Part One—Prologue: Enter the Crimson Furred Lioness

A screech of pain resounded from the impregnated lioness. Blood matted her golden fur, and she wailed with the ear piercing determination of a thousand of her kind. Doctors rushed everywhere, trying to treat the crazed animal before she revealed their lab, situated underneath a large apartment complex.

“Sir, we have a problem.” The man in charge looked down at the assistant standing next to him.

“What is it?”“Well, sir, it appears that our initial DNA editing was wrong.”“So what have we done to the beast?”The assistant breathed very shakily, and squeaked out a response in a tiny voice.

“We’ve killed her cubs, rendered her infertile, and mutated some other gene. The gentleness meant for the cubs was planted in her mind. We suspect that…”

The doctor cut him off. “I don’t want to know.”“I think you might.”The doctor sighed. “Spit it out, Peters.”“She’s fully capable of remembering her past aggression. And she can understand

us speaking.”The doctor swore loudly. “This is why we implanted the genes into the cubs! We

wanted absolutely no memory of past fierce ability. That way they’re not confused.”Peters nodded meekly. “So what should we do?”“Get rid of her. She could ruin us. We’ll start on the next lioness when she arrives. If

the delivery is on time, we’ll start the new experiment in four days. Prepare.”A shaky nod and an affirmation escaped Peters before he scurried off to warn the

other government employed scientists, and their assistants. By the time he was finished whirling around the underground building like a madman, the lioness had stopped wailing. Peters approached her slowly. Her gaze was mellow, but a piercing light glowed from her yellow eyes. Peters stopped mid-step, suddenly fearful for his life.

She growled slightly, and leapt off the table she had been tested on as soon as Peters tentatively unbuckled her restraining straps. She stared at him with all the ferocity she had before, but she seemed to be fighting too much of an internal battle to attack him.

Peters approached her cautiously, rope in his hand. Within an instant, he flung the wiry rope around her neck, effectively keeping her from moving. He felt stupid when he remembered that she was already tamed, but kept the rope around her neck anyways. He strode out the doorways, flashing his authentication at the guards, and took the lioness out.

As always, he looked both ways as he crossed the street into the wooded area where he would kill the lioness. He dashed across the wet, rain-soaked asphalt in an instant, practically dragging the lioness with him. She left a zigzagging trail of crimson behind her, blood dripping from her pelt, and from the areas where the rope had already rubbed her skin raw.

When Peters finally stopped, in the middle of a thicket, the lioness’ previously golden brown fur was awash with red. Uncaring, Peters pulled her even closer to him.

Some part of the lioness wanted to attack him. The more dominant chided that it was cruel and unnecessary to attack anything at all. The fierce side of her was worn down, its will gradually disappearing. The lioness looked up at Peters, staring at him yet again.

Peters was paralyzed for a brief instant. Instead of staying frozen, like the lioness wanted him to, he pulled out the knife.

The lioness gazed at the knife warily. She knew it was a weapon, she knew he was going to hurt her, or maybe even kill her. But somehow, she couldn’t dig up the heart to attack him, or even playfully swat the weapon out of his human hands.

He pulled her closer again, tugging the rope so her neck began to spill blood again. She felt just the slightest bit faint, but dug her claws into the soft, wet ground so he couldn’t pull her anymore. With a growl of frustration, he flung the knife at her.

It hit her in the general location of the heart. Figuring that she would just bleed to death, Peters turned around, scrambled his way out of the brambly thicket, and left.

The lioness, Kiara, felt a creeping sensation of death. It danced around the edges of her vision, the faint feeling of pain lacing her entire body, and numbness crawling up her legs and entwining itself in her chest. There was no word for what she felt.

She resisted the urge to crumple to the ground. With hollow eyes, she stared at the pool of her blood that dirtied her paws yet again. The kindness overtook her, and she felt no animosity towards the man who was reason for her inevitable death.

Instead of collapsing, she stayed upright, and stone still. She came to realize that the blade had not hit her heart, and, in fact, had barely missed. With a grunt, she caught the hilt of the beautifully carved knife on bramble, and pulled. With a sickening squelch, the knife removed itself from her flesh.

Kiara was immediately woozy. The urge to collapse drowned her, and her legs gave way. She kept her dim yellowy eyes open, afraid of what sleep would bring. A sense of urgency consumed her; she knew that if she slept she would die that night. Her primal instincts roared back to life before being snuffed out by the editing Peters and the other doctors had been doing. The only flame that still burned inside of her was a need to stay alive.

She gazed at the brambles in front of her, careful not to focus on the gleaming silver blade that was coated in her blood, probably still wet. She winced at the thought of it, and the sight had the potential to make her faint. Instead, she stared at a single thorn, illuminated by the feeble moonlight that filtered through the canopy above her.

As it got lighter, Kiara was still staring at the same bramble. It swum and danced in her vision, but still she stared at it. It became her anchor to reality. She could not die. In the early hours of the morning, she became acutely aware of her weary body and the stench of drying blood surrounding her.

Hesitantly, she attempted to stand on crimson legs. First her front paws, stretched out in front of her and then pushing her back legs up. A roar of muted pain washed through her, but she pushed it aside and focused on shoving herself upwards on her shaky, blood soaked paws.

With a fierce concentration, Kiara hauled herself upwards. The scent of her own, metallic blood fueled her, a weak strength possessing her. She needed to stand on her aching paws, more than anything else.

Carefully, she perched precariously on her four, weak limbs. Tail flicking tensely, she attempted to take a step towards the gap in the prickly thorns. When she stepped with her right forepaw, she landed on a small pebble, and her leg gave out, quickly followed by her right rear paw. Left standing on two legs, she wobbled, and then toppled to the side, her shoulder crashing into the soaked soil.

Four attempts later, Kiara stumbled through the gap, exhausted. She nearly crashed yet again, but instead leaned heavily against an oak. Through slitted, tired eyes, she could make out the shapes of a human community. She had no clue where she was.

The one thing that kept her going was the promise of water. It puddled a mere meter away, but every step was agonizing. The foam bowl that it pooled in taunted her, but she could do nothing about it because of her tired system.

Panting heavily, she managed to scoot away from the magnificent oak, and shuffled towards the white bowl. She didn’t dare take a step, for fear of lifting her foot and it collapsing. It almost didn’t matter how unfamiliar the leafy terrain was to her, there was only one thing she could see. Water.

Her heavy, tired breaths were nothing compared to the ones she let out near the end of her painful trip. Her muscles ached. She didn’t dare consider stopping. She shuffled onwards, paws turning leafier and leafier.

When she finally reached the bowl, she gulped up the entire pool within seconds, uncaring about what heard her. Thirst satiated, she turned slowly to go back, but her weary muscles finally gave out and she crumpled to a bloody mess on the forest floor.

The sun rose just as she collapsed, a ray of light striking her pelt and lighting her fur on fire. It danced with the scarlet of her blood and the gold of her fur, and for a moment, the experiment was ablaze. Kiara awoke to two men talking. One voice, she recognized as Peters’. The other was foreign to her keen ears.

The part she did not understand was that she could understand them, and the noises they made.

Part One—Chapter One: The Theft of the File

Kiara gazed out from behind the bush warily, eyes flashing and fur on end. Seven months after her DNA editing, she was still free. She was currently perched on top of one of the government facilities, listening to more humans talking.

“Yes, we’ve got another success. What zoo should we send subject Tame Tiger 213?”A voice crackled from what appeared to be a speaker. Kiara eyed it suspiciously-

although she understood humans and everything about them, she still disliked their electronics, namely because she had been shocked several times while being tested on. She pitied the poor tiger cubs that were about to be shipped off to a zoo and played with like kittens, and their mother, who had most likely died in the testing. “Send the entire litter this time. The zoo in Minnesota.”

“Their flight is being scheduled.”Kiara winced as a flooding of love for the men speaking overcame her. While some

part of her wanted to scream, “Ick!” the more dominant side decided that the two men just wanted to protect the little things. It disgusted the tiny portion of her former self.

She focused on the voices again. “Did the mother die this time?”“No. She is still alive and has been impregnated again. We only need five more

litters to fill our quota, and she should be able to suit our needs until then. After her next five, we can just stab her too.”

The voice on the other line laughed. It was Peters, who had risen to some form of control of the experiment. “Oh, that never gets old,” he said through gaspy breaths. “I almost wish we had another lioness to get rid of.”

The man underneath Kiara laughed an incredibly fake laugh before telling Peters that they were behind schedule and that he was going to go check rhino production rates. Peters bid him farewell.

Kiara tensed slightly, ready to bolt away from the open skylight. She stood perfectly still as the man scoured the room. She let out a puff of breath as he exited the small room, and leapt into the unorganized, messy laboratory.

She scanned the small white room, glancing over files, computers, and whatnot until her gaze landed on the thick file labeled “Lions.” She looked for a step up to the high file cabinet it rested on, and her yellowy gaze came to rest on a large, black office chair. Carefully, she crept up to it, careful not to disturb any papers left lying on the ground. In a flash, she hooked her paw around one of the black leather chair’s arms, and hauled it on its miniscule wheels towards the file cabinet.

Eventually, she managed to navigate the chair around the files strewn about the floor. Shoving its back against the file cabinet, she took two steps back to admire her messy work, before leaping up onto the wheeled chair. She snagged the file with one claw, and managed not to spill any papers on her way down. Delicately placing the valuable file onto one of the only empty spots on the floor, she gave it one more glance before wheeling the gorgeously made office chair back around the scattered files of production rates and DNA structures. As much as they disgusted the former Kiara, she resisted the urge to tear every single scrap to pieces, and continued wheeling the chair forwards.

As the chair rolled smoothly into place, the door opened. Kiara froze in place, and darted under the wooden desk. The man’s voice barely reached her ears. “Yes,” he hissed into a cellphone, “We will have enough lions to fill the quota. Yes, I know, this experiment can’t fail. Yes, I know this is the government’s first success in years. The file? Yes, I have it

here.” He paused again, before mumbling a few words of affirmation and rummaging around on the top of the file cabinet where Kiara had taken the file from. Her heart nearly stopped. She couldn’t be discovered. She shrank further underneath the pale oaken desk.

The man’s voice rose slightly, hysteria tingeing his tone. “Yes, I’m sure I have it!” Kiara relaxed slightly, relief washing over her. She could just barely make out the folder, lying haphazardly on the floor. She begged for him to be unable to find it.

After a shouting match, the man angrily turned off his slim, white cellphone, slammed it onto the desk next to the one Kiara was hidden under, and practically fell into the office chair Kiara had just been wheeling around the room. Instinctively, she tensed. She could hear his angry mumbling. She prayed for him to leave, she just wanted him gone so she could snatch up the file she wanted and leave as well.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he was planning on staying for a while. She could hear him relaxing in his chair. She changed her prayers to a plea that he would fall asleep. It didn’t seem that that would happen either, so she settled for curling into a tight ball and drifting off herself, piercing eyes finally closing. Her rest lasted for around fifteen minutes at a time, her ever-present internal voice pulling her out of sleep and into full consciousness every so often to check on the man, and what he was doing.

By the fifth time that she checked, he was fast asleep, knocked out with his mouth open and tongue lolling out of his mouth. As her muzzle swung his way, she caught the stench of his sleep breath, something she found disgusting. She crept out from underneath the desk like a panther, before carefully grabbing the file in her jaws and leaping off of a desk and onto the highest bookshelf in the small room, a vantage point from which she could jump straight back out the skylight. With her best attempt at silence, she took a few running steps and sprung forcefully off of the messy shelf.

She clawed her way out of the tiny window, taking several precautions so she didn’t damage the thick file in the slightest. Placing it on the roof, she surveyed her surroundings yet again for any sign of humans. When she found nothing, she gingerly picked up the file again and leapt downwards, belly fur barely brushing the roof tiles. When she landed, she scanned for human activity yet again before jumping gracefully down to the forest floor.

She was far from her original test site in Maine. Actually, she was in the more woodsy areas of California, a coast away from Maine. The trees stretched far above her, and she found that her mutation made her exceptionally adaptable and able to live anywhere. It helped when she was constantly in hiding, and on the run.

Kiara dropped the file on a particularly dry spot of the forest floor, a rather large one nested in evergreen needles and drying leaves. Examining the file, with its large, underlined label, she cautiously opened the folder, scanning the sheets of paper in it.

The quota for lions, or more particularly, tame lions, was huge. Every zoo wanted an open habitat that people could wander through, in which people could pet lions and play fetch with them. The smaller, diminishing part of Kiara was disgusted by it. The other part of her found it an amazingly sweet sentiment.

She glanced at the numbers before refocusing on them completely. Five thousand litters of innocent cubs, forced into sweet kindness and doomed never to feel what rage was. She was torn- even her kinder half found it mildly repulsive to force little unborn cubs to be shoved into such a fate.

After a few brief moments of consideration, she carefully turned the page over, where it listed zoos willing to pay money for this new attraction. She bristled at the fact before her sweet side drowned 0ut the wave of ferocity.

Carefully, Kiara began to memorize the list. Every character burned itself in her mind, dancing amongst the inferno of rage locked within her. Every single zoo from coast to coast, and then some. Anger spun at the edges of her mind, but it was not fully accepted by the sweet half.

At the very bottom, Kiara spotted the zoo that she had originally come from, demanding five litters of lion cubs, and three lionesses. She wanted to screech in pain again, but refrained, and instead settled for making large claw marks in the ground.

Cautiously placing the first page on the other side of the folder with a gentle movement of her claw, Kiara shuffled through boring progress reports until she found another paper that she wanted. She carefully pulled it towards her as she read the bolded words.

The beginning of the sheet was mindless drivel, propaganda advertising the government’s success. She finally discovered the seven paragraphs that she wanted: thirty-eight glorious sentences dedicated to slandering the ferocious lion’s name, claiming that all future lions would bear candy-sweet offspring, and defaming the viciousness lions had been known for for centuries. Before she tore the paper to the pulp it had initially come from, she dug her sharp claws into the rich soil for what seemed to be the millionth time. With an astounding will, Kiara read onwards: to a passage that described her alleged death.

