the ground since she had begun practicing. "I can only carry one and they're attached to me. So if I go over the fence, you'd stay here." They weren't much use not on her body unless Ophie was thinking of using them to decorate or something. Alice wasn't going to just let her take them though, she would fight tooth and nail. "We're almost there, just stay up a few seconds longer," they had reached the gate and the shots didn't come from behind them, but rather, above. A tower shadowed over them, guards shooting everything they had. Alice hissed as a dart clipped her shoulder, landing on the ground directly behind her. She pulled the tarp off of herself and shielded Ophie under it, "they should bounce right off of that." Alice climbed the fence, reaching the top where the barbs were. "Toss me the tarp!" She was planning on throwing it over so that they could use it as a guard and climb over, but before Ophie so much as had a chance to respond, Alice was shot. It was in her chest wound, the dart sticking out. Alice was determined though, she was running off of adrenaline and blood. "Quickly!" Another two darts, one in her wing, another in her leg. "Damn," the pain stole every other sense as the stimulant worked its way into her system. She fell from the fence into the snow, her entire being twitching in pain as she screamed, the pain intensifying with each second. One shot had been enough to incapacitate her for nearly an hour, there was no telling what three shots would do. "RUN!" Alice managed through grit teeth, her fingers brushing Ophie's ankle. A scream ripped from her body once more, the little action causing her nerves to fire off.

Ophie was beyond furious. Her possession, Alice, was twitching in the throes of agony and it wasn't her who was the cause? Despite how tired she was, this was unforgivable. Unacceptable. She let out a hiss and a click of the teeth and turned to stare down the approaching guards. She's yet to have been hit by a dart - even with her exhaustion, she'd be more than enough to kill them off and escape with Alice. Any other outcome was unacceptable. Ophie was created by these damn humans as a weapon after all - and what else was she good for if she couldn't kill a few pests that threatened to touch what was hers?

"I said you're mine! I don't leave behind my toys, okay?

Focusing as hard as she could, Ophie launched herself at a snow bank. She almost let out a scream as the snow and frost bit at her skin but she needed the cover. Within an instant, she burst out of the bank at a different angle, taking down one of the attackers. She immediately paralyzed him with her fangs and used him as a shield to block against more nerve darts fired at her from in front. With a few quick moments, the man was writhing as pain traveled throughout his body. Ophie smirked as she stabbed down between his legs and dashed to her next target. However, she overestimated her speed and instead barreled right into him, knocking them both to the ground. Being a spider, she recovered quickly from the fall - but not quick enough that she get procure another meat-shield. For a split second, she didn't feel anything but bewilderment. And then she felt the pain pulsate through her body in waves that only seemed to escalate over time.

Still, before she lost control of her body altogether, Ophie had one last thing she had to do. A man's scream echoed throughout the compound as his eyes, throat, and stomach were torn apart by claws in a flurry of snow and blood.

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When Alice could finally stand to pry her eyes open, she was laying in some sort of cell. It was almost like the one in the rehab center, only in the rehab center, there were no chains keeping them connected to the walls. Her shock collar was buzzing, humming as though it were ready to deliver a finishing blow at any moment. Alice was gagged, a cloth wrapped firmly around her mouth to ensure she couldn't release any sound that wouldn't be muffled. The pink haired girl looked around for the spider, somehow comforted by the fact that they were in the same cell. The white washed space smelled of lemoney fresh floor cleaner, but Alice could detect the undertones of what they were attempting to disguise.Terrible things happened down here, no doubt. Was this the basement? Had she been bad? The thought made her shake. She had been doing so well, learning to read, limiting her biting, even sometimes remembering to put clothes on. The shaking ceased, replaced by rage; she growled, a low, guttural, inhuman sound.They would pay for this, Alice would be certain to tear their throats out, to impale the humans and chain them so they knew what it was like to be treated like an animal.


For someone like Ophie who used her voice as a weapon of manipulation, being gagged and immobilized was probably one of the worst possible things that could happen. She was truly and utterly powerless - not to mention the still persisting yet somewhat fading pulsations of pain from whatever drug she'd been injected with from the dart.She idly glanced to the side, surprised yet oddly angered upon seeing the bat in the same cell. Sure, she was injected, but couldn't she have at leasttried to have escaped while Ophie charged at the assailants? That washer opportunity to at least attempt to flee. And now her toy was probably going to end up tortured, if her sense of smell wasn't lying to her. Heck, Ophie herself probably was, as well. Unfortunately, after she revealed her abilities to the insurgents, methods were put in place to neutralize her most effective tool. Ophie grunted and moaned in a disgusted tone as her two hands were clasped together and encased in what seemed to be a large singular steel glove, chained shut. It was heavy and weighed down each of her movements. Yet she knew that even trying to struggle was useless. So she shot Alice her best annoyed glance,trying to figure out why the bat didn't at least try to get away during Ophie's distraction.

Alice simply gave Ophie a smile as she sawed through the straps with her claw-like nails. It was fraying, Alice could feel it; finally her hands were free, she pulled the gag from her mouth, but as soon as Alice stood, the shock collar humming with electricity went off, no longer a buzz but a shriek. Alice grit her teeth, with each step a shock volted through her body, but Alice was determined. Should she attempt to gut the collar, it would shock her fingers and so Alice gave up that angle, hoping that by escaping the cell the shocking would stop. Before Alice could get far though, one of the humans came downstairs. "Thank you for volunteering," he said and came towards the cell. The shock collar ceased it's relentless tirade of pain, allowing for Alice to release a breath before the human grabbed her. Instantly, she pulled herself up by the arm he had grabbed her and bit into his wrist. He hardly seemed to mind Alice's bite, he brushed it off as though he had been bitten before. "Let me go!" Alice kicked him. She twisted from his grip, running like a rat through a maze around the odd devices and towards the exit. Before Alice could reach it the collar went off again, the shocking intensified. She didn't want to stop, but had to pause and the small gap in motion made him leap like a lion on its prey. He pinned Alice, lifting her by her hair and dragging her back towards the cell. Only, they didn't go inside. Instead, he stripped off whatever was left of her dress and tied her so that she was in a position withher arms above her, her ankles pressed and tied together. In his hand he held a whip. "One lashing for every sin."

"I'll kill you," Alice hissed. One lashing, it wasn't so bad, like a sting that only lasted for a few seconds. "Do it again and I'll snap your neck!" She threatened, the whip hitting her again. Was this what Lucy had gone through? Alice thought the huge deal the girl made was stupid, this was nothing compared to the pain she experienced by the hands of her creators. The human seemed to realize that this wasn't working and so he called upon his two friends, enlisting them to hold her wings open so that he could poke needles into them. "When I get my hands on you...You... You're going to be sorry you existed!"

Ophie heard the lashes resounding through the halls, as well as Alice's shouts of futile defiance. It was disgusting. Alice - her toy - was struggling and fighting and it was at someone else's hands. Yet, wasn't it idiotic to try and resist? Over the years, she learned that in these kinds of situations, acting helpless was the way to make the pain end as quickly as possible. The more you tried to fight, the more they'd hurt you. Why couldn't Alice understand that simple fact? It boiled her insides. So Ophie had every intent to simply sit still and not bother.

Well, until the sounds continued and refused to stop. Whatever was happening, it was her job to do it to Alice, not random filthy humans who thought they owned the world. What kind of monster could she be if she just let them have their fun, huh? Especially if their fun involved touching something that belonged to her? Ophie's feet were still free and with the kind of twisting of limbs that most humans would be unable to accomplish, the claws on her toes managed to sever her mouth from the gag, giving her access once again to her silver tongue. It was almost a relief as the strap dropped to the cold floor. Still, she didn't have her webs, but the steel glove would be a fine enough bludgeon, wouldn't it? And so, that's exactly what she did - following the noises, she dashed behind the breathing scum and bashed one of them in the back of the head, with a crack and a spilling of grey matter.

"That's my toy." Ophie insisted, shivering with both rage and stupidity. "Only I'm allowed to hurt her, you stupid humans! Filthy humans! Just get out of our lives already!"

She forgot about the collar around her neck. And before Ophie could take a step to another breathing slime, she felt the currents tear through her body. In a heap, Ophie collapsed, twitching, biting as hard as possible into her cheeks to prevent from screaming- but instead drawing blood and a heavy chunk of cheek flesh. She spat it out at one of the guard's faces in a show of useless defiance. Why again did she bother trying to do anything? How stupid could she possibly be?

They had blindfolded her, taking away one of Alice's most vital senses. The stabs of pain came from everywhere, but the ones in her wings were the worst. Alice heard it though, a sound she couldn't miss. The girl struggled to break free once more; she was a bat, bats had a fantastic sense of hearing and so Alice knew she wasn't mistaken. One of the human's seemed to think that something Ophie said was a fantastic idea; he presented her with the whip and gestured towards the other experiment. "Why don't you do the honors then?"

With a twist of a key and a releasing of metal, Ophie's hands were now free. Yet, she really wished that they weren't when the whip was presented to her. Her face twisted bitterly at the humans around her, feeling incredibly disturbed and uncomfortable. When she hurt a toy, it was something sacred, something precious. It wasn't some sport for these insects to watch and jeer at -it was special intimacy between her and her victims. It gave her all the control to do as she pleased. Like this, Ophie was as much of a rat in a maze as Alice was. Unfortunately, no amount of rage would allow her to escape with her webs - they were for the next few hours, utterly useless.

"Disgusting. Scum. Useless trash. You all should eat my shit and die in a hole." Ophie whispered, feeling more blood pool in her mouth. She let it drop onto her arm and gave herself another slice - deeper and as painfully as she could, as if out of penance. The sanguine liquid oozed into the steel glove as if it were a bowl, and she knelt down to pick it up, handing it to Alice. One of the guards tried to intercept but she bared her fangs and it was enough to make him rethink this once. Clearly, it wouldn't work again.With as much empathy as was possible for a monster, Ophie gestured at Alice to drink. "...Sorry."

She then started lashing Alice with the whip - red welts and long x shaped streaks began to form with each strike. Yet as Ophie stared at the succubus's body, she only felt a need to puke as well as an insatiable desire to commit genocide on all humans for invading on her sacred ritual like this.

"O-phie?"Alice could hear her, but she was blinded by the stupid mask over her eyes. Her tone was innocent, far too pure for a monster who killed others for fun. Then there was warm liquid, it was sweet, dripping down her throat like the nectar of the Gods. Alice could tell it was Ophie's blood and she drank it greedily, the same as before. Did this mean it was over? Had Ophie gotten them out. No, it wasn't, it seemed. Another lashing, then another, her back cut up and dripping.The ends of her pink hair had been turned red, dipped in her own blood as it ran down her back and splattered against the stark white floor. Alice would not give them the satisfaction of her screams. She would not show the pain they were causing her out of sheer stubbornness. The only thing Alice could do was tune it out, pretend she had gone deaf as well as blind. It was was much easier to swallow the pain that way, by pretending it wasn't happening at all. When it was over Alice's arms were freed. She couldn't move, her back was raw and red,the only positive factor of the situation being that they didn't seem to mind Alice's hate for clothing. In fact, they took it off themselves. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of releasing her arms. Even without her eyes, Alice leaped, landing on the closest human. She ripped the mask off of her eyes,wrapping it around his neck and turning it, twisting it tighter and tighter to squeeze off his oxygen supply. Someone pulled her off before his face even turned purple. She scratched the other human across the face, he drove a finger into the still-dripping wounds. "Alright, enough of this. Throw that one back in the cell, it's the spider's turn." For some reason, that made Alice even angrier. She wanted to choke the life out of each and everyone of these humans, but Alice wasn't given the chance. Instead, she was thrown back into the cell, her arms retied behind her.

Before Ophie allowed anything else to happen, she tore her thumb into her left wrist -this time dangerously close to the artery. A little wrong movement and she'd easily die. She knew they wanted to hurt her next, and she also knew that they'd only be able to do so if she was alive. As such, she had all the power, if only temporarily. Alice was gone and safe for now, though she was still clearly suffering, if the blood left behind was any indicator. It was her own fault for being idiotic - and Ophie knew that trying to cooperate with the bat might be the only way to make any headway in this new hell she found herself in.

"Do as I say, or I'll kill myself and ruin your fun. Electrocute me, and I'll make sure to kill myself - and you can't have as much fun with only one captive,since now she's gotta recuperate."

She was met with silence and significant side glances, but the two remaining humans made no other move. Satisfied, Ophie angled her arm to drip a heavy sample of blood into the glove yet again - much more than the previous slash. After a satisfactory amount was donated, she gestured to one of the scum to lift it up.He did so, in a way that made Ophie want to kill him for daring to touch it,despite it being her order. "Let me see you give that to her. I'll cooperate with whatever you want with me after that."

As such, Ophie was marched (with heavy supervision) back to the cell and was only allowed the briefest sighting of the guard handing over the glove before she was dragged away. She didn't struggle - she already resigned herself to her fate. Unlike Alice who'd fought and tried to claw her way to freedom, Ophie knew that her best option was to play her game as quietly as possible. The least amount of noise - the less resistance - the better, right? She was brought into a different room entirely, filled with various instruments she couldn't even fathom the use of, as well as a heavy stench of old dried blood mixed with some kind of smell freshener that failed to freshen the smell whatsoever. With an expressionless face Ophie was strapped to a table with all four limbs spread, stripped of her clothing unceremoniously. As such, her own torment was about to begin.

Alice was told that if she behaved for now, they would bring her water. She was so desperately thirsty that not even Ophie's blood quenched it. Water, Alice needed water. So for now she lay still as they dressed her wounds, the point of the torture wasn't for them to die, as strange as it seemed. They were trying to inflict as much pain as possible without physically killing the victims, they didn't want to be deemed hypocrites, they were just trying to teach the monsters a lesson.When the wound was finally dressed, Alice let down her hair and used it to cover her chest. She was still in that same little room when they pushed a mini bottle of water in and Alice drank it down almost as though it were blood. She sighed in relief, throwing the bottle against the wall boredly. In reality, she was straining her ears, attempting to pinpoint Ophie's location. "If they hurt her too.... They'd better hold on to their hats those disgusting humans." Why was Alice feeling so protective? Most probably for the same reason Ophie was. Alice was the only one who could inflict pain on other experiments, not these impure humans.

To everyone's favorite spider, torture was more of a mind game than any sort of physical trial.Whoever broke first - be it the sadist or the victim - was the one who lost.The sadist had to think of creative ways to keep the victim on their toes,while the victim had to steel themselves against any sort of attack through sheer mental fortitude and willpower. Eventually, one side would break - and Ophie was determined to win in that regard. She'd won in the sadist's role plenty of times, so it'd make sense that she'd also win this game, too, right?As her tormentors laughed and jeered, and started beating her with what felt like rods after injecting her with the nerve agent yet again, Ophie desperately kept her mouth shut - scarlet ichor filling her mouth as she bit down on her cheeks yet again.

Beating itself would've been fine - painful, yet tolerable - but adding the nerve agent almost brought Ophie to the brink of breaking many times over. Ophie knew it wouldn't be long until her first bone broke, but she also knew that with her rapid regeneration, broken bones would heal back relatively quickly regardless. She did her best to not move a single muscle as her body was battered and stricken ad nauseum. Finally, things seemed to have slowed down - the only sound anyone could hear was Ophie's labored breathing as she regained her strength. Was it over? Was it done? Or was it simply another trick to fool with the victim's mind?

"You're not very fun." A human voice sounded, not that Ophie could see anything to really confirm it - she was blindfolded after all. "Yeah man, she should at least cry or something." It seemed they were discussing things. If that was the case, then the battle still wasn't won just yet. Ophie wouldn't give in. She had to outlast the siege in whatever way she could. "Earlier, the two freaks were protecting each other or something, weren't they?" That was when the spider knew the game was lost. A few dreadful seconds later..."Hey, scream and beg for us. If you do a good enough job, we might let you hurt her again for us, how does that sound? Course, if you want us to do it instead, you can just stay quiet like always."

With her prides wallowed and a sensation of needing to protect her plaything, Ophie sang the song the filth were wanting to hear the entire time. And as she sang, the attacks grew more energetic and enthusiastic - as if her voice were charging them even more. After some time passed that she couldn't hope to guess at,Ophie felt herself being carried like a sack of potatoes by one of the guards, before being tossed - arms restrained by the steel glove yet again - back into the cell with Alice. The spider's entire body was quivering and she collapsed immediately once placed on her feet - falling face first onto the ground with no strength left, more akin to a ragdoll than a monster.

"Have fun in there." One human taunted. "We'll be back later for more games!"

Ophie let out an odd strangled sound from the back of her throat that sounded suspiciously like "Teddie" as she stared with glassy eyes in front of her.

Alice had finally been given water. She was so desperately thirsty and they wouldn't allow the female the use of her own hands. Someone tipped the cup into her mouth and as she drank, water spilled down her front, causing blood to mingle and run as well. Alice had no desire to drink her own blood, the blood of others was sweet and addicting, her own, not so much. When Ophie was shoved inside, Alice could tell that something wasn't quite right as soon as the doors closed behind the spider. "Ophie, are you alright?" Her legs weren't tied, the stupid humans hadn't been smart enough to think of such things, it seemed, so Alice could move and sit beside Ophie, noticing the glassy look and hoping that they hadn't broken her. "You have to hang on, we can't let them win," Alice wasn't even sure if Ophie was listening, or perhaps she was saying it for her own benefit, as though there were some magic in speaking thought words.

Everyone had something that they relied on. That Poppy chick had her marble, Alice seemed to enjoy stripping even if it meant exposing your weak and delicate bits, Fey had his Fey-ness... and Ophie had her teddie bear that she always latched onto whenever she felt overwhelmed. After she looted it from a little girl's room a few years ago (after killing her, of course), it's been her main source of comfort in hard times. Perhaps it was a crutch - and worse, perhaps it was a sort of attachment only scummy humans really used, but it wasn't as if she could help it, or anything. She was allowed one flaw, wasn't she? A combination of losing Teddie somewhere in the facility, being naked, and most grave of them all, losing the mindgame of torture, the spider felt completely and utterly defeated. Sure, the fractures and such would heal over time, but she had no idea how mental damage seemed to work. Most of her victims died after their sessions, after all.

I... protected you..." Ophie whined, sensing in some unconscious way that Alice was around. In a childish, spoiled fashion, it was as if she was looking for some sort of recognition. It was a feeling she never really felt before. "I d-don't want them to touch you...! And I... She shivered, her whole body twitching with more pain as she did so. In a much weaker, quieter voice, "I want my teddie do you know where she is?"

Alice frowned. She had seen Ophie's Teddie, the two shared a room, but Alice hadn't really thought anything of the stuffed bear that sat on the girl's bed. It wasn't uncommon for them to latch on to something in the outside world and bring it with them to the rehab facility when they were captured. Alice didn't have any sort of comfort object, but she did understand the purpose of it. "No, I haven't seen Teddie." Alice replied, shaking her head. She couldn't stand having her wrists behind her and so Alice uncomfortably brought her arms forward, hesitantly putting them around Ophie. "I'm not going to let them get away with this," Alice assured her. For now it seems they were leaving them alone, albeit with a warning that they would be back. She could pounce, but it was dangerous and it could put Ophie at risk. Alice was wondering why she suddenly cared so much, perhaps due to the fact that they were in this hell together that she felt the need to cling to someone.

The two had been through worse though, Alice was sure. Judging by what she had seen in the human world while on her path of destruction, she doubted Ophie really encountered anything that different. "Maybe if we pretend to behave they'll bring us real food." Alice would give hers to Ophie, she decided. The bat could sustain herself off of blood alone for a while, so she could hide the food for later in case things became worse or they changed their minds. "That's right, we just have to wait."

She didn't understand her, did she? Ophie never lost before, even when the scientists were trying to break her. She never once gave in - it wasn't as if she was a stranger to pain or anything. And perhaps it was frustration at not being understood that gave her the fury to blink away the glaze from her eyes. A new burst of energy was mixed in with a burst of aching stings that had once felt somewhat distant. It was fine now, though - even if she couldn't exactly move, she could persevere. It was an odd, disgusting emotion within her that needed to somehow have Alice understand. Perhaps it was because Teddie spoke to her and understood her when they talked in the late nights when everyone else was asleep, but without her, she was left with the bat. Disregarding her hunger for now, Ophie decided to directly address what was bothering her.

"...They said to sing for you, Alice. For your sake. I never sang for anyone before. I never lost before. You know how I am... don't you? Desperation and anger were both intertwining with each other and it was hard to keep them both in check. "I'm not supposed to lose the game, I'm supposed to be the one to make them sing! Don't you get it?"

Unlike some of the others, Alice wasn't intellegent, she had never believed herself to be so either. She couldn't read or write, do basic math, Alice had no practical functions aside from killing, so of course she didn't understand what Ophie was saying. "But we're not on your playing field anymore," Alice spoke softly. Losing was new to her as well, the first time Alice had lost had been to the claw in the sky when it came down and scooped her up from her nest of bones and blankets she had stolen from houses. Of course she had fought the claw, but ultimately it had won and whisked her away to Siberia, where it was so cold that the simple act of opening a door could make one freeze to death. "We're dancing to their tune now," Alice whispered, unraveling herself from Ophie and sitting across from the spider. "These people, they're playing on a different level. We're pawns they can sacrifice, we always have been. The game masters are men playing God, the ones who created us, and now we've been stolen from one set and placed on another." It was the only way Alice could think of explaining it and she hoped that Ophie understood what she was trying to say.

So was what just happened a smaller game inside of an even bigger game? If that was the case, then perhaps failing in one small game didn't mean the whole game was lost just yet? Ophie didn't know what she meant by a pawn, but she did formulate a large playing field with many different pieces, two of which were the bat and the spider in captivity. If there was a game, then there had to be a victory clause, right? It was a game of a different level, according to Alice - so it was more than the usual games Ophie played involving songs and minds. Ophie was a spider for a reason - figuring out these sorts of things were supposed to be her strong point, right? She took a deep breath before painfully and with much exhaustion, scrambled herself back into what seemed to be a sitting position.

"So in this game, we're on a same team, right? And we're against these people this time. We're losing right now and that's bad..." Ophie scowled bitterly at the idea of losing but shoved it out of her mind for the time being. She had to try to organize her thoughts however she could and hope the vampire bat was on the same page. "...If they wanted us to fight for them, they would just have to save us from the cold facility, right, and then put us... where they want things to die. So that's not the plan..."

Oddly enough, as her mind raced, the spider found herself to almost be having fun yet again. Her bodily pains temporarily left her to allow her to rummage through any hints and clues thus far.

"If we want to win, we have to find out how they win, and then stop it." The spider then gave Alice a bit of a grin before continuing. "The humans at the cold place won by turning us human. So these ones don't want that, because they attacked those humans. But they don't want us as weapons either, right? And they were doing... stuff to us. What do they win from trying to hurt us, Alice? What good happens for them to leave us alive?" She then nodded her head at her cellmate, giving her a chance to try and add her own theories into the strategy meeting.

Alice listened, not sure if she really understood where Ophie was going with this. Alice had to hand it to her though, Ophie was really good at twisting words and findind a deeper meaning behind them. She furrowed her brow, thinking long and hard about what these people could possibly want for them. "Maybe the truck was all a show and we're really in the basement?" Alice tried. "Or they could be trying to break us so that we'll do their bidding." Those were the two most logical responses Alice could figure out and Ophie seemed to really be one for logic.

The basement. It was a place Ophie was always curious about, but never really wanted to find out. All of the experiments heard the rumors - once you were put in there, you'd never be let out. No one was ever seen again after being sent to the basement. And, well, considering which people were usually put there, it did make some sense. Ophie was a complete monster - and she loved it -, so perhaps the scientists found out about it. And, well, Alice was always annoying so perhaps they just tossed her in because of it. Though to be fair - and she did appreciate the irony - Ophie didn't mind Alice too much, as they were on the same team now.

"So, this might be the basement..." Ophie took a cursory glance of the cell and let out a small sigh, almost as if her sights confirmed the small suspicion. "...This room is kinda like the ones they put us after being bad, right? So it could be the basement. That... makes sense." The brunette then did something she thought she'd never ever do - especially not to this one person who was always a thorn in her side in the past. "...Ophie sends Alice an alliance request to survive. Does Alice agree?" She had a playful, inviting smile on her face, temporarily reverting back to her childish words in an attempt of normalcy. She stuck her arms out in a handshake attempt - but then saw the steel glove thing and frowned again.

