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Act III: Paradise Lost

Three minutes later, Zerrex twitched and woke up with a grunt, and even though psychotic - and worse, philosophically-paranoid - thoughts about how this could all be fake, a trap, another illusion made by Drake, etcetera, ran through his head... the utter freaking agony running through his body... his inability to wish it away no matter how hard he tried... and the fact that he stank of piss and his own waste let him no that this was no illusion. Nor would any illusion have graffiti from scientists on the walls of his cell that included jokes about protonucleons - what the fuck was a protonucleon? - and vaginas, and Zerrex didn't think any part of him was that geeky. Furthermore, there were no sexy demonic entities here to clean him up.

"Help me." he mumbled to no one in particular, but this time he got a response from his own head, as Drake said clearly, as if he was standing right beside him: Okay, sure, just let me go get my hacksaw. Oh wait, that's useless, because you, you stupid fucker, just had to wake up and be in the physical world.

"Somebody sounds jealous. I'll buy you a sweater." Zerrex mumbled, and he twitched, wincing with pain at how hard his head was pounding. He forced his body to bed - his spine and abdomen made their feelings about how unfair it was that they had to move first very clear - and then looked up to see a rusted iron chain that he had no doubt he could break if he wanted to. He groaned, mumbling, and then Drake sighed in his head before muttering: Give me a minute. Fuck. You're such a baby.

Zerrex gave him two... and then he blinked as he realized that the pain in his body had faded somewhat, so that now he could actually think and do something other than moan uselessly. He gave Drake a mental thank you, then he winced as he slowly forced his arm to move up and grab the end of the chain: it was like bending steel girders, though, just to move... and the other arm and fingers were worse. He figured they'd been bending the right one and keeping it limber and out of atrophy just to make sure the blood flow from it wouldn't be restrained by anything. Thoughtful of them. Really.

You talking to me? Drake asked irritably, and Zerrex snorted laughter and gave a pained grin: it was just so goddamn weird, to think to yourself... and then have someone ask that question in your head. He allowed himself to laugh a bit harder, watching for any notes of hysteria as he managed to get his other hand to bend around the iron links... and then he pulled as hard as he could.

This was apparently a mistake, because instead of breaking with a neat clink, he crushed several sets of links in his hand and tore the chain with such ease that he fell before he knew what the hell was going on. He hit the ground with a grunt, and groaned as the pain came back in full, his toeclaws twitching slightly but his body otherwise refusing to respond at all, leaving him spasming weakly on the ground. There were sirens going off in his head, that's how much it hurt... and then he blinked slowly and cursed under his breath with a mutter. "Oh crap."

But he still couldn't move... and a goddamn biohazard alarm was going off for Subject-0. Neat. He was number zero. That sounded really great in a status report... and he mumbled a few other nasty curses as Drake yelled at him for a little while in his head, looking around his room at the obviously-broken camera in the corner, to the heavy, single door leading in and out, to the blood stains all over the walls and floor - he remembered that thankfully, not all of them belonged to him - and the brand new machinery sitting along the concrete walls, and something his few bits of medical knowledge identified as what was probably a crash cart: something usually kept in hospitals filled with all sorts of neat drugs, machinery, and crap to keep a person's body living even if it tried to die. He wondered idly how much morphine was currently in stock, before he heard yelling voices... and then he quickly faked what would normally be a faint, but he guessed for him was being comatose.

He heard footsteps in the room... lots of footsteps... and the clink of keys, the readying of a rifle, and scientists bickering in Hez'Rannan. Then, as if someone had clicked the translation button on the television screen, he understood what they were saying... and Drake muttered that the quick-notes explanation was that he could share his own knowledge with Zerrex, just as he could read the reptile's mind... and that the language of Hez'Ranna happened to be his own native tongue.

"Oh yeah, he just fell, after all these years!" muttered someone, and then he sighed and shook his head. "Drake isn't working, that's the only explanation... come on, he had to have woken up, broken free, and then fainted after he fell."

"You're an idiot." said a female voice clearly, and then she continued with complete confidence, saying mildly: "Drake has never failed before, and Drake never will fail us, because he's the only completely-working nephilim... even now, after... who knows how many years of research by first Hellabos and his scientists, and then us and Mengele! And no one knows how or why Drake works the way he does... and do you really doubt Patriarch Narrius?"

"Like I can argue against that..." mumbled the first scientist, and then he shook his head and sighed. "Just check his pupils then, make sure he's not responsive to light or stimuli... here, I'll give the first check."