It described the government as a kind and just body, one that would never intentionally kill animals. Kiara growled slightly before reading onwards. The next lines claimed that only one lioness had died bearing the dreadful cubs, and that she had been ‘killed by an out of line assistant who was immediately fired.’ Peters had not been fired.

The air of pretentiousness and propaganda oozed from the article. Kiara left deep scratches in the incredibly soft soil, resisting the innate need hardwired in her to shred the pristine inked sheet. She continued the passage, only the last few lines escaping her.

The last words were a sign off from the author of the article, a government agent named Williamson. She gazed at the last few words intensely, before whirling into a rage and striking the nearest tree, leaving a deep gash. Immediately afterwards the light side of her suppressed any urge to lash out at anything, and she felt incredibly guilty for a few stressful moments. Her peaceful self decided that it would be a good time to meander through the piles of leaves and back to the sickening folder filled with rage-inducing information. With a light headed kind of senselessness, she picked up her paws and walked mindlessly.

As she returned to the folder, the flow of kindness possessing her left her, and she was left momentarily confused. While used to it, she could never get over the sensation of kindness overwriting every single one of her instincts.

With a fluttery sigh, she sat back down and reviewed the file. Her mission depended on it. She wanted very badly to just knock the damned thing far, far away, but decided against it, knowing that the information the humans possessed was incredibly valuable. She couldn’t throw away the success, she needed the data to locate and shut down labs, and prove that the successful experiment was cruelty at its very finest.

Kiara’s molten gold eyes darkened, and she flipped through yet another slew of propaganda and progress reports. As annoying as they were, she knew that they were also priceless objects that she needed to be very careful with. Her paws were cumbersome, but with the ever delicate touch of her claw, she managed to shuffle around the stacks of papers without piercing gigantic holes in them.

With a twisted, muffled roar of rage, Kiara smoldered under the influence of her former self, the sudden viciousness induced by a particular list she was quite interested in. The list of companies and labs involved in the blatant violation of animal cruelty laws drew her towards it, beckoning her with a taunting finger. These were the people responsible for this… She was quite quickly sucked back into a whirling vacuum of kindness. As much as it irritated her, she moved on from it, briefly skimming the rather long list as her eyes turned to fire.

A name in particular stuck out. Eyes narrowing, she struck a single word out. Kiara and Associates.

It was a business that had profited solely from showing her off and experimenting with her. When Kiara herself had killed a man in the business, they had sold her off to the government in exchange for a hefty sum and a contract allowing them to run the business they made off of her. Bitterness tinged her thoughts for a brief moment.

They had started the colossal mess that the Experiment was. It was a mess to her, the only evidence of a crime at all. But not to the government, whose schemes were finally

working and whose products were finally being bought. At long last, the first success they had had in a quarter of a century and six elections of failure.

In a dreadful mood, Kiara slitted her eyes and continued through the tedious list of evil, her eyes occasionally boiling and at other times falling with disappointment. Companies she had not expected to be even present were amongst the very top funders of the Experiment.

A heart breaking sort of mood came upon her. Moodily, she skimmed the rest of the list, before shuffling through the seemingly endless stack of papers again, picking out a single sheet, and reading yet another string of data. Endless amounts of data; it seemed to flood her every sense and drown her in its practicality, yet lack thereof. There was proof in every single word printed carefully onto the thin sheets of paper, and the public was too incredibly blind to spot the discrepancies in their own government’s words. Angrily, Kiara slammed the stack into the ground again, a cloud of disturbed dust floating up into her glowing golden brown fur. With flashing eyes, she reorganized the messy stack of dozens of tedious sheets, before abandoning the file in a small burrow only she could find again.

With a sense of increasing moodiness, she crawled up into a tree. When the sun began to set, her silhouette was set on fire, like every night. Every fiber of her being glowed with a strange, ethereal beauty that was diminished by the sweetness in her expression. Her countenance was somehow lovelier when it was fierce, upset, and incredibly angry. Eyes the color of gold turned into a blood tinted orangey color, and she frustratedly raked the limb she was perched on with claws sharpened to needlepoints. With a reckless abandon, she scraped at the bark covering the tree. She was angry, frustrated, and victimized.

As darkness settled upon the warm lands of California, and her crimson tinged eyes became the only thing visible on her golden body, she made a vow to herself that she would destroy the labs on the list.Part One—Chapter Two: The Sunrise and the First Facility’s Panther

Kiara woke to a blazing sunrise, setting her form aflame in the crisp morning air. The sky was streaked with the loveliest shades of saffron and gold, and the small clouds were alight with pale pink and royal purple lights. The faintest shades of blue tinged the edges of her vision, and darkness encircled the smallest outer rim.

Her slim form could be seen leaping downwards, onto the cold autumn ground. Golden eyes flashed, and a creamy manila folder was pulled from the tiny hollow it had been stored in overnight. Dew nestled itself in the leaves above its tiny hiding space, but the folder itself remained shockingly dry. With the silence of her brothers, the panthers, Kiara opened the folder, slipped out a name of a laboratory nearby, and found a company profile. Tucking the other papers back into the messy stacking of sheets, Kiara shoved the file back into its rather convenient cubbyhole before carefully folding the company’s business profile and picking it up in her jaws tenderly. The information was important.

Padding forward, Kiara wandered through the woodsy area of the suburb she was currently located in, until she reached a nearly empty street. The occasional car drifted down its paved surface, and dew dribbled from its edges, but Kiara endured and timed her mad dash across the asphalt so that her wild bolt across the street went unnoticed by a single human soul. When she made it to the other side, she immediately stopped, barely dodging a crash with a large sycamore. Skirting her way around the tree blocking her way, Kiara continued forwards. She knew where this first lab was; in fact, she had spied there several times.

Today was the day she contributed to its inevitable shut down. A confident air oozed from her as she strode through the wooded area, scaring several small mammals that had never seen a predator of her kind. They scurried far from her. It didn’t matter, her hunger was satiated already, and she ignored the small pittering of other animals’ clawed feet.

After what seemed like an age later, Kiara reached her destination. It was a small collection of buildings loosely described as a town, run down and weathered. A few newer buildings were clumped near a single soaring skyscraper, which looked disturbing in the

little Washington town. Kiara ignored the odd scenery and made her way to one of the more average buildings, a dirty looking little motel with a neon sign with only half working, dim little bulbs, giving off a faint pinky glow accentuated by the broken neon green light bulbs zigzagging around it.

With faintly glowing eyes, she slunk towards her destination, wary of anything that signaled another being watching her at all. After a few guilty minutes of traversing the empty, soulless town, she made a wild sprint for the motel. She managed to slip between the crack of a door and a wall, and ended in the dark janitor’s closet. After a few shaky breaths, she made another sprint, but this time seemingly into a wall. Just as she was about to contact it, a panel of it slid up, and she bolted underneath the slim opening. Not taking any chances, she was a wild blur of golden light, a dash on the grey and brown landscape that could hardly be missed, but only if you saw it.

Panting heavily, she burst into the first room on her left, after a long stretch of empty corridors and doors solely on the right. Skidding to a halt, she took a moment to catch her breath, raspy breaths escaping her. After a few moments of her chest heaving dramatically, she stood straight up again and surveyed her surroundings. A white walled room surrounded her, a massive expanse of white with little to nothing perched on it.

She sat and flicked her tail tensely, gazing at the walls and, more importantly, the operating tables. Several rows of bloodied white tables lay in front of her, and their stale smell hit her directly. A wave of panic overcame her. She was reliving her dreadful experience in the initial labs. It seemed as though these tables were older, and unused. Carefully, she crept up to one and sniffed the blood stains warily. It was a very young tigress’ blood, and it was some of the freshest in the room.

Kiara shuddered violently, memories sweeping by her. Wincing, she refocused her gaze. Several dirty sets of the operating tools were balanced carefully on an adjacent table, and she immediately picked up a single tool. It tore at her tongue, even with her delicate grip. In an instant, she dropped the tool. It was an incredibly sharp, thin tipped needly thing, with a rounded edge like a razor. The taste of blood filled her mouth, and in disgust, she had to resist the incredible temptation of spitting out the metallic, foul liquid. Instead, she forced herself to swallow the salty liquid oozing from the laceration in her poor tongue.

Clearly, the tools were far too sharp. Kiara narrowed her eyes, and studied the other chrome tools with an analytical eye. All of them were obviously unsafe, and harmful to the pitiful animals that were subject to the torture of a DNA editing. A few heartbreaking moments later, Kiara had gathered herself back up, and was padding down the aisles between operating tables, the company’s profile long forgotten and stashed underneath one of the blood stained white cloths covering the tables. As she strolled down the aisles, she allowed herself to remember, just briefly.

As she recollected her memory, she took a shaky breath, and reached for one of the doors’ handle. She chose the second to last door, and skirted around the edge, careful not to brush against a single grain of the wooden door. Cautiously, she crept around it, and stopped yet again to gaze carefully at her surroundings. Again, white walls surrounded her, but this time, the small room was overlooking another, large room. A single man was slouched in his office chair, drool dribbling down his lip, and cookie crumbs dusted on his tie and upper lip. He was fast asleep, a single one of his fingers resting on a green button on his cell phone. Curling her lip in disgust, before her sweet side caught the motion, Kiara crept up behind him and looked over his shoulder at the commands, buttons, and switches displayed before him.

It was a grand array of red buttons and metallic switches. Kiara glared at the panel in frustration before realizing that the employees could see her through the gigantic window covering one wall. In fact, a man had just barely flicked an eye her way. She ducked and rolled for cover, ending up with her agile frame rolled into a ball scrunched up against the white walls. Her breathing slowed as she realized that not a soul was coming through the door, ready to attack her, tranquilize her, and experiment on her.

With a quick puff of breath, she slowly rose from her position against the great expanse of white. She sent a peek out the window, looking at what the employees and

assistants far below her were doing. The sight sickened her, her stomach churning as she realized what exactly had been happening. She dropped her gaze after a few moments.

She had been watching two men advance on a beautiful female panther, wicked grins on their faces. One man held her head and paws in place, strapping them down. The other smiled his disgusting, oily smile and sneered at the fearful panther as he sent the injection into her thigh. She howled in pain, and thrashed against the heavy restraints. Both men jeered at her, their mouths moving to shape curses at her. When Kiara looked up again, the panther had thrashed so hard that the restraints had rubbed her skin raw, and it was beginning to leak crimson onto the pristine white operating table.

Cringing visibly, Kiara crept backwards until she was pressed up against the wall again. Her gaze darted everywhere anxiously. This is what they did to animals. A wave of panic mixed with the frothy sensation of hysteria sloshed its way towards her, and it began to smother her in anxiety. Taking a few shuddery breaths, Kiara knew she had to flee from the awful place. With a grim expression, she scanned the dashboard for the button she wanted. Just as she heard another of the panther’s pained cries, she found the incredibly obscure button. She slammed a paw down on it, just as her sweet side overtook her and made her feel incredibly guilty for wrecking such an experiment. Nonetheless, she watched as the horrified employees fled towards the exit meant solely for escaping from neurotoxin leaks.

With the smallest trace of a happy expression, Kiara began to make her way out of the miniscule cubicle she was in. With a carefully aimed ram to the drywall, she managed to break a hole in one of the clean white walls. Instead of admiring her work, she leapt straight from the hole in the wall, into the room the cubicle had overlooked. She padded up to the panther, eyes turning a misty gold as she did so. She growled something in her language, and the panther responded with an affirmation. The men had just pinned her down and impregnated her with perfect offspring.

Kiara bristled at this fact, before her override was triggered and her fur lay flat yet again. With the exception of a quizzical gaze, the panther did not leave the slightest example that she was perplexed by Kiara’s rather strange behavior. Rather than questioning it, the panther simply asked if there was a way to get rid of the angels festering inside of her. Instead of answering, Kiara walked up to a different table, snagged an oddly colored herb, and offered it to the panther.

The jet black female accepted the plant coolly, and after a slightly questioning gaze was sent her way, Kiara ground the small plant into a fine pulp for the other cat, gesturing for her to open her mouth. Half of a stem was forced down her throat, the other half applied to her stomach as a salve. With a hesitant friendly flick of the tail, the panther thanked Kiara for her help and obvious skill in the department. With a shaky purr, Kiara brushed off the compliment, modestly.

Neither of the females was quite used to company. Finally, Kiara rumbled a request for the panther’s name. Ebony, was the brief answer. It was a name that suited the midnight shaded cat. Kiara returned the favor with a silent communication of her own name. The two stood in a somewhat companionable silence before Kiara snatched up Ebony, a bundle of the odd herb, and rushed her out a seemingly nonexistent doorway that only just appeared to Ebony.

A few footsteps into the passageway, Ebony heard the reason for Kiara’s immediate withdrawal from the building. Human voices filtered through the hidden panel in the wall. Ebony did not understand them, but Kiara was well aware that they were angry about the facility’s error in announcing a neurotoxin leak. While Ebony glanced at Kiara in confusion, Kiara was smothering a snicker.

Kiara beckoned Ebony closer, their gold and black fur mingling. When Ebony tipped her head to the side ever so slightly, Kiara let out a soft translation of what the several employees had been saying, and a brief explanation of what had conspired in the office above them. Ebony nodded slightly when she understood, and the pair of cats continued down their path in the sprawling vents. Every so often, Kiara would make a turn, or double

back and flip open a secret door. It was all very confusing to Ebony, but Kiara kept her going with murmured questions about her status as the main panther being tested.

Yes, Ebony confirmed. She was poked and prodded far more than the other five female panthers kept captive in the massive white walled building. No, they hadn’t sliced her open too often. At this she paused, and lifted a rear paw to reveal the thin, light pink scars racing across her belly. Kiara winced, and asked if they were the only scars. Ebony shook her head slowly and parted her fur along her back, exposing a new red welt that throbbed visibly. Kiara already knew about the rope burn, and Ebony’s pelt still smelled faintly of it.