Alice was curious, the basement was the unknown forbidden space, it was the ending of every story, but there was no way she was going to allow her's to come to such a conclusion. For some reason, knowing that their comrades, note, not friends, were above them, made Alice feel even more determined to return. She wanted to be the one to survive the basement and live to tell the tale, with or without Ophie. Her head snapped forward when Ophie spoke; she may not like it, but the spider was currently her only company so Alice may as well listen. She was sending a request for a temporary alliance, now that was unexpected. "Alice agrees," the bat nodded her head, wondering why she had suddenly referred to herself in the third person. Footsteps came from behind them and dread settled into her stomach. "Time to play!" The human sing songed, the most evil smile Alice could possibly envision riding their lips. "Lucky for both of you, you're going to the same room." As soon as he lifted Alice she reflexively kicked, the pink haired girl hated behind touched and his hands were invading her skin. The human dropped her, giving Alice enough time to run to the corner and hiss as though this would detere him from trying again.

With almost no time to rest, yet another game was about to begin anew. Ophie even wanted to laugh at Alice to copying her sentence structure - and then the damn humans came back to interrupt the fun. Still, at least now they had possible information - if this really was the basement, then they were still in the facility. Whether or not that was good or bad didn't really matter, the important part was that there were stores of the serum around in case she needed to escape. With the enemy's potential victory clause put aside for now, Ophie still didn't really have a plot for victory other than survival. Though perhaps that was as good as any.

"Ophie doesn't want to play." She replied in a voice matching the first man's lyrical quality. As Alice backed away into the corner with a hiss, Ophie took her opportunity to slam her metal glove into the second man's throat, forcing him to buckle to his knees in an attempt to catch his breath. And as expected, an electric shock pulsed through her system a second time - but before she herself could collapse, the arachnid pressed the glove to the human that was approaching Alice with sadistic glee, sharing the electricity with him as well. Of course, she filled the glove with as much webbing as she could to protect her gland from the current. If this was going to be an escape attempt, she'd need use of her webs. Both Ophie and the singer were thusly incapacitated, though Ophie managed a weak grin at Alice and brought herself back to her feet. Luckily, being a monster, she could recover much more quickly from a shock than any old human.

"Should we try to get out? Do you think it'll work?

Alice nodded her head, "Let's try to find an exit." She was determined to get out of here, "We'll probably need some clothes." As much as Alice hated them, if they were still in the icy wastes of Siberia they were going to need some incredibly thick clothing to keep them from freezing. They were going to need the anti-rejection meds as well, no doubt they wouldn't last long without them. Which reminded Alice of something very bad, neither of them had, had their meds yet today. They gave them out at lunch, which they had missed due to the fact that the building had been dismantled rather abruptly right after therapy time. "Shit," Alice cursed, knowing that it would probably be a few hours before she would feel the effects of rejection. As they left the room keeping them captive, Alice looked around for any signs of an infirmary, medical room, or even a drawer with syringes. Alice spotted a cabinet and opened it up, finding saws of different sizes. She quickly closed it, her wings fluttering and she wrapped her arms around herself protectively. "Not in there," maybe they should focus on the exit first and worry about the medicine later. No doubt the human would call in back up and then they would be royally screwed. "Do you see anything?" Alice whirled around, looking for Ophie amongst the different torture machines.

Ophie held up her wrists in a rare moment of genuine helplessness, though perhaps it wouldn't really matter to Alice at all that she was still essentially neutered offensively. Even if escape was a thing, what was the point if she couldn't go back to killing as she pleased? She needed her hands free, one way or another. She observed as Alice searched around a medical area - presumably for the medication - but was only met with saws. The spider didn't really understand why the bat seemed to recoil away from the saws a little - they were a tool Ophie was very familiar and comfortable with. Well, most of the time she was the one holding it, so perhaps that was the issue. ...And clothes were definitely going to be needed, and not only for the cold. She didn't enjoy how the humans seemed to stare at the two of them, fully exposed. It made her feel both disgusted and outraged. Honestly, Ophie wished she could use all of these instruments. The pear was fantastic in particular, although Ophie did enjoy the idea behind the rack and the breaking wheel as well. Unfortunately, it wasn't as if she could carry the tools with her.

Still, it was fun to look at and imagine the ways.

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"I don't know how to get this off my wrists without a key." Ophie confessed, looking slightly away. Sure, they were allies, but would Alice really care enough to help out? For some reason, Ophie had a feeling her cute act wouldn't work on Alice, so decided to not bother attempting in the first place. Instead she simply gestured it towards Alice's face. "I can't help much in a fight until these get off, you know?

Alice had worked off the bindings only moments before, using the saws she had at first recoiled from. "This should work," Alice picked up a wide toothed saw and hacked at the lock on the metal gloves until finally, they came off. They lost too much time already, the humans were stirring, getting onto their feet. One of them was bleeding and he didn't seem to be too happy about it. "Come on!" While it didn't seem like they were going to make it out in this moment, they could at least attempt to find the exit for next time. In an act of desperation, Alice grabbed Ophie's hand and began running down the hall, away from the screams coming from behind closed doors. They were looking for signs of an exit; stairways that led up, doors marked with bright red signs, even a relatively small marker like an arrow or fire extinguisher that would tell them which way to go. The halls were seemingly impossible to navigate though and somehow they ended up right where they started. Frustrated, Alice went back to the saws and picked up two, sliding one across the floor to Ophie. Animalistic instincts were beginning to take over, Alice let out a low guttural sound resembling what could have been a growl. She wove her way past machines and through various equipment to where the humans were, swinging the saw as though it were an extension of her arm and hitting the first human hard.

With her hands free, Ophie gave Alice the briefest kiss on the cheek before immediately latching her silky strings over the walls and pipes and everything she could find - thin enough to be invisible to a careless eye. This truly was her expertise - in close quarters, with no room to move or mobilize, the spider queen reigned supreme. The humans began their pursuit, and Ophie heard the growl from her companion, so she subtly twisted her wrist. It was almost like a work of art, or perhaps, dominoes, as all the webs and strands interacted with each other to create a latticework-type trap, wrapping around the human's throats and suspending them up into the air. The webs themselves were heavily supported by many others, preventing them from breaking under the weight. As the scum struggled and died of being hung, Ophie wanted to stay and watch and admire her artistry. Unfortunately, she couldn't, as there was something much more pressing at hand - finding an escape from the basement and then escape and be allowed to prowl freely once again. If only Teddie could've been brought along as well.

As Ophie was dragged by Alice through the maze like halls yet again, she made sure to spread her webs around yet again, placing yet another hanging trap for humans to get caught in. Her eyes scanned the surroundings for any possible sign of an exit. Even if escape was impossible at this junction, any extra information could only be helpful. Ophie had a devilish grin as she completed another elaborate yet nearly invisible trap of strings and followed after Alice, admiring the bat's own work.

"At least be more creative when beating them or something." Ophie snickered, gladly letting her take the lead.

"Fine," Alice huffed like a child being scolded by their mother. The next human they encountered Alice jumped on, flipping the man nearly twice her size to the ground. "I don't think you need this arm," Alice was wearing a maniacle grin as she twisted it backwards, reveling in the sound of crunching bone. "Oops," She relished in his screams when she pressed saw upon skin and quickly cut through his arm, shoving the torn ligament into his mouth and using it push through the back of his skull. "There, does that make you happy?" The Bat turned towards the Spider, her eyes widening at the flood of oncoming humans. "I don't think you've got enough webs to catch all of them," It was two against a flood and it seemed they stood no chance. Metal doors came down on the section the girls were standing in, the compartment flooded with noxious gas. Alice choked, knowing that with her weak lungs, there was no chance of her escaping this, even as Ophie sucked air in for a shared-air kiss. Suddenly Ophie's lips were on her's, pushing air into her lungs. "What are you doing?!" Alice asked frantically, it was a stupid risk and as soon as she spoke the words more gas was sucked in and the world spun. The saw dropped from her hands, Alice cursed herself for having fun and taking so long with a kill in such a dire situation as she fell to her knees, the world quickly fading out.

When Alice awoke, her limbs were stretched. She felt dizzy and short of breath, her stomach resting against a table. She craned her neck around frantically to look for Ophie and to catch a glimpse of where she was. Alice's eyes were met with a silent plea from the spider for her to remain as calm as possible. The humans were speaking to one another. They were wearing gloves and white gowns, surgical masks as well. A tray with a small medical saw was wheeled up and her eyes widened. "Don't you dare!" Alice cursed, gnashing her teeth, but even her worst threats couldn't stop the human from holding the saw against one of her wings. "Stop! No! Stop!" Blood curdling screams rang through the air as Alice begged them to leave her wing intact. She writhed around so much that other humans came to help to hold her down. Blood ran down her back, stinging the wounds from the whip that had been inflected upon her earlier. Alice wasn't allowed to pass out, if she so much as showed any signs of fluttering her lids they slapped her awake or dumped ice water over her head. They dragged it out for an agonizing hour, stopping periodically to wipe away the blood or to take breaks. She was never allowed to drift away and they timed the administration of the nerve agent to ensure it wouldn't fade. When the wing was finally off one of the humans placed it on the tray in front of her face. "You bastards! I'm going to kill you! I hope you're ready to die! And when I'm done with you, I'll go after your spouses and children. Oh how they're going to suffer-" she was cut off, not even allowed to describe their mortifying deaths. Instead, a rag was shoved into her mouth and she was carried back to that dreadful room where they would make her wait until they wanted to inflict more pain on her; her entire body shaking from the slightest touch and the fact that she had just had her wing severed from her body.

"Stupid humans." Ophie grunted once Alice was gone. She was horrified, and it was obvious to everyone in the room. She coudn't even try to mask her fear, and she knew full well what part of her body would be singled out. An Alice without a wing is as pitiful as an Ophie without a gland to create her threads. The dead wing laying on the table was a grim reminder of what was to come. "What are you trying to accomplish? What's your win condition? What do you get from hurting us?" Her arms were roughly grabbed and spread out - and the nerve agent was administered. She had to work quickly, whatever it took. If she was going to lose it, she at least had to go down with a struggle. "You idiot humans!" The spider cried, twitching with terror. "You were the ones who created us, and now that we won the war, we're just playthings for your amusement? Is that the game?" Instead of a response, Ophie was instead given a question.

"Which hand has the gland?"

Ophie gulped. So now she had to try and outwit the humans, right? Betting against hope, she answered. "My left."

The scum huddled together, as if deliberating. After what seemed like far too long a time, they finally got to work on Ophie's right hand. Internally she felt relief but she made sure to scream and cry and plead as much as she wanted in order to appease the insects. After what felt like ages, her stump was cauterized by a red hot iron rod, flesh sizzling and steaming from the heat, and all Ophie could muster was a pathetic whimper. But finally, it seemed there was one silver lining. The enemy's win condition for thius game was revealed.

"You'll suffer for your sins, and repent until they're repaid."

Once back in the room they had originally escaped from (she noticed a few added security measures) Alice curled up into a ball facing the wall, she hadn't cried the entire time, but Alice could feel herself beginning to break down. There was no way these damn humans were going to see her weakened though. Not now, not ever.

Alice was much worse off than she was, was Ophie's first thought upon rejoining her comrade in the room - making sure to notice the added security measures, as well as already trying to devise potential plots on how to break free. If anyone was going to manage to escape the basement, it'd be these two. And from what she saw, for some reason, Ophie felt a sort of obligation to bring the succubus out with her as well. She was now a one winged devil, and in her asymmetry was perhaps twice as irresistible in some strange way. Still, Alice was in pain, and Ophie wanted to alleviate it if at all possible.

"Go to sleep." Ophie's voice danced in Alice's ears. "I'm sorry. At least in dreams, you'll be free for a little, okay?" Her voice had a somewhat pleading tone, as if she was begging for Alice to be whisked into the safety of unconsciousness. Now that her wrists were free of the glove (the idiot humans thought they got her webs after all), Ophie clamped one gently around the bat's throat, with as gentle a smile a monster could make. "You'll be safe in there, I promise, okay?"

Alice had no will to fight back. She struggled a bit as though to give Ophie a show, but really it was to convince herself that she still cared. "Running... Out... Time..." Alice managed to gasp as slowly the struggle stopped, her hands fell to her sides and her head lulled to the side. Perhaps there was hope of her wing growing back, she was part chameleon after all and their tails always came back when cut or stepped on? There wasn't much time to think about it though, Alice quickly slipped into darkness, her body going limp, her breathing no longer ragged. Despite how hard she tried, Ophie had seen her tears, she had seen the human part of Alice; the weak side that the Bat worked so hard to keep contained. By the time she woke up, she and Ophie would need their injections. Unless of course, these humans had it and were just holding out on them.

When Alice awoke, she was still facing the wall. The room was silent aside from the sound of breathing. She sat up, her mind spinning from blood loss and her tongue feeling like sandpaper. It seems that Alice conveniently awoke when they pushed two bottles of water through a slot in the door. Standing hurt, but if Alice crawled she knew they would take it as a sign that they had won and so she stood, nearly collapsing in front of the water and sending one Ophie's way. Her hands shook as she uncapped it and drank down the contents, sighing in relief and leaning back against the wall after downing half of the bottle.

"Good morning, princess. If this counts as morning, anyways." Ophie shot Alice a wry grin, gladly accepting her battle with her dominant left hand. Truth be told, she was exhausted and wouldn't have been surprised if she had horribly dark circles under her eyes. She'd spent the last few hours staring idly at Alice, as if trying to make sure she was at least at peace in her dreams (as well as the view, but those thoughts are best unsaid). It was as if she were keeping a careful watch on the bat the entire time. "They came and looked a few times, but nothing happened since. Hope you regained some strength for today..."

"You should get some rest," Alice wiped her mouth on her arm. She was covered in blood and dirt so the water left streaks. Ophie wasn't looking any better, albeit she was a bit cleaner since the other girl's clothing had lasted her longer. "Or at least drink, no doubt we're both dehydrated." Alice fiddled with the cap of her water bottle. The humans would probably be back soon to torture them some more. There was no telling what they would do next judging by how things were progressing. At least Ophie didn't seem to be in too much pain and she seemed rather pleased about something. "Do you think we're going to die in here?" The question had secretly been at the back of her mind the entire time. To be honest, it wouldn't be so bad; what was life for a bat with only one wing? Her hands balled into fists and Alice looked at her lap. She wasn't going to cry, no, nothing so lowly as that, but she certainly wasn't happy either.

Ophie stared at Alice for a few moments, pondering the question. She couldn't really think of an answer off the top of her head that'd really satisfy Alice, so instead, she took a nice long satisfying drink of water. It was a nice reprieve at least, for the torments in store for them. Truth be told, Ophie didn't really want to reveal her innermost thoughts with Alice. If her theory was correct, and the men really did want to simply hurt them with no other real goal in mind, then there wasn't much wiggle room Ophie could think of to procure a victory. Furthermore, everything had been effecting her as well - though she used her acting to hide the worst of her fears and anxieties from Alice. There was no point in adding her own burdens to the succubus.

"...I think we might, yeah." Ophie said in a sweet yet somewhat comforting tone. "But would that really be so bad? We were born monsters, Alice. I don't think there was a happy ending in store for us in the first place. But... um...." Ophie turned her face slightly away, and spoke in a much quieter voice, as if slightly embarrassed. "...But if we can be together in the end, I wouldn't mind it too much..."

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Cold | Resolute | Sardonic | Loner
|| Burn it Down ▮ Ready, Aim, Fire ||
⎡ EXP# - G98294 ▮ Speech - #0000AD⎦

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He could hear the soldiers laughing inside the barracks, several feet and a barrier of wooden beams beneath him; they’d won the battle today, thanks to the newly-arrived experiments, and were celebrating. F looked at the sword beside him. He had killed plant of times before with it; but not so many at once. He had cleaned the blade three times and yet he could still smell traces of the scent of blood on it. Not that me minded; blood was only blood, the life of a person coursing though their body.

A faint voice from the commander’s tent, calling for the Experiments. The Captain who ran this camp.

F sat up and let himself slide down the tiles on the roof, landing silently in a crouch, doing a quick scan of the area for threats as he did and scented the air. If someone had seen him, he would have scented traces of fear from them as they caught sight of his eyes, glowing in the darkness, too large to be a normal house cat’s. With a light, short gait, he trotted over to the tent, giving the other Experiments that had been sent here with him wary looks. They kept a cautious distance from each other as they entered the place.

It was warm inside. F preferred the cold and fresh air outside. There were several lights, maps and figures all over the table in the middle, around which sat five people; four of whom were glaring and ready to attack on a moments notice. Slowly the tent filled, until the five Experiments sent to the front line’s main encampment were all there, crowded far too close together than was comfortable.

The fifth man, the Captain, merely gave them an easy smile, though he too stank of fear. The five scents of the humans were absolutely overpowering, making F’s head spin a bit. J growled as K entered the tent too near him, and took a step away, right into F himself, who growled as well, showing a flash of teeth and arching his hands into claws. J turned his head away, refusing to meet his gaze, a sign of submission, and F relaxed a bit. The fear-scent of the four other humans skyrocketed, almost making F sneeze, whereas oddly, the Captain’s stayed the same.

“Alright then, now that you’re all here.” The Captain began cheerfully, standing. “I brought you here to thank you for all your hard work today. You did well in leading your fellows, F.” The man nodded at him, smiling.

F narrowed his eyes at the man. It was truly too bad he couldn’t kill the humans here - he saw K’s hands twitch with wanting too, and barely held his own motionless. This was why the human had called them, in the middle of the night? The night was their time - as they were mostly nocturnal animals, this was when they were alive.

“I’m pleased to be working with you, even if it is rather strange. As such, I don’t really like referring to you as just letters - do you mind if I gave you names from the letter you got?”

None of them responded, merely staring at the man.

“I’ll think on it for a while and give you perfect ones, I promise. So would it be alright?”

F shrugged. It’s not like they cared wither way. If they killed this human, they wouldn’t be allowed the serum, and would painfully die. So it wasn’t like they could do anything about it anyway.

The man glowed with excitement however, not even aware of how close many of the five were to just saying to hell with living and killing them all.

“Great!” He exclaimed.

The first thing Fey managed to comprehend was the scents; the coolness of metal, warmth of humans, an the rusted iron and salt scent of blood. His head spun a bit, everything clicking into place slowly; Crux was dead. The flash of electricity. Metal underneath him; it was dark, but he could still see fairly well due to his enhanced vision, not that he wanted to open his eyes quite yet, only doing so briefly to get a more exact knowledge of his surroundings. Knowing that he wouldn’t get much from just seeing the metal, he turned his attention to his hearing instead. The growling sound of an engine, but it was idle; human voices, discussing something... in another language, how useless. The sounds echoed slightly, but at close range - meaning the space he was in was small... like a cage. Damn bastards had dared to cage him. And from the sound of that engine, in the goddamn trunk of all places. Really, if they wanted to take him with them, they could have... maybe asked or something? Idiots. Being polite usually got your way far more often than this crap would. Deeming it safe to open his eyes since no humans were watching - the better to not let them know he was awake, the poor bastards - he took in his surroundings a bit more accurately.

Oh yeah, they'd definitely just thrown him in the trunk of a car. It was not made for keeping in a person who could lift vans due to genetic experimentation. Take that, off-roading warranty. It was like they were asking him to break the lock. Maybe they were actually smart, and were trying to frame him for attempting to escape from the facility, the proof being when he broke out of this pathetic attempt... but he really didn’t think so. No, they were most likely just idiots. Quietly, he rolled over in the narrow space so he could study the lock on the trunk, and then the back of the trunk; easily finding the lever that released the back seat divider panel that separated car from trunk; did they forget it was there?

Turning the lever slowly, he let it crack open just slightly, scenting the air again to try and determine the positions of the two occupants he could hear talking. The warm human scent filled the small space that was the car, fairly stifling; one of them definitely needed a shower. But then again, humans rarely smelled nice, so eh was used to it. Always either of chemicals or sweat. The air was still inside vehicles though, so at least he could easily discern where they were, no complicated air currents getting in the way. Really, screw air conditioners.

Both of the voices belonged to people in the front seat; one who probably was an army man and the other a civilian, judging by the gunpowder from one and the more chemicalish scent of the other. Cautiously, he eased open the door more, hoping it wouldn’t squeak. Before making his move however, he reached into his pocket, checking for the twine he'd stashed earlier. Nada. Of course... Unfortunately for them, he had seen MacGuyver when on the outside; it was interesting in a way to him, to see a human capable of actually being intelligent about things, so he had preferred it over any others of those annoying shows. The high-pitched buzzing from electronics always annoyed him, a lot, so the Army men had watched that when he was around instead of anything else, just to try and keep some peace. However, it had actually taught him a thing or two, that show; it was the reason he insisted on wearing the long Japanese ribbon ties in his hair.

"It's so dark... why do we have to keep the light off anyway? It's not like they don’t know where we are." One was complaining. Most likely the civilian.

"Because the less light is here, the less eyes will be drawn to our van." The other answered, slightly irritated. Fey heard the rustling of papers. "Now shut up and leave the damn window buttons alone, it's hard enough to read with only the filtered light. Tinted windows work both ways ya know."

Fey eased the panel down so the backrest met the seats; carefully shifting his position so his feet were against the back of the trunk, prepared to push off of it and catch the Army one off guard. He carefully slipped the hair tie out of his hair, then took the extra off his wrist with his teeth as he tied the other one into a loose circle.

"But what are you reading?"

"None of your damn business rookie." The other responded, now sounding uncomfortable. Fey could clearly see them now; the driver had a manga propped against his side window so it would be flat, eyes carefully taking it the page; the other was looking at him, not noticing any of the movement in his peripheral vision. Rookie.

"Is it porn?"

The driver seemed to choke. "N-no... not exactly."

"That's a Japanese thing, manga, right?"

"... Yes, a doujin for Rabu Suteji."

"Love Stage would be the translation, right? I took a little Japanese in High School. What's it about?"

Total silence. Pure, uninterrupted silence.

A small cough from the Army commander. "...That's not important."

"Lots of that stuff has stories about things like those monsters, right?"

"In the action or supernatural genres, probably."

"Huh... do they have lots of fans?"

"Millions."

The civilian clicked his tongue. "How could anyone like something even remotely similar to those things? If there's that many idiots who can't discern reality from fiction, no wonder they support having these creatures live."

The Army man shrugged. "Beats me... I don’t know why the Captain even wants those damn monsters alive; we shouldda just nuked the place."

"Don’t let the little brat in back hear you say that... he'll probably, like, kill us by slowly suffocating us."

"Don't jinx it!" The other snapped.

Fey decided now was an opportune time to kill them and take over the car. In one motion, he pushed off the metal behind him and reached out, dropping the hair tie that was in a circle over the Army one's head and instantly pulling it tight. The man's back arched, hands scrabbling uselessly at the tie. Fey looked over at the passenger seat, where the civilian volunteer was simply sitting there staring with his mouth open.

Fey gave him a cheerful smile. "Hi." He greeted simply. "I woke up. Good morning."

Why did he look even more scared when he said that? No one could ever accuse Fey of not knowing social niceties; he simply hated them and didn't use them. But, the poor bastard was about to die; Fey could at least be polite about those kind of things, he figured. Remind them about the fact that they are human in their last moments, give them something they've grown up with their whole lives to comfort them as they died. It was the least he could do; after all, he was killing them. A lot of people had called him insane for that; but was it really, when he had reasonable deductions behind it? Wouldn't that define it as kind? Humans called anything illogical insane; the fact that he did so for a reason would mean it wasn’t. Or did that rule only apply in certain situations? He would never really understand that stuff.

While his thoughts meandered a bit to why the human looked so scared, the Army man went limp, unconscious from lack of oxygen. Fey let the hair tie fall loose and removed it, then looked at the civilian again, who leaned back, eyes going wide as he finally processed what was about to happen.

His scream was cut off as Fey struck, quick like the strike of a snake; the man only managing to get a single squeak in the beginnings of that scream out before the cloth strip pulled tight, at the top of his throat above his vocal cords. Tying it off around the headrest, Fey removed the first hair tie from the Army man and wrapped it around his wrist, tying it off just as the second one went limp. He removed the tie and then again used it to sweep back his hair, so it wouldn’t get in the way. He really didn’t know why he was so opposed to cutting it; it was just a hassle. Though, having an excuse to keep the ties around had its uses.

Shifting back to the driver's side of the car, he reached to the far right and clicked the button to recline the chair, then grabbed the Army man by his shirt collar and using a bit of strength gifted to him by the humans themselves, threw the unconscious human into the space he had just vacated. He repeated the process for the second man, in the passenger's side, then pushed both chairs to their normal positions. Fey then paused for a moment, considering, and turned back to rip the hem off the civilian's cotton shirt, tearing the piece into four and then tying both of the men's hands and gagging them with the last two bits. Satisfied, he pushed up the back seat, trapping them both together in the tiny space, and then hopped into the driver's seat, starting the car and throwing it into gear. For a moment the tires spun as he pressed down the gas too quickly; then they found traction and he jetted forward, past the other cars and the... tank, taking a moment to wonder just what they planned to do with it, with no small amount of curiosity. If they didn’t really have one, well, he'd be happy to take the responsibility off their hands.