And with that, he stepped forwards and kicked Zerrex hard in the chest, but compared to the rest of the pain the reptile was in, it was like a relaxing massage. Then he felt a foot stomp on his kidney, which was a bit worse... but no big deal. What was harder was not laughing at the sound of the slap and the female whining: "You bastard, you're going to kill him! Get out of here!"

The scientist snorted, and Zerrex heard some fumbling around and fading footsteps before another male voice said mildly, as someone kneeled beside him: "Don't bother checking his eye movements... he's not in true coma, remember, and we've been dosing him with the anti-atrophy drugs as well, even though he's in more a vegetative state than a coma... and we've got mild response from him before, mumbles and once an arm movement."

"That's probably why Karaven doesn't like him. He was the one that peed his pants when Subject-0 jerked." muttered the female, and there were a few other snorts in the room before Zerrex felt a hand gently touch his neck, then chest. "Heartbeat's still irregular, but I don't think the arrhythmia's gotten any worse. It's definitely a side effect of the extranobarbanol."

"We need the muscle paralytic... otherwise who knows what could happen." added a younger voice, then it muttered: "But I bet it's going to make it tough chops to get him back up there... maybe we should move him to a bed? And will someone turn off the goddamn alarm?"

A short silence, then a few clicks, and a deep voice rumbled: "Lab complex A223 security center, this is guard ID 952. Requesting silencing of alarm, reason being malfunctioning equipment, over."

"Guard ID 952, this is guard ID 770, responding to your call." came back a curt, equally-calm and trained voice: they almost made it sound like their ID numbers were their names... something Narrius would teach, no doubt, since it would make it harder to identify who-was-who, especially over radio communication and if they were given rotational identifiers... 1 today, 10 tomorrow, 100 the day after, etcetera, then starting at 1 again. "Verify reason, over."

A slight shift... and then the alarm flicked off and the voice on the other end said calmly: "Reason verified, thank you, guard ID 952. Praise the Hez'Ranna Regime."

"And all glory to our superior race. Over and out." returned the guard, and then the clicks of a radio being hung up on a belt as he added in a mutter: "Christ, this is the disowned prince. I didn't think that the Patriarch would be keeping him in this facility."

"We aren't allowed to talk about it." said the calm, curt voice of the other male who'd spoken, the one who'd given the information about comas. Then he sighed and added in a mumble: "But I do wish I'd never taken this job under Mengele. He's brilliant, but after all these years, I'm tired of singing his Pack chants on one hand and praising the Patriarch with the other."

The female snorted, then he thought he sensed a grin as she tried to move his arm: it hurt like hell, but he made it as stiff as possible, resisting her movements as he realized what was the likely problem: his joints were swollen, and his muscles were paralyzed by some drug. "Then go join the resistance fighters, Mike."

Mike snorted laughter, losing his professional demeanor for a moment, before clearing his throat. "I don't have a death wish, either. Better to be a bit annoyed every now and then than end up being one of Mengele's experiments."

Fingers prodded him, and then the female sighed. "I've got phase two muscle degeneration... his joints have stiffened up to the point they're barely moving, and his muscles are flexed rigid. Maybe we should move him into the IECR for monitoring and detoxification..."

"Mengele will kill us..." said Mike warningly... but then he sighed and nodded, then there were the sounds of shuffling footsteps. "I'll go get a cart... no, it's no trouble, guard, I'll get it myself. Thanks... but I should find Karaven as well, make sure he won't rat us out to Mengele..."

And then they were gone, and the female doctor was left checking over his body, before she stood and glanced over at the other doctor who was apparently in the room, asking mildly: "I'll give you five bucks if you tell Mengele Pagel thinks his Nazi flag is a Hanukah ornament."

The other scientist snorted at this, and Zerrex could hear the amusement in his voice as he spoke: "I'm not suicidal, hate to tell you. Karaven Pagel is Mengele's lapdog... even if he went against Mengele and did something dumb, or argued with him all the time like you do, it wouldn't change anything. Mengele loves having him around, he's like a pet... that's why Mengele lets him do anything he wants."

"Too bad I'm not as inclined to kiss ass as he is then." she muttered, then paused. "Ten dollars if you'll tell Mengele he's a spy from the rebels."

Then there was the sound of a cart smoothly rolling towards them, and footsteps as Mike presumably reentered the room with another. He and the other unknown party - Zerrex doubted it was Pagel - rolled the cart over beside the reptile's prone body, and then Mike said in a kind voice: "Now if you two would be so kind to assist me... I'm not sure how much he weighs, but I know it's probably nothing that we could lift. We'll check it in the IECR."

