Welcome to Gaia! ::

When she awoke, day had come around again and she was viciously thirsty. Her shoulder was now screaming in protest as she ambled up to the waters edge inches away and proceeded to drink.

Her whole body felt drained and she grimaced as she recalled the previous day. She would have to be extremely on her guard from now on. She had been careless and had nearly paid for it.

Feeling the morning sunshine's gentle rays against her back, she decided to get atop the crest of the rock formation and at least "feed" her more mechanical side of her before her stomach.

Recharging was something she had grown accustomed to, though the Human Jane had joked how it made her seem almost like a plant. From what she could understand of the human mumbo-jumbo, was that her very mainframe absorbed the energy of the suns rays and in turn converted it to a power source she could draw from. She of course still needed to eat and sleep, but at least this way she didnt have to worry about the bio-tech constantly drawing from her own natural energy reserves.

She felt uncomfortable, exposed up here on the rock. Anyone might see her. Then again, she could see far, the scraggly black branches of trees like a forest of thornbushes.

But her nose told her that no one was nearby and she allowed herself to drowse softly. This was her favorite time of day, when the sun's energy was clean and bright, and not too hot. Heat made her feel sluggish though she had become accustomed to pushing through it.

After an hour or two, her stomachs rumbling became much more persistent and she felt she had absorbed enough sunlight. Despite her close calls from the previous day, she felt relaxed in a way she hadnt for a longtime. Though she dared not acknowledge it, hopeful, even.

She gracefully leapt the long fall distance, letting the biotech strengthen her legs as they cushioned her landing hard on her feet, the ground cratering slightly around her, but with no reprecussions. She shook it off, stretching her legs to find they were fine. She was in good order.

With that she trotted off to find her breakfast.

oOo

Well she was a excellent soldier she grumbled to herself with a sigh, but by no means a excellent hunter.

She had run into (and promptly lost) two Long-Ears, a small strange bushy tailed creature that had streaked up a tree to mock her with its chattering (she had been tempted to throw her dagger, but it had clambered up out of sight at her motion, little furry b*****d,) and a even smaller thing she knew to be called a "mouse" in the Human tongue with large ears and a long tail.

She was getting desperate, and grass was looking like it was on the menu. In her search, she had traveled to the outskirts of where she had first seen the Others (as she had taken to calling the other wolf-kind,) and sniffed the air. She gave them a wide berth and continued her travels.

Just when she was going to give up hope, she heard a rustling in the bushes; instantly she took cover.

Into the clearing hopped a Long-Ear, bigger then the ones she had encountered. Her mouth watered in anticipation.

This one was alert, nose quivering. She cooled her body temperature down, not letting her scent betray her. Too far to charge, and she was guranteed to rustle the bush she had taken to hiding in. Only one option.

Very carefully she unsheathed her dagger, blue-teal eyes never leaving her target. Still the Long-Ear remained uncertain, perhaps somehow instinctually knowing its impending doom.

Blinding speed, quick as a vipers strike she jerked her head and the blade sailed through the air like a bullet. She heard a small scream and gave a grim smile.

oOo

The feeling of blood in her fangs was euphorus. She had never really understood the innate feeling, tearing out the jugulars, limbs of Enemy Humans, the Altered...

But here with this kill in between her jaws, she felt a sense of pride and hunger she had never before experienced, a hunger that echoed not in her stomach but her very being. She was not just a intresting by product the humans had created and then abandoned, she was a true predator in her own right. She padded back to her makeshift home, preparing to enjoy her small meal.

She had had dreams, before. Sometimes it was glimpses of past memories. Sometimes it was events that never happened, moments without meaning. When she had become "awake", it had brought Understanding.

oOo

She was dreaming of that night.

The air was alive with the howls of angered humans, screams, screeching metal and the resounding roar of the lab being torn asunder. The smell of spilled chemicals and sweat, fear, rage and blood.