He heard a bit of shouting behind him as the humans called out to the two in the car, currently unconscious in the back, but it faded as he left them behind, reaching the facility in mere moments and turning to the left to head around the outside towards where their rooms were, taking a hard right into a place that he had seen earlier had a lot of damage and was considerably weakened; going right through the wall and into the halls with an extremely loud crash, and hearing a loud thump of something hitting the top of the trunk from the inside as the car jolted at the impact.

Fey calmly took the keys out of the ignition and opened the car door, looking around. He'd gone through the wall of the hall outside Vittoria's room, and he tipped his head at both Vittoria and Lucy, who were standing in the middle of the hall staring at him in surprise.

"Yo." He greeted simply.

◥◤

Cold | Resolute | Sardonic | Loner
|| Burn it Down ▮ Ready, Aim, Fire ||
⎡ EXP# - G98294 ▮ Speech - #0000AD⎦

◢◣

---

This post co-authored by The_Queen
How To Deal with Traitors

"It's about time you got here," Lucy replied bluntly, as though she had been expecting him this entire time. "What took you so long?"

Lucy started walking toward him, tugging Vittoria along with her to the car, helping her in and closing the door while Fey returned to his seat. "Where'd you get the wheels?" Lucy asked as she got into the shotgun seat, taking the time to, of all things, buckle her seatbelt. Fey gave her a confused look at the action; why? He knew humans used them for their safety, but it was just funner not to anyway and got in the way. Strange girl.

"You'd better gun it, those s-o-b's are closing in behind us," she hooked a thumb in the direction behind them towards where the humans were tumbling after them, practically jumping over themselves to stop the car. 

Fey shrugged. "Whatever." He disregarded, unconcerned about them - if it was the tank, he might be a little worried, but they were slow and there was no way they'd sent the tank after them, even if the humans had figured out he'd woken up and taken over the vehicle.

There was another muffled thump from the trunk as he threw the car in reverse and backed out of the place - obviously the leader wasn't here, and neither were any of the wardens, so it was pointless to stay. After sparing a brief thought to the two unconscious people in the trunk and their health after banging around in there at such close quarters (not that he actually cared, just curiosity), he threw the car into drive again and took off, now heading to see if anything at all could be salvaged form the guard's quarters. A few tazers and/or his sword would be nice. Really nice.

"Want anything from the guard's place?" Fey asked the two girls.

"Do they have any booze?" The female's tone was sarcastic, but her expression was serious. Fey gave her a slightly disdainful glance, glaring back at her slightly insolent expression.

"Oh, I'm sure they do." He said, purely to torment her a bit. "Bitch, a bomb just blew up the entire quarters, all the glass in the entire damn facility is broken. And you want to get drunk?"

"I was kidding! Jeeze, live a little." Lucy shot back. Fey noticed her rolling her eyes in the reflection in her passenger side window The girl crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back a bit, staring at the passing scenery with a little bit of unusual interest. "We're not gonna last out there very long." She said, in a guarded tone.

"I know, I don't care, and I can just take a few scientists with us. Trade them for the guards, maybe." He responded, tone thoughtful on the last sentence with a glance to the back seat, past Vittoria.

"That's a good idea, if you know where to find them."

"Again. The place just got blown up. They've made a survival encampment to treat the wounded of course, have some common sense." Fey sighed. This, this right here was why he always avoided people in general.

"You're an idiot if you think they're stupid enough to gather in one area like that. These humans may seem like idiots, but they are the ones that made us."

"They're still humans. Right now, one of two things is happening - people are freaking out trying to find their friends, or the place is being evacuated. Since there's a small Army with a tank waiting for them and no one leaving, that eliminates the second one." Fey retorted in his usual logical way of thinking. (In actuality, they were both wrong; the facility was currently in absolute chaos, since some of the more dangerous experiments from underground had gotten free of the cages - but they didn't exactly know about that. They would soon enough though.)

The sound of gunfire, and tings as it hit metal; Fey knew they'd been discovered, and jerked the wheel far to the left, sending them around the corner of the building with squealing tires, into the space that used to be a small court on the outside, where the single hall that connected the guards quarters to the rest of the building used to be; when he'd passed it earlier there had been a giant slab of cement across the opening, no doubt from he explosion. Just as he'd thought, the tunnel was completely gone. Fey eased up a little bit on the gas now they were in the narrower space, and turned sharply to the right, directly into the tunnel to the guard's quarters - what was left of it anyway. It was enough to shelter them though.

"Oh good, they were waiting for us." Lucy replied with a shake of her head. She ducked just as a bullet went through the windshield.

It seemed that their value had expired, and now they were being targeted like the monsters they knew the humans always thought them to be. Fey did a quick check out the back, seeing humans around the opening to the outside, deciding opening the door was too dangerous so carefully vacated the vehicle using the opening left by the windshield, keeping his head low, then hit the ground using every ounce of speed he could as he darted down the corridor and round the corner, hearing Lucy and Vittoria right behind them. This part of the facility seemed untouched; except of course for the broken glass and items dropped everywhere, no doubt from the shockwave of one of the explosions. The instant the other two were past him, he smashed the panel on the wall, the plastic box that protected a single red button; ah how ironic it was, that the security implements put in to save the staff would end up saving the Experiments instead.

Thankfully it seemed the alarm sirens were dead; the metal gate slammed closed without the slowing mechanism or any fanfare but for the loud crash of metal when they met.

"How nice of them to install these for us." Fey murmured cynically, knowing the other two could hear him.

"They prepared it just for us." Lucy muttered, tracing her hand along the wall. She stopped, seemingly recalling something. "I've been here before, the armory, it's this way." She informed, striding off down the corridor, following the red markers on the wall - assuming he didn't know.

"I know where the damn place is, I used to come here to freak out the guards." He explained, distinctly uncomfortable with how polite it sounded, as if attempting to spare her trouble. His voice dropped a note quieter as he followed it up with,"They keep our possessions from before this place there, you know."

Having had plenty enough of sounding remotely friendly for quite a while, he took off with long strides down the corridor, heading for the armory. Lucy nodded her head in response, following along after him.

After rounding two corners they came to the door, metal thing it was; it was dirty, but still intact.

This was the one password he didn't know; it changed every day, so while he'd known it several times, he didn't currently. Lucy walked over to the scanner and pressed her hand against it, frowning, then looked up with a bit of surprise when the device beeped once and the door hissed, the locks being released instantly. Lucy blinked, staring at her hand, then at the palm scanner. "That's odd." Lucy mumbled, as if to herself. Fey entered quickly; going right to the back of the room, and kneeling down to open the bottom drawer, where he knew they kept his sword; probably the only thing remotely important to him. He'd had it as long as he could remember, it was the weapon he'd been trained to use since he was just three years old; he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn't had it. Ophie often teased him that it was like he had a blankie. A blankie that had taken at least a hundred lives and was extremely sharp, as Fey liked to point out, and was made of steel double hardened and could cut through rock. But it was the thought that counted in that case; she was just looking for something to tease him about. Even he himself found it ironic that the only thing he showed gentleness towards was a weapon meant for killing things.

He slung the sash around his waist and tied it in a single movement, slightly more relaxed than he'd ever been seen this past while at the facility; finally, he had his favorite weapon back. Now satisfied with life in general, he turned back and returned to the front of the room, relieving the facility's supplies of two tazers, a swiss army knife, three lighters, and a needlepoint dagger which he broke the blade off of and shoved into the space made previously between the sole of his shoe and the shoe itself; a hidden dagger that had proved quite useful in the past.

Fey did wonder however how they'd known he hid one there before; they'd taken it when he'd been captured. It was actually a fairly uncommon hiding place for them, despite the movies humans watched; an innate fear of accidentally cutting ones self on it he supposed. However, he'd literally been trained from birth in regards to weapons and such, so that was a distinctly lacking reaction in him. Nonetheless, it was always fun to see someone's face when he would use that particular knife; the 'wait, seriously?' look. It was often fairly hilarious and entertaining.

Lucy entered after him, going straight to the daggers and knives that had been confiscated upon entry. She strapped a dagger to her thigh, hiding three more beneath her shirt and visibly relaxing. It was odd how having a weapon could make one feel comfortable, although it could provide an element of safety and self defense. Not that they used them for that. "VIttoria did you get anything?" The blonde asked, turning towards the other girl, and took a few more daggers before she walked over to her.

"Huh? Oh, no,  I'm not going to be taking anything. There wasn't exactly anything that they took from me that I think has any real value to it anyways." The quiet girl spoke up.

 Lucy nodded her head once, seemingly ignoring Fey, who was getting increasingly irritated in the confined space, though was much more comfortable now he had weapons. "Alright and Fey seems to have more weapons than he knows what to do with, so I'd say we're all ready to go."

Fey gave the girl a glance before walking out of the room, giving a few other weapons considering glances as he did, taking some kind of explosive as he passed it purely to have a wild card along. Who knew what was in it; could have been teargas, flash, a sleeping gas, or just a regular grenade. He speculated it wouldn’t be though; after all, this place had been designed to repress the Experiments for the most part, not kill them. That would be the lower levels; so probably one of the former. Now however they needed to get one of those scientists.

It seems they got out right on time, because the moment Vittoria had cleared the entryway a loud metallic snap was heard and the entire room collapsed, sending a flood of debris into the air. Perhaps the amount of metal reinforcing the walls of the room had in the end been too much for the concrete, after all the explosions. Either way, Fey was glad they hadn't had an earthquake or anything while they'd been staying here. Vittoria was thrown forward by the force, but managed to regain her balance after hopping forward several times in an attempt to keep her feet under her.

Lucy coughed, waving dust particles away from her face. "So... What now?"

Fey gave a slight shrug of the shoulders, considering. "How should I know? Today has been fucked up in case you didn't notice. Next thing could be that some goddamn aliens land with the intent to make a peace treaty."

Even as he spoke though, he started walking off, back towards the car. Hopefully the invaders wouldn't have moved past the entry point, thinking they were waiting on the other side of the metal door. The way there was silent but for the faintest taps of their shoes echoing in the more undamaged part of the halls here, and once or twice the faint sounds of falling rock and metal.

The door was still intact; it seemed they hadn't tried to force their way past after all. Fey stopped, closing his eyes to concentrate on his hearing; the metal didn't exactly let much sound past it, but he couldn't hear any voices or gunfire. It was silent. Keeping his senses on extra-sharp, he pressed the button again to release the doors, hearing the click as they unlocked; but they didn't move. Most likely the mechanism had broken, and now couldn't retract them. Well, all the better for them. Fey walked over to the door, pushing one heavy panel back - it was pretty freak'n heavy, even to him - by about a foot to peer out.

Lucy clearly debated whether she should help Fey or not and decided to go see what he was up to. She gave him his space though and made sure to stay out of his way so as not to upset him. "You know, now that we're free, we should just kill 'em all." 

Fey let out a faint scoff. "What do you think I got all the weapons for?" He murmured analytically, mostly to himself, more concentrated on sensing his surroundings that talking.

"I don't know, I figured you were a bit of an S&M kind of guy." She replied sarcastically. 

"Maybe a little. If anyone was good enough to be interested in." He admitted freely. "Mostly in the sense that whoever tried would end up dead."

Lucy giggled, there was no way to suppress it. "It makes sense they would only make males with no interest in breeding." She wandered back over to Vittoria, growing bored. 

Fey gave her a wry, sarcastic look and decided that the coast was clear, turning and going to the car that was still parked in the middle of the hallway, blocking the way for the most part to the other direction the T hall led to. Going to the driver's side, he snatched the keys from the ignition and went around to the trunk, unlocking it.

Instantly one of the two men he'd trapped in back flung himself out at him - surprisingly it wasn’t the Army man but the civilian, and rather than attacking he seemed to be running from the other inside the trunk, or doing his best at it. They'd somehow gotten their hands untied, but hadn't been able to figure out the knot on the gags in the dark, luckily enough. Fey wondered just what the Army man had done to the other in there as he merely stuck a foot out and tripped the guy before he could get away, like some human kid in a schoolyard would do, and watched with a vague sort of interest as the the force of stopping so fast sent to guy down like a tree, too quickly to catch himself. Fey tipped his head, studying the civilian one for a moment before looking at the Army man, who looked terrified and was slowly going red the longer Fey stared at him, as if caught doing something embarrassing.

Lucy helped Vittoria back to the car. For now the coast was clear, although she doubted it would stay so for long. After she'd put the other girl into the back seat, Fey grabbed the Army one by his arm and pulled him from the trunk. He yelped, hopping up and down once he was out in an attempt to get his balance, then Fey shoved him at the girl. For some reason his instincts were telling him not to let they guy near him. At all. In any situation. Then he leaned down and picked the civilian one up, who looked oddly relieved for someone who was being kept prisoner and kept throwing fearful glances over his shoulder at the Army one once Fey had turned around and dragged the civilian after him, taking out the flip knife from his pocket as he walked and pointing it was the guard once they reached the opening in the doors he'd made, holding the guard in front of him hostage style.

Lucy held the officer in her grasp, grabbing one of the knives from under her shirt and pressing it against the flesh of his neck. She followed Fey's lead, unsure what his game was but looking somewhat confident. Fey continued on with only a glance back at her, making sure the Army man wasn't looking as if he was going to try getting away; they needed him alive for the moment. When they reached the entrance to the tunnel, there was a sudden yell and sounds of guns arming themselves; apparently they hadn't realized that the ones walking behind their fellows were Experiments. Fey stopped and waited, as a small troupe of three people cautiously approached, guns raised.

Once they were close enough, he spoke. "We need to talk to a scientist - the one that makes the serum. If that person comes here and proves they are the person that makes it, we will let these two go, alive." He stated.

The commander of the Facility's guards arched an eyebrow at them. "Why? So you can kill him? Do you want to die?"

"We can kill him and then, once his slow and painful death comes to an end, we'll kill you too. Unless you agree to our terms."

"Then why not trade for your friends who the intruders have in custody?"

Fey actually gave in a showed a bit of emotion - pure, unadulterated confusion. "... Friends?" He questioned, not understanding at all.

The guard faltered, staring at him for a moment, then continued as if remembering something. "Yes, your friends - your fellow Experiments, I believe you call those two Alice and Ophie. They are being kept by them and questioned in a holding cell designed for their breeds."

"Oh." Fey accepted noncommittally, and shrugged. "So that's what you meant. If they got caught it's their own damned fault. If they're weak, they'll die. If they're not, they'll find a way through it themselves, eventually. That has nothing to do with us." He dismissed.

Lucy's expression hardened. It was obvious that she instantly knew who the soldier was referring to. It was also obvious that she was not pleased by this news. For his part, Fey just shrugged it off, narrowing his eyes in threat at the guard. "What's your answer?" He demanded.

After a moment, the guard nodded. "We'll get the scientist so you may speak with him. There is no need to go one the offensive here." He sighed, looking a bit annoyed at having to agree with them. Lucy looked to Fey, her expression was unreadable and her posture relaxed. She almost seemed to be at ease, but Fey could see the underlying tension in her stance, and Fey realized idly that she might not even have realized they would need someone with them that could make the serum, since they were now apparently going underground to wait out the battle between the Facility people and the Others. The three guards turned to walk back to the camp, complying, and Fey allowed a small smirk, which seemed to severely piss off the majority of the guards.

Not three minutes later someone appeared from behind the guard lines - the two Experiments facing the guards down vaguely recognized him, having seen him watching them once or twice.

An obvious sign of recognition adorned Lucy's face. The mask of indifference now gone, Lucy's body went rigid. It was a subtle, but very direct signal given by the man who had emerged from behind the line of guards. He was quite recognizable; golden brown skin and hair bleached to pure white. Tau, the head of the Science division, the one of the people who helped create them; he'd only been in charge for the last year or so, after they were taken out of action.

"You." Lucy growled, unintentionally pressing the knife deeper into the Soldier in her grasp's throat. Fey gave her a slight warning glance. Lucy returned his glance with a look of her own. This was the same look she used to wither humans and make them obey her, although it probably wouldn't work on Fey. Undeterred, Fey looked back to the humans as they approached, releasing the guard in his hold and shoving him at the leader of the guards, then quickly held up the grenade, to some extremely tense looks. Fey flicked his head towards the hall leading to their car, behind the metal doors.

The Scientist took a shaky breath and started walking past them, looking as if he completely believed he was going to die. As if they would let him so easily - they needed him to survive after all. Well, probably, but they needed one that could make the serum, and only the higher-ups were in one that little secret. He was the only one they were guaranteed would know. Once the scientist reached him, Fey started taking measured steps backward, still facing the guards. When they were right next to Lucy and the other guards however, there was a shout from among them, and one holding binoculars towards the back pointed towards the front of the facility, hopping down from a bunch of rubble. The thrum of engines reached Fey's ears, and just moments later, several of the off-roading cars belonging to the intruders swept around the corner going full-tilt at them. The guards as one took off towards the side of their path, the cars screeching to a halt where they had just been, doors swinging open even before they stopped to reveal a bunch of the invaders, in light bulletproof vests and such, just like the ones of the guards he'd previously knocked out.

Of course it was a trap. These humans were utterly predictable; it was almost adorable how they thought they could pull the upper hand with a stunt like that. In one swift move, Lucy killed the soldier within her grasp. He let out a beautiful strangled cry, the final sound before death, and fell to the ground in an unceremonious lump. Lucy stepped over his body, seemingly unbothered and positioned herself at the ready. Fey gave her an annoyed look; they could have used him, at the very least as a bulletproof shield... he was more focused on the new arrivals though. Somehow, they'd gotten the memo that this was where everyone was; well, at least there was still one bargaining chip on the field. The Facility guards had one of their own; meaning option one, they would want him back, option two, they would kill him for being a possible information leak. Which seeing as they would see he was still gagged, would probably go with the first one. Thus, they had people they wanted things from on both sides and nothing to give in return, as they probably didn’t realize that the other Experiments wouldn’t bargain going with them to be reunited with their lost 'friends'.

The car door opened to reveal a familiar face; Capt. Genma, of the Army they once fought for. "Wonderful, this oblivious jackass again." He sighed, then turned and simply continued walking towards shelter, dragging the scientist with him, whom gave a surprised squeak.

Lucy furrowed her brow. "You know him?"

"He was in the Army with us - the commander of the camp I was placed in." Fey answered.

"Should we kill him?" 

"Sure, I don’t really care. We kind of need to get out of the way of the guns though, do I'd say later."

"Fine." Lucy sighed. 

One of the intruding party from each car ran over to the former Army man, saluting, and one handed him a bullhorn, which he immediately switched on and pointed at them.

"SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. DON'T COMPLY, AND YOU WILL BE KILLED." His voice rang out. "WE HAVE YOUR FRIENDS IN OUR POSSESSION. WE CAN AND WILL HARM THEM. SURRENDER, FEY AND LUCY."

"Yeah, let's surrender, so that we can be locked up in cages again and disposed of when we are no longer useful, or not surrender and get shot. Or, we could just kill you all. Such a choice. Note the sarcasm." Fey growled quietly, the humans far too distant to be able to hear. The scientist gave him an odd look.

Lucy shook her head, disappointed in the humans. "You overestimate our capacity for love. You see, we don't care what happens to one another. In fact, we'd rather kill our fellows before we get along with them." Of course Lucy was playing them. While she didn't like the other experiments in her group, she couldn't very well let the humans simply kill them like this.

Not hearing their murmured words, after a moment a small party including the former Captain broke off, walking towards them. The Captain started talking again as they approached. "Well? What's your answer, Fey? I need my attack dogs back, better dead than alive and working against me though."

Fey turned his gaze to Lucy as he heard a faint metallic clatter; she had dropped her knife, her hands shaking. "My-my body, it's moving against my will." She grit out, glaring at the Captain. Fey glanced between her and the Captain - he wasn’t quite able to catch up to what was going on. So far, all he gather was that the Captain was leasing these forces; saying he wanted to kill them. But he just couldn't understand that. Captain Genma was one of the sympathizers of the Experiments - that one who gave his group real names. What, exactly, was going on here?

"Stop it!" Lucy screamed, snatching the knife from the ground, and suddenly lunged at Fey, her eyes glazed. Fey gave her an odd look, easily sidestepping the attack - she hadn’t been trying, not in the least. The Captain smiled. Fey narrowed his eyes at him.

"... What? Did you think I was some wimp who was just happy where I was, being trampled by the higher ups, just because I was one rank too low to be considered for their respect? Some idiot who thought you had some human in you? Did you really think I was that stupid?”

Fey blinked a couple of times, finally figuring it out. "Well... yeah, pretty much." He shrugged, no longer caring about his intentions; they didn’t matter. He was just another enemy, unlike before; he'd become one of the crowd, believing them monsters, just like everyone else. Yet another hypocritical human, background noise. How dare this idiot try and make him think he was one of the ones worthy of being allowed to live - attempting to throw him off by 'betraying' him.

….. Was this guy an imbecile? Fey had always thought of him as an idiot, but was he actually a total and complete moron? He seriously thought he was going to be able to effect Fey by betraying him; where there wasn't even really something to betray in the first place? Humans were so, so idiotic, that it was almost impressive!

The Captain frowned at him, then looked at Lucy. "Come here." He demanded, as if commanding some little house dog. Lucy went stiff, but seemingly of their own accord, her feet marched her over to him."You see Fey, you've been dancing to my tune all along, it was only recently you began to regain a mind of your own." The Captain winked. He stroked Lucy's cheek possessively, suddenly grabbing her by the throat and throwing her to the ground. "Stay there!" He barked, placing his foot on her back as though in a show of dominance. "I'm going to make you my obedient puppet once again." the human spoke, his grin wide.

Fey again, was a little bit dumbstruck... and then in an exceedingly rare show, burst out laughing. Hysterically. With no restraint. And even wiped away a few tears after about ten seconds. Grin wide, it took a full thirty five seconds before he could bring it under control enough to answer. "Now I remember! I didn’t let you live before because you were worthy of it - you were just too entertaining to kill! Damn, that's hilarious Captain. I didn’t expect it - not even a little! Kudos!" He forced out, then had to stop to calm himself again before it made him laugh again. It was far too out of keeping with his character to be just standing there laughing like a lunatic; he refused to let it happen twice in one conversation. I dunno what you did to Lucy, and I don't really care, but could you tell me so I have something to blackmail her with? Blackmail is always useful."

The Captain frowned deeply at him, taking his foot off Lucy as he walked a couple paces closer to Fey, searching his expression. Fey arched an eyebrow. "..... No?…Damn. And it would have been perfect too.”

The Captain clenched his jaw at Fey, now looking seriously ticked.

"Okay, at least answer this. How'd you know where we were?"

A cruel smile twisted the Captain’s lips. "Why, one of your own betrayed you of course, Fey... your little darling Gaige."

Fey blinked, and then smiled widely again. Finally, the excuse to kill Gaige he'd been waiting for - in order to not piss off the other Experiments, he always made sure to have an actual reason for killing them. His patience had been rewarded; the perfect excuse just dropped right into his lap. Gaige was a traitor. "Awesome, thanks. Lucy, and you, Scientist guy, hold your breath because I'm not quite sure what kind of bomb this is!" He warned cheerily, and with that he slammed a foot into the Captains chest, hearing something crack, and threw the bomb with him, taking a deep breath as he did and spinning around even before the person and mystery grenade had hit the ground, calling ahead to Vittoria to be in the car and ready to go, snatching Lucy off the ground and the scientist by whatever he could and taking off running for the hall, as the bomb exploded behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the Captain - who'd somehow been able to stand despite the cracked rib before the thing went off - reel and then face plant into the ground completely limp as the sleeping gas knocked him out.

As soon as they were out of the Captain's range, Lucy blinked, coming to. She looked half asleep, as though she were just waking up from a long nap. "...You can put me down now." She demanded, refusing to look at him, a hand coming up to hold together her shirt, which was still torn from the explosions that morning. Fey let go of her, and she landed easily on her feet, then took off again, the scientist stumbling several times as he tried to keep up.

Lucy pulled the knife in her thigh sheath out, following right behind him. Whenever the scientist stumbled she would look back, clearly wondering if the man knew that he had two feet and not just one stumbling stub. Finally he fell and Lucy clearly couldn't take it anymore, she picked the fully grown man up by his shirt and carried him bridal style to the car. "Get in." the female barked, practically throwing him into the back with Vittoria before getting into the front. 