An entire interrogation later, the two cats drew to a halt in front of a blank stretch of wall. By this point, Ebony knew better, and she queried on whether it was safe or not. Kiara merely flicked her tail, and allowed a resemblance of a smile to flutter across her expression. She was pleased with the results, she explained hesitantly. She had just stolen away the lead panther, one that had already given three litters to zoos across the country. The facility they were currently escaping from was known for high quality, tame panthers, she continued to explain with a greenish gleam in her golden eyes.

Ebony, while feeling slightly like a pawn, agreed to help Kiara steal away test subjects and expose the American government for what it was, save the animals, and topple the power that the experiments and laboratories provided. Kiara’s plan was set into action as soon as Ebony agreed. The pair launched out of the hidden door as a faint wave of Kiara’s sweet side was convinced that they were doing this for the good of female animals everywhere.

With herself convinced, Kiara stood and shook herself off, surveying the landscape. The vent system they had crawled along was actually ridiculously long, and they were in what Kiara estimated to be Idaho, for long fields of what appeared to be potatoes stretched for as far as her vision did. Ebony stood in awe of the sprawling fields, and Kiara smiled hesitantly, a sudden rush of sweetness sweeping her off of her feet and far away from her bearings. She gathered herself again, and beckoned to Ebony with a flick of her tail. Ebony didn’t question the movement, and simply picked herself up and followed as the golden lioness navigated the rows of plants.

A few dozen steps later, Kiara carefully hooked a paw under a plant and pulled out the potato. A small click could be heard, only audible to the pair’s brilliant ears. Kiara replaced the potato, and made her way to a small shed, Ebony trailing a few steps behind her. When they were both at the shed, Kiara motioned for Ebony to stay back. Reluctantly, Ebony took two small steps back, until Kiara shot her a piercing glare and she decided to take another few steps towards the rows of potatoes.

She watched, curious, as Kiara fiddled around with the door. Finally, a human voice emanated from the shed, and Kiara looked up with a triumphant stare, motioning for Ebony to come back to her place only a tail length behind Kiara. As Ebony stepped up again, Kiara entered a combination into the lock twisted around the shed door. Without a sound, the door slid open. Reveling in her success, Kiara stepped into the lab. Ebony followed, and gazed at her new, slightly familiar surroundings.

The lab had light blue walls, so pale that they resembled the white of Ebony’s original facility. Ebony thought of pointing this out, but the thought was dashed from her mind when she reminded herself of Kiara’s unusual observancy. Instead, Ebony swept her gaze across the room, making herself the first to spot the burly man racing through the doorway across from them.Part One—Chapter Three: Including But Not Limited to Two British Assistants and the Mention of a Lynx

Frozen, Ebony immediately panicked, her waving tail flicking against Kiara’s flank. Kiara immediately pivoted and spotted the man as well. Kiara attempted to force Ebony under one of the many desks, but Ebony was paralyzed with fear, eyes wide with terror. Kiara froze as well as the man approached them: it was a man she knew well.

Peters was not in a good mood, and when he saw the two cats, he immediately assumed that they were escapees from his facility. He growled at the pair, “I’m not in the mood to be nice. Back to your cages.” Kiara was desperate to escape his gaze. She hadn’t been aware that this was one of the many facilities under Peters’ control: too much had changed in seven months. She took a desperate breath, and then motioned for Ebony to follow her lead.

Whimpering, Kiara staggered from side to side, attempting to aggravate her wounds. Eventually, she managed to break open a newly formed scab. Although Ebony’s gaze was quizzical, she did the same, letting out a pained wail and stepping wildly in every direction. Soon the floor was sprinkled with crimson.

Peters heaved a sigh. “There goes another two,” he muttered angrily, scrambling for a phone. “Hush!” He snapped at Kiara, whose aggravated screeching was beginning to arouse some sort of anger in him. Kiara’s gaze was glowing with success as Peters called for an assistant to ‘dispose of two escaping animals.’ He angrily slammed down the phone, and crossed his arms, waiting for either of the animals to move. Fortunately for both, Kiara had motioned with her tail for Ebony to cease her loud wails and to quiet. Instead, the pair stood frozen and leaking blood onto the tile floors, whimpers echoing slightly.

A man burst through the door Peters had come through. “Sir?”Peters gestured to the two cats mewling in pain beside him. “They need to be

disposed of.”Breathlessly, the assistant who had just run up the flight of stairs just beyond the

door nodded, and began to strap restraints onto both animals. Instinctively, Ebony stiffened, and Kiara sent her a warning gaze. Swallowing her whines of fear, Ebony resisted the instinct to thrash against the thick, strong straps. Peters watched the assistant’s work, before disappearing back down the stairs.

Kiara then got a good look at the assistant, before realizing who it was. A purr rumbled in her throat, and she padded up to him slowly. A whisper escaped him. “Kiara!” Ebony questioned the lioness with a flick of her snakelike black tail, but got no response as the other cat gazed up at the assistant. Kiara’s relaxed position allowed Ebony to do the same. Kiara communicated the message to Ebony with the slightest flick of her tail. She knew this man, and he would let them go.

A healthy mixture of joy and relief flooded Ebony. He would take her out of these restraints. Surely enough, the man bent over and unbuckled the thick, cumbersome straps. With a sigh of relief, Ebony stretched, her muscles visible underneath her shining black pelt. The assistant paused to admire her for a few moments before stepping back and loosening the harness around Kiara’s sun colored neck. Relaxation and ease came off of Kiara in waves, the lioness clearly satisfied with this assistant.

He opened the shed’s back door, motioning with his incredibly human hands for the pair of big cats to go out before him. Kiara immediately scampered out, with Ebony following suit soon after. He waited, and then closed the heavy door, walking out after them. “Hey, guys.” He paused, sizing up Ebony. “I’ve never seen you before, but you’re promising.” At this Kiara nodded, and gestured for Ebony to show her scars to the assistant. Hesitantly, the panther lifted a leg. The assistant ran gentle fingers over the pale pinkish lines, clucking to himself quietly. “What a shame,” he said slowly. “Kiara, I’m assuming you’ve rescued her.” He stated slowly, looking for her affirmation. When the golden figure nodded, he continued. “The British government’s ready for any transportation you need. I’ll assume that you were taking her to me?” Another confirmation, the slightest hint of a nod. He smiled. “I’ll arrange for her to be sent over. Your first operation, successful.”

Kiara translated with a few flicks of her tail, Ebony’s eyes widening. She was being sent to Britain? Kiara affirmed it with two more flicks of her waving golden tail. The British government, moving in to stop the Experiment. It was such a farfetched idea, but Kiara liked it. She explained the entire plan to Ebony, who agreed to go to Britain to be shown as evidence for the case against the American government. With a subtle smile resting on her expression, Kiara arranged for the assistant to make a delivery to Britain.

With a faint smile, the assistant punched in a long string of commands. He spoke directly to Kiara. “That’s the biggest panther facility. There are a few more that we would like you to hit, but for now she’s enough. If you could start on the nearest lynx laboratory, that would be optimal. The major one is about an hour’s journey away, for you. We’ve got a girl there, but you probably need to find your own way in.” Kiara nodded, her eyes glowing a greenish color. She translated this over to Ebony. Ebony was not surprised, and nodded her assent to staying alone.

The assistant smiled slightly as Kiara bid him farewell, her tail standing at attention and her golden eyes aflame. Ebony waved a little goodbye of sorts with her own tail, and both watched as the lioness bounded away on agile paws. Kiara did not regret her decision, leaving Ebony, but had quickly grown used to the company. She was slightly lonely, but brushed off the concern as she sprinted towards the lynx facility, the company report the assistant had provided her tucked under her chin.

Her journey was swift; she didn’t have to hide from many humans. She took an unpopulated route to one of the many facilities she had eavesdropped at months ago, she wasn’t sure if she was up to hiding after the long trek through the vents. Instead, she allowed herself to bolt down the sparsely populated trails, through woods, and along the winding sections of the Columbia lacking human activity.

It was relieving for her to reach her destination: a small, inconspicuous farmhouse set near a large field and a small orchard populated with three peach trees and far too many apple trees. Slipping between a pair of the trees, she watched as a small, bustling, greying woman wandered out of the little building and into the field, where the woman picked what appeared to be a random strawberry. Casting a furtive glance from side to side, she flung the little berry back into the plant and dashed back into the farmhouse. Kiara watched through one of her kitchen windows as the little woman pulled open a cabinet door and disappeared into it, hunched over while trying to fit into the cabinet.

Kiara waited for the woman to disappear before bolting out from behind her spot in the measly orchard. With the speed of a cheetah, she looked for a telltale sign of which berry to pick. She spotted a nearly bare plant, and made a split second decision. She tore one of the berries off, flinging it back to the bottom in the same manner as the woman, and raced into the farmhouse’s little kitchen. After an indecisive pause, she opened a cabinet at random, having only some difficulty with her paws and her kind side’s worry of the actions being cruel and illegal. Sure enough, a passage opened itself to her, what appeared to be a winding tunnel. Slightly relieved that she did not pick the wrong cabinet, Kiara raided the refrigerator for a steak (she had grown accustomed to thieving from humans), and after a brief wave of guilt, she continued onwards and into the tunnel.

Her stomach growled slightly, and she stopped mid-tunnel in order to eat. Not caring about the quality of the steak, she devoured the red meat in seconds. Hunger satiated, she turned back towards the end of the tunnel, and continued padding down it silently. As she walked, she wondered what chamber she would be in- perhaps an abandoned office, or operating room. Those were the most optimal options; however, she could deal with ending in a room overflowing with humans.

As she neared the end of the tunnel, she paused and scented the air, trying to get a sense of who- or what- was hidden behind the final turn. A myriad of scents danced through her consciousness, namely, a mingling of human sweat and blood. When Kiara finally realized what the room was, it made her blood run cold. It was a dreadful concept, but she strained her ears for any sign of a living being in the room. She bowed her head with regret.

The room around was the corner was the euthanization room. With a wince, Kiara rounded the turn, muscles tensed. The sight awaiting her was even more horrific than she thought it would be. She raked her gaze down the walls, taking note of every blood stain on the garish lime green drywall. A single table was the centerpiece of the room, the formerly white cloth covering it a disturbing mixture of a greenish mustard and crimson. A smaller, wheeled cart rose up next to the centerpiece, both of its racks covered in weapons, other sharp objects, poisons, and the like. A sadistic person built this room, Kiara mused as her

gaze wandered over the stains. The stench of foul blood and stomach acid turned her stomach, but she continued onwards, too scared to stop. Fear of the man who ran this facility struck her, and moved her forwards.

Within seconds of blundering forwards, she heard human voices. Almost immediately, she drew to a halt, fearful of what might happen if she were caught. A distinctly female voice drifted down the green painted corridor, along with a deeper male voice. Scared for her life yet again, Kiara pressed herself into the nearest door, one that led to what appeared to be a linen closet, full of clean white towels, presumably for cleaning up… Kiara shook off the ominous thoughts, and concentrated on the voices drifting her way.

“Yes, sir. We’ll make the next lynx delivery to the Minneapolis zoo.” The feminine voice floated towards Kiara, and the lioness took careful note of where the delivery was going. Minneapolis was too far for her to travel, but she would be able to pass the information on to the British girl in the lab, and the data would eventually travel across the country and to Minnesota, where the agents there could do something about the incoming delivery.

“Good. Make the next four to any zoos in Canada that want a few lynx, we must keep on good terms with Great Britain.” Kiara could almost purr at the incredible irony in the man’s statement, and settled for flicking her tail amusedly. With audible hesitancy, the man continued cautiously. “We’ve decided to promote you to a doctor in the business here. That, or you can move to Heather Hill, where you’ll be an assistant for one of the more major raptor businesses.”

Kiara heard the glow in the assistant’s voice, diminished by her response. “I don’t know if I can move, sir, I need to be stationed here. Heather Hill is too far away from where I live. But I’ll gladly accept that doctor position. Do I need to test?”

“No, no,” the man assured the girl. “We’ve already seen you in action as an assistant for the doctor here; we’d love to accept you as a full doctor. Then you could start the new line we’re supposed to appoint a doctor to. Poor Doctor Stephenson is overworked, and we’d greatly appreciate it if you could take over that line.”

“What animal?” The female queried, as the pair drew to a halt outside the closet Kiara was hidden in. They seemed to stop for idle conversation purposes, but to be safe, Kiara withdrew even further in the closet, and buried herself in the mountain of fluffy towels.

“We’re planning on testing out arctic foxes,” the man explained. “If we can successfully isolate strands to alter, that is. You’re welcome to come to the room for sequencing if you want, and help us find the specific strands. The room’s the one on the third floor, you know?” The woman must have nodded, because Kiara couldn’t quite catch a response. “Good. Show up there, and then you can talk to the engineers.”

“I’m so excited to work in the department,” the woman finally spoke again. “It will be a nice change of scenery, working with different people. And being away from the doctor is going to be so different!” Kiara resisted her thoughts running along the lines of, ‘duh,’ and instead focused on her sweet side and listening to the conversation.

The man’s voice was quite loud, Kiara assumed that he had stepped even closer to the thin door she had squished herself into. “Well, I have to go in here for a bit. You’re welcome to do any little odd jobs, if you’d like. There are towels in the closet next to this room.” Kiara could hear a door closing, and the door to the closet opened.

The girl stepped into the closet, flicking a light switch to activate a dim light bulb that just barely flickered with light. Humming to herself, she grabbed a towel off of Kiara’s head, and stopped all movement immediately. Kiara’s gaze crept upwards. A beautiful green-eyed woman stared at her. Both females were locked in an intense stare down until the woman broke the silence. “Are you Kiara? The lioness?”

A nod escaped Kiara. “Wow,” the woman breathed. “I knew I was placed in this facility because you were coming. I’m the assistant,” she whispered. “Well, I was until they promoted me. But you heard that, didn’t you?” Another affirmation escaped Kiara. “What

are you here for?” The assistant asked, her green eyes curious. Kiara let an expression resembling a human’s smile fall onto her face.