"Bet it's close to half a ton. A metric ton, that is." remarked the young male's voice, and Zerrex felt his arms and legs grasped, his shoulder joints creaking loudly and someone else muttering to be careful, agony ripping through his body as they lifted him... before they set him down on the table, and he felt it bend under his weight. He felt questions rising at his throat, almost tempted to open his eyes and ask just what the hell had happened to him, a sensation rising in his gut that something about him was very different... but all he got was what sounded like a grinning response from Drake: Be quiet and wait. It's a nice surprise, I promise.

The reptile felt himself rolled around for a few minutes, and then someone stopped and there was the bleeping of someone entering a code into a keypad. Zerrex tried to remember the sounds... very low, very low, medium-high, very high. One... one... something... nine?

Okay. Uh. You're psychotic. You can't tell what the fuck the buttons which buttons are being pressed without looking. Drake muttered in his head, and Zerrex rolled his eyes inwardly with a mental mutter to shut up and wait.

Then he felt himself rolled into a room with buzzing machinery that beeped every now and the, and lights that made his scales feel strangely warm. Drake muttered something about restorative technologies, and Zerrex made a mental note to himself to find out what he could later... either by snagging a computer system, or a scientist and making them cooperate.

Then he felt himself shifted onto... a bed that was just a bit too small for him, and he heard mumbles before the top half bed inclined on a whirring machine, leaving him half-sitting on the tilted mattress as two powerful hands adjust him with a grunts and mutters. He guessed the Dragokkaren... and he guessed there were two of them. Standard low-security even if they were well-armed and well-trained, and he apparently outweighed them... and that meant he was probably stronger than them, too, because from what he'd seen in his brief period of being awake, he hadn't exactly put on any fat with whatever they'd been feeding him.

A sigh, a few mutters. "Let's get a nurse in here... oh, right. The Patriarch denied our last request for more nursing staff, so all... six of them are probably all working on the patients in Fael Hall at this moment, right?"

"Yeah, the soldiers who underwent angiogenesis regeneration experiments." replied another calm voice... Mike, he guessed. "You want to change him into a robe?"

"Well, we need to do all the usual... what's that IV prepared with?" asked the female voice, and he heard the sound of gloves before he felt her undoing his pants and beginning to tug them off with small grunts of effort, as he kept his body and stiff as possible. Every jerk caused a roll of pain through his form, however, and he winced as he felt his tail being squished under his own weight and every hard jerk pulling on it. Then she finally managed to get his pants down, and he thought he could hear amusement in her voice as she asked: "So who wants to do the nurse stuff and touch that?"

"Every time I see it, I think it's not possible to attach that much flesh to someone and still have them capable of moving around properly... or not killing somebody with it just to get some attention." muttered another voice, then the male sighed. "Fine, fine, I'll do it. Dr. Caloha, why don't you go snag a robe and get another nutrition bag from the cart, it's... yeah, type two. Once we get him rested in, we'll check the levels of paralytic in his blood and then I'll get the oxyfibropan."

There was a pause, and then Zerrex heard shuffling for a little bit before someone checked his pulse, then pulled open one of his eyes. He looked up to see a worn-looking Dragokkaren in a science coat, with a kind face and small glasses: not exactly the mad scientist type he'd expected. He brought out a small light, shone it in the reptile's eye for a moment, then flicked it to the side several times, but the Drakkaren kept himself looking straight ahead. The doctor made a bit of a face at this, then sighed and shook his head, dropping his eyelid and looking away: a good thing too, because the next moment, he felt someone grasping his penis, and then... Oh my crap, they're... Ow ow ow ow ow ow...

Someone was rudely sliding a long rubber tube up his urethra to his bladder, and he suddenly didn't have to work so hard to keep his body tense: instead, he had to work to stop himself from spasming. Sure, the pain in the other areas was bad... but this just felt plain nasty, and whereas he was used to pain over his body, he didn't think it was so common anyone shoved anything up his penis.

A few moments later, the agony was over... and instead someone was just brushing him down with a wet cloth, and he was able to concentrate on listening again as he gave an inward sigh at the small relief the wet cloth was giving him, as they gently hand-washed his body. "-decreased, so maybe we messed up the dosage of the extranobarbanol? Or maybe one of the nurses who changed his last drip got the numbers wrong, set it for... well, even fifty milligrams over with this stuff could mess him up more..."

