Chapter Text
"Stop, Weapon X, or I will be forced to hurt you.", Stryker said, the worst of his captors. He held something in his hand, a device he used to hurt him whenever he showed even the slightest intention of disobeying. He was pressing it now, had been for the past couple of agonizing seconds. The weapon could´t understand anything besides the word 'Stop', but the intention behind the man's words was understood clearly.
'Stop, and I will not hurt you.' They always lied, just like now. He was hurting him and had been for the past couple of months, regardless if he behaved or not.
The device in the man's hand made electric shocks rack through his body from the visor on his head which made his vision swim before him. It hurt, it really did and it would have been enough to stop him before but now, after so many times experiencing that kind of pain, it wasn't enough to keep him in check any longer. He saw the exact moment that Stryker realized it too.
He ran, past the jailers that he had already killed to try and escape. He should've known the attempt would be a futile one as the weapon, broken out of its cage ran in wild movements after him. In only a few seconds, it had Stryker subdued, pressing him down with his back to the ground. The weapon made a feral beast in face of its torturer, snarling in his face, baring its teeth and making saliva drip down its chin and into the man's face, his pleas ignored in face of the sadistic satisfaction the beast took from the fear emanating from every pore of the man's body. It breathed the scent in before doing what it always wanted to do since he first awoke in this hellhole and found itself at the mercy of that cruel grin.
With a wet squelch, the beast dug its fangs into the man's face and ripped the flesh from the skull. Stryker screamed in agony while it only gulped down its prize with a sick grin. It went in for another round, tearing out the cheeks, then the nose, the lips and brows. It didn't taste that good, it wouldn't have thought it would, but the metallic taste of blood coating its own lips felt like salvation and revenge, of course.
Stryker was no longer resisting, but he wasn't dead only unconscious from the pain and terror. A pity, he would have liked to see the man squirm a little bit longer. Looking down at his masterpiece though, he couldn't really complain. Stryker's face, if you could even call it that, was a mess. Most of the bone was stripped of meat and the few remaining patches of skin were painted red with the man's own blood. One eyelid was missing, exposing the left eye to the steadily flowing blood, staring up to the ceiling unseeingly. The nose was only bone now, making the man look like a rotting cadaver. The exposed teeth twisted the man's face into a grimace of perpetual insanity and agony, fitting with how the man always elicited those emotions in him or his other experiments. No longer could the man grin down at him in the same sadistic grin that the beast's own lips were currently contorted in, in face of his euphoria.
He looked down at what he's done and he did want to admire his work for a little bit longer but was interrupted by the blaring of alarms and the shouting of his other jailers. Rage suffused his body again, forgetting Stryker to instead enact revenge on the others.
He met the first round of bullets piercing his skin, which were shortly healed by his body, with his own round of slashes from his deadly claws, from which there would be no recovery from.
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It was so loud.
His senses were assaulted with the blaring of the warning signal of the facility while his vision was suffused with red, whether it was from his rage or the visor of the device on his head was unimportant. Little pinpricks of pain forced his body back, fueling his fury. The sound of his rapid panting and angry growling and snarling not as satisfying as the screams that his claws elicited, as they sliced through flesh and bone and pointless armor. The cold concrete beneath his feet a stark contrast from the warmth of the splattering blood and his straining muscles.
He relished in the fear that emanated from his jailers made prey. Payback for all their cruel kicks and hits and incessant prodding to his manacled form in his cage.
Now he did a lot more than kicking and hitting. He snarled as he drove his claws through the face of the guard in front of him, the blood spraying on the walls, the man falling to the ground, gurgling as the blood prevented his last breaths from leaving him.
The manic grin on his face stretched wider, showing his fangs as he bared them in triumphant joy. The force of another round of bullets hitting him made him snap his head the source of the nuisance. The guard froze when the beast looked at him, realizing his mistake as he tried to flee its wrath.
A few fast pushes of its legs were sufficent in reaching its prey and putting those deadly weapon of it to good use. A well aimed swipe to the back revealed the guards spine and without preamble, it ripped the delicate thread of bones out. Blood sprayed on his face, the metallic taste on his tongue a familiar sensation.
He knew somewhere that this unnecessary violence had made his escape harder, but the reward was too satisfying to worry about that.
Yelling he couldn't understand came from around the corner, near a corridor he knew smelled of the outside. For the past twenty minutes had he fought his way through the facility. He thought that by now, there wouldn't be any of his jailers left.
But no matter. He enjoyed to inflict the same pain they did to him.