Curiously, the woman sat down. “Well, I’ll tell you about me first, I guess. It’s only fair.” She smiled. Kiara found her genuinely pretty, unlike most human women. “Hm, where do I start?” The sitting woman mused. “It started when I was in Lynx County, I guess. I was a teenager, looking for birds in the woods. Why I looked for birds in a county named after cats, I don’t know.” She laughed a little. “I saw the most magnificent animal, through my dinky little bird watching binoculars. It was a lynx, and a gorgeous one too: sandy grey but elegant, with the prettiest little ear tufts I had ever seen. It stared right at me, with those gorgeous eyes. I swear, it had blue eyes. Maybe it was just me.” Touched, Kiara listened to the rest of the assistant’s speech, not even missing the slightest details.

As she ran out of breath, the assistant looked down at the lioness next to her, nested in white fluffy towels. “Well,” she stated slowly. “You’re not here to listen to me ramble, are you? You need something from me.” Kiara nodded. “Well, I’ll bet I know what it is.

“Let’s go save a lynx.”Part One—Chapter Four: The Redhead and the Aforementioned Lynx

Kiara crept behind the petite little assistant stealthily, careful not to reveal her golden self to any spectators, or passersby. They traveled down the green painted hallways in silence, the occasional whisper escaping the girl: a location, a name, a laboratory. Kiara nodded absentmindedly, only paying mind to the numbers that escaped her mouth. Three mother lynx, five killed, two still being experimented on, and the other awaiting a termination order. Kiara cringed at the casual tone in which termination order escaped from the assistant’s mouth.

Finally, the odd pair reached a laboratory. Kiara pulled behind the assistant, lurking in the shadows as a well built, muscular man crossed their paths. “Doctor!” The assistant cooed. “Are you going to the sequencing lab?” The doctor nodded slightly, and waited for his former assistant to continue. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said with a gentle smile alighting on her pretty face. “I have a quick little odd job to do in Rhia’s room.” She gestured to the door behind her.

The doctor nodded again “I’ll see you then,” he said curtly before dashing off again, walking quickly down the ostentatious green hallways. The assistant sent a quick glance downwards, at Kiara, before briskly opening the heavy door behind her and walking in, gesturing with the hand not holding the door for Kiara to follow, swiftly. Kiara did as the assistant beckoned, and sprinted into the room, before fully absorbing her surroundings.

A large cage rested on a giant pedestal that was the main piece of the room. Raised several feet off of the ground, the cage appeared to be surprising brittle. Several locks framed its door’s feeble looking hinges, and Kiara reckoned that it would be relatively easy for a lynx to break all of the padlocks. As her eyes traveled to the lynx, Kiara realized why the locks had not already been shattered. A limp, dirty, tired looking lynx lay in a mass of grayish fur, slumped against the side of the cage.

Looking up, the lynx’s tired eyes met Kiara’s. Immediately, Kiara sensed exhaustion similar to her own, the first time she wandered out of the bramble thicket that fateful night. The lynx’s shoulders were battered and scarred, long knife wounds sliced through her bloody pelt. Tired greenish eyes met smoldering golden ones. An immediate understanding passed between the two cats, and Kiara lunged at the cage, crashing through the brittle metal bars and shoving it off the island of stone.

The lynx looked jarred, but shook herself off and stood carefully on weary paws. Kiara and Rhia, the lynx, met each other’s eyes in a silent conversation. The assistant, Aralisse, watched, anxious to see the result of the crash. Unfazed, the lynx bowed her head in silent submission to the prideful lioness. Slight smugness tinged Kiara’s expression until another flow of sweetness occurred and she allowed just a simple smile to fall onto her elegant face.

Kiara turned to Aralisse, gaze questioning. Aralisse smiled slightly. “We’ve attracted minor attention. I can shoo them away, if you’d like.” Kiara responded with a slight

confirming flick of the tail, before turning to Rhia. The lynx affirmed her weakness and inability to walk properly as Aralisse opened the door. Another conversation using tails, ear tips, and eyes ensued, Kiara occasionally pausing for the lynx to wave complex patterns in the air with the tip of her tail.

Aralisse’s voice drifted towards the pair of cats occasionally. “Yes, Peyton, I need to be completely alone for this assessment. No, you may not come in and check. Afterwards. You can send your assistant down, if she can handle the animal outside of its cage.” A murmuring man’s voice floated through the air, and Kiara halted her conversation with Rhia to listen, her dark tipped tail waving anxiously.

“I’m sure she can,” the man muttered. “And if she lets the animal escape again, and it actually makes it past the lasers, she’ll have hell to pay.” Aralisse murmured her quiet agreement, and shut the door gently. She looked up to see Kiara and Rhia at attention, waiting for instructions. The lynx, in her ragged beauty, looked exhausted and limp, but held herself with the grace of a predator. Her scraggly fur, matted with blood, still looked stunning somehow. Kiara exuded regality, a golden glow surrounding her. How lucky she was, Aralisse realized, to work with such elegant animals, of a hardy caliber not matched by their gentle offspring.

Aralisse smiled. “Let’s get cracking. I need to do this ‘assessment,’ of sorts. Kiara, you need to get out that window. Wait for Rhia at the sugar maple- it’s the only one we have. When I finish the plans, you can go.” Kiara dipped her head slightly. “Rhia, I’ll be running the test on you. I’ll put you in the broken cage. When the other assistant gets here, you have to wait for a bit and then burst out of your cage. She’s very meek- you know her. You can race out the window from there, where you’ll meet Kiara. Then, the both of you can go through the tunnels underneath the sugar maple. Both of you should be able to fit.” Rhia bowed her head slightly, ear tips twitching in affirmation. “Snap to it.”

Kiara dashed out the window, tail twitching with the rush of adrenaline that accompanied her leap through the open window. Rhia took her position on the pedestal, standing alert and at attention. Aralisse typed a command into a tablet she had pulled from a deep pocket of hers. Almost instantly, a rather short redheaded woman appeared at the door. “Yes?” She asked meekly, dark eyes fearful of the assistant who had just become a superior to her.

“Check up on Lynx fifteen.” Aralisse said snappishly, before whirling out the door. Shaking with fear, the small woman stepped closer to Rhia’s cage. She watched in horror as the lynx’s sleepy green tinted eyes flew open, and the little woman staggered backwards, scared for her life. Rhia slammed her shoulder into the brittle cage that was, in fact, already broken, shattering the fragile makeshift pieces that held the cage together.

The little assistant watched, paralyzed with fear, as Rhia gathered her strength and forced herself to make the painful leap out of the window, her muscles screaming with protest. As she forced herself to run on, Rhia could hear the assistant’s screams for help, echoing through the room Rhia had just been trapped in. Forcing herself forwards, Rhia propelled herself on feet that were practically winged. Rhia propelled herself forwards, hearing the echoes of the assistant’s screams behind her. With a final leap, she propelled herself straight into Kiara, who was waiting by the elegant sugar maple. Kiara waited patiently for Rhia to catch her breath, which took a considerable amount of time. Rhia’s breath came in short, wheezy gasps, it was clear that the lynx was unfit and needed desperately to be exercised more.

Suddenly, Kiara whirled around and bolted up the sprawling expanse of the sugar maple’s regal labyrinth of branches. Confused, Rhia turned just in time to catch the sight of two men clad in black rushing out from the room she had just escaped. Forcing herself to catch her breath, Rhia dug her claws into the maple and shoved herself up the branches, not wanting to get caught by the hulking men. Kiara’s tail beckoned for Rhia to come closer, a command that Rhia immediately obeyed, taking shelter beneath the sprawling branches. The shade dappled Rhia’s pelt, and she lay invisible amongst the branches.

The two men paused at the sugar maple, leering at its shady branches and shoving a gun into some of the cracks between branches. Holding her breath, Rhia tried to dodge the

barrel silently, and ended up just withdrawing further. One of the women scowled, and they moved on. Rhia quietly let out the breath she had been holding, and allowed a single muscle to twitch. Kiara sent a glare her way when a leaf rustled as a result of this subtle movement, but neither of the men noticed and Kiara grudgingly brushed it off. Hesitantly, Rhia unfroze her muscles, one by one, releasing the tight control of her tensed muscles.

As the pair of bulky men wandered further from their hiding spot, Rhia let out a fluttery sigh of relief, causing one of the men to whirl around and point the barrel of the gun straight at her. Despite her desperate attempts to make the situation better, Rhia only came up with a feeble shuffling back even further into the maple’s embrace. Kiara sent a dagger-like stare in the poor lynx’s direction, to which Rhia could only respond with another weak shuffle backwards. The goon eyed the branch Rhia rested on suspiciously, but when not another sound escaped the lynx, he grunted and turned back around, rushing to catch up with his partner in crime.

Angrily, Kiara glared at Rhia. In response, Rhia shrugged slightly, careful not to disturb a single leaf on the lovely maple tree. Satisfied, Kiara watched the retreating backs of the huge men, before leaping back down to the compacted soil trail that wove alongside the maple. Rhia followed suit, jumping downwards and hitting the ground with a gentle impact. Kiara waited impatiently for the fragile lynx to recover, tail flicking anxiously when it took Rhia over a minute to catch her wheezy breath.

After a considerate pause, Kiara began to scrape at the roots of the maple. Rhia shook her head, and gently butted Kiara aside. With a gray, dappled paw, the lynx scraped away at a different area of the tree. Confused, Kiara watched, waiting for Rhia to strike. It was agonizing for Kiara to watch the slow, methodical strokes of Rhia’s paw, but still the rhythmic strokes carried on, the pace slow and steady. Impatiently, Kiara’s tail twitched.

Smiling at the lioness’ impatience, the lynx finally brought down a mighty paw and struck at the soil she had been slowly poking at earlier. The thin layer of dirt gave way instantly, a small hole just big enough for either female cat to wiggle through. Kiara analyzed the space, before giving a nod of approval and motioning for Rhia to slip through first, Rhia did, quite easily, and Kiara managed to squeeze through the too-small gap. Rhia had to pull the lioness by the scruff for the last tail length or so, but Rhia did not communicate any distaste or condescension as she performed the task.

Gratefully, Kiara hauled herself through. Motioning for the other cat to save communication for later, Rhia silenced Kiara with a flick of her waving tail. Instead of discussing it further, Kiara grabbed the thin cover Rhia pointed out silently in her jaws carefully and passed the slippery plastic object on to Rhia. The lynx used a combination of her jaws and paws to position the slim, strangely human device, and commanded Kiara to push it upwards. With a nudge of her muzzle, Kiara managed to slide it into place, and a soft but audible click resonated through the tunnel.

For the first time, Kiara got a good look at the dirt and tree roots based tunnel she was in. Several coverslips like the one they had just replaced dotted ceilings, and none of them were very large. The tunnel itself stretched far beyond Kiara’s range of vision, but it seemed to twist and turn every which way. Kiara ground her paw into the dirt slightly, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the soil was decently firm and dry, and not as mushy as she expected.

The entire tunnel structure was lined with tree roots, Kiara noted as Rhia began to lead the way. The twisting roots held the system in place quite well. Rhia seemed to know her way around, and Kiara presumed that the other she cat knew quite a bit about the place. Suddenly, after a long stretch of tunnel, the pair drew to a halt, and Kiara looked up in a panic.

A group of presumably tipsy men and women danced down the caverns. As Kiara began to freeze up with sheer terror, Rhia pulled her by the scruff into a nearby doorway, not heeding what it led to. Carefully, Rhia poked her nose out of the crack in the door, and the faintest gleam of her eyes could be seen from the outside, if you looked closely enough.

Luckily for Rhia, the group was too intoxicated to pay the open door any mind. While Rhia kept guard, Kiara silently crept up to the desks in the room they had slipped into,

searching for a logo to prove her suspicions. Kiara shuffled through piles of papers before finding a notepad, one with the exact logo she wanted on it. Triumphantly, Kiara presented the notepad to Rhia, who had no clue what the complex symbol meant.

With a glow to her eyes, Kiara explained the intricate pattern. Her tail growing weary, Kiara purred out the last few words.

The logo was, incidentally, the logo of the company Kiara had been trying to transport them. Rhia could purr at the irony of the situation. An emergency had driven them panicking into the place they were trying to find. The company was the exact same company Kiara had delivered Ebony to, and Kiara was beginning to realize that she could not grow attached to her companions. Her heart delivered a sharp pang to her chest, as a brief wave of sentimentality hit her. She wouldn’t have permanent companionship, ever.

Almost sadly, Kiara continued up the staircase, not communicating a thing to poor Rhia. Her sudden poker face was confusing to the lynx, but true to her inability to be nosy, the lynx asked nothing, not even with the slightest little movement of her tail. A sigh escaped Rhia, which was not ignored by Kiara. Immediately worrying about her split second decision to close herself off from the lynx, Kiara began to panic, and had to regather herself, for she had stopped in the middle of the staircase and was stopping Rhia from moving forward.

Brushing off her worries, Kiara continued to take the lynx up the stairs, dreading the moment they reached the very top of the winding staircase. It would be the end of yet another promising road. What a shame, she mused to herself. The only friendship she could find, dashed away in an instant because of her chosen occupation. It was fate, she decided, telling her that she was not destined to keep these blossoming friendships with her fellow test subjects.

Taking a deep breath, Kiara let her left front paw hit the final step. Rhia noticed that she had been strangely silent, but still said nothing at all. Here we are, Kiara reminded herself. It’s time to say goodbye again. She regained control of her wildly sentimental emotions and let her right front paw hit the final step.

Suddenly, the door in front of her slammed open. Kiara immediately jumped back to avoid the slam of the door. She was greeted by panting Ebony, and immediately knew that something was amiss.

Part One—Chapter Five: Delivery, Discoveries, and the Zen Bunnies in the Attic

Kiara flicked her tail anxiously as Ebony told her story through a series of desperate growls, purrs, and tail swirls. Kiara occasionally missed a word, but didn’t stop the panther’s retelling, too afraid that the crimson soaked cat would faint and forget the events that had just occurred. Ebony panted desperately while Rhia stood frozen with shock. Kiara listened to another few moments of the tale before beckoning both cats forward. With the elegant tip of her tail, and a few flicks of it, Kiara formulated their plan of action.