Fey opened the car door and got in, already having thrown the car in reverse and pressing down on the gas by the time the keys were in the ignition. They shot backwards before Lucy could even fully close the door, and he pulled a hard left and then thew it into drive, swinging them around and forward. Behind them, several of the cars took off after them.

"My vote says we go get the others so that jackass can't have the satisfaction of killing one of our own." He stated calmly.

"I couldn't agree more." Lucy replied with a nod of her head. This time she didn't bother with the seat belt, knowing the cult, they had to be quick if they wanted to save their comrades. 

The human yelped and drew his knees up to his head as the car accelerated even more, and Fey pressed the buttons to roll down all the windows so the wind generated would have somewhere to go, since the windshield was missing. The car was silent for quite a bit as they navigated a few turns at high speeds, attempting to throw off the perusers, on their way to the other side of the building - towards the encampment.

A figure appeared on the road ahead. "Is that Gaige up there?" Lucy asked, leaning forward against the wind slightly.

Fey narrowed his eyes at the far-off figure. "... Yep." Fey answered calmly, recognizing his form - the traitor.

"Er- shouldn't you slow down?" The human piped up, yelling a bit over the wind, though they could hear him perfectly fine.

"Nope."

"Speed limits are for losers." Lucy informed.

Fey kept the pressure on the gas pedal steady as they approached the boy.

"... You're going to hit him!" The human exclaimed, seeming even more concerned at their speed now.

"That's the point." Both Lucy and Fey chorused.

The human blinked once, and then suddenly they were on him, the entire car jolting when the car smacked right into the boy, then the jolt from running over him nearly making them hit their heads on the ceiling when they hit the speed bump that was once Gaige. After a final jolt as the back wheels went over him too, Fey hit the gas again, and they raced forward.

"Oops." Lucy snickered, sitting back and turning her head around to stare out the back window as the ground disappeared behind them.

"Not really..." Fey gave her a slightly confused look.

"Sarcasm," Lucy replied with a wink.

"No, really." He shot back wryly, then shifted gears again as they neared the camp to the off-roading one.

The first thing they hit was a tent, though from the lack of bumps he'd say they didn't hit any humans. Tarp trailing behind in the wind, they cut a path straight through the camp to the trailers in back, to a symphony of screaming, a bit of gunfire, and of course crashed as objects were scattered everywhere like bowling pins, until Fey finally let them slow down and pulled into park by one of the trailers, opening the door and hopping out in front of a shocked human's face. "Would you happen to know where the Experiments are being held? Ah, and some keys would be nice too." He requested.

The human fainted, dropping with no resistance whatsoever, like a brick wall, and landed with a small thud. Fey blinked down at him, then looked up at the one who had been standing behing the first human. "What about you?"

Lucy stepped out of the car as the second human ran screaming, slamming the door behind her. "Watch him," she warned Vittoria before running after Fey, gripping one of her knives in her hands. 

Fey gave her a slightly despairing look. She returned it with a look of her own, "I know this place." 

"Then show the way already." Fey growled in annoyance. "Don't just stand there staring."

"Don't get your panties in a twist." Lucy muttered in reply, walking towards a trailer a couple down from them. Fey followed, glaring at the humans, who were simply standing and trying to comprehend what was going on. Reaching the trailer, Lucy went around to the back of it near the tail lights. She brushed a strand of blonde hair over her shoulder and kicked a pile of snow, kneeling down to reveal a door in the ground rather than the trailer. A hidden space. Fey reached for it and tugged at the chain, testing it's strength, and then put one foot at the base of it to get leverage. The chain made an incredibly loud grinding sound when he pulled on it as hard as he could, then snapped.

Not bothering with the ladder, Lucy jumped down, landing on her tiptoes. Fey let himself free-fall down after her, landing completely silently - the wonders of cat DNA. The place was dark, and he felt his pupils blow wide to adjust. Ahead of him, Lucy went down the short hallway and to the door here, took a deep breath, turned the doorknob and pushed the entrance open. Fey noticed her shiver, and wondered if this was the place that they had taken her to when she'd previously been kidnapped. She shivered again and then bolted, easily leading the way down twists and turns of corridors and tunnels. The first human they came across gave only at most a small surprised squeak before Lucy had shanked him. "Excuse me, I'm a bit lost. Mind pointing me out in the way of the holding cells?"

The man coughed up blood, a look of terror crossing his face as he shakily pointed the way down one of the halls.

"Thanks."

Lucy twisted the knife and pulled it out, stepping over the body, and then continued running, as if the devil was on their heels. After a few more halls and sharp turns, Lucy slowed, approaching the last door cautiously and trying the knob. It was locked of course, but she slammed a hand down and merely broke off the knob, swinging the door in.

Inside, two figures were floating, unconscious inside a sealed kind of tank full of water, with clear sides. Ophie was missing a hand, Alice was missing a wing. They were both in awful shape. "Shit, shit, shit!" a string of curses came from Lucy's mouth, and then she turned and darted back down the hall the way they came. Fey stared after her for a moment, wondering what in the world she was doing, then shrugged it off and went into the room himself, giving the entire place a cursory scan for cameras and weapons and the such that the humans who arrived to stop them might attempt to use. Lucy appeared again a moment later, dragging the body of the guard she's previously killed, and then snatched his arm and pressed his hand onto the palm scanner keeping the water tank locked. The door beeped and slid open, the water, and bodies, coming out with it.

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Before

Alice's head snapped up at her words, she had never thought she would hear such a thing from Ophie. Alice smiled, it was a small, sad smile. "Thank you," she said quietly, her words meant only for Ophie. "For a while, when we were living in that rehab center, I kept thinking that if I at least got to live, it wouldn't be so bad. Learning to read, doing all of those things, because I was convinced we may still have a shot at the future." Alice crawled towards Ophie, taking the Spider in her embrace. "I'm glad that if I had to get caught, it was with you."

The brunette flinched almost reflexively as the pinkette reached in for the embrace. She made sure to keep her stump of an arm safely away from contact and did her best to embrace her back with her one good arm. It was peculiar, but it was nice. It felt right. The two of them in that cell, for that ephemeral moment, it was as if they were the only ones in the entire world. Ophie forgot entirely that anyone else even mattered, for that one split second of peace. She never expected Alice to be the one to make her feel this way, but Ophie was glad to have something she cared about before the end. A part of her loftily, naively thought that if she felt strongly enough, then this strange bond would give her some sort of meaning, if such a thing was even something worth wanting. A purpose. It felt nice to think about.

"Whatever happens, let's take out as many humans as we can." The spider giggled childishly with a hint of tenderness. "Even if we die, we won't let them break us. We'll be strong to the end, won't we?"

When Ophie pulled away, Alice nodded her head in agreement. "Let's make those bastards pay for what they've done." Alice would make them regret the day they were born. If not for her wing, then for Ophie's hand. Did they think they were doing the world a favor? Torturing children who had never known a kind mother or loving father? If anything, the humans in this weird cult were the real monsters. Alice's hands balled into fists in determination. "I just thought of a fun game!" If anything, it would at least allow them to plan for their next break out. "How many fingers can you collect and shove into different orifices?"

Perhaps Ophie was feeling exhausted. But all of a sudden, she felt a strange impulse to shove her entire left hand into her mouth. She failed, only getting it as far as the three middle knuckles before giving up. With silent confusion, Ophie tilted her head at her ally, wondering exactly what she meant. Her head was pounding and it was steadily becoming unbearable, though she did her best to look as fine as could be on the surface. She then helplessly grinned in self deprecation at the succubus.

"I didn't mean our fingers," Alice shook her head, a slight smile on her lips. She looked up with a devilish smile towards the human walking past their door. Soon they would be coming to "play" again. This time they would be prepared though. They could saw off her wing, beat her, and make her bleed, but they couldn't take Alice's spirit. If anything, this just made her feel more determined to escape. Well that and they had left one of the body's in their little "cage." Alice wasn't sure if he was alive or not, but he was laying face down, his arms at odd angles. Alice knelt by the body, ripping off his fingers slowly. Yup, definitely dead. She handed one hand to Ophie so they each had five fingers to use.

Now understanding, Ophie smirked at the man she'd beat in the throat seemingly hours before. There he was, unmoving - dead as they came.. It was a bit of a shame, and the spider wanted to make sure he felt what was about to happen to him. However, that didn't mean it wasn't going to be fun, of course. She eagerly took the offered hand into her own and using her teeth - the lack of a right hand was really going to make things difficult - she ripped the fingers out, enjoying the blood and flesh taste in her mouth. Spitting the fingers out, she then wrapped her legs around the man's head, twisting it all the way around. Flipping him over was too much work, after all. Though it took some work - like all the best things in life - Ophie eventually managed to fit the fingers into a single eye socket, as well as move the eye into the man's mouth. For good measure, she also tore out the man's tongue, just for fun.

"And that's true art." Ophie had a smug look on her face as she admired what she did.

"It looks good," Alice nodded her head in approval. She ripped off a finger, jabbing it into the ear canal far enough that it began to bleed. She plucked the other fingers off of the hand gingerly, savoring the crunch of bone and the sight of torn ligaments as Alice tied two fingers together almost in a bow, placing them on the head of the dead man. "All dressed up and no where to go," she snickered. Once more, Alice became carried away. She was having too much fun in a place that allowed nothing of the sort to happen. Little did she know what they had endured so far was child's play compared to what was coming. When the humans returned, their expressions made dread settle into the pit of her stomach.


But of course, peace never lasted. Ophie and Alice were summarily whisked off by the humans for another game that they thought up. Both strapped down to tables again, Ophie shot Alice a glance in an attempt to get her attention. "Be strong, okay? We won't let them win!" Of course, it wasn't as if Ophie didn't have a plan. These humans seemed to be more emotional than anything else - it would be of no surprise if they could've been goaded into accidentally killing them. Though, most likely, only one of them would get the luxury, leaving the other experiment behind to suffer for a much longer time, all alone. Now, Ophie always was a selfish monster. But she wanted Alice to be the one who got to die. She had half a mind to end it for her once they were next in the cell - but that line of thought would have to wait.

"You killed a lot of our friends, spider." One of them men said directly to Ophie, grabbing her attention. She smiled innocently at him - a strong facade to help satiate the succubus. "We're going to have a lot of fun making you repent."

"I'm thirsty." Ophie said in a sweet childish voice. "Can I have some water?"

The humans then shoved what looked like a rubber tube into her mouth. Before she had the chance to spit it out, Ophie saw that it was connected to what looked like a giant water tank. Were they trying to drown her? Ophie, confused, was almost feeling curious and wanted to see what would happen. Of course, this unknown was also terrifying as she had no idea what to expect. And slowly, water poured into her mouth. Ophie pondered for a few seconds to simply allow herself to drown - but she didn't want Alice to be the one left behind to continue suffering. So instead she gulped it down steadily as the water rushed in. Around this time, Ophie felt an injection in her side - the nerve agent was in play yet again, preventing her from falling into the hands of unconsciousness.This went on for what felt like hours until Ophie's whole body felt slow, heavy, and utterly waterlogged. Her belly was swollen - as if she'd pop like a balloon. Her instincts screamed, begged for her to puke the water out, to save herself from this intense pressure. Worse was when one of the humans roughly grabbed at her stomach, pressing down lightly. The extra pressure seemed to spurt some of the liquid out with a peeing sensation - and then Ophie understood. The man started pummeling her stomach with his fists - water expelling from her urethra, stretching it as it burst out and Ophie's whole body was agony. A mixture of chokes, screams, and splutters escaped from her mouth until finally the tube was tossed to the side and the extra water had left her. The arachnid girl lay there, panting heavily, trying her best to calm herself down - trying to focus on anything other than the knife-like pain where she peed. Every breath made it twinge in horrible ways.

"That man - he was our friend, you know." Another of the captors said, in almost a sad tone. "Lewis. He always loved card games. What did you to to him in that cell?"

Ophie forced a grin to show Alice that she was okay - that she was still strong. "Look for yourself, scum. It's art, isn't it? I'll do the same and worse to all of you!"

"Tore off his fingers, an eye, and his tongue, huh?"

Before Ophie knew what was happening, fingers grabbed into her eye sockets. By the time she realized what was happening, it was already impossible to prevent it. It was a struggle but eventually her eyes were clawed out of their sockets and Ophie writhed and whimpered as the darkness overtook her. The nerve agent was only making things worse. Ophie then immediately shut her mouth as tightly as it would go - knowing what would happen next. She tried to force herself into a happier place - bringing the image of Alice's scrumptious body back into view when she realized, with a pit of despair - she was never going to be able to see Alice ever again. Grubby human hands at her jaw - someone shoved a finger that felt as if it were her own - maybe from her right hand? - into her eye socket and dragged the claw against the bone, drawing another desperate cry from the spider. "Alic-" Ophie tried to desperately shout one last thing to the bat but it was too late - her tongue was grabbed, and torn out of her mouth. Blood gushed, but soon Ophie felt the remains of her tongue sizzling with heat and steel - the wound was being cauterized. She was going to be forced to continue surviving. Sightless, soundless, Ophie finally broke - pathetic girlish sobs echoed through the room. Ophie had lost. In a closed off, delirious part of her mind, the spider wondered if the bat thought she was weak and useless now. The idea made her wretched crying even worse. It was official now, though. Ophie had finally, totally, utterly lost.

"Hey, look at this, bat." One of the men taunted in a bright voice. "Look at your friend now. We're artists too, aren't we?"

Alice wasn't allowed to look away. She felt nauseous, but there was nothing to heave aside from the water she had drunk earlier. One of the human's grabbed her by the hair, forcefully turning Alice's head so that she had to watch as they mutilated her friend. Her eyes widened as they gouged out Ophie's eyes, ripped out her tongue, shoving fingers into the sockets. It made her sick, not because Alice hadn't done anything like that before, she certainly had, but because it was happening to her fellow and who Alice now considered a friend. "You're sick." Alice's voice was even, far too smooth for someone who had just witnessed her only friend's violent torture. It made the room freeze, the air becoming frigid.

"Are you proud? Torturing children? I bet you'd kill innocent puppies too." She felt far too calm, as though she had run out of anger. "You're not human. You're worse than monsters, you're worse than us. You humans are always so selfish, justifying your actions by dumping the blame on someone else."

"I've had enough of your chatter Bat," the human who seemed to be leading the torture said. He pulled something out of a fire, a red hot poker or something of the sort. "Flip her," Alice didn't move as they turned her over so that she was facing the floor. He pressed the brand into her shoulder, her flesh sizzling as they seared some sort of emblem into her skin. Alice wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a scream. She was resigned to her fate, closing her eyes as he pushed it further into her shoulder, attempting to get some sort of rise out of her. "Get me the biggest needle you can find," the other human flipped her over as the first brought the needle close. They taped open her right eye, the needle hovering an inch or so above it. While they weren't watching, Alice had worked her hand out of the cuff by working the joint out of the socket of a few of her fingers. She punched the human in the face, standing on the table and pushing the joints back in. She undid the other cuff on her wrist and growled, launching herself at the first human. She grabbed the needle out of his hand, stabbing him in the eye over and over before leaving the needle in there and kicking him in the stomach, launching him into the fire the pokers were in. He screamed, the smell of burnt flesh growing stronger.

The other human lunged, swinging one of the brands. Alice ducked, sweeping his feet out from under him and rolling under the table, landing on the other side and unstrapping Ophie's hand. Would it be a mercy to kill her? Alice wondered. She could do it, snap Ophie's neck and end it all. Alice was selfish though, even if Ophie couldn't see or speak, Alice didn't want to be alone. The humans regrouped, she had taken too long to make a decision. She looked at the door, drawing their gaze that way. They ran towards it, Alice ran the other way, towards the vent. She ripped the cover off of the wall and poked her head inside. There was a fan waiting there. It would be a quick death if she jumped. No, she couldn't just leave Ophie here at their mercy. One of them came after her. Alice played a bit of leap frog, jumping over his back and pushing him into the vent, kicking his legs through so that he fell, his screams cut short by the fan chopping him to bits.

"John!" The other human screamed, falling to his knees. Alice walked towards him, eerily calm. There was a scratch on her eye, blood running into her vision and only allowing her to see through one. With no depth perception, she leaped. The sound of a bullet rang through the air and Alice gasped in pain. The human that had called out to his friend John quickly scrambled to his feet, grabbing a needle and plunging it into her neck. The nerve against caused her to scream, the pain of the bullet wound ten times more intense. "Stupid monster," the human strapped her back down to the table, shoving his fingers into the wound to bring out the bullet. "Can't get it," he muttered. His friend stood guard as the human grabbed a pair of pliers and dug them through the wound in an attempt to grasp the bullet. Finally, after an agonizing five minutes, he pulled it out and placed it on the table beside her. "You're damn lucky that didn't hit anything vital, otherwise we'd just throw you in the fire and let you burn until you bled to death."

"Is that the most comforting thing you could come up with?" Alice asked as they rebound her hands, this time even tighter. They were cuffs that went around her wrists and ankles this time, this time in a place Alice couldn't slip her wrist out. "Stand up," the human ordered, placing Alice on her feet. Instantly she collapsed into a heap on the floor, not from pain, but because her legs wouldn't support her. "I told you to stand!" The human barked, placing one foot on her rib cage. "I can't!" Alice screamed in return, realization hitting her.

"I can't feel my legs." The bullet seemingly had made a clean entry, but the extraction was what caused it. Alice was paralyzed.

They were thrown back into the cell. This time, Alice couldn't move. She dug her chin into the ground to drag her body forwards to where Ophie was, causing her chin to bleed. "You were so brave," Alice whispered, unsure if Ophie could hear her. Alice grasped the finger sticking out of her friend's ear gently in her teeth and pulled it out, spitting it in the other direction. "Ophie..." Alice spoke quietly.

"Do you want me to kill you?"

They say that upon losing a sense, your others grow stronger to compensate. Unfortunately, pain was one of them, but her hearing was sharper as well. Ophie heard the whole struggle pretty clearly as Alice fought. She wanted to scream and shout and tell Alice to stop fighting - that it was too late and to just give in before anything worse happened. She wanted more than anything else, in those moments, to be able to somehow convey to Alice that she'll only suffer even more if she continued to struggle. It was already too late for the spider to really do anything now - she didn't want something similar or worse to happen to her only real friend, if monsters could have friends. As she struggled to somehow grasp the situation, she then heard the words that ruined everything. With Alice paralyzed, both monsters were truly broken. Even the ability to struggle had been taken from them.

Alice's voice poked through the darkness of Ophie's new reality, and she was grateful for it. For at least some sort of connection between them that was yet tangible. How long would it last, though? How long until they were both unseeing vegetables, waiting to die, unable to communicate or even know if the other was still living or not? Ophie didn't know. Millions of thoughts raced in the spider's mind that she wished she could convey to the bat. She wanted to apologize for not being friends sooner somehow, she wanted to thank her for suffering alongside her throughout this ordeal. There was even a four-letter human word Ophie thought applied but she couldn't tell that to Alice, either. So many words, and Alice would never ever hear them.

Then Ophie realized that there was something still within her power to do. It was Alice's question of a mercy kill that gave her the inspiration. There was one last thing they could do. Ophie used her gland to produce as many webs as possible, spraying throughout the room. This allowed her to get a vague feeling of the room's structure and the vibrations in the air affected the strings, allowing her to sense movement. If either of them were going to die, it'd be Alice. At least Ophie could still move in some capacity - so she could slit her own throat with the claws on her left hand. If Alice really were paralyzed, she'd be forced to live on. A brilliant plan formed in Ophie's mind. She'd kill Alice and spare her future misery. And when the humans returned, Ophie would then slit her throat in front of them, so she could hear their voices as they lost the game once and for all. Judging on where Alice's voice was, Ophie formed a mental image of the bat girl in her mind, and placed her claws on her throat, ready to slice.

And then Ophie felt fluid leaking from her sockets. Tears. Even with all that had happened, she didn't want to hurt Alice even more by killing her. So instead she made her intent clear with another press of the claw, awaiting the bat's response. At the very least, Alice deserved to say her final words before the end, right?

There was no clear answer. Ophie sat up, they obviously didn't see the need to restrain the girl since she was blind and mute, but spiders had other ways of seeing and Ophie quickly filled the room up with webs. Suddenly the girl had stuck her hand underneath Alice, positioned above the jugular vein in her throat. "Out of all the endings, I never imagined that this would be it," she shook her head, sort of in denial that this was the way she was going to go. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. It was humiliating and for some reason, it made Alice laugh. Perhaps she had finally gone crazy, or maybe she had run out of other emotions. They were taking away everything, her wings, her legs, Ophie, but she would not allow them to take her life. No, Alice would live if only to spite them. So when Ophie offered to kill her, Alice shook her head. Then she remembered Ophie couldn't see it.

"I don't want to die yet," Alice admitted to her. "Maybe I'm just a coward," she closed her eyes for a moment, as though to think. "But if you want to..." She trailed off. There was a banging on the door, a warning that if they didn't quit fooling around then they would come in. Water rained down from the ceiling, they had turned the sprinklers on in an attempt to wash away Ophie's webs. "At least they've already taken everything, so we can't possibly lose anymore." Maybe now would be their final moments. There was nowhere for the water to escape and it began forming puddles on the ground. After all that, they were going to rely on such a pitiful method to kill them? If the water rose up too high, Alice wouldn't be able to keep herself afloat. Her hands were tied behind her and she couldn't move her legs.

Ophie would at least have one arm and both legs, so she would at least survive this. Unless some unexpected human decided to grow a pair and tell the others this was wrong and save them from drowning. That wasn't likely to happen though, not when brainwashing cults were involved.

The spider was at a loss for once. Even during the tortures, she always had some sort of plot being schemed in her head - some sort of way to gain a small advantage or something. But Alice didn't yet want to die, and Ophie didn't want to leave her alone here, either. Then her sense of the room became warped and she felt the precipitation from above. Was it raining? Were they somehow outside now? It didn't make sense - but she knew the water was rising, subtly at first. If Alice was completely paralyzed, she was going to drown. At the very least, Ophie could cling to a wall with her claws or something. Still, was there even a point in struggling anymore? Even if they continued living, what else was there? The thought of letting Alice and herself drown was incredibly tempting. But she knew Alice didn't want to die yet - and if they were allies in this game, Ophie had to oblige. She made a guttural noise in an attempt to communicate -trying and failing to say Alice - and gripped at where she thought the bat was with her legs, toe claws trying to be as gentle but firm as possible. With her other claw, Ophie dug into the side of the wall, using some of the webbing still remaining to get higher up until they were higher up for the time being. Perhaps there wasn't a point in anything - and Ophie knew it was hopeless regardless - but she still wanted to at least help the bat in her futile struggle. If that's what friends were for, then perhaps it was fine.

"Please still be alive," Lucy muttered as she listened for a heartbeat in Ophie's chest. It was there, but it was faint. Lucy knelt down by them started chest compressions on Ophie in order to get the water out, pushing down on Ophie's chest in even compressions. "Come on," Lucy begged, pinching the bridge of Ophie's nose and forcing air into the spider's lungs. "You damn spider, don't give up living just yet." Lucy looked back at Fey, "Don't just stand there! Take care of Alice!"

Fey continued just staring. "... Why do you assume we were taught CPR at the First Academy?" He asked cynically, instead walking back to the doorway to keep watch. A glance at the other girl told him that she was breathing on her own, though shallowly, and he could still hear her heart beating, though it was rather slow and faint. But it was still beating. After that, he focused his senses outwards rather than inwards, opening his mouth slightly to draw the scents in more, recognizing Ambrose's among the many weaving around in the room, and glanced around until finding it's source before dismissing it and focusing on the hall.

Ophie stirred, sensing that something had changed. Someone was touching her cold slimy skin and yelling at her and all that mattered was that it wasn't Alice. Whoever it was, Ophie figured it had to have been a threat. She felt around desperately for where Alice might've been but found nothing, shivering. Still, her left hand was still an option - claws and webs available for use to face the threat. She braced to attack - one last struggle, perhaps.

"Ophie? Can you hear me? It's Lucy, hang on, we're gonna get you out of here." She tucked her hair behind her ear, clearly thinking. Ophie was naked, she would need to be wrapped in something. Lucy stood and rummaged through a closet, taking a blanket out.

And then she finally recognized the voice. It was Lucy. Ophie couldn't see or speak, but she had to somehow make sure Alice was safe - that Alice was being taken care of. More important than her was the bat - she had to be the first priority, right? Still, Ophie had to at least try to communicate. She pulled the lid of her left eye open, showing the empty socket. She then gestured towards her mouth and opened it where a tongue once was. She then grinned wryly and mouthed "Alice?" with a tilt of the head, before suddenly realizing just how cold she was.

