"You are one of us now, Rabid. Accept it."
"Never. Changelings bow to no one. Not army collectors, and especially not to some small time mad man!"
Rabid accepted the blow that came stoically, willing it not to hurt. Mentally, he counted the people around him. Lining the walls were cybs, cybernetically programmed humans, undoubtably completely loyal to his captor. Holding him in place, two bully boys, Pulverise and Deathmace. Before him were Shock, a lean, pale man and Shred, who looked like a cross between a man and a panther. Those two flanked his ultimate captor, Chaos, a huge bear of a man, with a scar running from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth.
"You will obey me," Chaos growled, his voice like gravel.
Rabid glared at him in silence.
Chaos grinned in amusement. "You will bend to my will. But I have other things to attend to. Shred, Shock, I leave his orientation to you." With that, he spun on his heel and left the room.
Shock smirked at Shred. "Well," he said, "We can't really do much with a reluctant member, can we? But a beaten man has no energy to be reluctant." With an evil grin, he turned and walked to where Rabid had been forced to his knees. He reached for Rabid, blue lightning sparking on his fingers. Pain.
Rabid was dumped, naked, into a cell. He groaned, unconsciously shifting on the cold concrete floor. He lay there for some time, drifting in and out of consciousness. He woke up a bit as the door to his cell was opened. He heard someone pad in, and something hit the ground beside him. A clawed toe dug into his side.
"Wake up, boy."
Rabid recognized the voice of Shred. Slowly, he turned over and examined his keeper. He was covered in short black hair, with ears to sharp, and to high on his head. Rabid noted his sharp claws on his toes and fingers, sharp and probably very lethal. He was carrying a tray with food on it, which he set on the floor.
Shred pointed at a bundle on the floor. "That's your new outfit. I'd suggest ya put it on, or it'll give Shock another excuse to punish ya. He enjoys it too much, and it's best not to give him reasons."
Rabid glared for a moment, then caught view of something behind his jailer. He darted his eyes for a moment for a better view, and his heart rose. Hanging on a hook across the hall was his quiver of javelins.
Shred apperently caught the shift in his attention and chuckled. "Go ahead, boy. Ya might actually kill me. Can't say I've enjoyed life so much that I'd hate that. But will ya get past the two waiting at the end of the hall? Or the cybs beyond that? How many will you kill before you get captured again? Cause ya will be captured. Chaos don't let good recruits get killed. And then he'll see to your breaking himself. Better to just accept reality now."
Rabid gazed at him defiantly. "Changelings bow to no one."
Shred snorted. "Hell, boy, we're just soldiers. Do it matter what side you're fighting for? Don't ta the big boys. Government or the criminals, they cull the gangs for the best recruits and break 'em 'til they do what they're told. And theres no one in your gang left, boy. Chaos ruled all of 'em unfit, 'cept for you, and we killed 'em all."
Rabid sagged in defeat at that. Julie, Hotfire, Horse, everybody dead. No one left. Everyone he cared for, gone.
"Put on the suit, boy. Eat. I'll be back in an hour or so." Shred left him, shutting the bars behind him.
He sat for a moment, lost in thought. Then, his body's aches screaming in protest, put on the black and gray outfit left for him. From boots to hood, one piece, with the hood covering most of his face. No gloves covered his hands, and he left his hood off as he ate.
After he finished, he stood and layed his head against the wall, cooling the heat of his anger. He briefly considered killing everyone he could, then killing himself, but quickly discarded the idea. The changlings, his family, would want him to live and be free, no matter what. That was all any of the gangs wanted. Rabid turned and pressed his back to the wall. Freedom. One way or another, he wanted it. He refused to be the subject of anyone. He would escape, one way or another.
Rabid shifted his concentration to the bars of his door. He comptemplated them for a few moments, gathering his strength. All at once, he rushed the bars, heading straight into them. And BLINKED beyond them. Barely pausing, he grabbed his quiver, and pounded his way down the hallway.
Deathmace and Pulverise cursed and scrambled up from where they were sitting at the end of the hall. Rabid blinked down to them in a burst, nailing one over the head with his quiver, kicking one in the stomach, knocking the wind out him. In seconds, he was beyond them.
Rabid scrambled through the complex, blinking by the yard whenever he had a clear view. He popped by cyb's trying to block his path, dodged bullets, blinked through closed doors, and finally found himself outside. He ran away from the complex, into the city.
Rabid spent the night in one of the Changeling's boltholes, the top floor of an abandoned building. His gang had defended the terriotory they lived in, and the people who lived there. It was very unlikely that anyone that had seen him would report him, even if they knew that the Changelings had been slaughtered.
Rabid wandered through the rooms, remembering all the members of his gang. He stopped and picked up a rag doll. It had belonged to Alex, Horse's and Julie's daughter. He'd never hear her laugh again, or cry. He'd never get to see her grow. He'd never help Horse get himself out of trouble with Julie again. He'd never get to look for girls with Hotfire again. They were dead.
Grimly, he pushed those thoughts aside. Shred might have lied. He'd be careful, and poke around town. Maybe some of the others had escaped. They'd be scattered, but he had to look. But not tonight. He was sore and stiff, and Chaos's men were undoubtably looking for him. So he would sleep here tonight, then search tomarrow. With that, he collapsed on one of the beds and fell asleep.
It was the creak that woke him. There were alarms of a sort to warn anyone upstairs that someone was entering their territory. And there was a "door bell" that another Changeling would have rung if they were coming up. But the floor creaked in the same room as he was sleeping in.
Even as tired as he was, Rabid woke and rolled off the bed. Just in time, as it turned out, as a dark form landed where he had been sleeping. Rabid lept to his feet as piercing yellow eyes stared at him from out of the darkness.
"You should have let me kill you easily, boy," Shred said.
Rabid cursed silently. His javelins were lying beside the bed, out of easy reach. He eased himself along the wall, then quickly swiped his hand up. Horse and he had changed the wiring of the so the top floor of the abandoned building had power from a generator they had found. He had restarted the generator when he arrived, so the lights on this floor, and only this floor, worked. He flipped on the lightswitch.
Shred snarled at the sudden brightness, and launched himself, hampered by the trench coat he was wearing, at Rabid. Rabid rolled underneath him and grabbed his quiver from beside the bed, then blinked into the next room. He heard Shred growl in frustration, then the dim light coming into the room shut off as his oppenent flipped the switch again.
Quietly, Rabid pulled out a metal javelin from his quiver. He eased himself to the doorway, hoping that the javelin wouldn't reflect any light from the streetlamps outside, before he had a chance to locate Shred. He grabbed a second javelin and placed the quiver next to him. Patiently, he waited for some sound from his cat-quiet opponent. For several minutes, there was nothing but the too loud beating of his heart.
Finally, he was rewarded with another creak in the room outside. He judged the position and threw. But instead of the soft thud of flesh, came the hard crack of floor. He prepared his second javelin, then saw too late his opponent's flat yellow eyes hurtling towards him. He rolled with Shred and pushed, launching him into the far wall. The catman quickly recovered and launched himself again. This time he landed on the point of Rabid's javelin.
Shred gasped in pain. His eyes met Rabid's. "Ya should've let me kill ya, boy. Ya should've..." Shred collasped to the ground, dead.
Rabid fell back, shaking. After a moment, survival reasserted itself. He retrieved and cleaned his javelins, then stole Shred's trenchcoat for himself. He pulled a money box from underneath Horse and Julie's bed and fled into the night.