Ebony had communicated the worst of news: the assistant had been knocked out, shot with a needle containing what Kiara suspected to be a sleeping drug, and dragged ont0 a plane. Kiara took a deep breath, and instructed the other two cats that they would all be continuing the original plan: break out the main test subjects of every major facility. Another mission would be undertaken at the same time, one entailing searching for files, destroying data that allowed the Americans to trace the British, and more importantly, saving the agents who were presumably stolen away for interrogation.

Rhia was pleasantly surprised to learn that the little troupe was sticking together; she had been expecting a quick farewell like Kiara had been as well. After a brief introduction with the well-muscled Ebony, the group silently traveled upwards, sending furtive glances in every direction. They moved with their flanks pressed to one another’s, slowly but confidently, through the darkened halls of the seemingly abandoned. Ebony explained quietly that the majority of the employees had been killed while the Americans

stormed the building, searching for the British assistant. She immediately silenced herself when a lone employee mumbling about the Zen bunnies in the attic wandered through the hallways- the man was bleeding heavily from the head, and Kiara presumed that it was his last few moments alive, tinted with delirium.

The group pressed themselves into a closet as the mumbling man passed by them, his voice getting audibly higher as he carried on, feet dragging across the tiled floors. Ebony’s ears perked up slightly, just catching the sound of his quiet stumble and slump to the ground. The glossy black panther tensed, muscles shining beneath her pelt. Beside her, Kiara felt the little ripple, and passed the movement on to Rhia with a tense flick of the ear. All three of them had heard it, and instinctively knew that the man passed out in front of them, merely a door away, was dead or dying.

Taking a shaky breath, Kiara slid open the door. At the sight, Rhia froze in horror, her waving tail suddenly growing limp and casting itself downwards. Ebony made the panther’s equivalent of a grimace, staring at the scene in front of her. With another deep inhalation, Kiara stepped out from behind the protection the barely open door provided. She stared boldly at the body in front of her, Rhia and Ebony trailing behind her slowly. Perfectly still, Kiara stared, molten gold eyes taking in the bloody scene.

The man lay in a crumpled pile, blood still trickling from his forehead. Not a sound escaped his mouth, and the faintest flutter of a breath could be heard emanating from him. The trio of wildcats formed a loose semicircle in front of him, each cat bowing her head in turn for the dying employee. Eyes closed, the spontaneous ceremony lasted for what seemed to be a lifetime for Kiara. Her head was bowed at a slight angle as she listened to the fluttering of his incredibly human breaths.

Slowly, she could hear his labored, shallow, quiet breaths draw to an end. Heads bowed, ears tilted upwards, each cat listened to the poor man’s final breaths. When he took his final, halting breath, his eyes flared open and he gazed straight at Rhia. The lynx was actually not intimidated at all, and instead of panicking, she merely returned his gaze coolly, giving him a final sight, an anchor to hold to. His dark, human eyes met her pale greenish ones. Rhia instantly knew that he was thanking her, and the light slowly faded from his eyes, a puff of breath racing towards Rhia. The breath was laced with a word, one Rhia did not understand. It didn’t quite matter. The word had the gentle shaping and care put into it as any communication Rhia carried out.

The word was hope. Kiara heard the faintest whisper of the word echo in her skull as well, and quizzically gazed at Rhia, the clear recipient of the word. Rhia was lost in a daze, staring at the man’s now dull, dark, mystical eyes. Something about the crumpled pile disturbed Rhia, and Kiara could not pull her out of the trance induced by the passing of the crumpled man in front of them. Instead, the lioness settled for a deep sigh, and a quiet settling down, and gazing at the lynx as she stood frozen in front of the human’s body.

Ebony didn’t quite understand the other two cats’ actions. While she had heard the quietly breathed out word, she didn’t understand it, and it frustrated her to be left out of the silent circle of communications. She settled for a mildly irritated swish of the tail, and when the motion went seemingly unacknowledged by the pair of cats that were ignoring her, Ebony sat with an irritated little growl. Rhia seemed unfazed by this, still lost in her wandering mind, but Kiara sent Ebony a vicious glare. The glossy panther didn’t bother to return the stern look her leader had sent her.

Finally, Kiara broke the endless sitting in front of the body. The lioness stood, shook herself off slightly, and beckoned for the panther to follow first. Ebony took a few hesitant steps forward, before fully picking herself off of the ground and taking full steps instead of meek shuffles. Kiara sent her a small look laced with a smile of approval, and then turned her attention to Rhia.

Rhia was still staring hollowly at the human’s body. She was blissfully unaware of Kiara’s calls for her to stand back up and walk with the other cats, and, in fact, had not even noticed the fact that her rear end had hit the ground. She was too stunned by the death she had witnessed, even if it had not been her first. It took several coaxing pushes and pulls for Kiara to manage to get Rhia off of the facility’s cold, hard floor. Wincing in

sympathy, Kiara offered a shoulder for Rhia to stumble along with, and the sandy gray lynx gladly accepted, staggering along while still in great shock.

Ebony stood waiting, rather bitterly, for the pair to make it a few dozen steps. Irritated, Ebony’s tense and flicking tail said everything she didn’t dare growl out loud. Eyes narrowed, Kiara took notice, but didn’t lash out at the panther, too busy with the lynx’s current problem. With a final irritated sound, Ebony gave up on her wild attempts to get the lioness to pay attention to her, earning herself another glare in the process of settling down. A sigh escaping her, Ebony settled, her tail still waving in irritation.

As the group’s leader, and presumed mediator, Kiara should have been irritated at Ebony’s blatant uncooperation. Instead, she was strangely acceptant of the fact that the panther wasn’t happy with the arrangement. Kiara could almost guarantee that Ebony would feel the same in the future, and she was sure that Rhia would not mind being ignored if it meant the comfort of a companion. Unfortunately, Ebony did not have the same mindset as the sweet, naïve Rhia. Focusing on Rhia for a few moments wouldn’t kill her, Kiara decided, lifting the ragged little lynx’s chin so their eyes met. Fierce golden green met weary green tinted dusky brown.

At the silent communication, Rhia’s head dropped and she began to pad forwards. The strangest resemblance of a smile replace Kiara’s worried expression, and the small group carried onwards, occasionally stopping for a body that Rhia insisted that they hold a goodbye ceremony for. Kiara was too shaken to decline the obviously more shaken Rhia’s requests, and made Ebony form the loose resemblance of a semicircle with the other two cats. Although unhappy, Ebony obliged, knowing that protest would get her nowhere. She had just lost Michael, the assistant, and they were mourning strangers. It irked her to the core, and she vowed that Michael would get a better recognition if she ever found him dead. Sighing with boredom, Ebony continued forwards for another never ending stretch of painted corridor.

It was strange for Ebony as Rhia charged forwards. Ignoring the telltale squeals, Ebony sighed and fell into the formation that had become second instinct in such a short time. Suddenly, she stopped short, and realized why Rhia’s muffled wails were much more intensified than the last few deaths. Horror dripped down her expression, and she had to resist the urge to wail just as Rhia was at the moment. She stepped closer to the body, hesitantly. Kiara watched the pair, the equivalent of an ‘I told you so’ written all over her expression. She hadn’t quite expected Ebony to break so easily, but perhaps… Kiara shook off the doubt and lifted a paw to step towards the body.

Ebony whirled around and hissed in Kiara’s face, clearly indicating that Ebony thought the lioness had no business anywhere near the body. Backing up a few steps, Kiara motioned with a point of her muzzle for Ebony to go back to guarding the body with the wild ferocity that she had been. Ebony lifted her lips in the beginning of the snarl, and turned back around again. Kiara could hear the whimpers that escaped the panther, despite her desperately kept up façade of boundless strength.

Sighing quietly, Kiara inched closer to the body. Shock kept her there, and explained the endless stream of wails from both Rhia and Ebony. Kiara froze up at the bloody sight before her, and looked swiftly from the lynx to the distraught panther before taking two quick steps forward. Her breath coming in shallow pants, Kiara forced herself to breath normally, and not drown herself in shock. The sweeter side of her became more prominent as she examined the pathetic, crumpled form that lay in front of her.

The body was that of a small cat. Its ears tapered upwards gently, indicating lynx genes. The fur was the glossy black of a panther’s, yet glowed faintly with the sandy grey patterning of a lynx. Kiara forced the choking sensation in her throat downwards, and continued to look at the small, crumpled mess of bones and blood. A whimper escaped her as she realized the youth of the animal, judging by the round, innocent, glazed over eyes and rounded head. Ebony whirled around to attack her, before realizing the futility of the exercise and merely slumping forwards, a defeated shine to her eyes.

Kiara wasn’t quite sure how long the group stood encircled the body before a single one of the cats moved. Kiara’s muscles ached from holding that stiff for so long, but she

endured for the sake of preserving the rigid silence that she did not want to shatter. The silence was not at all peaceful, and it ached with the loss of this poor little cub. Finally, Ebony opened her jaws and mewed slightly, a choked sound that permitted the other two cats to move. It was as if a spell had been broken. Rhia’s breathing relaxed, and Kiara slowly rolled out her tensed muscles, stretching them slowly.

The lioness decided to take a few steps closer to the little body, examining it further. Upon careful inspection, her search yielded a single wound that had caused the sticky, matted fur and pool of blood. It was a carefully made slash, right to the little kitten’s throat. Kiara closed her eyes, fighting off the bile rising in her throat.

The wound was a deep one, presumably made by a knife. Fighting the vomit desperately, Kiara examined the deep slash, occasionally closing her eyes to battle the bile again. The human’s blade had carved a massive chunk from the kitten’s little throat, and Kiara felt her eyes begin to moisten. Even closer inspection yielded results: the wound had carved straight through the wall of the little lynx panther hybrid’s throat. Fighting the desperate urge to slice the throat of the monster who had served this cruelty to an innocent newborn kitten, Kiara went on. The jagged edges, but smooth swipe indicated that the slit had been cut painfully slowly, and as precisely as possible. Whoever had done the deed had wanted the tiny kitten to bleed, slowly and painfully. Kiara let out a whimper as her mind took over, whispering words and thrusting images into her head that she would much rather forget. For the sake of the kitten, Kiara closed her eyes and remembered the cruelty she herself had experienced. Her imagination took over, and she found herself thinking of what had been done to the kitten.

Her version, although she didn’t know it, was quite disturbingly accurate.

Part One—Chapter Six: The Kitten that Glowed

Four months earlier, in Bleu Facilities

In the freezing cold laboratory, an assistant shivers. He’s almost perfected his DNA sequence for the ultimate creature: a mixture between the agile, lithe lynx and the stealthy, silent panther. Give him credit: every single one of his superiors had rejected his idea and

laughed it off as useless and impossible. With a final spin of the helix, carefully inspecting the ridges and lines he has implemented to create his magnificent creature.

This creature, although the assistant is painfully unaware of it, will be used against him in every way possible. This creature will be his child for the next three months, his baby, his angel. It will also be his unfortunate downfall. As he completes the final assessment of his spiral, Nick Clary spins his mouse idly. He has worked far overtime by now, but he is determined to finish. With a final deep breath, he implements the sequence, and watches the machine in front of him spin wildly as it fixes the sequence into a small, geneless, synthetic egg.

With the gentleness of a mother, Nick pulls the newborn creature from the machine, tenderness clear in his eyes. He loves this little animal, and it fixes its gaze onto him the moment he pulls it from the whirling machine. It coos like a child, but Nick is fully aware that this is no little child, and that he must be careful with the little thing that nestles itself into his arms. He reminds himself of all of the fatal attraction series, and he is careful to note the fatalities caused by the little creature’s inspirations. His fate is much worse than to be killed by the animal he loves, no, much worse.

The little creature in his arms, nose nestled into the crook of his elbow, is dangerously lethal. Although a satiny black in color, the animal’s fur glows with faint, striped patterns, resembling that of a lynx. For now, the faint glow is a pale orange, and Nick knows that as the little kitten ages it will turn first to a sandy gray, and then to a charcoal. The kitten will die before its glowing stripes turn a lovely metallic charcoal. Nick will regret the last moments that he spent with the kitten for every second after its death.

We must focus on the moment, though. The assistant smiles at the little kitten, with its closed eyes and humanlike coos. The little kitten, paced for incredibly fast mental growth, opens its eyes. They are fuzzy, but clear blue-green eyes. Nick loves this about his child, the faintest trace of a smile appearing on his usually unhappy face. Nick has found his light in the dark, and he cradles it in his arms for what seems like an eternity. He is lost in the bliss of his new little child, his little kitten. Sliding his other arm underneath the kitten, Nick decides to name the little female kitten Leyla. She bats his arm with sheathed claws, happy to coo at him endlessly.

Nick’s moment is shattered as his boss bursts in. “You did it,” the slender, pretty doctor praised, before gently pulling Leyla from his arms and lifting her to inspect her for any telltale signs of gender. Nick watches, amused, as the doctor frowns and examines the kitten further. Finally, Ms. Serene Frost places the little kitten back into Nick’s arms, perplexed. “How did you do it?”

Laughing, Nick strokes his kitten. “She’s special,” he confesses to Serene. “I made her unbreedable. But she’s definitely a girl. Wouldn’t want any mistakes with my little girl.” Serene dashes to his laptop to see his sequence, excited for his discovery, when he gently closes the lid. “Her sequencing’s a secret.” Serene freezes. Nick doesn’t keep secrets from her. She slid her questioning gaze up his face. “No, Serene,” he tells her gently, unable to bear the look on her face. He finds it pitiful how badly she wants to know: she isn’t nearly as good at sequencing as he is, and she’s in danger of losing her job. But he can’t reveal his tactics to anyone. “You’ll never get the information from me.”

She sends him a silent glare. She holds grudges, and he is scared of her. But within a week, Nick Clary is the new doctor in the sequencing department, while Serene departs regretfully. She swears her revenge, but he ignores the dramatic declaration. She had always been one to overdramatize. His kitten is dangerously close to being tested day and night, but Nick claims he can answer any question they have about her. Grudgingly, the facility’s managers shoot off questions. He unfalteringly answers every single one. Confident in his success, Clary smirks.