The lights had been turned out in their holding cells and the door locked with a final click. They had all raged against their cell doors; though no words had been exchanged, it was clear. Their masters were abandoning them. She remembered the helplessness, the bitter rage and hurt of understanding in that clear lucid moment that they had been left behind to their fate.

As the sounds of riot and confusion echoed ever closer, she heard the faint, frantic scrabbling on the other side of the large metal door, the red light of the lock flickering to green as it whooshed open to reveal a panting, disheveled woman, her brown hair tied back hastily. She stood a moment as a silhouette against the dim light of the hallway.

The familiar smell washed over her and she felt a glow of realization fill her.

Human Jane had not abandoned them.

With a sense of urgency, the woman rushed from cell to cell, manually opening the doors and freeing their trapped occupants, calling out in urgency. "Head to the main distribution chamber in the lower levels, wait till I arrive. Self-defense against all hostiles allowed."

The sound of the strained human voice made her anxious; as she finally reached her last cell, their eyes locked and she saw the terror and anguish only equaled by the woman's determination.

And resignation. Frostridge felt her heart quiver with an unknown emotion.

The final lock fell away and the door slid open. The woman fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around the ruff of her neck, an awkward but kind human gesture of affection. Suddenly Frostridge was sharply aware of the smell of blood and gunpowder from the hall behind them.

The woman quickly strapped Chain-Fang to her, giving the room a last check to make sure it was empty. There was a resounding explosion and the sounds suddenly became much sharper, clearer, angrier.

The woman beside her gave a gasp. "They've broken through the last blast door...Quick Fridge, to the lower level." Without a second to spare, she had sidled out into the hall, suddenly angry at the thought that someone wanted to harm her Human handler.

As they ran, the sound of feet pounding behind them was accompanied by a shout and a bullet whizzing past her ear. She kept pace with the slower Human, unwilling to leave her behind as they fled through the nightmarish hallways.

They came into an admittance chamber and Human Jane hit a console, the huge doors sidling shut but not before two male humans, armed with assault rifles squeezed through. Frostridge whirled around to confront them, but a second bang and a scream from beside her made her jump. Time seemed to slow down. The Woman fell to the floor holding her shoulder as blood spurted between her fingers as she cried in agony. The two men advanced, leering and calling out something she couldn't understand in the sudden haze of her mind.

Pure unadulterated rage filled her every fiber. She hadn't even remembered drawing her blade, but as quick as a bolt of white lightning she sliced into the first man's ankle, cutting his throat as he fell in agony. The second fired a round at her but she danced away. Pressed in lightly with her teeth of the grip, the hilt-chain firing and wrapping around the weapon which she yanked from his surprised hands.

Pure horror now filled his face as he backed away, pleading with her, but his words were nothing but gibberish to her. She was a beast, a demon now. And he had hurt the one human she had ever cared for.

Without remorse, she leapt upon him, tearing out his jugular with cold precision, felt the blood between her teeth, heard his gurgling despair-

A moan suddenly snapped her back to consciousness and she rushed to the injured woman's side. She had sat up and was struggling to stand, still clutching her wounded shoulder. "Fridge, we need to get you to the lower level. There's no time-" she was interrupted by the rocking of demolition charges against the door. The metal groaned, but held. She was saying other things now, things Frost's memory and confusion had blurred their meaning.

As the woman staggered hurriedly towards their destination Frostridge tailed behind, keeping one ear towards the door that still held back the angry mob,watching the little trail of blood her Human was trailing grow. Rage, sorrow, agony filled her but her training made her thinking cool and quick.

It was clear any hope of using the labs entrance was futile with all the incoming hostiles. But the lower level was really just a relic of the glorious human civilization that had been. Like a dockyard for ships, it had shipped hundreds of extremely fast train-like containers to distant locations hundreds of miles away via access tunnels. After the corruption however, it had been used solely for putting resources in cryo-stasis, a human technology of preservation.