Fey blinked at the girl on the ground, and then smirked. "Finally. I've been trying to get you to shut up for years. And now all that wishing on stars has finally paid off."

The arachnid girl's ears perked up as her worst enemy made a quip. She opened her mouth to retort - at least spiders are cool, then she remembered that that was pretty much an impossibility. Instead she immediately scowled and gave Fey her favorite finger in her favorite hand gesture in a direction she assumed Fey was standing, judging on his voice. She then mouthed an insult about his sword size and turned away.

Lucy felt any hope sink into her stomach. Ophie's eyes were gone, there were blank sockets and her tongue had been cut out as well. "Fey has Alice." Lucy attempted to reassure, seeing as how Fey could be a bit cruel at times. She wrapped the blanket around Ophie's body carefully, swaddling up the smaller girl similar to how one would wrap a baby and picking her up.

Although Ophie gladly accepted the blanket, she wasn't satisfied. She knew Fey - and she didn't trust him to be as gentle with Alice as she needed. She was like a porcelain figurine in the spider's mind, and if at all possible, she'd be the only one allowed to touch her. Given the situation, that was impossible though - but still, anyone but Fey. Anyone but Fey. Though she felt immensely grateful, Ophie still scowled and shook her head, mouthing Alice again. She then stretched her arm out again in a desperate attempt to get some sort of hint at where she was. It was as if Ophie had become dependent on her now - but she supposed that it was fine. They were monsters, right?

Lucy was glad that Ophie seemed to be alright, although it was a bit concerning that the girl suddenly seemed to care for another. Maybe she had hit her head? Lucy turned, seeing another familiar face. "I'm gonna put you down for a minute, don't worry, I'll be back." Lucy reassured Ophie and put the girl on a table away from the water. She walked across the room to where Ambrose was, sealed into one of the glass tanks as well. His wasn't full of water though, thankfully. Lucy took the man's hand that she had taken before and placed it against the palm scanner, the door to Ambrose's cell sliding open. "Ready to go?" She asked the boy with a wink. There was no telling what horrors he had gone through in this cult circus.

Ambrose looked up in wonderful disbelief. They were going to escape now? He had thought it'd never be over, that they'd be trapped in the hands of the humans forever, ever since they were made different. His body was covered in bruises and burns, though he still managed a bright smile. Lucy was here now, so it means that things were at least getting better. "It's nice to see you again Lucy!" Despite the circumstances, his voice still had a cheerful ring to it, hearing another quiet sigh at the back of his head.

Ophie whirled her head at Ambrose's voice and gave him a weak, forced smile, hoping she actually was aiming it at him and not somewhere vaguely above him.

"It's great seeing you again too in mostly one piece. I'm gonna need your help though." Lucy muttered the last part.

"Of course! What do you need me for?" Ambrose asked, though his smile dropped immediately when he spotted Ophie. "Oh god." His eyes widened fractionally at her lost hand and empty eye sockets. "What did they do to her?"

"What does it look like? They failed at killing her, obviously. I mean, they, what? Ripped her body apart, and yet she still ain’t dead? Humans just... they just fail so hard..." Fey answered, half thoughtfully and half disappointedly.

"I don't know," Lucy admitted. "We just got here," Lucy wrapped Alice up in a blanket and handed her off to Ambrose. "I just need you to hold her for now. We're gonna go to the getaway car." Lucy picked up Ophie gently again, making her way out of the room.

Fey kept a few paces ahead of the small group, wondering exactly why he was here with them anyway... Ah, right, pranking that idiot who wanted them to be his pets, by taking his weapons. He tracked their way back to the surface by following Lucy's scent from before, not bothering with the ladder - again - and merely leaping up from below to the ground above, the freshly cold air stinging his face for a moment... only to be facing down an entire encirclement of cars, brilliant lights focused on the trap door to the ground, momentarily blinding his sensitive vision, the next of the Experiments hopping up after him a moment later.

Ophie heard the surprise in Ambrose's voice. Was it that bad, that her eyes were like this? Suddenly an impossible urge rose up in her body and she widened her left eye, putting her finger in it and swirled it around - as if she herself were gauging it out. Hoping it disturbed him, she let out a soundless cackle of pleasure.

It disturbed him alright. I'm going to fucking MURDER them. Amber hissed darkly as Ambrose's hand went to his own eye, a shiver running through his body. He took Alice from Lucy gently, but when he felt her missing wing it was the last straw. A red mist seemed to take over his green eyes as he followed Lucy.

Lucy turned, she could see the change, but didn't know what it meant. "Stay with me Ambrose," Lucy hoped her voice would bring him back.

"Don't worry your pretty little head over it, lady." Amber said, his voice was bored yet filled with bloodlust. "Ami isn't going to be back unless you find something to knock me out, you know."

"Shouldn't be all that hard actually." Fey muttered under his breath, going fairly unheard thanks to the engines of the cars and shouting humans.

"Anyway," Amber continued, "I have a few people to kill in the most painful of fashions."

The spider knew the change in tone and what it signified. Ambrose's weird split personality had come out. She didn't really understand it, but she knew that if he wasn't going to carry Alice, it'd have to be Fey. She locked eyes with what she hoped was Amber and drew a claw against her throat as a threat, mouthing the name Alice again. There is absolutely no way that tall sword thing is ever touching her bat.

Amber stared right at the eye sockets, smirking as Ophie made a threat. Rather useless, granted that she had lost a hand and her eyes at least. Amber was rather sure her tongue was missing too, Ophie was one of the most talkative subjects and he doubted that she would be silenced without ripping off her tongue. "Admirable effort. You really have grown quite attached, miss muffet."

"What the fuck is a muffet?" Fey asked, but the question went unanswered.

"Always been a fan of your acting by the way, dearie. Regardless, Ami would never talk to me again if I killed Alice here."

"This is the hard part," Lucy had led Ambrose to the ladder. Or was it Amber now? Not even Lucy could tell. She tied the blanket around her middle, turning it into a makeshift sack so that Ophie was tied to her back like a child to a mother. With her hands now free, Lucy climbed up the ladder quickly. Now that she was out, she felt much better. It was like taking a breath of fresh air, being outside made the shaking stop and Lucy untied Ophie from her back. It was freezing out and Ophie was naked. "Stay warm," Lucy said and walked towards the car.

Amber followed Lucy's example, tying the blanket that was carrying Alice around his back securely before he headed up the ladder after Lucy. The air was chilly out, and he felt the wounds on his back sting whenever a cold blast hit him. But if anything, cold was something he could take.

Vittoria unlocked the car for them, or maybe it was the scientist. Lucy got into the front seat, thankful that she had thought to steal a winter coat while they were down there (she took it off of the dead guy). Fey gave her an odd and suspicious look as he slid into the front seat, calmly turning the engine and shifting into gear, then checked that everyone had their heads down so they wouldn’t get whiplash. After confirming they did - even the scientist, who was looking panicked squished between Vittoria and Ambrose. Ophie wasted no time in locating and touching every bit of Alice to ensure all of her was there and that she was alive. Gun shots rang out behind them. Lucy had ducked down, strapping herself in this time now that she wasn't in a rush to fly out the windshield, and Fey hit the gas, jolting the car forward and sending dirt spraying behind the wheels, again having to lean forward against the wind thanks to the missing windshield. There were surprised shouts from the humans; they were totally surrounded, but these guys just all calm-like get in the car and drive off? They hadn't been expecting that. The human was shrieking his head off though as Fey twisted the wheel from one side to another, jolting the car's occupants back and forth as they dodged through the people and around cars. "Someone shut the human up dammit! But don’t break him!" Fey growled, aggravated by the annoying sound.

Alice awoke gasping for air. She felt someone clinging to her and turned her head to make out a figure in the dark. "Are we dead?" Alice asked, confused. If they were, then why didn't Ophie look back to normal? She reached out to hug the spider, noticing that they were entangled in blankets. Ophie smiled a smile that only the most innocent of children could try competing with, immediately smothering Alice with her own body and trying to locate her lips to place a kiss. She tried to somehow gesture that they were rescued and that they had won at last with excitable, unintelligible hand movements. "We're alive?" Alice somehow managed to gather from Ophie's flailing. Ophie was rubbing her face against Alice's and the pink haired girl was very confused. Suddenly Ophie's lips connected with her's and the spider kissed her deeply, there was a sort of hunger to it that made her stomach feel as though it had butterflies.

It was then that Fey chose to look in the rearview mirror.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" He screeched. "What the hell are you doing in my car?! We're being shot at, and you guys just wanna... the hell is wrong with you, I mean, we're insane but that's just..." He shook his head, not having the words to say what he was thinking, the wind carrying the words to them loud and clear.

Following Fey's voice, Ophie didn't know whether to try to glare or to try to infuriate him more. She decided on both - giving him a venomous smile as she gripped Alice closer to her with her one arm, allowing him to get an eye full of their insane relief. She cackled soundlessly and turned her head back to where she remembered Alice was. Her left hand somehow found one of Alice’s and she intertwined their fingers together as tenderly as she could. Alice looked down at their intertwined fingers, unfortunately, Alice was pretty clueless as far as other people went. She wasn't very good at sensing moods or emotions either. "Don't worry, we're gonna get you a new hand, a better one." Alice wasn't sure if they could actually do such a thing, but she was hopeful. "Maybe we can get this white coat to get you some new eyes too?"

Ophie tilted her head, confused. Sure, that was a concern too, but she was hoping to have somehow transmitted her emotions to the bat. She huffed in frustration before going for yet another kiss - a little more forceful, as if that magically made things more clear. She rested her hand on where her heart was beating, and then moved it to Alice's - missing it and instead grabbing a mound that she really had no intention of touching, but decided that she enjoyed the accident. With a semi apologetic smirk, she adjusted the position to Alice's own beating heart, doing her best to make sure she understood. Ophie was the first person that Alice didn't flinch away from when they reached out to touch her. She didn't really understand the significance of Ophie accidentally grabbing Alice's breast, so she brushed it off. Ophie placed her hand on her heart, then on Alice's. Suddenly the girl understand. She collapsed Ophie's left hand in both of her own, "I like you too." Love was not a word that came easy, it was something Alice was taught to mistrust and use against others, therefore using it would feel... Wrong.

The spider's cheeks burned hot and she nodded enthusiastically at the word, glad that finally the bat understood. She returned the word 'like' as best as she could, then rested her head against Alice's, glad they were of similar size, ignoring everyone else in the car as if they no longer mattered. Alice closed her eyes, her head tilting to rest on Ophie's shoulder. If someone hadn't put her down sitting up, Alice probably would have rested her head on Ophie's lap. Alice didn't think she was ever going to be able to fall asleep again, not after all that had happened in the cult's headquarters. Next to her friend though, she managed to relax despite the unpredictable driving of Fey.

"Real Glad Ami isn't here to see this." Watching Ophie and Alice, Amber sighed dispassionately before clenching his fingers around the scientist's throat, alleviating his boredom as the scream was cut short into desperate gasps of air.

Deciding to simply deal with it later, Fey swerved to avoid another car, and then they were home free, past the lines. Lucy looked between Fey and behind them, back at the line they had just passed. She couldn't help but raise a fist in the air in victory, despite the fact that she had done nothing aside from assist in the rescue of their comrades. "We're free!"

"Of course we are. I decided we would be." Fey murmured to himself. "Why is it always like this? Why is everyone surprised I can do anything except kill people? I'm trained dammit. I can do other stuff."

"It's not that we think you can't do things, it's that we're relieved that you can." Lucy attempted to explain, hoping that she didn't confuse him. Fey frowned at her.

Lucy turned to the back seat and pointed at the scientist. "Amber, don't kill him. He's the one who's gonna make the serum to keep us alive."

"Not going to. Maybe close to death, but not completely." Amber said, a little disappointed that he was stopped.

"Alright, just make sure he can still use his arms."

"No, stop. I need him unharmed. For a reason." Fey interceded, tossing a glare over his shoulder at the younger Experiment.

"Afraid someone else would steal your prey?" Amber asked innocently, though he lightened his grip on the scientist's neck anyway. It was only out of sheer grudging respect that he did so, since Fey was technically older and more senior than him.

"Not specifically, but he can make the serum, if you crush his voice box he wouldn’t be able to tell someone else it and the knowledge would die with him. If he died somehow we would have to go back to captivity. See? Reasons." Fey explained, and then shifted gears and slowed the car to a stop next to another one a small distance from the cluster of humans, knowing they would be after them any moment. He vaguely recognized to model to be a Jeep Commander from some idiotic Army car show a couple of years ago. Either way, ti would do.

"Since when were you that good at thinking of them, hm?" Ophie managed an incomprehensible noise that sounded something like appreciative, mocking laughter.

"I always have reasons. You're just not always smart enough to understand them." He countered easily, getting out of the car.

A flicker of rage came into his red eyes. "That's it, we're going to fight once we get out of here and I'm going to crush you." He pulled a face at Fey's statement, but though he meant what he said he spoke in a casual tone. It was as if he was simply asking Fey to play with him instead of fight.

Fey ignored him as the doors to the other car flung open, revealing a small troupe of humans, most likely rookies judging by their shaking hands. "Oi! We're commandeering your vehicle, shove off!" He ordered the humans. The one who had been the driver squeaked, and lifted his gun, but before he could shoot Fey had buried a foot in his gut, forcing him to drop the gun and double over. Fey looked at the other humans, who wore various shocked expressions. "I'm an evil monster made by the government that can jump twenty feet in the air and kills people for fun, if you don't let me have your car I'll pull your spine out through your mouth and cut your lungs out after you can't move anymore." He stated calmly.

The humans all screamed, two dropping their guns, and they took off across the tundra towards the group of humans in the distance. Fey calmly picked up the one still on the ground by the back of his shirt and took the keys from his pocket, then dropped him and picked up the three guns off the ground, shoving one into his sword sash and handing the other two to Lucy.

Lucy got out of the car, standing a bit behind Fey in case he needed help. As expected, Fey had it under control and so Lucy prepared the others to transfer. She rolled her eye's at Fey's use of an archetype evil government weapon. She raised an eyebrow at his rather unorthodox methods, but said nothing. Maybe it was better to preserve life than kill? Nah, there probably was just no point in killing them if you couldn't take your time to make it agonizingly slow. Lucy took the guns, tucking one into her waist band and handing the other to Amber. "Let's move it!" There was no time to waste, Lucy ran to the trunk, grabbing both Ophie and Alice by their waists and switching them into the new car. Ophie grabbed at Alice's hand to make sure she didn't lose her during the transfer, giving Lucy a grateful nod. Now they were on actual seats rather than on the ground. Lucy jumped into the passenger seat, turning the heat up all the way. It was too gosh darn cold outside.

Fey got into the driver's seat, untying the ribbon from his hair and then re-tying it tighter as everyone piled in - the wind had completely messed it up, and a few of the strands had been getting in his way. One of the most annoying things in the universe, that.

Alice was no longer sitting up, but laying down. She moved so her head was on Ophie's lap and turned so that she was looking up at the spider. Alice reached up to brush a strand of hair out of Ophie's face, tucking it behind the spider's ear. Ophie felt the touch of Alice's hand against her ear and she beamed. In response she sensed the bat's head on her lap and playfully patted her head, ruffling her pink hair. Already, Ophie was excited to be able to see it again. The head in her lap felt almost soft and delicate - like something she had to protect from everything else. Once she had her senses back, she'd make sure Alice was safe forever. "Everyone is precious to someone," Alice whispered, they were words meant only for Ophie. The spider put a finger to her lips and then brushed them across where she hoped Alice's were - instead accidentally poking her in the eye. She reflexively scowled and slapped herself in the face. "Don't hurt yourself!" Alice scowled, grabbing Ophie's hand to prevent the girl from doing it again. "I'm fine, see?" Alice ran Ophie's hand over the eye the spider had poked. It had been closed anyways, that eye was nearly glued shut with dried blood.

Amber took the gun, looking a little curiously at the barrel before pulling the door open and slipping next to Ophie. Alice and Ophie were up to something again, so it seemed. Amber didn't know exactly what, but it did seem like the two of them were happy. "Now what?" He asked, swinging his legs to kick the driver's seat for Fey's attention.

Fey glanced over his shoulder with his level four glare in place; he reserved the level five for only the most horrible of humans. "What." He asked flatly, starting the engine.

"-is what I'm asking you." Amber was relatively unaffected by the glare, though Ambrose would probably be silenced by the intensity of it. "Where are we going anyway? Do you have any idea? Since when did you even know how to drive? I'm pretty sure we're in bad hands here."

"Obviously I know how to drive. You think they would send me to advanced military weapons class of I didn’t know how to drive a car? Helicopters, tanks, dude. Yes, I know how to drive. Though that doesn’t mean I know how to drive safely, slow is boring."

"Definitely in bad hands." Amber repeated it as if solidifying it as a fact. He ran his hand through his hair, the golden matted with dried blood from when they almost cut his head open just to see what was going on with his personality. It left a pretty deep wound, but it was worth it in the end, what with him crushing the heads of four of them before they could get him to stop.

"Girls, girls, you're both pretty." Lucy sighed at the boys's antics, shaking her head. They were acting like such children and then they wondered why they got reprimanded all the time. "Fey, please tell me you have a plan?" Lucy asked, turning to face him. She turned to face the back, where the scientist was sitting next to Vittoria. "And you, do you have a plan to fix them?" She asked, gesturing towards the three who had just been saved from the clutches of the cult. Upon hearing that, Ophie pointed insistently at Alice, wanting her to be the first healed with a fierce frown. "Don't worry Ophie, I'll make sure it happens." Lucy nodded towards the spider, then remembered she couldn't see it. Of course Ophie was going to go first, Alice didn't even appear to be that injured and Ophie really needed it. With a smile at the lion, Ophie went back to idly playing with Alice's hair, toying with one particular strand.

"Are we still worried about plans at this point? Is anyone else concerned that he's going to crash into something? Just me?" Ophie yanked hard on where she figured Amber's hair was to shut him up and not make Alice worried. She pulled out a few hairs and nodded satisfactorily.

"Hey." Amber turned back to Ophie with a piercing glare, having half a mind to pull her hair out as well, but desisted at the last moment. It's just no fun playing with a victim that couldn't fight back. Ophie was banged up bad enough as it is. Ophie delivered a tricksy mischievous smile and put a finger to her lips in a 'hushing' motion.

Fey watched the land disappear behind them, staying close to the side of the building, zooming across the open spaces and into the area that had the more important labs. They wouldn't dare use anything too strong here, not with all the important things so close, so he kept close to the wall. "Go to the right at the next turn," the scientist spoke suddenly. "There's a way to the basement labs. The password for the loading dock door is Essentials, but in numbers." He explained. Fey gave him a strange look, wondering at the human's sanity. Was he seriously trying to help them?

"Fine, it's not like we have anywhere better to go." Ophie couldn't resist making a strange attempt at a snicker, pointing at Alice's leg (that she located through extensive touching) and grinned excitedly. Alice nodded her head in understanding, "I know, I'm excited too." They pulled to a stop in the underground garage, Lucy got out of the car, opening up the sliding door for them all to jump out. "Can you walk?" Lucy asked the pink haired girl, who shook her head.

"They took it from me," she spoke quietly, referring to the ability of standing on both legs.[/color] Lucy frowned and picked both of the girls up.

"Ambrose you too," Lucy gestured for him to follow.

"I'm Amber. Thought you should have noticed by now." He stated calmly as he jumped out of the car and strode next to Lucy, occasionally glancing at the two girls in her arms. Both of them must have been through a lot, having limbs amputated and everything. He was mildly surprised that they were even alive, but experiments must have better endurance than most.

"I'll go get supplies. Where's the kitchen? And make sure you bring plenty of serum ingredients and anything you need for it back from that lab with you." Fey ordered the scientist, who nodded quickly. "Once you leave the parking garage there's two sets of double doors, take the left one - the right leads to the labs -, and go all the way down the left hall till it dead ends, then right. Third door of your left." He explained quickly. Fey nodded and took a hard right into the parking lot, barely not scraping the entrance since the turning radius was so small from close to the wall. The car tilted down as they went into the underground lot, but only for a moment or two, and he pressed the gas to shoot the car forward to the other end of the lot, parking it right in front of the first set of double doors, and shut the car off, everyone opening the doors to leave the car.

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Lucy rolled her eyes at Ambro-Amber and followed the scientist after he was done explaining everything to Fey. He led them up a spiral staircase to a room lined with tanks. Lucy recognized them, they were suspended animation tanks; the kind they used to make them. "Put them inside," Lucy put Ophie inside of one after prying her hand from Alice's. Alice was suddenly fighting her, wrestling with Lucy against going in. With no use of her legs though, Alice was quickly overpowered and shoved into the tank. "You too," he gestured towards Amber, motioning that he should climb inside. Amber scowled at the scientist a little suspiciously, but complied anyway. Once all three were one (albeit one of them was strapped down), the scientist began typing into some sort of control panel. Liquid began filling up the tanks, an opaque blue substance making the bodies disappear. "How can they breathe?" Lucy asked curiously, she watched from her seat on the ground as the scientist worked.

"There's a tube that connects to the belly button. You know the umbilical cord? It's a similar concept, only a bit... Smarter I guess you could say." He licked his lips nervously, cracking his knuckles and getting to work. She watched as he typed fiercely, the clacking of keys ringing through the air. Lucy was almost captivated as though it were some sort of weird finger ballet. He glanced between screens, the tanks, and the board in front of him, occasionally running a hand through his hair and sighing. Lucy was growing bored, but she knew better than to wander off and explore, someone had to sit here and make sure the damn scientist did his job and did it right. After all, who knew what sort of damage he could cause with these things.

Finally, he pushed a button and the liquid began to drain. "There, that should do it." Lucy stood, she had taken to sitting on the ground against one of the tanks. Curiously, Lucy peered inside the tank containing Ophie. "When will they wake up?" Lucy asked, turning towards the Scientist. He shrugged, as though having no answer. After a moment he responded, "Any minutes now." In the meantime Lucy went through drawers, grabbing whatever she thought useful. "We need you to make the serum, a lot of it." Wordlessly he walked towards a locked container, opening it up with a pass key. As he did that, Lucy stuffed her pockets and the bag she found. She grabbed clothes for those in the tanks, figuring that Alice would probably take them off as soon as she could and grabbing an extra just in case.

"Let me out of here!" A voice came and Lucy walked over to the tank calmly, opening up the door so that the bat could sit up. The girl wiggled her toes, turned to try to look over her shoulder and see the wing that had grown back. With an approving nod of her head, Alice stood, climbing out of the tank. She hurriedly opened up the one containing Ophie, about to shake the girl awake when the Scientist warned her not to touch the spider. They had to wake up on their own apparently.

"Bleh. Blah. La! Gah!" It was as if an alien was in her mouth, all weird and icky and entirely strange. As the spider blearily opened her.... eyes, she closed them again instantly as the oddest sensory overload hit her. Everything was too bright, too weird and just blah. Her tongue still felt weird. It was a tongue, right? It wasn't like stupidly swollen or anything? "Gah! Bleh. Agh. Alice. Alice! Oh, it worked. Okay, cool." The spider sat up, gingerly feeling where she now had a hand again, testing each claw on the floor with a cathartic screech of nails on floor. She nodded appreciatively, then covered both her eyes, with a tiny space in her right eye for her to peer through, seeing the bat's face. Though sensitive, it seemed her eyes worked too. Ophie leaned forward into a hug. "I see you!"

Alice felt a sort of swell in her stomach, seeing Ophie's eye sockets with eyes in them once more. Her tongue was back as well as her hand. "It worked!" Alice met Ophie's tongue, wondering if this swell was what happiness felt like. Alice wiggled her toes as though to show Ophie that her legs worked again, although she could probably tell due to the fact that Alice was standing. Lucy walked over, sort of ruining the moment. "Here," She shoved a bundle into both of their arms. "Get dressed, it's cold out." Alice looked at the bundle in her hands and threw it back at Lucy. "No," she growled, as though she were a child having a tantrum. Lucy shook her head, giving Ophie a pleading look. "You just got those limbs, don't want them to be frostbitten off."

"I don't want anyone else to see it!" Ophie grumbled, nodding at Lucy. Though she was elated that Alice was working as well, she also didn't enjoy the idea of Alice being all naked and exposed for everyone to look. She was hers, wasn't she? "Only Ophie can see, okay?