The little kitten’s body doesn’t grow at all. Clary is unconcerned, he hadn’t planned for her to. Instead, he tests her mental prowess regularly, until she can recognize numbers and perform simple but flawless operations with them. He becomes obsessed with testing her, running into the room where her lab is kept every second of the day. While his bosses grow tired of his lack of work, Clary is too brilliant of a man for them to let go. Instead,

they pester him constantly about making them an animal. Grudgingly, Clary takes a mere hour of his day, and compiles an elegant sequencing that he lets not a single soul see. His secret sequence produces a perfect hybrid of an arctic fox and a wolf. Excited with the success, his company, Bleu Facilities, does not bother him again, too busy running tests on the fox-wolf.

He is left alone. He grows mad with the silence, and ends up testing his kitten obsessively, realizing that she will never grow an inch or lose her newborn like features for her entire lifespan. This lifespan is fated to be disappointingly short, but Clary is still unaware of what lurks just around the corner for him and his precious baby. Leyla herself notes the suspicious things taking place in the underground facilities, but she says nothing at all to Clary as he tests her endlessly. She grows terrified of him, but shows him the same affection.

There are nights where he is sane again, and it reminds Leyla of why she still loves the human she considers her everything. He strokes her gently, smoothing down her already rippling coat. The little ball of fur snuggles into his arm unconsciously, aching for her father’s compassion. It was one of these nights that was the last time Leyla saw the man she considered her father, until he reached his senses yet again. In a mere five weeks after her unfortunate debut to the world of testing, he is not only obsessed, but it has swept away his personality and drowned him. This new light, this new idea has consumed him. He knows nothing else, and becomes psychotically driven to find what made his sequencing so successful, performing experiment after experiment on the poor Leyla, who withdraws from the man she considers her world.

At night, Leyla sobs herself to sleep, as a human child would. She curses Clary and his innate abilities to make her miserable, and unmistakably human, despite her limitations. Every so often, she looks up from where she lies in a pile of unmoving fur, to see him watching her hiccups and sobs. She watches him scribble notes onto a notepad, and she cries again, this time silently and facing away from him. She stares at one of the pale blue walls, noting the beauty of the light shade while it was dappled with shadow. Whenever she feels eyes on her back, she unconsciously curls tighter into a curled up ball. Clary takes note of this too, a crazed gleam in his eye.

Finally, when she is ten weeks old, something in Leyla snaps. Not another bitter sob escapes her, and she is finally and utterly defeated. When he tests her, he scribbles notes about her lack of effort in areas where enthusiasm for the activity used to ooze from her. He attributes her apathy to lack of sleep, and begins to shove drugs down her throat. He was killing her slowly, and it did nothing. The nightmares woke her constantly, and she thrashed in her cage so hard that she bled from several deep welts. He took her off the drugs, and observed her more.

Two weeks after her snapping point, and Leyla refuses to budge. She is stubborn, forceful, and he cannot elicit a reaction from her even with small electric shocks applied to her spinal cord. Her nerve endings wear down, and eventually the pain is nothing but a dull sensation. It almost feels nice as she sits, unmoving, on the table, head bowed. Nick Clary begins to despair for what he formerly knew as his child, and now merely as his experiment, when the fox hybrid dies from blood loss. His company begs him for another animal, and he is too tired to sequence another animal. He doesn’t want to produce something like Leyla again. He signs her off to Bleu Facilities, and regrets it immediately. Having his experiment taken away from him shocks him out of his scientifically induced stupor.

He begs the head doctor, the managers, and all of the executives for his baby back. With a wicked smile, they show him the contract he had signed every time. He wants so desperately to stop trying, but he is Nick Clary. He doesn’t stop for anything. Finally, they permit him to see the little girl he wanted so desperately, the child he made for himself in the form of a lynx kitten. He resists the urge to sob when he sees her scorched fur and the scars that lace themselves in her fur.

Instead, Clary approaches his little girl carefully. When she raises her head and sees him, she drops it back down. The message is clear: I don’t want you here. Still, Clary

persists. And when he approaches her for the thirteenth time, strokes the glossy fur on her forehead, and whispers a gentle apology to her, she spontaneously implodes, a tear falling from one beautiful eye. Clary catches it in his human hand, and holds his other out to her. She smiles slightly, and picks up her right paw and places it in his hand. The little kitten he raised, so graceful and poised in the face of dangerous testing. Clary is proud of his little girl.

Father and daughter made up, the manager escorts Clary out and informs him that if he does not provide the facilities with another test subject, he is fired. Clary resists the urge to walk out and quit, if only because his daughter is still trapped inside the facility. He agrees to the deal.

He immediately begins compiling his sequencing. Brow furrowed, he hits a wall several times, releasing that entire spirals of his helix are wrong. Frustrated, he resists the urge to smash his laptop, and instead completely deletes the block. The animal he finally produces, after four days locked in his laboratory alone, is a magnificent hybrid between a cheetah and a fox. With russet fur patterned with black cheetah spots, a narrow fox’s muzzle, and a long, whipping cheetah’s tail, the animal is perfect. He has twisted and contorted some of the standards, slipping below standard several times. The creature is immune to the pain inflicted by physical injury, but unlike the human disease that destroys nerve endings and makes them immune to pain, the creature can sense heat. It is a superanimal, with the power of a tank. And it is truly a creature that cannot be broken.

As Clary admired his creation, his boss slammed his door open furiously. “Have you finished?” Wordlessly, Clary gestures to the hulking animal lurking in the shadows. It gazes viciously at Clary’s boss. This animal is nothing even vaguely resemblant of Clary’s little kitten daughter. Nonetheless, it obeys him when he snaps a quick command for the regal hybrid to step back. Satisfied, Clary looks for a reaction from his boss.

Peters is merely wordless. He has brought this assistant from the original project, on the lioness, and he is obviously brilliant in his field. Nonetheless, Peters glares at the animal, and barks another set of commands at Nick before exiting with the gigantic animal in tow. Peters barely makes it out the door before the animal outpulls him and dashes away. Peters, prepared for this, snatches up his tablet and types in a few commands. He watches men clad entirely in black wrestle the animal down as it viciously whips up a friendly, with the claws of a cheetah and the cunning of a fox.

In the midst of the wild flurry in the halls, Leyla escapes silently from her cage. It had taken her days, but Clary himself had given her the brilliant skill set she needed to pick the elegant, sophisticated lock he himself had installed on her door. She swallows, ignoring the thought of disobeying Clary, her father. With a few deep breaths, she flees. Within minutes, she is found and wrestled back into her cage. She stares out from her prison, hollow-eyed.

Clary visits her, and his desperate pleas for her to respond are ignored. She had been so sure of herself, and of her ability to pick such a simple lock. Stupid, she berated herself. Stupid. Head bowed yet again, Clary couldn’t talk to a thing except for her glowing forehead. She was growing to have the mental capacity of an adolescent, and he worried about her every time she shut herself away.

Eventually, even Clary gives up on her. It hurts her, but she refuses to admit it. Trapped within the confines of her cage, Leyla herself begins to go mad. Every test, she does not flinch at all. She refuses to despair for herself. Most days, she doesn’t move. She seems to close her eyes and fall into a stasis that she cannot be forced out of. She likes it, hidden in her own mind. It’s comforting, instead of facing the steel bars that surround her.

Finally, when she reaches the age of four months, it happens. A shoot-out. Leyla ignores the sounds of the voices, and closes her eyes with her stomach tightly coiled. Her room is skimmed over, dubbed ‘the room with the kitten in it.’ Leyla is slightly glad that they don’t know quite how dangerous the little kitten is. Eventually Peters is brought into the room, gasping. A gun is held to his head, and he holds out a finger. “If you use her,” he stammers out, “you can get the doctor to do anything.” The gun drops, and Peters is thanked. He whimpers pathetically and flees from the scene.

A man picks up Leyla, handling her roughly. She wants to cry for her father, but instead stiffens completely. She can feel the man feeling her underbelly for anything at all, and thanks her father for being so clever. The burly man, whom she titles Bert, grunts in mild disappointment before sweeping her up and pulling out a knife. Immediately, she goes rigid at the sight. When she tries to unsheathe her claws in some form of defense, he clucks his tongue and presses the flat of the blade against her back. She gets the message, and doesn’t try again. Clary is brought in, gasping for breath. She cringes at his condition.

Bert growls out a command, and Clary shakes his head. Given another chance, Clary still says no. He cries out in a howl of true pain as Bert stabs Leyla, piercing her trachea. She is gone in a cruel instant. Clary goes silent. Bert cuts a slow, jagged line, forcing him to watch. Tears prick at his eyes, but still he does not move to her. He does not provide the sadistic man with the pleasure of having all of his pain.

Irritated with his refusal, the beefy man drops Leyla’s body. Clary looks down at it, knowing she is gone. He says nothing. He has withdrawn, in a manner strangely similar to his daughter’s. Head bowed, he does not move. Bert has to check several times for even the slightest traces of breath. Annoyed, Bert shoves Clary. Nick, in his daughter’s memory, does not make a sound. He wants her to know that he remembers. His eyes fixate on the pulsing light that is still emitted from Leyla’s fur. It has just recently turned sandy gray, he realizes. Despite himself, he allows a tear to escape. Happy sixteenth birthday, he thinks. For his daughter. His little, precious, panther daughter, who had forgiven him.

Richard, also known as Bert, growls with irritation. He has no pawns left to control the doctor who has supposedly compiled all of the best genetic sequencing in existence. His boss would murder him. Eyes narrowed, Richard glares at the doctor who would probably be the reason for the unemployment in Richard’s near future. The doctor is unperturbed, still looking at the little kitten’s body. A shudder runs through his body, and Richard is mildly relieved that he does not have to shove his ear next to the doctor’s mouth again to check for breathing at all.

Richard begins to bombard the doctor with questions. Clary simply stands there, in the same position. Loose, relaxed, and absolutely still, weight shifted to the right foot, head bowed slightly and eyes resting on the sandy glow of the kitten. Frustrated, Richard swings a fist towards the doctor. He doesn’t hold back in time, and the doctor receives the full impact of the punch. Richard is surprised when the doctor doesn’t move at all, or even flinch in the slightest. Irritated, Richard punches him again. Still, the doctor shows no sign of caring at all about the force that should be shaking him.

With a roar of rage at the doctor’s nonexistent cooperation, Richard grabs the nearest heavy object and crushes it against Clary’s skull before his mind can register what his body is doing. He gloats over the fact that he has made Clary move, before he realizes what he has done. Blood is spilling from Clary’s head, and he is woozily walking around. Richard panics, and flees wildly. His job as a government goon is over, he decides as he storms down the pale blue corridors angrily.

Clary is still barely aware of the world around him. He wanders through the halls, completely losing his bearings. He mutters strange things that not even he can register under his breath, and before he realizes it he is wandering next to a closet. Something about it seemed significant to him, so he stopped, and waited.

When he collapsed, he wasn’t really all that surprised. Something about the situation had told him that he was going to. His real surprise was the trio of cats that emerged from the closet in front of him. His eyes widened slightly as he recognized his first failed experiment, the lioness. Two other cats flanked her. They formed a loose semi-circle around him, to see him off. He spent his last moments trying to make out a desperate thank you.

His dying thoughts were of how much the panther and lynx… Reminded him of Leyla.

Part One—Chapter Seven: Deoxyribonucleic Acid for Dummies, and the Unfortunate Consumption of the Mysterious Liquid

Kiara opened her eyes. Rhia and Ebony both stared back at her. Ebony’s twitching tail indicated that Kiara had daydreamed for far too long. An apology resonated in Kiara’s slow step as she got up and woke herself from the stupor yet again. Rhia flicked her tail, mildly sympathetic, but didn’t move another centimeter until Kiara prompted her too. With a heavy sigh, the trio began to travel down the barren corridors. Rhia began to resent the color blue, and it swam in and out of her vision with the grace of an angelfish. Mildly irritated, but too weary to swipe at the visions too desperately, Rhia batted at the fluttering butterflies.

Ebony was still shell-shocked from her earlier discovery, Kiara noted as the trio of cats padded forward. The hollow look in her glowing eyes made Kiara the slightest bit suspicious. On edge, the molten sun colored lioness padded forward with caution, making the occasional pause to check on her companions. Rhia wasn’t faring as well as Kiara had hoped, and the slender little lynx was beginning to wear the same look of despair that Ebony wore so often. Ebony was oddly unforthcoming, not a single communication leaking from her tense control of her body language.

Abruptly, Ebony turned into a small door that was easily missed if one didn’t know it was there. Reluctantly, Kiara followed, and Rhia trailed behind, hesitancy obvious in her gaze. Encouragingly, Kiara flicked her tail, and Rhia’s small steps grew slightly quicker. Kiara smiled slightly, her feline face curving into a lovely, sunny face. Her expression disappeared when she noted where they were, and with some irritation and reluctance, the pair settled on the tile floor of a little cubicle. Both were outstandingly uneasy about entering the office, but neither raised a complaint, noting Ebony’s ease in the room.

The small office was incredibly cluttered, raising Kiara’s eyebrow. Her yellowy green gaze settled on the name plate that rested precariously on the top of a stack of teetering paperwork, and traveled across the metallic plate. It was Michael’s- the assistant Kiara had first met. Choking back a little sob, Kiara stepped forward a few steps. One, two, three. Three was a good number, she noted as Ebony began to stiffen at the sight of the lioness’ few steps forward. Kiara acknowledged the tension, and stepped back once, allowing her green tinted eyes to travel over the messy papers as she did so.

Something resting on the top shelf caught her eye. Nick Clary, she noted. She flashed back to the little scene in the hallway, and desperately tried to remember if the man had been wearing a nameplate. Her eyes widened as she realized that it had indeed been a Mr. Clary stumbling as if drunk through the halls. She exhaled sharply, the slight whistle catching Rhia’s attention. Kiara didn’t communicate another thing, however, and continued to stare at the nameplate. The name taunted her. What was its significance? She didn’t know, and it irritated her.