Finally, they reached the last corridor and came to find some of her cellmates anxiously waiting. A few were not there. She tried not to think of what had happened to them.

Without resting, the human typed away on the main console, and she watched as the huge machines rearranged the cryo-capsules usually used for storage aboard the last transport. She was puzzled, but when the last capsule had been placed and Jane had tried to urge one of the large-males into it, she was afraid. The male baulked, usually a cause for punishment, but she was insistent, her eyes begging. "Please, this is the only way out. The tunnel goes on for miles, you'll never reach the other side."

Finally the male relented, and she shut him in, pressing the consoles controls with a trembling blood soaked fingers. She watched as a gust of frigid air pulsed from the edges, instantly freezing him.

If it had been any other Human, they would never have conceded, not without the brutal electric shock punishments of their collars. But she was the one that they trusted, the one that had sought so hard to free them from the White-Rooms and the endless "treatments"...

One by one she placed them in, till finally Frostridge was left. Her tail tucked between her legs in terror as she whined. Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

How would Jane escape?

And just as quickly, the clear, cruel answer presented itself to her.

She wasn't planning too.

No. Unacceptable. Frostridge resolutely stood her ground. She would not abandon her, not now.

"Please Fridge, its the only way... the only way out of here."

Her collar whirred to life, the cool mechanical voice of the experimental translator belying the sheer dread and agony of her soul. "How can you...ask...me to go? Without you?" The woman's eyes softened as silent tears slid down her cheeks. She knelt before her, scratching her behind her left ear almost absentmindedly, looking at the scar on her hand Fridge hand inflicted in her puppy-hood that time so long ago. "I can't. I can't go with you this time." A resounding crash of metal echoed from the corridor they had just come from. Flames suddenly erupted into the room, catching a spill of chemicals and setting it ablaze. The woman looked past her and she suddenly seemed sad, her usually kind brown eyes now orbs of flickering flames. "I would have liked to..."

"No."

The woman's eyes widened. "But-"

"No. If.... go down, we go together." Her own teal-blue eyes were stubborn, the relentless gaze of a wolf.

The woman wrapped her arms around her ruff and burying her face into her fur, silent. Fridge whimpered softly and licked her cheek.

A single moment, two hearts breaking, man and beast seemed to stretch for a century.

"Forgive me." Human Jane had murmured.

Then with surprising strength, she had shoved her into the pod, the door sliding shut with a click behind her.

"NO!" the mockingly calm, mechanical voice sputtered and died as she threw herself against the glass cover, but already she felt sluggish and numb as the cold seeped through her. As her vision began to fog as if going to sleep, she watched as the woman's lips murmured something to her she could not hear, eyes filled with grief and finality. Then she had stood and faced towards the burning lab, a silent figure against a flaming background. And she had pressed the button.

Seemingly in an instant, she had been whirled away into the darkness as the transport zoomed off to who knew where. She was in utter despair, still fighting as her body and mind slipped into the blackness of the unnatural sleep. But as the last synapses of her brain had finally begun to succumb to the numbing cold, she dimly registered the sudden lurch that sent her icy prison tumbling, crashing against steel and- then she had known no more.

oOo

She awoke from the dream with a start, her body trembling. Already, the dream was slipping away from her conscious mind, but the vividness sent pangs of emotion through her usually calm heart. Blearily, she looked around. She was in her little alcove, shielded by the waterfall nearby, stretched out was the skin of the rabbit she had killed, picked clean of meat.

Awake now, she calmed the dark pangs in her chest and let the memories sidle away to be replaced by the cool collected logic. The past would not change. She had to focus on the future.

She needed to learn more about the Others she had encountered, how many of them their were, if they were a threat. With her energy restored, her ability to essentially become a ghost was at the ready. She would spy upon them and learn what she needed to recover her full strength. Then she would be on her way.

Stretching the last kink out of her back, she padded off silently and cautious to find her targets.