"Fine," Alice begrudgingly agreed. Lucy handed her the bundle back and she pulled on the shirt, pants, and socks, a bit happy that there was at least no underwear. Underwear was the worst. "Hungry," Alice mumbled. She really was a child, mature neither mentally nor physically. Alice took Ophie's hand, using the other to push her hair back out of her face. Normally she kept her pink hair in pigtails, but Alice had no ponytail holders. Those damn cult members had chopped it unevenly, probably intentionally. "What do you call that color?" Alice asked, looking at Ophie's eyes. Normally, Alice made up words for things she didn't know so most often, people didn't understand her when she spoke of things, but Ophie always seemed to understand.

The arachnid stared at Alice with a cheerful expression, happy she was at least clothed. "Viioooolet." Ophie decided she liked how it felt on her tongue and grinned childishly. "Violet! Violetta! Viola! Oh, Lucy, Ophie wants sunglasses too okay? Perhaps shades would help slowly wean her back to being able to see without being too sensitive to light. Bright things were still irritating and painful, which pissed her off, since she wanted to actually be able to look around the place and place traps in case someone tried to attack.

"Found some," granted they were lab sunglasses and they were probably meant for some other purpose, but they would work. "Here," Lucy handed them off to the girl. "This guy's just gonna finish making the serum that will keep us working, then we're leaving." Lucy explained, pointing the Scientist out to Ophie who was just seeing again. "He's the Head-honcho or something." Ophie regarded the scientist with a sour expression.

"Viioooolet," Alice imitated the way Ophie said it, tasting the word on her tongue. "Viioooolet," it was a new color and one she would forever remember as Ophie's eyes. Clearly Alice was very excited by this word, as she continued to say it so as not to forget.

"Yours are red." Ophie added helpfully, then turned to the scientist. If he was someone with authority, then in some capacity, he had to have approved of what happened to her, Alice, and Ambrose, right? Even if he was technically their toy now, it still really rubbed badly on her. If looks could kill, the head scientist would definitely be dead, which is probably a good thing, since she wanted to deliver him to a painful end. Payback for what she and Alice had suffered. With the lab goggles protecting her vision, she approached the scientist with deliberate, stalker-like movements, before pouncing on him with a snarl.

"You let them hurt us, right?" The spider hissed, straddling the man beneath her like a doll. "You wanted us to be hurt, didn't you?" Rage filled her newfound eyes. "You monster!"

Alice watched with interest, "Dont'!" Lucy yelled, grabbing Ophie off of the scientist. Thankfully, Lucy had the strength of a lion on her side, otherwise, she may not have been able to rip the girl off. "You weren't even in the facility, you were kidnapped." Lucy tried to explain in order to get the girl to quit fighting.

The spider tilted her head quizzically after being lifted up off of the scientist. Wait, something didn't make sense. "...That wasn't the basement? But - then...? Huh? Her eyes narrowed at the lioness. "...What happened?" Lucy placed Ophie down, gesturing for her and Alice to sit. The pink haired girl was confused as well and she slowly knelt to the ground, ending up in a sitting position. She sighed, continuing to push off the PTSD attack that had been trying to work its way through into her mind. "You were kidnapped by a cult," her hands hardened into fists. "they took you and Alice during the confusion at the rehab facility. They're the same ones-" she stopped, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "The same ones who tortured me," Lucy lifted her shirt so the two could see the deep scars that ran across her stomach.

The spider's eyes fixated on the scars on the lioness' stomach. The implications were obvious and she clicked her tongue in disgust, turning away from the scientist who no longer interested her. It did make one other thing make sense though, and Ophie was glad to have it click together in her mind. "So that's why you were weird when the place was bombed?" The spider asked, a bitter expression on her face. "I wanna kill them. I really wanna kill them. We have to make them pay, Lucy! They made Alice cr- th- they hurt Alice!"

"I'd rather just forget they exhisted," Lucy whispered. "You're lucky you aren't older, or I guess, bigger." Lucy could remember the late night visits, the feeling of hands on her body, of suppressed screams that would do nothing as they ripped off her clohting. A shiver ran up her spine and she looked away. "But yes, that was why-the bomb-it triggered a memory." Lucy stood, walking to the window. She didn't want to talk about that place, or think about it. "I'll kill them," Alice spoke quietly, her words only meant for Ophie. "They're going to pay-wish they had never exhisted. Death will seem like a mercy compared to what I'm going to do to them."

One of the spider's skills was high emotional attunement. It made torture fun and easy, but it was also useful for other things. Maybe the reform really was getting to her, but Ophie felt gratitude to the lioness for rescuing them. Maybe it was because she also suffered at the hands of the cult - perhaps even moreso than she and Alice did - but regardless, Ophie squeezed Lucy's hand in silence, figuring her looking away was a sign that the conversation was over. Ophie glanced over at Alice and nodded subtly - she of course would join the bat on their revenge quest once it was time.

"...Thanks, Lucy." She mumbled, before running back to Alice and somehow procuring two hair ties made of webs and handing them over to Alice the way a dog would offer a toy after fetching it. A proud and expectant look was on her face.

Alice looked between the webs and Ophie, were these... Hair ties? Quickly she pulled up her hair into two pigtails, the feeling of familiarity putting her at ease. "Thank's," it was probably the first time Alice had thanked anyone. She smiled, the expression feeling foreign. Suddenly her chest tightened, it felt as though she couldn't breath. Her expression melted into one of confusion, then terror, as she fell to her knees, clawing at her chest. Her body was rejecting her lungs, she hadn't gotten the medicine that ensured her body continued working smoothly. Which meant... Ophie! Alice looked up, panicked; she covered her mouth with one hand, blood spattering against her fingers.

The symptoms were well known to Ophie. If Alice was acting up then her timer was almost up as well. Ophie gave Alice a quick peck on the forehead before returning to the scientist, landing directly on his shoulders, claws on her feet digging painfully into his shoulderblades. She lightly placed a nail from her right hand to the scienntist's throat and another to his eye. Knowing Lucy wouldn't approve, Ophie also sprouted webs to ensnare herself to the scientist, wrapping them tightly together. Her mouth opened, fangs glistening.

"Hurry up or you'll wish I was nice enough to kill you."

He seemed to panic then, stirring whatever was in his hands faster and putting it into an injector. "One for you," He hastily plunged it into the spider's hand, going off to the other girl and pressed the pen against the child's neck, pushing the medicine in. Alice was finally able to breathe, she gasped, taking in a lungfull of air. Her head spun and black dots danced in her vision, she leaned back against the wall, looking up as she gulped in lungfuls of air.

Though relieved, the spider still wasn't satisfied yet. She bent almost double - her mouth at the scientist's ear in a menacing whisper. "Teach me how to put it in. I don't want you touching Alice again, okay?" She then smiled innocently, radiating sweetness and sugar. "You benefit from the deal too! You get to keep your eyes! So you better teach me!"

Lucy said nothing, she figured it was a rather easy matter, the Scientist was on his own this time. "Alright," he agreed, taking the empty pen injector and putting it in Ophie's hand. "First, you position it over a central vein, these are in the neck, stomach, and the backs of your shoulders." He guided Ophie's hands, showing her the spot. "However, in this case, since it's not the heart, you have to find an airway. So the neck and chest would be the best place for this injection," he used her hand, not wanting to somehow offend the girl by touching the other experiment. "Then you just click it like a pen cap, hold it down for five seconds and release. Easy, right?" He stood, going back to making the rest of the vials.

The spider lightly placed her tongue on a web strand and slurped it up like a really long noodle, until it was back in her and she climbed off the scientist's back. She then gave Alice a bright expression, running back to her and hugging her tightly. "I won't let humans touch you again. Ophie will protect you always. It's a promise!"

Alice was at a loss for words, was this what it was like to be loved? Was this why humans always clung to one another? Her heart skipped an extra beat. Was this what they called love? Alice had never been attached to anything, except maybe the taste of blood. Her mouth thirsted for it even now, but Alice wasn't going to say anything. "Thank you," Alice whispered. She got to her feet, pulling Ophie up as well. "Is your heart alright?" Alice placed a hand against Ophie's chest, feeling the spider's heartbeat.

"My heart is nice and healthy." Ophie mewled, enjoying the sensation of Alice's hand on her. It felt warm - nice. Then an idea suddenly struck her that was definitely brilliant. "Pumping a lot of unnecessary blood, though! What am I going to do with all of it? Do you have any ideas, Alice?" Ophie's claw was already in position, arm outstretched in offering. Alice's eyes widened, she nodded her head vigorously. "Only if it doesn't hurt you though," Alice insisted, she didn't want Ophie to be in pain anymore. Ophie squeezed Alice's hand with the sacrificed arm, a dangerous grin on her face. "I'm a monster, something like this is only a tickle. And if it does hurt, you can make it better by sucking it out!"

"Alright then," Alice nodded her head, licking her lips eagerly. Ophie slashed -somewhat deep but nothing really serious - and held her arm up for the feast. Alice placed the cut to her lips, drinking Ophie's blood greedily. It was sweet, but not overly so and it reminded Alice of the spider's exterior. On the outside, Ophie appeared to be a sweet innocent girl, but on the inside well... There were many sides to her. When Alice finished she licked her lips, kissing the wound as though to make it better. The scientist made a strange sound and looked over at the lioness at the window. "Experiments shouldn't be able to... hmm..."

Once Alice was done, Ophie retrieved her arm, having enjoyed the feeding. Hopefully they'd be able to do it many times from now on - because that moment when Alice drank her blood was precious. It was as if they were in sync despite being monsters. If they could remain like that for an eternity, if Ophie could stop time, she definitely would - if only to freeze them in that moment of harmony. Because someway or another, happiness always ended at some point. Nothing ever really lasted. So she had to make use of the time they had before it was gone.

"Lucy, what's the plan now?" Ophie asked, back into game-strategy mode.. "Just run and hide forever, always scared that the insects will come for us? What else is there? How do we win?"

Lucy turned back from the window, she hadn't wanted to interrupt on such a precious and private moment. To think, that two soulless creatures could ever find love. Lucy ran a hand through her hair as though she were thinking. "To be honest, I have no idea. Fey seemed to have a plan and now that we've got the Scientist we don't really need to worry about running out of serum. Maybe we can just... Exist." Of course that was wishful thinking. Obviously, the government would come after them. They were going to have to be careful, they could not leave a trail of blood where they went, they were going to have to kill carefully.

That didn't sound quite right to her. In a game of hide and seek, given enough time, the hiders would always be smoked out. They needed to have some sort of advantage to be able to avoid hiding without an end in sight. A possible, lofty idea popped into her head, but she wasn't quite sure if it'd work or not. She glanced at Alice before turning back to look at Lucy, a pensive frown on her face. "We won wars before, for the humans." Ophie murmured thoughtfully. "What if we killed enough of them that they don't have a choice? Maybe we could find the people the insects love and keep them as pets to kill just in case they try to come after us?"

"We could do that..." Lucy trailed off in thought, the Scientist seemed to be very tense at the mention of more death. "Oh don't give me that," Lucy growled at the human, making him jump. "You created us to kill, don't pretend you're suddenly above that." She turned back to Ophie, "I like the plan, but we're going to need to ask the others what they want to do as well." Lucy turned back to the window. They needed Ambrose to wake up, then they could regroup. "Alice would like to kill!" The Bat raised her hand, as though volunteering herself. "Alice would very much like to kill," her smile grew, like a child's eyes lighting up on Christmas.

An idea sprung to Ophie's mind that suddenly sounded absolutely fantastic. She grabbed Alice's wrist and pulled her to the door. If they were out of the facility now, then that means there could be humans out there somewhere. Something sacred like murder was absolutely wonderful, and Ophie wanted to share the joy with Alice somehow. Her eyes were full of light and excitement that was visible even through the lab goggles. "Alice, Alice!" Ophie chirped energetically. "Let's go hunt! Ophie wants to play with someone with you!"

"Play?" Amber spoke questioningly, swinging his legs from the animation tank before landing gracefully on the ground. Play sounded more like 'hunt and kill' to him, but perhaps it was just their definition of a past time.

"Well look who decided to join the living," Lucy walked towards the tank, a bundle of clothing in her hands. "Out of curiosity, are you Amber right now?"

"why? Am I not welcome?" Amber placed a hand theatrically over his heart. "I'm injured, lady." Lucy rolled her eyes at this, "We're very happy you returned. Now, put some damn clothes on." Everything was currently out in the open and while Lucy didn't particularly mind, she was pretty sure that Amber didn't want his junk to freeze off.

"Sure." The cold was biting, and unlike Alice both Amber and Ambrose preferred the feeling of fabric on their skin. Lucy handed over the clothing, turning around to face the window once more. "Once you're dressed we'll need to find Fey. Or you can join the girls on the purge and meet up with us." Somehow, Lucy felt as though it would be better if Amber went with Alice and Ophie. Perhaps, it would allow the boy to get his sadistic side out.

"Who knows what the girls would do on the purge if they were already doing that in the car." Amber mumbled quietly under her breath as he slipped into the clothes he was given. "But the purge sounds fun!" It had been a while since he had been allowed to kill, and the killing intent pent up over the torture sessions needed someway to be released. He followed Alice's back, noting that the girl seemed to be in high spirits.

Alice jumped up and down excitedly. Lucy warned them not to wander off, or at least, not to go far. "I want to play," Alice skipped along after Ophie, so very happy by the idea of getting her hands dirty. The only thing that could make this better would be if she weren't forced to wear clothing. Alice looked over her shoulder, feeling as though they were being followed. It turns out they were. "Amber's awake!" Alice waved to him. "Are you coming with us?"

"Sup, Alice. And yes, who would miss the chance to kill?" A hint of light seemed to come into his bored red eyes. "I've been itching for a opportunity for some time, Ami won't ever agree." Ophie glared at him for intruding but didn't otherwise make a complaint, seeing as Alice seemed to want him around.

"Ambrose is nice, really, but he's so soft sometimes. Almost human," Alice snickered at the thought, they were partially human, but they had nothing in common with the normal homo sapien.

"Too soft." Amber agreed with a sigh. "Which is why he has me. No way he's going to survive in an environment like this on his own. Anyway, where are we heading to?" He asked curiously, his senses tuning in to the heat emitting things of the place. Perhaps they'd get lucky and bump into a human?

"Outside, we're looking for humans to kill since they all seem to have left this place." It almost gave Alice the chills, this was one of those places that housed all those damn scientists, so why weren't they here? Cowering in fear? Alice scowled, had they somehow gotten word that the experiments would be coming here? Or had they fled after the bombing, fearing this place would be next? Finally, they reached a door to the outside. Alice flung it open, her hold on Ophie's hand growing tighter as they stepped out into what was possibly a blizzard.

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díαlσguє cσlσr ◆ "#42F7F7"
thσught cσlσr ◇ #4242F7
All things truly wicked start from innocence.
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díαlσguє cσlσr ◆ "#406F73"
thσught cσlσr ◇ #444073
The world wasn’t kind to me, so I became my own god.
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---

They had been weak, the humans were cowards tying them up and poking them from afar, drugging them to keep them useless. Then a miracle came along in the form of a bomb that shook the building to its very core, opening up the floor and revealing the sky. Slaine had never thought he would see light again, or feel the bitter cold on his skin. The chains, the chains were useless without their drugs. He ripped them from the walls, eager to leave, eager to taste and see and smell. He turned towards his family, the one that had been with him in this circle of hell. Slaine was so very proud, they were able to keep it together, mostly, through all of this. They ran, free from the devil called humanity, over the hills, through the woods, playing in the snow, in the sun, relishing the wind and chill that threatened to freeze over everything in beautiful ice that was so fragile a mere whisper could break it. Then there was a building, the ugly marring of humans once more. It was built of glass and mirrors, as though it were supposed to be reflecting the land around it. Instead, the mirrors cast heat on the land, causing the snow to melt.

Kachi was wary of this place; it was strange, and light. They had been in the dark for so long, that he at least had become used to it, knew how to use it to his advantage. But here in these twists and turns, it was light; there was no place to hide, to observe the threat from. It was dangerous. But they had to escape; they had to get out, away from where the scientists would harm them. He refused to allow them to harm his family any longer. So despite his tenseness, he stuck to Slaine and Lillim like glue, making sure to keep so close he could taste their scents on the air, and feel their warmth as living beings.

"Slaaaaaiiiiine...." An annoying shrill whine pierced their minds as the smallest of them complained yet again. "My feet hurt, Slaaaaiiiine. I don't wanna walk anymore! I just want to eat. I'm so hungry....!" Lilim felt a rush of energy as she anticipated the coddling from the tall, proud, and somewhat gullible 'mother' of sorts. Freedom and being spoiled? It was a good match. A very good day - though if Qing Yu were around too, it'd be even better. Qing Yu's strong, so she can take care of herself! My feet are aching!"

Slaine turned towards the tired girl. Lilim had always been so full of energy, it was sad to see her so easily weakened. "Jump on my back." Slaine offered. He would keep going, there were two things that drove him, that he had to do no matter what happened. The first was find food, food was priority. Down there, their only sustenance had come in the form of liquid meals and forced nutrients. The second priority? Qing Yu and Shun. Their two siblings were missing and Slaine would stop at nothing to have them all happily reunited. Kachi couldn't agree more, knowing the others thoughts on the matter without even having to question it - their only loyalty was to the Tori. Not those damnable humans who would dare lock his family away in the dark.

Lilim gladly climbed onto her older brother's back, making a pleased sound that was somewhere between a mewl and a purr. She snuggled close to Slaine's back, happily relieving herself of the pain in her feet. Perhaps Kachi was also tired - usually he'd have said something about her behavior, wouldn't he? Still, even if she was exhausted, their little family still wasn't whole yet. It wasn't as if the eel wasn't worried about them - she was, definitely. But, well... her feet really hurt. "Thank You! She said in a peppy voice, tilting her head upwards to see the gentle snow fall. With a sigh, Lilim relaxed herself. "...So, where do you think we should go? I..." A lazy and careless flick of the tongue brought no hint of either Qing Yu or Shun, but the snow seemed to be messing with her sense of smell anyways. "Yeah, I don't smell them anywhere."

Kachi too took in what he could; overly sharp eyesight and the heat sensing abilities of a snake told him that there was much heat, all around them, from dead fires; but none of them the right temperature to be a body.

Slaine turned the other boy, who was awfully silent. That was unusual. The building before them cast a large shadow, the mirrored walls distorting their reflections. It was almost invisible if not for the out of place garage and the doppelgangers staring back at them from their reflections. "That building may have food," Slaine nodded his head towards it, wondering what Kachi was thinking. Slaine was still kicking himself due to what had happened earlier, after their release. Qing had gotten taken, the humans had, had masks and gas, things that left them debilitated long enough to capture Qing. In the clamor, they had lost Shun as well. Two siblings, gone like that.

"Yeah, it does - I can taste something on the air that I recognize from the time I spent among the humans. I think they call it 'roast corn'. It's like... kinda sweet and warm, do you sense it?" Kachi answered back, inching yet further into the other two's personal space so that his shoulder brushed both of theirs as they walked, being careful not to put pressure that might unbalance the two.

Lilim's stomach then decided to growl loudly just as she was about to respond. With a quiet, almost meek voice, "...Yeah, I'd like to eat." She murmured. She tasted the air again, this time taking more care into actually processing the sense, noticing the corn mentioned by Kachi. Unfortunately it just made her feel more ravenous than before. Honestly, this was so much work and she wanted to take a break or something. In yet another whiny tone, "Can we eat? The others are strong, heck, Qing Yu probably killed them all, y'know her... so it should be fine... but I'm hungry..."

"Wait," Slaine tasted the air, he could tell that yes, there was corn, and something else too, something dangerous. "There are others here," they could kill them, no question they could take whoever was in that building down easily. The question was, who the others were? "I'm just as hungry as you guys, but in this condition... Should we risk it?"

"We need to get some food either way." Kachi murmured. "I saw outside through a window - the was nothing, just nothing, for miles. We need the strength to keep moving, otherwise, we'll die. Go in cautiously; Slaine, let down Lilim, we need to be able to move freely." Kachi warned gently, shifting his weight forward to quiet his footsteps in the hall, creeping cautiously to the doors that marked the entrance to where the food-scent was coming from. The hall was in ragged shape; no doubt from whatever had shaken the building so violently. One of the walls was cracked, there were no windows anywhere that were not shattered, and one of the doors was missing; Kachi took in the place with a critical eye, noting the glass, which one the one had could make a great weapon but the other could make them slip and injure themselves.

Slaine nodded his head, they did need to eat, that much was true. He placed Lilim down when they reached the door, walking on silent feet and following Kachi into the kitchen. It was an entire dining hall they walked into though, the entire area abandoned. Slaine went around every blind spot to ensure their safety before returning to the others, meanwhile Kachi had gone completely rigid the moment he was even a few feet away from the group, bristling even more the further away he got, not relaxing even slightly until Slaine had returned. "It's clear for now, we should eat quickly and look for things we can take with us." Slaine murmured once he had regrouped with them. They should store food as well, but Slaine was sure that in such a big place like this, there would be plenty of food to take with them.

Lilim was, unfortunately, forced to walk again for the time being, but at least it seemed that there was nothing yet to worry about. She followed her brothers as cautiously as she could, keeping an eye out for other things to carry with her. A bag or something would be convenient, to store looted things. She gave Kachi a squeeze of the hand to try and ease his new tension and began her hunt for food. Overturning cabinets and opening the white fridge, she eventually gathered up her loot in her stolen sweater and piled it onto a table, almost with a sense of expectant pride and a desire for praise. Feeling satisfied, her thoughts started to spin. "Humans are stupid." Lilim said cheerfully. "Why make a place like this if no one lives here? Isn't it a waste of space?"

Slaine shook his head. "I will never understand humans," he replied to Lilim, "they are experts of waste."

Kachi, or his part, just gave them a glance, again testing the air. That was his role after all; he was the one who protected them. It annoyed him slightly that they would speak so casually in such a situation, but then again it was also a good thing; the alternative was that they would be terrified, in this unknown place. Kachi narrowed his eyes a faint scent that he recognized tinted the air, hidden beneath smoke and dust. He opened his mouth a bit to draw the scent in more deeply, and then recognizing it at last, stilled for a moment before abandoning their place of safety that they had been observing from and quickly but silently making his way towards the door, the other two right behind him.

______
Was that a sound? Of course, it had to have been. This sound wasn't a typical one, not like the ones Shun was used to anyway. This was different, louder, more abrupt. It awoke him from his sanctuary of dreams. As his eyes slowly fluttered open he glanced around to see that something big had indeed transpired. With a yawn and a stretch Shun rose to his feet, the chains that had bound him lay broken, he figured that was a side effect of whatever had happened. It was odd though, he felt frozen in time for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts and process what he needed to do now. Should he try to locate the others? His so called siblings? Or should he just make his way to freedom and then back home. He wasn't sure how that would work though, he hadn't really ever been beyond this one room in his whole life. Well, standing here thinking wouldn't get him home, his siblings were all strong, much more so than him. 'Maybe if I win over my fellows they can help me get back. Or at least keep me alive long enough to get there.' He thought as he stepped outside his room for the first time. What awaits me now?

Shun meandered around the building, well what was left of it anyway. He briefly felt a pang of fear, what if he never found the others? Whatever had happened here had been very recent and he was totally alone, still inside the compound. His eyes darted around for an opening big enough for him to climb out of, he thought maybe if he made it outside it'd be easier. Well if nothing else then he could just run off in one direction and hopefully find something, anything to help him. To his great displeasure he was having trouble finding a hole in the walls large enough for him, the hallway to the left of his room had been blocked off by rubble. Sighing and resting his head against the wall he felt the tight grip of defeat settling around his heart. Being alone was alright, but being alone and vulnerable was not. Looking to the remaining hallway, the only way not blocked off, he started off. Hoping that if he walked long enough he'd eventually get out and maybe find the others.

His footfalls became more of a trudge than a saunter like usual. His breath was becoming labored. He must've been walking for days now! Well, more like fifteen minutes, but time was certainly slower. Grumbling quietly to himself Shun made his way towards a smell that seemed to be coming from some sort of food. A smile painted his face as his trudging became a sprint. One thought happily dominated his mind. Food. He made his way quickly to the smell, he found it the kitchen. Most of the food was gone but there seemed to be some sort of. . . Corn? He didn't care at this point and began eating it hungrily. He made sure to eat as much as he could hold. Who knew when he'd be able to eat again. Why, for all he knew this could be his last meal!
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Slaine's tongue flickered, he tasted something awfully familiar. He turned to search for it, but what he was tasting and what he was seeing were two different things. Could it really be Shun? Seeing Slaine suddenly turn after a tongue flick meant something must've changed. Lillim followed suit and the vague new aroma floated through her sensations that felt almost unmistakable. "It's him." She said in a helpful whisper, nudging Slaine's side. "Let's go say hi!" Slaine's pace picked up. He walked, his footfalls silent in case it wasn't Shun after all but rather a remaining human. Slowly, he turned the corner, the smell of corn overwhelming the smell of his brother. Slaine straightened, peering out cautiously from behind a wall. It was him! "Shun!" The boy stepped fully out from behind the wall, relieved to have been reunited.