Ebony beckoned Kiara closer, and the lioness obeyed, dusty brown and gold tail swirling from side to side. Rhia didn’t acknowledge the clear fact that she was being left out, but Kiara’s sweet side took over and beckoned to the ragged silver lynx with a slight dip of her golden head. Rhia shook her head slowly, and backed out of the room. While confused, Kiara didn’t question the movement, and turned to an impatiently waiting Ebony.

The panther showed no sign of irritation, surprisingly, and simply went along with what Kiara had suggested with a few flicks of her swinging tail, sitting before showing off her magnificent find. Kiara waited patiently, not revealing a single sign of being angry with the wait. With a flourish of her tail for luck, Ebony revealed the pile of papers she had been stealing away from Mr. Nick Clary.

Kiara was confused for a second, and then decided to read through the pile of papers. Her eyes widened as she realized what the hastily stacked manuscript really was. She took a single breath, inhaling deeply but sharply, as if ravenous for the information. The pile contained what had the potential to be the most valuable papers in the world. They were Nicholas Clary's sequencing strategies, from Kiara to his most recent projects, like the kitten that was lying in a crumpled pile in the hall and an interesting seeming hybrid between an arctic fox and a wolf. Kiara began to tear through the documents, excited to find his final statements. As the paper grew nearer to the end, Clary grew more erratic and crazed, and his handwriting turned from perfectly formed script to hastily done scribbles.

Taking a deep breath, Kiara flipped to the very last sheet of the long pile. She had long since forgotten that Ebony, the glossy black panther that was the inspiration for Leyla, was standing nearby, a satisfied gleam in her eye. Kiara skimmed the page, and found her way to the very bottom. She read the final, unfinished sentences before soaring right back to the top of the page. She took another deep, shaky breath, and began to read.

"Leyla: escaped," the beginning of the hasty scribbles read. "When I went to see her a few days ago, I tampered with the locks. Brittle and breakable now. She noticed. I know she has forgiven me, but now I must give her a chance to escape the prison I have born her into.

"Locks were easy to manipulate: only seventeen pin fused. How stupid do they think I am? Other twenty three pins unfused and left perfectly functional. Lock handle, melted slightly with heat emitting gloves used usually for the tablets. Leyla noticed, she was bred into the intelligence. I'm quite proud of her, but I don't think that she knows how much. It upsets me that I will never tell her. Perhaps it is for the best. However, I will never forgive myself for giving her life without noticing her complexly unique DNA structure. I believe I've defied God's will for animals to be natural. I will beg for forgiveness on my deathbed, if I remember. I can't believe I ever started this horrible experiment."

Taking another few breaths, Kiara read on. Nicholas Clary mentioned Ebony and Rhia several times, and Kiara finally realized why she had been sent to their respective facilities first, instead of a more popular facility like raptors and tigers. She had been sent to rescue Clary's inspirations. After another thorough search of every piece of paper, Kiara found several hints to Clary's alliance with the agents from Great Britain. Ebony waited, bored. But Kiara didn't even acknowledge the slick, midnight shaded panther until she devoured the script, memorizing every word that she could. She pondered the fact that Clary might have written her sequence as well, but immediately brushed off the wondering tone of her daydreams, forcing herself to memorize more of the never ending stacks of Nick Clary’s papers instead.

Ebony waited, rather patiently after Kiara snapped at her. Silent, Ebony asked for a translation. Slowly, Kiara began to explain Mr. Nicholas Clary’s history as a scientist and an assistant. She spun the tale of a young man experimenting on a lion, and losing his sanity to the call of science. She spoke of wolves, foxes, cheetahs, and much to Ebony’s appreciation, panthers that inspired this young Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate.

Some words had no translation, but Ebony understood Kiara’s wild mews, purrs, growls, and tail waves anyways. The full effect of the words sank in, and the panther was stunned. She had been saved by a man who barely knew her, who had only visited her in

her facility once.. She was amazed that he even knew about her existence, given his elite status and brilliance in his field. Kiara assured the panther that it was no mistake that Clary and Michael had chosen her of all of the panthers in the world. The fact greatly boosted Ebony’s ego, and put her in a much better mood.

When the pair exited from the room, they found a silent Rhia. The silvery and gray lynx was sitting with her green tinged eyes closed, perfectly still save for the steady rhythm of her chest barely moving. The pair screeched to a halt, waiting for Rhia to move. When she didn’t, Kiara cautiously flicked her over the head with a gentle flick using her tail. Still, the third cat didn’t move. Disturbed, Kiara shoved her gently with a massive golden shoulder. The response she got was a slight flutter of the lynx’s dusty gray eyelids.

A questioning gaze arose from Ebony, who was already questioning the sanity of trying to get the silvery lynx to move. Kiara sent Ebony a dagger like glare before turning back to her current project and prodding the lynx again. Finally, after several attempts and several semi loud yowls in both of her ears, Rhia awoke from her stasis, glaring irritatedly at the pair who interrupted her. Kiara looked down in shame, her sweet side taking over with a sudden rush of guilt. Ebony simply shrugged and flicked her tail in a motion that said, forwards, now.

As the group traveled through the pale sky blue corridors, Kiara explained the happenings inside of the closet sized office to Rhia. It surprised Kiara when Rhia simply shrugged, as if she already knew. When Kiara inquired to if she did, Rhia simply answered with a small grin of sorts and a shrug. Kiara knew her answer was a yes at the moment the little lynx smiled, and didn’t push the topic further. The one slip of information that Rhia seemed to not know was the fact that the little kitten was based off of her.

Proud that she had found something Rhia didn’t know, Kiara was smugly silent for a good stretch of endless light blue hallways. Ebony found entertainment in the tile lines passing below her at a steady pace, looking down and watching them fly by. Rhia was lost in a dreamland of her own, and sometimes looked up only to see another blank blue wall. Every time she encountered this block, she looked back down, and proceeded to get lost deep in her own mind yet again.

Rhia was so preoccupied that she actually missed it when the pair of felines in front of her flew to a sudden halt, and she crashed into the just barely behind Kiara. Kiara’s sweet side came out before her aggressiveness could take over, and just dropped the feline glare and replaced it with the equivalent of a sickly sweet smile. Rhia didn’t question her good luck, and instead chose to examine the door they had stopped in front of.

The small trio of cats had finally reached the end of the corridor. Excitement emanated from Ebony as she attempted to punch in a code with a clumsy paw. Kiara gently moved her aside, and without questioning what the door concealed, punched in the code while Ebony dictated the movements of the golden paw. Rhia, oozing with curiosity, peeked inside and gasped at the incredibly human sight.

A long, narrow staircase led a twisting path downwards, and when Rhia leaned further inwards, she caught sight of what was stacked in massive towers and lined up on shelves and against any bare wall space. Barrels. Beautifully crafted oak barrels, with amazingly well made metal clasps and taps extending from them. Curious, Rhia was the first to pad into the store room, marveling at the depth of the cellar. For that is what the giant room was: a wine cellar. The three cats were unaware of what alcohol was, and most were unaffected by the smell that leaked from every single barrel in the room.

Unfortunately for Kiara, the mutation had altered her in more ways than one. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she gravitated as if by magic towards the amazingly good smelling barrels. As she got closer, her former desert of a mouth converted to a pool of dripping saliva. She fiddled with the tap for a few moments, already intoxicated in some way by the intense smell that leaked from the barrels. Unintentionally, she let out a long, steady stream of ruby colored wine, and leapt back as it threatened to stain her fur. The barrel was, thankfully, not too full, and a small amount splashed out of the barrel.

Unfamiliar with the concept of alcohol, the already mildly tipsy lioness leaned forward and sniffed the liquid from a closer distance. Rhia watched worriedly, the smell

getting to her head slightly, while Ebony simply watched, unconcerned. Kiara cautiously lapped at the puddle of dark red wine, before promptly spitting out the mouthful and forgetting about how amazing it smelled for just a few seconds. It only took a few for her to regather herself, and Kiara was soon back on her feet.

It amazed her how something that smelled so amazing could taste so horrible. Laughing at herself slightly, Kiara decided that it wasn’t too bad after all, the subtle aftertaste sliding down her throat rather well. She cautiously took another sip, the sickly taste sticking to her tongue. She decided that it was growing on her, and she was rather thirsty.

She took another few sips. Soon, she had lapped up the entire puddle, and the entire world was beginning to fuzz at the edges. Kiara hiccupped a little bit before staggering back. She couldn’t remember exactly when Rhia and Ebony had rushed down the steps to help her back up from her daze, but she thanked them gratefully as they pulled her upwards yet again. Rhia gave her a hesitant smile, and Ebony looked exceptionally grumpy. Kiara stumbled all over her feet and let out a little garbled warble, the scent of wine dancing through her head.

Ebony and Rhia exchanged a glance, before hauling the golden lioness back up, and steadying her against the barrel she had emptied. With a heavy sigh, Rhia began to slowly push the lioness away from the barrel, but the lioness clung to it desperately, claws sinking into the wood with an extremely strong grip. Ebony rushed in to help, disentangling Kiara’s extremely sharp claws from the wooden barrel. Rhia eyed the few drops of alcohol left suspiciously.

It was going to be a very long night, she decided as she made another attempt to push the lioness away from her precious barrel of wine.

Part One—Chapter Eight: The Understanding that Accompanies Alcohol

Kiara batted away Rhia’s paw furiously, hissing. It was apparent that the lioness didn’t want the other cat to even so much as touch the barrel of wine. Rhia drew back, mildly incensed but not too worried. Her worry spiked when she saw Kiara stumble aside and slur out a few mews. Rhia gazed at her, silent. Something about Kiara was off, it was always off. She was… Incredibly human, and incredibly lost in a world that didn’t understand her. Rhia almost felt guilty for being so feline, so unlike her leader. Some part of the silver, gray, and charcoal lynx pitied the lioness who stumbled around drunkenly. So unlike a cat.

Kiara herself wasn’t quite sure what possessed her. A deep sense of melancholy trailed through her, tingling and filling her with a sense of regret that she couldn’t quite understand. So very human, she reminded herself. Remember that you’re not a normal cat. Through a purplish red haze, she gazed at the floor. Subconsciously, she unsheathed her claws, bitterness shooting through her veins. She could feel the crunch of stone under her claws, but resisted any urge to rake her claws through the floor, instead focusing on the high ceiling of the cellar.

Stupid, the lioness berated herself. Drinking that entire barrel had been stupid. Stupider than usual. Her tense, rigid form must have communicated something she wasn’t aware of to Ebony and Rhia, for the panther showed an unusual bout of compassion and padded forward, draping her tail over Kiara and gently flicking the tip back and forth. The

uncharacteristic shot of kindness brought Kiara back to life for a few seconds, before she slumped back to the ground. The scent of wine tinged her breath, a worrying discovery for both Ebony and Rhia. The reek of alcohol reached the lynx from several bounds away.

Kiara gazed at the ceiling again, lost in a daze induced by a certain ruby colored liquid made from fermented grapes. A whirl of bitterness and randomized thoughts flew through her head. One word echoed amongst her thoughts, and she became temporarily unaware of her surroundings once again. She gently tilted her head back downwards, and eventually reached a comfortable incline, staring directly at a barrel across from her. Tipsy, but still mildly on her feet, a swaying lioness staggered towards the barrel. She sat abruptly in front of it, a confused glance flashing across her face.

The molten gold lioness tipped her head to the side slightly, analyzing the gorgeous grain of the oaken barrel. Its grain was beautiful, actually, and as she stared absentmindedly at the ridges and lines Kiara began to think, pulling thought after thought after the musings that swirled in her head. She smiled slightly, head still tipped to the side slightly, and the same word still echoed in her mind. Human. She identified so easily with the weaker species, somehow. Her absentminded stare came to rest on one of the few small knots in the barrel.

Undeniably human, she reminded herself. The golden cat’s thoughts instantly went to the mutation. Maybe, just maybe, she was actually one of Nicholas Clary’s successes. The drunken thought tucked itself away in her intoxicated mind, saving itself for a more conscious moment. It would appear at the right moment, when she really needed it.

Kiara was instantly reminded of the little panther and lynx hybrid, huddled in a crumpled heap on the ground. The faint glow coming off of its fur… Kiara reluctantly remembered to take a breath. The kitten. Leyla. Somehow, the thought made her smile: a little kitten, a hybrid of stealth and wit. A kitten whose coding was based on hers, the molten gold lioness mused. She immediately halted at the thought. Based on her. It couldn’t be true. She thought back to Doctor Clary’s scrawled papers, and recalled a hastily scribbled entry she had wanted to forget.

An inebriated Mr. Clary had lashed out at his kitten of a daughter, and immediately gone home, feeling guilty. It was one of the first nights she had spent without a true father, and he felt guilty. Nonetheless, he had run home, tail tucked between his legs, and spent the entire night doing an experiment. He had stayed up the entire night, tirelessly working on the one comparison he had the heart to do that night.

He had pulled up the coding he had done for Kiara. With some careful programming, he had written a hasty script allowing him to compare DNA structures and features, and imprint them onto a clean egg. It had taken him hours, and he had stayed up half the night compiling the complicated code. Nonetheless, within a few edits his programming worked, and he excitedly began to type up both Leyla and Kiara’s complex DNA structures.

After several hours of deliberation and examination, he had reached a conclusion. Kiara closed her eyes at the memory. She had tried desperately to forget the circumstances, but in her alcohol fuzzed state, she couldn’t keep control of her wild mind. It had brought the memories to the surface.

Dr. Clary’s work showed clearly in her mind. She tried to shove the detailed image out of her head, but it appeared anyways. Immediately, the drunken feline gave in, and allowed the memory to wash in.

“DNA structures strangely familiar- cannot remember coding so closely. After projecting onto clean egg, similar results have been produced. Difference is in appearance. Intelligence and humanity strangely similar. Cannot believe results, must retest. I believe that this is a breakthrough, but I must hide it. Manager will take idea and implement it for evil, and that cannot happen.”