Kuro had traveled along barring his brothers weight with him. Two days had past on their crossing over the plains. The strong scent of water sat heavily in his nostrils as they neared a small stream. Slightly fatigued from his journey over the hot lands he found a nice shady spot to rest and relax for a while. He ended up near the bank under the small elevation of land that held a large boulder on its edge. Kuro knelled low enough to allow his unconscious sibling to slide off to his side and rest. He needed him to wake up soon. The question still sat on his mind of who did this to him. Rising to his paws and padding over to stream he lapped up some water. This had been refreshing and just the intake of the slightest amount of water he was recharged and revitalized. Returning to his brothers side he laid down and rested in the shaded awaiting Streak's awakening.

The smell had petered away, but still left her on edge. She couldnt tell if it had been just her mind playing tricks on her or not, but there was no trace of it anywhere.

And she had lost sight of Red-Fur as well. Perfect. She grumbled a bit to herself before picking up another scent.

One she recognized instantly as the black and white streaked wolf she had so foolishly revealed her prescence too, the other as the unknown that had forced her to her rash method of covering up for her mistake.

They were quite nearby and further into the forest near the river she had encountered. She was annoyed by the thought. If they moved in as well, it would be much riskier to keep herself hidden...

Still, she needed intel. She stalked towards their position, keeping up her cloak of invisibility and checking to be sure the wind blew her scent away from them.

She soon came across them, two bundles of fur one significantly larger then the other. The newcomer was a large black male, and she was puzzled by their closeness until her nose caught the similarity in their scent and the answer to her question. They were brothers.

Brother... She suddenly remembered her own brother and felt a pang in her usually stony heart-

The pure-black one had drifted off to sleep while looking over his younger(At least she assumed younger) brother. Very careless. But as she watched, the streaked one awoke, murmuring something to the sleeping one. One of the words she was stunned to realize she recognized. Brother. She recognized it.

She recognized the wolven tongue.

She went still as stone, eyes wide. And suddenly she was running along the ice on cumbersome puppy feet, calling out to her brother-

The memories washed over her too quickly, painfully. Words she had not spoken in so long, words she recognized became to billow from the dark recesses of the back of her mind. They flooded her brain and overwhelmed her; then just as quickly the door to them slammed shut and she was left weak and trembling in their aftermath, their meanings gone.

But now she knew how to say brother. She mouthed the words silently to herself, haltingly, unpracticed. Bru-thor. bre-thur. bro-ther.

She suddenly felt exhausted as the sun began to set again on a most intresting day. But maybe just maybe, she could communicate and then-

She left the two, still unwise to her prescence and proceeded to the hidden oasis she called home.

She was getting closer to the area she had come to know as home. But she barely noticed being deep in thought. The large animals she had happened upon had inspired fear in her, but the more she thought on it, had it really been the animal? Or the unknown, the not knowing what it was?

She would have to go back and investigate. Her stomach rumbled loudly and she grimaced. Not today, though.

The scent came without warning and she almost hadn't registered it for what it was till red seemed to flash across her mind, yanking her from her thoughts. She jerked her head up and inhaled deeply, her eyes widening as she confirmed its scent.

There was no mistaking that sickly scent, that odor of something, something just so wrong about it.

It was the scent of an Altered. A B-23 Brute class, judging by that peculiar musty odor and it was close. Too close.

She hadnt been aware but she was already running, the landscape blurring past her vision. Memories flashed before her eyes of a hulking beast, its vacant yellow-glowing eyes, twisted flesh. Of bones that had shifted and grown to the surface, poking out like massive spikes across its back, its shoulders, the huge crushing jaws. An old scar in her side seemed to ache at the mere thought of it.

Another memory, of Human Jane in one of the few chances they had had simply to just discuss after her first encounter with a B-23 Brute. She had been rubbing a salve into the wound on her side, her gaze tired and worried.