On quick and quiet feet, he launched himself torwards the corner and collided with the guards that were just around it. He ran his claws wildly through everything made out of flesh and bone he could find, rending apart everything in his path.
He was so close. He could smell the sharpness of the scent pine trees permeated through the metallic and penetrating scent of blood and fear. Just a bit more of his efforts brought a quiet that was only interrupted by the wheezing of agonized gasps. And after that, only the sounds of the now distant alarms.
He wasted no time, now that he was satisfied with his work.
He clawed the door open, the sound unpleasant to his sensitive ears, and burst through. He took no time to take in his surrounding, instead immediately falling into a full sprint. There was no snow, not yet at least, that could slow him down as he ran, sometimes on all fours if the terrain allowed it.
His powerful legs carrying him meter for meter and kilometer for kilometer. Away from the lake and his wretched cage in the tightly secured basement. His legs could keep him going for quite a distance, his stamina and strength stronger than that of a human. The wind was cold and biting at his ears, the sun setting into a half-circle, painting the landscape into beautiful yellows and orange. His panting breaths came out in small clouds, reminiscent of a dragon's steaming nostrils, though he wouldn't know what a dragon was.
About thirty kilometers into the woods, he slowed down into a jog, his muscles burning and his throat parched, begging for water.
He lifted his nose into the air, scenting it to try to locate a water source. A faint scent hit his nose, the trail leading him about five kilometers to his left. With the promise of water as motivation, he went down on all fours, the terrain flat ahead of him. He always had been faster this way in missions, the acceleration with four limbs on the ground far greater than running on only his feet.
With renewed speed, he reached his target in ten minutes.
Sadly, he miscalculated his speed and careened head first into the freezing water. Gasping, he emerged and promptly put his head back to the water's surface. With greedy gulps, he downed the water into his thirsty gullet, yawning his mouth wide for the best efficiency. Then and now he would have to pause to yield to his screaming lungs that demanded to be filled with oxygen. Only after what felt like he had drained all the water in the river, did he calm down, giving his lungs all the oxygen they wanted. He used the chance to clean himself of the blood, the sensation of it sticking to his skin unpleasant.
He knew he had to keep going though. He remembered their weird, loud flying thingies, that never left him alone when training outside, their loud sticks aimed at him from inside. He had learned that they would never leave him, would always want to hurt him.
He shook his head, trying to card his fingers through his ragged hair, but was stopped by that device on his head. Irritated, he pawed at it, and when that didn't help, he unsheathed his claws for help. They effortlessly slid through the wires and other electronics, eliciting sparks that made his body twitch. His hands threw the device away from him, and he went over to it to stomp on it, revenge for all the discomfort it had brought him. With a satisfied huff, he gave the now mangled corpse of the helmet a smug look, and turned his back to it to start on removing the other weird and offending things on his hips off of him.
When he got them removed though, they didn't fall on the floor like he thought, instead they dangled by his calves, held in place by the wires that went into his body. They were pulled taut, the sensation reminding him that they were there in the first place. For so long, he had them in him, and his body, or maybe even he, just seemed to have ignored them in favour of his overall well-being. But by pulling them out, the relief he felt made him realize how much they deprived him of living in a painless state.
A loud sigh emitted from his mouth as he watched the wounds close. Stretching to feel everything not ache, the strain on his muscles having healed as well. As he started to make his way alongside the river, uphill, he gave one last look back, before looking forward, knowing he would rather die than to go back there. Even if it seemed impossible, he was sure he could find a way to kill himself, because the alternative was too cruel to live in.
The dull thump thumping his hands and feet created on the forest floor gave him some comfort, while the occasional mud soothed his palms and soles. It was almost completely dark now, just the last rays of the dull light and the forthcoming stars brightening his path along with the thin moon in the vast sky, even if his nightvision allowed him to see in much darker environment. If he listened beyond his panting, he could hear the rustling and calling of the dwellers of the night. He listened to the sounds the wind made, disturbing the trees and foliage around him and carrying scents to him, pleasant and soothing and sometimes decidedly not, though many of the scents were unfamiliar. He had an inclination that they hadn't always been that way, though. That many things had been familiar to him before.
Thinking about the possibilities of a 'before' made him uncomfortable, and he shook his head to stay in the moment, to let the sensations wash over him again.
The feeling of being left alone made him grumble happily, and the resulting adrenaline it pumped through his veins, made him positive he would have enough energy to keep on going through the night.
A manic grin made his lips hurt, as he began to recognize that he was running away from capture and pain, torwards freedom. That was the feeling that pumped his veins full of energy. He decided he liked it.