Kachi instantly darted over once it had been confirmed that the scent was truly Shun's, circling him once as he checked the air again. “Are you alright?” He demanded quickly.

As Shun had been eating corn like there was no tomorrow, he almost had missed the declaration. A voice had pierced his stupor. His eyes slowly flickered up to see his siblings. Blinking a few times before slowly setting down his fourth demolished corn cob. Kachi started circling him and Shun just sort of shrunk away. He did the routine 'are you alright?' bit. Shun just sort of watched everyone with his eyes, cautiously scanning over them. He wondered briefly if they would attack him if he claimed he was wounded or sick. He'd better not show any weakness toward his siblings. "I'm fine. Better now. Are you all alright?"

Kachi gave him a slightly dry look. "Of course I am." He responded, arching one brow.

"My feet hurt!" Lilim added in an irritating whine.

Kachi gave her a lingering glance. "Well, you'll have to wait a bit longer to rest Lil. We're in danger here; we have to find supplies and the others and get out, as quickly as we can."

The eel puffed out her cheeks in annoyance but shrugged. "Fine, fiiine. Sheeeesh." She acquiesced. "...It's good to see you again, Shun!" She offered him an amicable wave.

A smile crept onto Shun's face as Kachi spoke, then he made his way closer to them. Kachi relaxed slightly as he neared, his birdlike internal compass straightening a bit as another piece of the flock returned. Next was supplies then. Kachi turned to scan the room again. It looked as if the kitchens had been on the other side of some kind of glass wall, which was now shattered; no doubt the storage areas would be back there.

"This way." He motioned, and then started towards the space, leaping easily up on the counter and perching there on the tips of his toes as the others passed by, watching their backs, keeping his attention riveted on the entrances.

Kachi seemed to have everything well under control. Such a good little flock leader, a father-figure to protect us. Right. Shun walked among his siblings, his flock. He couldn't help but feel a bit relieved to finally not be alone. His instincts told him this was by far a better situation for him to be in, his stubborn brain didn't think the same. Luckily for him, the instincts were stronger by far. Guess that's what animal blood will do for you. Shun figured that they were still short a few people, which might explain why Kachi seemed a bit torn, clearly very focused but he was on a mission for sure. Shun's eyes drifted over to the small female. Lilim. He couldn't help but smile at her, he thought if maybe she was anything like his own sister.

"I'm so happy to see you in one piece." Slaine was happier to see the kitchen though. He gave Shun a nod and began ransacking, taking out cans, going through the oven, raiding the fridge. It was as though someone had left mid-meal, a whole roasted chicken and side dishes left to the side, forgotten on their rush to leave. Good, better for them that they would be able to at least relax for a minute as they devoured whatever food had been left over. Lilim eyed Slaine curiously, staring at the half-eaten meals. "What do you think happened? Did they die, maybe?" She had a quizzical expression. "Could they come back maybe? We should hurry, right?"

Slaine was unsure. He placed the chicken in front of them and tore off a leg. "I don't know." Slaine spoke honestly. He crunched through bone, devouring meat. "Maybe," he spoke through his mouthful of food. "They were inside of the rehab center when it blew up?"

The eel seemed somewhat disappointed about that possibility, picking her own piece of chicken and staring at it before taking a small nibble, holding it like one would hold a cob of corn. "No fair." She pouted childishly. "I wanted us to kill them! Slaine, it's not faaiiiir!"

Shun perked up slightly. "we wouldn't have to kill them. . . Right Slaine? We aren't gonna kill anyone?" Shun was feeling a little uneasy, he had never really fought before. He didn't like the idea of fighting in a life or death situation. Not really at all actually. Lilim shot him an annoyed glower. "Boring." She mumbled quietly. The glare was well received and Shun subtly closed his mouth and waited.

"Only if we have to. If we just killed them for no reason, we would be no better than the humans who kill for no reason as well." Kachi said, leaping down off the counter and going straight to the supply cabinets, searching though them until he found a large cloth food bag, and then checked each of the spaces in the small kitchen for foods they could take with them. "I will not let them stop us from getting the hell out of here though." He continued after a moment, with pure determination, glancing at each of his family members in turn.

Lilim grinned loftily at Kachi's words, feeling somewhat pleased as she took another tiny bite from the chicken. "Weeelll...." Her voice gained a sing-song quality as she regarded her brother."They did try to separate us, so it's only fair to separate them, isn't it?" Her eyes narrowed slightly as she enjoyed another bite. "Why not hurt them back?"

"They made us hurt," Slaine whispered. "They made us monsters, why shouldn't we repay them in kind?" Normally, Slaine would agree with Kachi, but the human scientists were where their views differed. Slaine didn't think these humans deserved to live, not after the way they had tortured them in that basement. Poking and prodding, chaining and caging, treating them like animals. It wasn't as though they had asked to be brought onto this planet. No, the Tori were made forcefully, there was never a choice in their existence.

As Slaine spoke, dashing the comfort Kachi had brought Shun felt a lump in his throat. He couldn't understand why his siblings were so bloodthirsty. Yes, the humans were bad sure, but not all of them were evil. True, they made us into what we are, they caused a lot of pain but. . .Killing them, wouldn't that just mean they won? That they succeeded in making monsters? Shun didn't like it one bit. He glanced around the messy room and sighed. He knew if they came up on humans Lil and Slaine would try and hurt them.

Kachi's eyes dimmed a bit, and he set down the bag by on the floor and walked over to Slaine, carefully carding a hand through the others' hair, a gesture imprinted on him by his bird instincts. "But if we take the time to do that, it just makes us caged longer Slaine. We can't let them have that hold on us, no matter what kind of one it is; wanting to get revenge will just make us stay near them to do it. It's still a cage. Yes, they deserve it, but I think the best revenge would be to completely be free." Kachi explained, tipping his head at the other.

The eel let out a heavy sigh as she listened to Kachi. Unfortunately it made sense, but seeing Slaine like this bothered her too. Maybe by killing the humans, Slaine would be happier. Maybe it'd make him get that look out of his eyes. She grabbed at his hand and squeezed it tenderly, then turned to stare back at Kachi with a frown. "...Who cares about winning or losing?" She murmured, deliberately not understanding. "They put us in the cage, so shouldn't they pay the price?"

Shun decided to speak. "No. They shouldn't. We are in no place to bring justice. We have no authority in what's right, our whole lives we've just been wronged. Now we need to just leave this place and try again." Shun narrowed his eyes at Lilim, she was very set on this revenge thing, even after Kachi had ended it. Or at least he had for Shun, the guy made sense. "But at any rate us standing around here talking and arguing isn't getting us any closer to the freedom we all deserve."

"It's not freedom without Qing Yu." Lilim growled in an almost threatening tone. "I'm not sure if you know, but they took her, didn't they? What if they're hurting her right now? I won't let them get away with it."

Kachi gave the girl an annoyed look over his shoulder. "As if I would just let them have her." He murmured under his breath.

Shun watched the small girl carefully, choosing his words. "She's most likely fine. She's very strong. She can for sure make it until we find her." Shun said making his way away from the girl, trying to make it look natural. The look she was giving him was making him start to sweat a bit. She wouldn't attack him right? She just found him, another member of the flock. She wouldn't. . . Or would she. Shun didn't care to find out. Being around Tori, just like him, made him paranoid already. Now one was being hostile. It didn't sit well. Maybe I should've stayed in my room.

With a frustrated sigh, the eel grabbed Shun's hand in her other, squeezing it as well. "No." She said plainly. She was still angry, but she wanted Shun to at least be happy that they reunited. They were, after all, family, weren't they? "How about we kill the humans who took Qing Yu.... and leave the not involved ones alone. Does that make you happy?"

It didn't. Although it seemed only fair. They took someone obviously dear to this child, it would be understandable for this girl to act in such a way. Shun crinkled his nose and managed a slight smile looking at their locked hands. Honestly he wasn't that comforted, but he was more than he had been before so he allowed himself to relax slightly. "If you feel you must." Shun said with a tired sigh.

Slaine's hands balled into fists. Kachi knelt before him, speaking calmly, rationally. It sometimes made Slaine frustrated, but it was nothing he didn't understand. Slaine leaned his head against Kachi's chest. "You're right, if we kill them, we only play further into their hand." He hated to admit it, but in this case, they would have to preserve life, even if it was one he didn't like. "If they hurt Qing Yu, I won't hold back." That much was a promise. Slaine turned to look at Kachi, wondering how he managed to stay so frustratingly calm even when no one else could. "We should eat and go, I smell something that's making me uneasy."

Kachi nodded, and reluctantly stepped away from Slaine to return to packing the bag.

Once Lillim was finished with the chicken, a new idea burst into mind. Setting aside the matter of killing humans, what Lilim wanted now was something sweet to sate her tongue. Sure, they had to hurry... but she really wanted some candy. Something to suck on and to make her mouth feel moisturized. "I want candy." Her voice went back to it's childish whine. So she hunted through the room, deciding to temporarily ignore the rest of the Tori. She wouldn't be able to convince them anyways. Finally she found a pouch of what seemed to be sour candies and pocketed a handful before shoving the rest into the bag. With a happy expression, the eel sucked on one, enjoying the explosion of flavor. "Slaine, my feet still hurt. Carry me?"

Kachi gave Lillim an exasperated look. "Lil, enough. We have to run; we can't be carrying you around now. Toughen up; you can rest once we're safe all you want."

Lilim glared at Kachi, trying to talk but only strange muffled sounds came out as her tongue was blocked by the candy. She instead stuck her tongue out stubbornly and turned her head away, looking pleadingly at Slaine.

"It's alright Kachi, I'll carry her." Slaine replied, getting to his feet. He washed the grease from the chicken off of his fingers and decided he was going to look around for boots or shoes, at least something to protect their feet. "We should find clothing, we shouldn't expose ourselves to the cold without some protection."

Shun watched mommy and daddy arguing over the baby. A deep groan escaped his throat. Shun moved by the whiny little girl and looked toward the way the others had com in through. "We're going back out the way you all came in right? Because from the way I come from is blocked by ceiling pieces." Shun leaned up against the wall.

Kachi pressed his lips into a thin line and let the issue go - they didn't have the time to debate over it. He picked up the awkward bag and slung it over his shoulder, double-checked that they were all there, and turned back towards the entrance; only to freeze in place as he saw someone standing in it, blocking their way out.

"Well, damn." He hissed under his breath, shooting another glare at Lilim for distracting him. This was exactly why her little act of being weak was so annoying; it put Slaine and Shun in danger this time, and now they were going to have to risk injury fighting their way out. Wonderful just wonderful.

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They were walking down the hall. Lucy had stayed with Ambrose who was still recovering a bit from waking up. A door had been left open up ahead, curious, Alice walked a bit faster and poked her head in, finding a screen. She had seen many like this in other homes, but had never bothered much with them. She leaned down, pressing a button. Static filled the screen, Alice jumped back, hssing, clawing, entangling herself in cables and tripping to the floor, unable to move. Alice struggled against the wires, gnashing her teeth as thouhg to bite through them only to realize it wasn't possible. "Ophie!" Alice called, crying for help from her partner in crime.

Ophie stared at the entangled bat in something between amusement and confusion. How, exactly, did Alice let herself get caught like that? Was the static from the strange screen all that surprising? She had to have expected it'd do something, right? The spider gave a bemused sigh and walked over. Judging from what she knew, the wires were probably electrified, right? She hung someone with wires before and felt the jolt through the broken insulation as the victim struggled, after all. So instead of simply cutting through, the spider examined the trail of wires, finding them hooked up to some device that attached to the wall. Electricity, perhaps? She unplugged it, ending the static and then used her claws to slice through the wires, enjoying the feeling of the material succumbing to her blades.

Saved you!" Ophie held a hand out for Alice to hold, if she wanted it. "Be more careful, okay? We can't fall into silly traps if we want to kill some insects!"

Alice nodded her head, taking Ophie's hand that was outstretched and pulling herself the rest of hte way out. "Where do you think the insects are hiding?"

"By bugs, do you mean me?" Lucky stood in the doorway, pointing to himself. Had the whole stupid facility found its way over here? "Get back." Alice growled, standing protectively in front of Ophie. Something didn't feel right, it was Lucky, but at the same time it wasn't. "What are you doing here?" Alice sneered at the creature wearing a familiar's face. Lucky smirked, "Same as you, looking for trouble."

As Lucky and Alice were paying attention to each other, Ophie sensed a fight starting. So the spider started stringing up webs throughout the area using the smallest amount of movement as possible. If Lucky tried anything - if he moved slightly wrong, he'd easily fall into a web snare. Something was definitely off. Her keen senses sensed there was someone else still out of view. It's not just him." Ophie said quietly. Wait for them to make the first move."

Low and behold, from behind Lucky was one more. A girl with familiar hair and wide eyes. She wasn't carrying a marble though, no, in her hands was something much more precious that Alice recognized instantly. The pink haired girl's eyes widened and she looked between Ophie to Poppy.

".....Teddy?" Ophie's eyes narrowed dangerously, voice rising in pitch. "Alice, why does she have teddy? Were they working with the cultists?" Every nerve in her body was screaming for her to attack - to wrench her precious doll from the white haired girl's disgusting grasp. Teddy belonged with her, not some marble obsessed freak. But if she moved, that'd leave her team open. She couldn't risk underestimating the enemy - they were experiments after all, not just human scum. Her finger twitched as she prepared to manipulate her webs, still waiting as patiently as she could manage.

Alice breathed in and when she breathed out, she attacked. She clawed at Lucky's eyes, wrapping her legs around him as she attacked, punching him repeatedly in the nose. Lucky fell backwards, the two tumbling over. His eyes were bleeding, but Alice continued attempting to attack. He wrenched Alice's arm unpwards, ripping it from its socket, but Alice hardly noticed the pain. She used her other hand, then kneed him in the groin, rolling do that she was on top of him.

As Alice and Lucky were in their struggle, Ophie saw Poppy make a move towards the bat. Trusting Alice to be able to handle the boy who almost definitely had a gun hiding somewhere, she launched herself at the snow-haired girl, trying to get her as far away as possible from the other's fight. Ophie aimed for her wrist while Poppy revealed a concealed knife - long and serrated like a dagger - slashing out at the spider. It was a near miss but her throat was moved out of the way just in time to slash at Poppy's hand holding Teddy. She grazed it and the near-mute did something of a flip, knocking the spider off balance and off of her. Tumbling into the snow, Ophie got back up to her feet only to slip againts an unexpected patch of ice. Poppy still had Teddy, and this was in the wide open now, so her webs wouldn't work. Her advantage was gone - but of course, she wouldn't just lose. This was just starting to be fun, after all.

"So, where's your marble?" The arachnid jeered. Can't talk?"

Alice had smashed Lucky's head through the television screen. The boy's body went limp, but Alice could hear him groan. He was still alive and so she dragged him back out, using a shard of glass to cut into his tongue. He sliced it down and off, throwing it across the room. "Where you're going, you're not going to need that anymore." She then raised the shard and stabbed into his stomach, feeling through for something squishy to grab. When Alice had a hold of it, she ripped it upwards and out, drapping his intestines like a Christmas tree around him.

Hearing that Alice had won her battle, Ophie felt a swell of pride. Now that keeping Poppy out of the bat's way was succesful, she could now focus entirely on the fight. Doing her best to ignore the blizzard, Ophie stared ahead of her to see nothing. She instinctively ducked and dove backwards, kicking up at Poppy's knees, forcing her into a buckle. The knife was still swinging though, and she couldn't risk Teddy getting hurt. The spider tackled the snow-haired girl before she could recover, forcing her to the ground again, headbutting her to stun her and then she dug her claws hard into the girl's right wrist, freeing the teddy bear. Ophie attached a web to it and swing her arm - the teddy bear went flying back towards the building. Still, the two girls were sliding across the snow and ice and the storm kept sending sheets of hail into her eyes that were really annoying. While she was momentarily distracted, Poppy went on the counter attack, stabbing with the knife. Pain exploded in Ophie's right hand as the blade went right through her palm to the other side, but then she yanked, wrenching the knife free from Poppy's grip as the edges got stuck on her bone. She rotated her wrist and swung forward, digging the edge of the blade into Poppy's eye and forcing her down, where Ophie realized they were over a cliff. A little more sliding and they'd have fallen off entirely and the thickness of the storm made it impossible to see the lab anymore.

"Last words?" Ophie cackled, tearing her hand free from the knife. Poppy remained silent, so the spider pushed her off the cliff, watching Poppy turn into a red stained splat on the rocks. It'd have been nice to actually play with her and make her sing, but Ophie felt exhausted and tired and the snow was starting to feel somewhat comfortable. A faint warmness prickled in her exposed skin - how much of her clothes had torn in the fight? She tried to stand but her muscles felt clunky and unresponsive. Deciding she didn't have the energy, the spider simply sat in the snow and shivered.

Alice looked out the shattered window. How had Ophie and Poppy gotten all the way out there? The pink haired girl wondered, craddling her injured arm. She noticed Poppy had stopped moving, that the other girl was laying in the snow as though dead. Worried, Alice jumped down from the window, rushing to where Ophie lay. She didn't care about her bare feet or her arm that was dangling limp at her side, all Alice cared about was reaching the figure that looked like a smudge in the oncoming blizzard. Alice knelt down, nearly ripping her clothes off of herself and wrapping them around Ophie. She hoisted the other girl up against, dragging the two of them back towards the building. Lucy had seen it all, she was waiting, taking Ophie from Alice and rushing the two of them back to the room where the Scientist was waiting, clearly not surprised. "Help her," Alice spoke quickly, bouncing around full of nervous energy as Ophie went back inside one of the tanks. It slowly filled up with blue liquid.

"Your arm is a quick fix," Alice bit down on a towel as he popped it back into place. She hardly felt the pain though, the naked girl was too busy watching the silent spider from where she stood.

After what felt like a while, the tank opened and the spider fell out. Not feeling tingly anymore, she stared at the bat hungrily, each bit of her body only being more alluring in her slightly dazed mind. Then she saw Lucy and the scientist. She shot the lioness a dirty look and fired webs directly into the scientists's eyes, stripped, and shoved her clothes onto the bat. "...Only I'm allowed to look." She said, slightly annoyed. Ophie then looked around and saw Teddy chilling in the corner where Lucky was creatively killed. A long strand of silk brought Teddy back and she looked at Alice again, grinning. "Nice work! Very artful!"

Alice smiled, basking in the approval. "I was getting festive." She was hardly happy about wearing clothes though, now that Ophie had none. Thankfully, there were extra pairs. "How's Teddy's condition?" Alice asked, clearly concerned for Ophie's favorite bear. Lucy left a pile of clothing by the spider's feet, as well as a miniature scarf she had found, just in case Ophie wanted something for Teddy.

After getting dressed, Ophie looked Teddy over carefully. She was sopping wet, soggy, and looked miserable. How much did Teddy suffer in that damn Poppy's grip, abyways? The idea of the pain Teddy must have gone through was agonizing to think about, almost making the spider want to cry. But she couldn't, of course. She had to stay strong for Teddy and Alice. "She has frostbite." Ophie growled, glaring at the temporarily blinded scientist. Fix her, I don't want her to need amputation." Clearly a scarf wasn't going to save Teddy, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

The Scientist was still peeling webs from his eyes. "Let me show you the magic of this little device here," it was a towel warmer, but they didn't know that. "It's just like that bath," he indicated for Ophie to put the bear inside. Alice inspected it first, putting her hand in, checking every square inch. "It's safe, I think." She looked up at the man, clearly not trusting him. Lucy's expression was one of amusement, she was standing beside Ambrose, who had fallen asleep. When Alice shot a glare at her, Lucy decided to clean up Lucky's body. Though the scientist was clearly not to be trusted, Alice was definitely worthy of it. She hugged Teddy close to her before gently depositing her into the device. She then grabbed at Alice, settling on a wing that poked out from the clothes, holding it tightly in concern. What was she going to do without Teddy? What if the scientist was lying? Why did Lucy look like she wanted to laugh? Something didn't add up.

The scientist closed the door slowly. He pushed a button, typing in some sort of sequence like he had for Ophie when she was injured. Alice watched carefully, no liquid filled up the device, but a warm yellow glow emitted from it. A minute or two passed and suddenly the door became foggy. Then, as if by magic, it popped open. Alice jumped back, with Ophie's hand gripping her wing it was not a pleasant feeling and she yelped, nearly falling over.

Ophie muttered a quick apology to Alice, releasing the wing. She wanted to say something to the bat about not letting herself be startled so often since it made her an easy target, but instead decided that Teddy needed her comfort. She rushed forward, violently stealing the magic device from the scientists's hands and hugged it to her chest, afraid to touch her friend in case it was still hurt. "No one will hurt you again." She whispered tenderly. "Alice and Ophie will keep you safe, Teddy! Ophie's sorry for losing you! Can you forgive me?" A subconscious part of her mind decided that yes, Teddy forgave her, and she carefully laid the magic device on the table, shooting Lucy -who was cleaning Lucky's corpse - a glare. "We're bringing this with us." She declared fiercely. "Just in case Teddy needs it."

"Lucy left him a scarf," Alice went to retrieve it, bringing the scarf to Ophie. Alice was jealous of the bear, she wanted Ophie to hug her not some stupid bear she had found one day and clung to out of a psycological need. Couldn't she let Alice be her bear? Alice left the room, feeling a but huffy.

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Was it ridiculous to feel jealous of a stuffed bear? Yes. Did that mean she didn't feel it? No. Alice crossed her arms, kicking a piece of shattered window left in the hallway. Alice took off her clothing in rebellion, leaving them in a pile by the door. There, that would show that stupid Ophie. She was about to leave when a terribly guilty feeling crept up her spine and Alice groaned, putting her clothes back on. The bat went exploring, going through rooms and hallways and into places she probably shouldn't. Somehow she ended up in a little girl's room and Alice rummaged through the closet, stealing clothing for herself that she liked better than the ones Lucy picked. She left Lucy's in a pile, putting on articles that were much more comfortable. As she pawed through piles of seemingly random girly items, a cat eared headband conveniently fell on her head almost perfectly. Alice hissed, jumping out of the closet, ready to attack anything that came her way.

Satisfied that the threat of falling clothes had been neutralized, Alice turned to look at what else was in the room. She went through the drawers, dumping out random human belongings that meant nothing to her and tore up the bed in search of something entertaining when something on a shelf caught her eye. It was a stuffed rabbit. An evil idea sneaked into the recesses of her mind, causing a grin to splay onto Alice's lips. She climbed onto the dresser, retrieving the stuffed animal and tucking it underneath her arm. Alice could almost see why Ophie liked Teddy, the rabbit made a good arm rest. "What should I name you?" Alice held the rabbit out, narrowing her eyes in thought. "I know! Poofy!"

Yes, Poofy. Alice tucked the toy back underneath her arm, satisfied and exited the room, going down the hall, skipping along, blissfully unaware of the cat headband on her head. "Kill, kill, kill." Alice sing-songed as she went along, appearing happy. Then she stopped, her stomach growling. Should she ask Ophie for blood? Alice debated, arguing with her inner monologue over going back and simply accepting Teddy as apart of their alliance. Alice pursed her lips in a growl, no, she would not accept Teddy. So the pink haired bat continued on her way, hoping to find the kitchen. She followed her nose, sniffing the air and smelling-was that chicken?

Alice's stomach growled audibly. With a sudden burst of energy she ran downstairs and through the hallway, greeted by the sight of an empty cafeteria. Her nose picked up the far too familiar scent of danger. Alice growled, slowly entering the dining room. It appeared as lifeless as the rest of the mansion aside from some kicked over chairs and what appeared to be blood dried on the floor. Alice frowned, she couldn't lick up blood from the floor, that was gross. If there was a body nearby though, Alice would be happy to suck them dry.

"If you're here, put your hands up and surrender!" Alice held the rabbit out like a weapon. She looked nonthreatening wearing a pair of cat ears and holding out a toy until you noticed the blood red eyes and teeth sharpened like knives.

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Lucy could tell that Alice and Ophie had gotten close during their time with the cult, sharing a near death experience would do that to two in the same position. She hadn't realized just how close until she saw Alice's look of jealousy at an inanimate object. The scientist worked to fix Teddy by putting him in a magic machine that made him toasty warm that Lucy recognized as a towel warmer. Unlike the younger generation, Lucy had been given a proper education. She was taught to read and write, what her targets looked like, what harmless things operated in the human world and a towel warmer was among them. There were other incredibly useful human inventions like microwaves, lamps, and of course, the shower.