Kiara closed her eyes, but the wine colored haze didn’t leave her. She resisted the innate urge to open her eyes, dash forwards, and wreak havoc on another barrel, and

instead recalled Dr. Clary’s conclusion that the sequencing injected into Kiara had had the exact effects of some of Leyla’s special structuring. The difference? The age- Kiara could still remember being herself. What that meant, exactly, Kiara didn’t want to know, and instead chose to flutter her eyelids, soaking in the information. She was, essentially, the basis for the beautiful kitten that was now dead.

Her eyes flew back open. She was this beautiful little kitten’s mother. Her cubs had, essentially, not died ever. Excitement rushed through her, before it crashed back downwards. The little female kitten was dead. She couldn’t be brought back. The whirlwind of thoughts crashing through Kiara’s head, smashing into each other at random, immediately screeched to a stop. The kitten was gone, and there wasn’t a thing Kiara could do about it.

Back from her high, Kiara gazed at the world with unfocused intensity- she hated it with a passion, suddenly, for killing the life she might have borne. Eyes flashing green, she let out a strangely satisfying feline hiss and leapt forwards at the barrel in front of her. Wine tinged her vision again, and she slashed at the oaken barrel with unsheathed claws, trying to release the endless stream of frustration that somehow had appeared deep inside of her.

With a few, deep, steady breaths, Kiara closed her eyes. She could feel the wine soaking her formerly golden paws. She had to focus, concentrate, anything but get lost in the surge of anger that had been bottled up ever since the kind mutation had swept away her entire world.

Kiara finally realized how empty she felt without that familiar rush of ferocity. What she would give to have everything back. The mutation had destroyed her, and everything she represented as a lioness. Bitterly, her eyelids threatened to soar open again, and she had to growl loudly at nothing but herself to restrain her insane reflexes. With a few deep, steady breaths, she attempted to control the insane anger that threatened to possess everything about her.

It suddenly failed, and another roar escaped the newly empowered lioness. Her unsheathed claws threatened to destroy anything in the room around her, and suddenly the lynx and panther beside her seemed very good targets. The intense anger that had been bottled up for eight months threatened to flood the entire building, puddling on the floor like the wine that soaked her feet. Frustrated, she let out a wild roar that returned her back to herself. She was wild, intense, and free again.

Some part of her never wanted to go back, and suddenly she was intimidated of herself. With a frustrated gaze, she fixated upon the nearest object, and stalked up to it angrily, threatening it with an intense glare that did nothing to the barrel. With a wild roar, she slashed at the barrel at random, spilling wine everywhere yet again. Kiara suddenly loved the rush that accompanied the ruby liquid. It allowed her to be wild again, something the sweeter part of her had yearned for.

Panting heavily, the haze began to leave her. Some part of the lioness never wanted it to go, and begged the alcohol never to pass from her. The smarter part of her brushed it off and begged it to leave. Kiara felt the demonic version of herself pass, and with fluttering eyes, collapsed on the wine soaked floor, finally succumbing to the tired ache that had possessed her.

With a scared glance to Ebony, and then to the lioness herself, Rhia began to haul Kiara out of the puddle of alcohol she was steeped in. Ebony helped, slightly intimidated and brought back down to Earth by the lioness’ wild display. Eight months’ worth of anger, released on pitiful barrels. Ebony felt a wave of sympathy for the crazed lioness, and said not a word as she dragged the lioness by her limp, wine scented scruff.

The lioness herself struggled weakly before finally giving up and crashing back down to the ground, what little strength she had left sapped by the display. Rhia quietly flicked a sympathetic tail over the pair of golden ears that rested before her, and with a slight, sad smile, she picked up the lioness by the hind legs again. No struggle escaped Kiara, who was fast asleep by then. Ebony managed a resemblance of a smile, and aided the charcoal and gray lynx in hauling away the drunken lioness.

With the slightest resemblance of a smile, Rhia returned Ebony’s expression and hauled the wine soaked golden mess of fur away. The pair worked at a steady pace, taking deep breaths between stairs. Kiara herself was no help, a crashed mess of ruby fur. She nearly rolled down the stairs several times, which infuriated Ebony and mildly amused Rhia. By the time they reached the top of the seemingly endless staircase. Ebony’s stomach hissed loudly, startling Rhia and waking Kiara.

Ebony’s sheepish look led Rhia to the conclusion that the entire crew needed to eat. A still drunk lioness was forced upwards, an annoyed panther was roused, and both of the sufficiently annoyed duo were marched to a randomized office by a bossy silver- gray- charcoal colored lynx who wouldn’t take no for an answer. With a frown, the midnight colored cat finally agreed, if only to stop the ‘lynx with a cause’ from exploding. The lioness was still far too drunk to care, but sober enough to be silent and carry on without a word.

Finally, the trio of wine scented felines reached their destination: a little office with a fridge. Rhia immediately ransacked the pathetic little white device, pulling out several strips of chicken (which Kiara eyed with distaste) and a few rib eyes. Kiara began to question the sanity of the person who kept the fridge when Rhia also pulled out a few slices of turkey, but didn’t question the stroke of fortune as she gazed hungrily at the food.

Rhia smiled, success tinting her gaze. She had scented the food on their way to the little cellar, but hadn’t called attention to it. Ebony gazed hungrily at the turkey, while Kiara drooled over the rib eyes. Rhia’s little smile grew when she realized how well she had done. With a swish of her tail, she permitted the other two cats to eat.

Kiara leapt on the two rib eye steaks that lay pristine and untouched on the floor, packaging neat and precise. With a happy tear, she ripped through the plastic wrapping, a skill she had learned from months amongst humans, and began to chomp away on the first steak, practically swallowing the little piece of meat whole. Ebony hesitated, unsure if she should take the precooked turkey or chicken, but finally decided and began to chew on a slice of the cold turkey.

The charcoal streaked lynx took the strips of chicken and chewed them, satisfied with the outcome of her little raid. As the trio ate, not a word was meowed, nor a single muscle moved, save for the satisfied chewing of a bit of meat. Finally, one by one, they all began to drift off.

Rhia was the last to fall asleep. Content, she curled in a ball under the office chair and promised herself that she would make a plan to save Michael the next day.

Part One—Chapter Nine: Unfortunately Poor Planning

Rhia woke, drowsy, before shooting upwards, crazed with a sudden need to run in circles like an animal possessed. Wincing, she pulled herself from her position on the floor, and then blinked the sleep from her eyes. Cringing visibly, she scanned the room, before bolting forwards and into a randomized room. Luckily for her, the lynx had managed to

scramble into a janitor's closet, and she managed to relieve her morning urge to use the restroom on a small pile of towels. With an odd determination, she dashed straight back out of the closet, and began to tear through the rooms.

Kiara watched, with an odd sense of amusement lighting in her eyes. Rhia was odd in the mornings, a strange energy possessing her until the afternoon. There were no exceptions. Rhia tore through the building with the sense of urgency that was usually only found in anxious mothers, paws leaving skid marks and scratches on the tile and tearing up large swaths of carpet. Ebony, who had been asleep for the first half of Rhia's strange display, woke up with a sour expression on her face, cured by the slice of turkey that remained from the night before.

While ragged and worn, Rhia had extreme amounts of energy for a cat who had just woken up. Kiara attributed it to her freedom, and Ebony simply found it annoying and didn't question the wild movements of the silver and charcoal cat. With some sense of irritation, Ebony managed to fall back to sleep with her ears flattened and shielded by the walls of the cubicle she fell asleep in.

Rhia had completely forgotten about the night before, and the only thoughts running through her mind involved running like the wind. It was certainly an odd trait for a lynx, but every single one of the trio had her own little quirks. Rhia's just happened to be exceptionally unconventional. Rhia was exceptionally observant as well, and had already figured everything out about Kiara and Ebony. It was quite funny, actually, because neither of the other felines knew. Rhia had noticed Kiara's absurd waves of kindness, and figured out the reason. Ebony's little quirk was inexplicable, and Rhia couldn't quite put her paw on what exactly it was.

These odd little thoughts swirled in Rhia's mind as she pelted through the building, her downy feet a blur. She ran like a cheetah, bounded through the hallways like a hare. It was rather interesting, the random little things that came to mind while she ran. Running was almost a good thing for her, inspiring her and making her thoughts flow, albeit in a harebrained manner. Rhia let a little lynx version of a smilen fall on to her face, and continued to race through the building, occasionally flicking her eyes up at the blue walls.

Suddenly, Rhia stopped, her gray tail flicking anxiously. The energy had dissipated during her run, and she realized that she had no idea where she was in the building. Tail beginning to droop slightly, she turned around and began to backtrack. The only thing acheived by this was another random bout of confusion, and a mild feline headache pulling itself to the front of her skull. Irritated, Rhia let out a little huff and sat down, shaking one of the cubicle walls slightly.

Her eyes widened when she realized where she was, and she began to back up a little bit. Lying before her was the little kitten's body. Rhia immediately felt sick to her stomach, and forgot all plans involving the assistants or even plans to walk back to where Kiara and Ebony was located. She closed her eyes, a dark wave of anger washing over her. She opened them momentarily, feeling sick as she stared at the little mess of fur. She had managed to push it to the back of her head for a while, but then... She shook off the endless waves of doubt and began to pad towards the kitten.

A few centimeters away from the little body, Rhia stopped, uncertain. She had no clue whether to proceed or not, and ended up pausing instead. She stared at the kitten's body for a few seconds, the slight scent of rot wafting towards her nostrils. Suddenly, Rhia became angry, and frustrated. She frustratedly raked a claw through the tile, making a loud screeching noise and leaving a gigantic scratch. She picked up the kitten by the scruff, ignoring the slight smell of death that surrounded the little glowing body.

With a heavy, depressing sigh, muffled by the fur of the kitten, Rhia began to wander through the hallways again, looking for a burial ground of sorts. She got even more lost, but entirely ignored it, focused completely on her new goal. The lynx and panther hybrid became a little bit heavier with every step Rhia took, but she ignored it, keeping her head high and ignoring any sign of where she was. Finally, she stumbled upon a small habitat, little plants dotting it. Satisfied with the artificial ecosystem the scientists had created, Rhia gently dropped the kitten's little body onto the soil.

With a determination not unlike the one that had possessed her earlier in the morning, Rhia began to shuffle through the dirt, her claws catching on the clumps and flinging them far away. She began to dig a hole, first starting with a shallow one, before increasing the small hole's depth and measuring whether it would hold the little kitten. Finally, when she finished, the little, ragged lynx, closed her eyes in a few moments of peace for the little kitten. After a few moments passed, her eyes fluttered open again, and she carefully dropped the crumpled little body of the hybrid into the hole. A tear, surprisingly human, slipped into the hole, and after a few moments of consideration, Rhia began to fill the hole.

Pawful after pawful of soil began to fill the rather deep hole. Rhia had to take a few deep but shaky breaths between every pawful that dropped into the hole, tears threatening to leak from her eyes and onto the grave otherwise. Rhia momentarily wondered where she had remembered the ritual from, but then realized that it was from the facility she had come from. After the short pause, she continued with her almost mechanical movements, filling the grave with loose soil that she managed to pick off of the surface of the soil.

Finally, the feline finished, breathing heavily and tired. She briefly wondered how Kiara and Ebony were faring, before bringing her wandering attention back to the matters at hand, namely, the finished grave. With another few deep breaths, Rhia closed her eyes, gave the little kitten a moment of prayer, and turned around and exited the little ecosystem.

She wandered through the pale blue hallways for another few minutes before remembering her plans from the night before. She was hesitant to dismiss them, but did anyways. Kiara and Ebony could do it, she realized. Michael wasn't her concern. She continued to wander through the endless labyrinth of cubicles, offices, and finally stopped at a random one for a rest. The charcoal striped lynx realized that she had actually been breathing quite heavily, and allowed herself a rest. She closed her eyes, and sat in the middle of the cubicle she had randomly chosen. Her breathing eventually evened out, and she sat in peace for a few moments just for the sake of it.

When she opened her eyes, an obviously irritated, glossy, black panther awaited her, tail flicking tensely and piercing gaze irritated. Rhia managed to squeak out an apology, and with a slight eye roll Ebony beckoned for the lynx to follow. Rhia obeyed, afraid to cross the panther again. Ebony led the way through a series of twisting, sharp turns, before finally stopping at a cubicle Rhia recognized.

With a grateful nod, Rhia slipped back into the little office, where Kiara was still a little bit- what was the human word for it? Hungover, Rhia remembered with a little jolt, before settling in a slightly upright position in front of the lioness. Her gaze roamed over the lioness’ pelt, before settling on the closed eyes of the molten gold lioness. A little smile still on her face, Rhia stepped forward slightly, tapping her tail a few times on Kiara’s head. The lioness woke after a few taps to the skull, slightly irritated. Rhia peered at the lioness’ eyes, searching for reddened veins. She didn’t have to search very long, for the lioness’ eyes were quite obviously bloodshot and worn.

A scolding tone tingeing her usually warm mew, Rhia told Kiara of the events of her drunken night. Kiara’s eyes widened a little at the mention of her bottled up anger, and confessed with a few brief flicks of her tail that she did not remember a single second of the night before. Rhia narrowed her eyes, clearly angry for once, and Kiara apologized, for once humbled by the fury barely concealed in the lynx’s eyes. It wasn't normal for Kiara to submit to anyone, but judging by the unusually angry gleam in Rhia's eye, it was probably the best option.

After a long, lengthy apology, the guiltily sweet Kiara pulled herself upwards, the last hints of a hangover clearly present in her eyes. Ebony winced slightly at the struggle Kiara put herself to, and finally, Ebony reached forwards and helped her fellow feline get up from her crumpled position on the ground. With a thankful nod, Kiara sat upright, lost again in a whirl of her thoughts. Rhia noticed this, but completely forgot her own plans for the day, instead choosing to vent to herself the time, promising that she would never glare

at anything in such a manner again. Eventually, Rhia's internal monologue turned into a guilty stream of apologies for the innate cruelty of glaring at anything.

By the time