"That thing was...a-a bear I think." On seeing Frostridge's uncompreheding gaze, the human female clarified. " They were big land predators, once. Not alot of them, even in the wild they werent so common..." the memory faded away, but the facts did not. She still remembered the sheer brute strength it had, its keen smell and surprisingly fast reflexes. Despite its immense size, they were fast and their jaws could crush bones...And the added effect of the Corruption's taint only added to the unknown factor, added to its unpredictability and strength...

She felt her legs tremble and she cursed. She still wasnt fully recovered yet and she hadnt eaten all day. Slowing down, she pondered whether she should risk trying to find something to eat before she faced it head on... or if she should just wait and hope it would just wander past on its own. But she knew better then to-

A second scent made her thoughts still. The two wolves she had encountered earlier were still by the river, still weak and resting. The way the wind blew, they would never scent the immense danger until it was practically on top of them and already, she could sense it was barreling toward them, determined to crush this flicker of life that had not succumbed to the Corruption...

They would not know how to fight it. And they would die. There was no chance for them unless...

Frostridge pondered. She could very well die, her identity revealed, she could be slain by the two wolves if she somehow managed to kill the brute for she did not try to fool herself that she would come away unscathed in her current condition. There were a hundred reasons as to why she should not even consider saving two complete strangers. But she remained undecided, knowing the weight of whatever decision she picked would determine the outcome of two lives...

She gave a sigh. Who was she trying to fool.

Deep-down, she already knew what she had to do. She stooped and drank a tiny bit of water that had collected in a leaf before taking off in the direction of the foul odor. Her entire body felt exhausted, and she knew the outcome was unlikely to be in her favor. But this was what she had been created to do, this is why she had existed...

She just had to get there first.

The sounds of a bad fight woke Bullet in a panic. The battle was not close but it was not that far either. The wolf paced back and forth on the cliff edge for a moment trying to decide. The dying screams ended and a black blur of fur streaked through the empty land.

Almost at the fight scene she stopped. What the hell am I doing? Should I check on the area? What if the killer is nearby still?? What if someone needs help? Survival and finding life fought in her head. She wanted, no needed to see if someone was in the clearing and alive. But also if they were strong enough to kill whatever left this smell, who's to say they won't try to kill her as well.

Body low to the ground the wolf called on the shadows, they covered her and made her an unnatural shadow out in the trees. Bullet focused and searched to find the dead thing, or even a live victor, anything that could lead to her to life.

A huge brown mass, larger than any bear she had encountered, lay still not far from her. Smells overwhelmed her, made her cough and gag. Struggling to silence the noise proved futile. Sinking lower into the ground, ears up and alert, she watched and listened for any movement of life. Brown fur waved lightly in the wind and movement on the other side could be heard. The overpowering sewer sent masked whatever was on the other side. Calming herself she focused on breathing and readied her body to meet her possible doom.

The ground was cold like death was breathing over it. Bullet stayed low to the ground not sure what to do. A noise jerked her ears forward. It was a voice, a wolf voice. The sound glided through her memories and brought her to stand.

She knew that voice. Another voice sounded and clear as the last she knew it. My mind is playing with me? There is no way they could be here.. The thought of them, her old friends; wolves who could be trusted, standing not far from her. The wolf's body began to shake and shiver with the need to know if they where there.

She realized then that she was scared. Scared to crossed the corpse and not find them. Scared that the slayer was coming for her. Scared all hope was lost and there was nothing left for this place.

*****************************************************************************************

Somewhere deep within her screamed her legs to life and quickly she cover the ground to and over the bear-like corpse. Darting around the body brought her to a stand-still. She didn't, couldn't, believe her eyes. It put her right behind two males who where looking down at a third female wolf. Nervous shakes clearly visible Bullet pawed over to the large black wolves. It was the wolves from her memory, maybe her mind wasn't lying after all.

Still unsure of their existence she moved close behind them. Slowly she picked up her paw and nudged the larger of the two. She couldn't believe it. They were really still alive. Shock held her form still while she tried to process everything.