Speaking of which, Lucy desperately needed one. "I'll be back. Amber, watch the scientist for me and for the love of all that is holy and for the sake of our future, don't kill him. He's the only one that can make the serum." Lucy stood and went to find a bathroom. It was incredibly easy locating one, she found a room that looked as though a family had possibly dwelt in it beforehand and entered the bathroom, taking off her clothes and scrubbing down her skin and hair under a pulsating stream of warm water. It felt good to be clean and Lucy rummaged around for clothes that would fit, returning to the lab, pleased to find that the scientist was still alive. He was sitting in the corner, playing with something Lucy recognized as a phone. There was no signal this far out though, so no need to worry about him contacting anyone for help.

Something odd prickled her senses, a smell that was unfamiliar and snake like. She narrowed her eyes, poking her head out the door. The hallway was far too quiet, where had Alice gone? "Ophie, why don't you go look for Alice?" Lucy suggested. She would stay here with the scientist and Amber just in case it proved to be a trick by the human.

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Ophie was happy, standing there with Teddy. It had been so long since she got to play with her and talk to her! It was a good thing Teddy wasn't in the cult dungeon though, really, it was! They would probably hurt her and Teddy wasn't strong like Ophie was, of course not. Teddy was soft and weak. They'd kill her and that would be horrible. The idea of it brought shivers down her spine as she cuddled the yellow stuffed bear. It made her feel calm. It made her feel good. It was a happy thing, a good thing. Ophie was very thrilled that Teddy was back!

But the lion girl, Lucy then told her to look for Alice. Alice was important, super important! Ophie grinned cheerfully at Lucy, tilting her head slightly. "Yes, Ophie will find her!" She chirped in a bright tone. "Alice belongs to Ophie, you know. She's mine!" Clutching Teddy to her chest, Ophie walked off in a random direction, leaving behind a trail of webs so she'd know where he already walked. After a while though, the lack of Alice was worrisome. Ophie was feeling antsy and anxious. What if the humans attacked? Why was Alice not with her? She hugged Teddy to her, rubbing her face against hers. "I promise, we'll find her. Don't be scared, Teddy. What? You think Alice doesn't like you?" Ophie giggled, shrill and high. "Don't be silly, Alice likes you too! When Ophie finds her, Teddy will see. Don't be scared, okay? Ophie will keep you safe from the bad humans!"

But she still couldn't find Alice. To vent her frustration, Ophie started stringing up pieces of furniture to the ceiling or to the walls with her silk, wishing Alice was around. They were a team, they were always supposed to be together! They made a promise, didn't they? Teddy tried to keep her calm but not even Teddy's soothing aura could help. Then Ophie felt the faint sense of danger and attached herself to the ceiling, sinking into the shadows, realizing sadly that anyone would be able to see the webs and know some kind of trap was around. She'd spent too much time tying up chairs and stools than making proper traps. How careless! How silly!

Then the two figures came into view. Vittoria was one = and Ophie was very upset that the second wasn't Alice. She was tall, seemed dangerous, and was certainly not to be underestimated. Deciding it probably wasn't worth trying to attack, Ophie dropped down behind them, jumping onto Vittoria's back as a greeting.

"Vittoria, Ophie loves someone else now," She said in an apologetic, teasing tone. "Alice is Ophie's favorite now. Oh! Vittoria, who is this? Where is Alice?" If the humans dares taking Alice and hurting her again, they'd regret. They'd absolutely regret it. "I want Alice, do you know where she is? Teddy and I were looking and we can't find her! Ophie's worried. Ophie wants Alice back."

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No response came from the kitchen. Alice got on all fours, instinctively starting to take off her clothes. She shook her head, remembering Ophie didn't like it when she was naked in front of others and put her hands down, slowly creeping closer to the place that smelled weird. Alice had abandoned the stuffed rabbit, the thing was weird anyways and she didn't understand why Ophie clung to Teddy like a safety blanket.

Slaine had hushed the others, knowing that they were being loud. He had smelled the imminent threat, but hadn't expected it to come so soon. Kachi, Lilim, Shun, they were all the people he needed to protect and so Slaine prepared himself. He could hear it creeping closer, no doubt on all fours. One of those bloody older generations. Slaine smiled, there was no warmth in it though, a rare sight from the boy that was normally full of affection for his family. The claws were out, mama bear was ready to kill whatever came their way. He stepped out of the kitchen, hoping she would believe he was the only one. The door swung shut behind him and Slaine stepped into full view. "Fine, here I am." It was a little girl with pink hair, behind her a stuffed animal had been abandoned. It was a pipsqueak about as tall as Lilim, her eyes were piercing, like snakes.

Alice gave no warning, she merely attacked, sinking her sharp teeth into his neck. Slaine stumbled back, falling against the wall and sinking down. She was drinking his blood, slurping it up like some sort of greedy animal. He pushed a finger into her jaw, prying her teeth out. Alice jumped back as he swiped, wiping the remaining blood from her lips. A devilish grin lit up her face, red eyes hungry for a fight. "Why are you here? This is my territory." Alice asked, lying. It wasn't her territory, it was the scientist's but she didn't take kindly to intruders. "You don't taste human, who are you?"

Slaine got to his feet, blood dripping between his fingers. Alice licked her lips, she was still hungry, she wanted more. "My name is Slaine," he replied, wondering if the others could hear the struggle, hoping that they couldn't. It seems that years of being chained and beaten had made him a bit rusty, but Slaine could still fight. "And you won't kill me." He leaped and the girl dodged, doing some sort of fancy flip and kicking him in the stomach. Alice went in for another punch but Slaine moved, ducking and hitting her in the jaw. The girl stumbled back, growling. She was good, if Slaine could convince the others, they could use her. He would let Kachi torture her first, they would have to break her in order for her to become useful.

Alice leaped once more, fast like lightning. She delivered a series of powerful kicks and punches, some of which Slaine dodged, others striking him, laying him flat on his back. "Why are you really here?" Alice asked, her words almost as sharp as her teeth. Slaine shrugged from his position on the floor, about to sit up when she placed a foot on his chest, pushing down to keep him from standing. "Shelter, food, what the hell do you think?" He asked, indicating to the white uniform he had yet to strip of. Alice narrowed her eyes, "Escaped, just like you." Alice didn't move her foot. She leaned forward, sniffing him. "Who are the others?" Slaine's eyes widened and Alice knew she had gotten him. Hook, line, sinker.

"They're in the kitchen." She lifted her foot, storming towards the swinging doors. Slaine scrambled to hi feet, chasing after her. "Hey wait!" He grabbed the collar of her jacket, lifting Alice off of her feet. He held her a few inches in the air, not high enough that if he dropped her it'd hurt, but high enough that if she tried to put her tip toes on the ground she couldn't reach. "They're not as nice as me." He warned, knowing that Kachi would try to slit her throat as soon as he saw her. "I'm not too worried," Alice replied, eyeing him. Slaine scowled, she was fast that was something.

"Listen-"

"Alice."

"Alice, they aren't experiments you want to, ow! You freakin-!" Alice had kicked his shin, not once, but twice. Slaine dropped her and the girl bolted for the door, bursting into the kitchen. "Shit," Slaine mumbled, running in after her. "Guys this is Alice, this is her territory." He explained quickly. Alice leaped onto the counter, opening a cabinet and getting inside, crawling through until all of the contents had been dumped. Slaine shook his head, "Now that I think about it I don't think she belongs here either." The girl's face lit up, she bit directly into a can, then frowned, confused as no food came out. "Oh for heaven's sake." He shok his head, "Give me that." Slaine reached for the can but she hissed. Slaine grabbed it from Alice's grip, taking out a can opener and peeling it open.

Alice's face lit up, she grabbed the can from Slaine without so much as a thank you, slurping down its contents. Slaine turned to the others, "She's a good fighter." He murmured, hoping Kachi would catch on to what he was implying. "Fast."

"Faster than you." Alice taunted from her position in the cabinet. She took the can opener from Slaine and another can, trying to get it open.

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Something had happened, didn't it? Lilim took Kachi's hand and pulled him back from whatever was there, this unfamiliar scent. Not quite human, but not exactly like the tori, either. Slaine seemed to be taking charge, but Lilim wouldn't let her guard down. Her body crackled with electricity, waiting, waiting, until finally, a pink-haired girl with bat wings appeared. Lilim's first instinct was to attack, to shock pinkie and get her away from everyone, but Slaine seemed to have things control the way a big brother should. Territory? That didn't make sense. Lilim licked the air, tasting, and this was the first sign of her smell since they entered. If this was her territory, the pink girl would have left more traces of herself around.

"She's lying!" Lilim whispered to Kachi, unhelpfully. "We got here first, hmpf!"

Then Slaine and Alice were fighting, the bat was quick but Slaine was Slaine and of course Slaine got the upper hand - or so the eel thought. Then the bat girl was going around, trying to eat out of the thing, the can thing - needing big brother Slaine to open it for her, the idiot! Lilim felt like laughing a little, feeling superior over the bat girl who called herself Alice. The eel was about to explain to Slaine that no, this wasn't her territory, but he seemed to piece it together, anyways.

With Alice focused on the can, Lilim saw her chance, ignoring the pain in her ankles and feet. She wanted to be useful, she wanted to get some action - it has been ages since the last time she got to actually fight! Most of the time the littlest sister was always on the side lines, letting the stronger ones get most of the action. Lilim wanted to show off that she, too, was a weapon of war! She threw a bag of candy at the bat. "My name is Lilim!" She said in a cheerful voice, then jumped at the bat, her entire body prickling as currents of electricity coursed through her skin. If she could shock Alice, then she wouldn't be so fast, would she?

"Psssht. Fine." Amber's bored red eyes studied the scientist before flitting to Lucy as she said spoke. He was perched on top of a high shelf, swinging his legs freely as his mouth opened to yawn, the fangs in his mouth showing. This was frustrating, stopping a natural killing machine from actually mauling anyone. Amber's entire existence was to destroy when Ambrose felt under pressure or just didn't have to stomach for it. Every time he had been brought out it was for that purpose. This was something that he was ironically completely unused to.

"Tch." Amber make a small, annoyed sound from his throat as his entire body flopped back, yet a blood red eye was still fixed on the scientist. If he dared to escape, Amber wouldn't hesitate to hold back. It was perhaps the internal desire of the beast, but Amber couldn't help himself from his true nature. No, this wouldn't do. It was boring, too dull for him to handle. If he snaps and kills the scientist, the others would be upset, and his subconscious told him that that wasn't going good for him or Ambrose. A low growl escaped his throat as the beast itched in his heart. He wanted to tear the scientist apart, limb from limb. As his hands started to twitch Amber let out a long, withdrawn sigh. If Lucy wasn't back soon, it was going to get out of hand. There was only one thing he could think of doing at that point of time, his thirst of blood was back and it was stronger than ever. Without fail, Amber slammed his head promptly into a wall.

When his eyes opened again, they were forest green. As usual, Ambrose woke with a splitting headache, wondering vaguely who managed to knock Amber out this time. Surprisingly, there was actually an alive human in the room, and it wasn't completely destroyed, pleasant surprises from what he usually awoke to. Lucy's coming. The voice in his head was slightly sulky, as if it was from a child who had been deprived of his favourite snack. Ambrose was rather puzzled, but nonetheless relieved as Lucy entered."Sorry for whatever happened while I was away." Ambrose apologised on instinct, too used to the happenings when Amber came out.

Lucy suggested for Ophie to look for Alice then, and to his surprise Ophie agreed cheerfully and referred to Alice as hers. She looked a lot better than when he first saw her, even managed to get her eyes back along with her hand. His hand flew to his head to check his own wound, and found that gone as well. Yeah, a lot happened. Amber spoke before Ambrose had a chance to ask Lucy about it. Ophie and Alice were probably going to fuck, Fey nearly killed us in a car, now I'm not even allowed to kill a damn scientist just because he can apparently heal us. Not to mention we were literally in a dungeon Ami. Not, a good day. Amber appeared standing next to Lucy, grumbling as Ambrose slid down gracefully, landing on the ground.

Things were alright if they were alive and healed, though something felt wrong. It was just instinct, but it was rarely wrong. There was always this creeping feeling that there was someone else other than the people he knew, and the fact that Alice, Fey and Vittoria wasn't in his sight didn't help the growing dread. Ophie decided to take her leave then, but Ambrose wasn't comfortable with seeing anyone else having a possibility of disappearing. "Amber, let's follow her." He said to his imaginary Friend, smiling slightly as Amber shrugged in response. That was the closest it came to a positive answer, and Ambrose turned to Lucy quickly. "I'll follow her to find Alice. Thank you for taking care of Amber for the time I was away." With that, Ambrose moved to walk out of the room, Amber keeping his pace next to him. Follow the webs. Amber spoke when Ambrose stepped outside to find the hallways empty apart from the pale webs stringing from the ceiling.

It was soon that they reached the hanging furniture, and Ambrose's steps quickened ."Ophie?" He asked, poking his head around the comer. "Who are you? State your code number and identity." Immediately after he saw the foreign stranger next to Vittoria, the words were out of his mouth by default. It was something that had been drilled into him countless times for the right procedure when he finds people he does not recognise. His voice was nearly robotic, devoid of emotion before he blinked again and snapped out of his little trance. "Ophie, you are safe." Another statement, though the smile on his face didn't flicker once as he studied the other girl with an air of friendly curiosity before realising it wasn't polite to stare.

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Slaine nodded his head in agreement with Shun, it seemed the boy understood him completely. Alice dodged Lilim's attack rather easily, sticking out her tongue and eating the candy Lilim had thrown at her. "No need to fight, I'm sure Alice is willing to join us. What do you say?" Slaine asked, turning to the pink haired bat who was sucking greedily on the sweet. "I'll give you this weird rabbit back."

"Keep it," Alice replied swinging her legs. "I only took it to make Ophie jealous." Alice licked her fingers, then wiped them on her clothing. "I'm not going to join you," Alice shook her head, red eyes narrowing. "You lot smell weird." She sniffed, swinging her legs from her place atop the cupboard. "Besides, I have my own family and this is my territory, I just stay in the upper floors." Alice tilted her head to the side in an adorable manner, her eyes widening just a tiny bit. "How did you lot get in here anyways?"

"We're just passing through." Slaine replied, thinking. If she were bluffing about a family, they could take her easily. Sure she would protest, but one more to the pack would give them more protection. If she wasn't bluffing, however, they would be in very big trouble if they upset this girl's supposed "family." Slaine leaned against the wall, looking at the cabinet she was sitting on. If he could grab her foot and drag her to the ground, Lilim could shock her, then they'd just need something to tie her up. Slaine touched the spot on his neck where she bit him. She seemed to be a vampire bat, the type that consumed the blood of others to sustain themselves.

If so, why would she continue eating? Perhaps her appetite wasn't satiable? "We should be gone before dawn." Slaine glanced at Kachi, who was awfully quiet. "You're all boring," Alice said, clearly looking for some sort of source of entertainment. Slaine smiled, oh yes, this was going to be very amusing. "You're free to leave." Slaine replied, she jumped and Slaine leaped up in front of the doorway, grabbing her leg and attempting to slam her against the floor. Alice yanked her foot out of his grip, flipping and grabbing his arm in return, sinking her jaw into it. He cursed, slamming her against the ground before she could move again.

"Lilim!" Slaine beckoned to the girl to use her electricity. If they combined their bioelectricity, they could produce a shock that would be enough to knock the kid out. "Shun, find something we can use to tie her with." Alice struggled underneath his grip, she sunk her teeth farther into his skin and Slaine hissed. He currently could only use one eye, no need to limit him to one hand as well. As long as it kept her down long enough, Lilim was also about the same size so she could use the jacket that Alice was wearing.

"Let me go!" Slaine administered a zap, causing her to shriek. It only made her fight harder though and she slashed at him, but Slaine leaned back, careful not to allow his grip to loosen. "Welcome to the family." Slaine said pleasantly, waiting for his siblings to act.

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So big bro Shun got up and started talking and it made Lilim and annoyed. This was dumb, wasn't it just so dumb? They didn't need this girl, who needed a stupid bad? the tori were good as they were, once they had Qing Yu back and safe everything would be okay. They were a family, who needs outsiders, huh? Lilim hissed angrily at Shun, her whole body crackling with electricity. Why did her attack miss Alice so easily? This was frustrating! Maybe it'd be funner if Alice was willing to actually fight her. The pain would feel nice and it'd make Slaine get all protective again in ways Lilim really liked.

"We don't need her in the family, Slaine." Lilim said, full of hostility. Perhaps luckily it seemed the bat didn't seen as if she wanted to join, either, which was just as good. Even if she had her own family, that didn't matter. She was the one who attacked first, and they were wasting stupid time sitting around when they could've been trying to find and save Qing Yu from the stupid humans, the hated humans.

Lilim sat and ignored Slaine and Alice's talking - it was pointless anyways, she didn't like the bat at all. And then things got interesting when Slaine caught her in a trick that only a stupid could fall for. A grin grew on the eel's face as she watched the bat struggle and yell, and she knew immediately what Slaine was planning. With a wide and eager smile, Lilim hopped her way over to the bat, jumping on her to have full body contact. "Let's be good friends!" Lilim said and released her strongest non-fatal voltage that was enough to stun a full grown human for hours, knocking him unconscious. It felt amazing, the electricity and static coursing through her body, conducting into the bat's.

"It's time to figure out what you know, isn't it, you dumb bat!" Lilim said triumphantly, panting hard after using up so much energy in the shock. "Our family wins every time!"

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Ophie glanced back, hearing footsteps. Her whole body tensed - those weren't Alice's steps, no way, not even a little bit. Something was wrong, where was Alice? The spider's nerves prickled with tension, webs prepared to launch into battle when it was just Ambrose walking up. Ophie gave Ambrose a little smile but she wasn't satisfied, no way, nuh uh. This made no sense, it was silly, it was weird, how did Ambrose find them? This wasn't meant to happen, the webs were for Alice only, how did Ambrose follow them if he wasn't Alice? "Where is Alice?" Ophie said, voice a low and dangerous hiss. "You aren't Alice, Ophie wants her so where is she? We're a team!" The spider glanced at the teddie in her arms and nodded, eyes blazing. "Teddie agrees, Teddie wants Alice too! What did you do with her, Ambrose?"

Then Vittoria dropped her and did the worst attempt at acting ever, making Ophie stick her tongue out at her. "You aren't Alice, so don't be cute, okay?" The spider glared at the webs, wondering if she accidentally put some webs for Ambrose, but no way, that didn't make sense at all. Then the tall weird girl made an offer, an offer and -

"No! Ophie thinks you're weird, don't touch!" She scampered back defensively, gland ready to sprout silk and activate her traps. Within moments all of the hanging furniture could be launched at anyone she wanted. It wouldn't kill, but it'd help, wouldn't it? After a while the spider judged the situation was safe and simply turned her back, walking in another random direction. "Ophie is going to find Alice." She said simply, anxiety creasing her features. Then she tilted her head, gazing at Teddie and nodded. "Yes, that's right, we need to hurry! Alice might get hurt by those bad humans again...!" Then Ophie had an idea, a great idea, and slashed across her wrist with her claw, blood flowing and dripping, the pain amazing and awesome and wonderful and cool! "Good idea, Teddie! Alice likes blood, maybe she can smell it! Ahaha! Ehehe, hahaha!" Laughing uncontrollably the spider walked in a random direction, forgetting the other three were even there, droplets of blood staining the floor with each step.

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The scream that came from the pink haired girl was far too satisfying. Her bite lessened, her body writhing in pain as Lilim and Slaine shocked her simultaneously. Her body shook, eyes wide, limbs flailing, mouth wide open in a silent scream as her head lolled to the side. Finally the brat was out, now they could use her. Slaine had stood for only a moment to disinfect the bite, but in that moment, something terribly unexpected happened, leaping onto his prey and stealing it for himself. Did he want a turn to torture the girl too? The more the merrier, but that didn't seem to be Shun's intentions.

"What are you doing!" Slaine growled as Shun betrayed them, stealing Alice's quivering body that occasionally jolted from the electricity. "She's not innocent Shun!" Slaine held up his hand, brandishing the bite mark the little beast had given him, it was still bleeding too. "I have another one, she'd gladly kill us!" He tried to reason with his brother, Slaine had never needed to use force to to convince them of anything, Shun's rebellion was something new. Normally the boy was a meek, quiet, weakling that followed his duties without fail.

"If you intended to use those you would have done it already." Slaine exclaimed, clearly surprised and angry. "Don't let her trick you! Just because she's small like Lilim doesn't mean she can't hurt you!" Slaine said, trying to reason with his brother. "We'll only hurt her if she resists, how about that?" They needed to find a rope quickly, who knew what the girl would do when she woke up.

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Lilim was tired - she didn't remember the last time she just sat down and relaxed. With that stupid Alice deal with for the time being, there wasn't much else to worry about. So she relaxed, making a happy face in Slaine's direction when Shun suddenly yanked her off of her prey, knocking the eel into the corner as the coward yelled for Alice's sake, threatening with needles and things he stole from the scientists. Lilim was confused, she didn't understand. "Aren't you on our team, Shun?" Lilim asked, head tilted slightly. "We're a family! Family doesn't betray family!" Alice was an enemy, wasn't that what mattered? The eel couldn't understand what Shun was saying at all, and from Slaine's expression, he also didn't seem to be happy at all.

"Alice lies." Lilim hissed territorially, getting back to her feet, snarling angrily. "Don't trust her, she's not one of us!" As the little eel moved towards Shun, she was suddenly interrupted by someone screeching, latching onto her back and slamming her head onto the floor with an angry snarl. It was a small girl, small like she was, eyes furious and almost glowing in outrage.

"Alice is Ophie's!" The new girl hissed and before Lilim could react or do anything at all she felt a strange yet incredibly durable substance wrap around her, and Lilim was lifted up into the air by the neck - it was getting incredibly hard for her to breathe and she struggled, blood trapped in her skull as the arteries were blocked. Lilim sent a jolt of electricity as she struggled, but it seemed the spider already separated the thread from herself, thus her attack had no effect. She dangled in the air, suffocating, struggling, and the spider tackled Shun next, tearing the bat from his grip.

"You're not allowed to touch her!" She growled, hugging the pink haired bat to her like a doll. The spider then yanked on a new thread, and Lilim was pulled from her noose - but once again was dragged in another direction, closer to the spider who was retreating. "The little one's mine now! Ophie will kill her if you get close, okay?" The spider glanced behind her, where another boy was, probably from the same family, someone with green eyes. "Ambrose, let's go!"

Lilim couldn't talk or move, not with all of the webs covering her entire body, still tight on her throat, making her head spin as air was blocked off in her throat. If she could, however, Lilim would be laughing, because this felt amazing! This was so fun! How worried would Slaine be, how afraid would he be for her? Pleasure rose up deep within the eel's body as she quivered in delight.

"Ophie?" The things happened so quickly that Ambrose just barely got a grasp on them. Ophie was trying to find Alice, so she broke up with Vittoria then slit her wrist, trying to use blood to lure Alice out. It was a rather confusing series of actions. Oh, this just got more interesting. Amber smirked from his position next to Ambrose, watching Ophie's actions with nonchalant amusement. She simply walked off, ignoring the three of them as she let out a string of near crazed laughter. Well, aren't you going to follow her? Ambrose snapped out of his trance as Amber spoke again, gesturing toward Ophie as she headed off, still laughing hysterically. "Mm." Ambrose was a little worried for Ophie when she was in that state, it was pretty obvious that Alice was quite important to her to cause her to act like that. Then let's go. Amber's form breezed past him, easily stepping right through Vittoria and the stranger. It was moments like those that Ambrose actually remember the fact that Amber was jut a figment of his imagination.

It wasn't hard to follow the drops of blood that Ophie left, and Ambrose soon found himself following the girl to a door, only to find a group of strangers once again. They seemed to be hurting Alice, but before he could react Ophie was already on one of the youngest in the room, webbing her and stringing her up to the ceiling. Wasn't it suffocating? It's not the time to think of that right now, Ami. Focus. Alice is hurt. Let me out so I can take revenge on them for hurting one of our own. Amber stood a few steps ahead of him, his red eyes burning with what looked like hunger, a small appreciative smile dancing on his lips at Ophie's work. "It's not time yet, I can handle this." Ambrose blinked back the red haze, forest green eyes flitting around the room. Ophie had taken a hostage, and Ambrose grabbed the thread that the girl was dangling by quickly when Ophie beckoned him. "Ah, yes!"