"I dunno... we have had periods before where he'd slipped deeper towards coma... but if his pupils aren't responsive to stimuli anymore, we might have a bit of a problem." A pause, and then Zerrex felt the doctor shuffling around him wet an area on his hand, before shoving a needle into him, almost causing him to twitch: the sudden sharp pain was mostly swallowed by the rest of the burning fire through his body, however, so he managed to restrain himself as the top of the IV was inserted. He concentrated on this for a moment, but it seemed they had just inserted the top portion: he wasn't hooked up to anything yet.

Then the reptile heard a bit more shuffling before strong hands grabbed him and leaned him forwards, and he felt something being slid over his head... a gown, he guessed. He expected them to fight with his arms to pull them through sleeves... but they just adjusted him slightly on the bed, bending his shoulders down a bit so his arms were more to his sides, and as he heard the scrap of thick cloth at the front and the back, he recognized that they'd put him in some armless, ties-at-either-side piece of material.

Then he felt the IV in his hand twitch a bit as someone plugged a tube in, and someone else clipped something onto his finger: a moment later, he could hear a faintly-irregular beeping nearby, and the sound of a curtain being pulled as someone else grabbed some other thing dangling from the intravenous line. A few moments later, there was a double-beep, something was withdrawn, and a voice said mildly: "Look at his readings... they're all off. And it also seems he has less extranobarbanol in his system than he should, so yeah, someone must have messed up the dosage... he must be suffering from withdrawal effects, and who knows what the hell the nephilim is doing to him."

"I'll start him on hypermorphine and a sedative to counter the side effects." came the female's voice, and there were footsteps before she spoke again, from over at some cart, apparently shuffling through materials. "I think ghesobardon. It'll sedate him and cancel out the effects of the hypermorphine."

"And oxyfibropan, just to wash out the rest of the extranobarbanol... if he is having withdrawal symptoms, then the GSB should take care of that too, keep his heart pumping a bit slower but regular." said the first doctor, Mike. He seemed to be the leader figure of the bunch, calm, collected and smooth... but without being too much of an ass. It wasn't like Zerrex was really understanding half of what they said, but that was alright.

So instead, he merely lay back, keeping his eyes closed as they did their tests, and someone wiped him down a bit more and combed the crud out of his hair before leaving. Finally, all he heard was mechanical beeps as a heavy door slid closed, and he dared to peek one eye half-open... and saw nothing. He sighed softly, then looked to either side, the pain in his body already greatly diminished. He sat up a bit... then blinked at how easy it suddenly was to move. Sure, it hurt... but he felt like he usually did after a hard workout instead of like he'd just gotten his ass handed to him by say, his uncle.

He sighed a bit as he looked around, checking his surroundings: he could tell the walls on his right were one-way glass... and there was a metal door that was currently closed tightly. Then he glanced down at the clip on his finger, noted it was hooked into a monitor that displayed all sorts of scientific readouts - he understood the blood pressure, the heart rate, and that was really about it... - and then he looked to the other side to see a thin curtain was separating him and another individual shivering in the bed next door. He shuffled back and forth, then paused and looked down at his hands, frowning a bit as he muttered in a raspy, unused voice: "A thousand pounds?"

The reptile looked around... and he thought he could see a bathroom at the end of the room. He mused for a moment, then wiggled his toeclaws before nodding to himself slowly and bending his legs next... but the only real way was to test. He paused, however, looking up at the monitor and wondering idly if it would set off some alarm... then he reached up and tapped the power button, feeling strangely proud of himself. First puzzle solved.

The Drakkaren swung his legs out of bed, put his feet on the ground with a wince... and then he glanced down, pulled the thing on the end of one finger off and tore out the IV with a wince, flexing his hand, then he stood slowly, eyes closing, wincing... but Gods, it felt good. His bare feet on the floor, back in reality... he flexed a bit, then grinned as he hopped from foot-to-foot without any pain.

Then he bent backwards, wincing a bit at the crack of his spine and blinking owlishly as he looked up towards the plain ceiling lights in the low roof... his eyes were still unused to the light. A pause, and then he reached down under his gown and his eyes rolled up in his head with a small grunt of pain as he carefully pulled the rubber tube out of his penis. He had to admit, though, it felt... strangely damn good to grasp his own member again and know that... this was really real, this was here... and then he paused as he realized... Am I bigger down there? And... wait. My body is...

He shook his head slowly as he dropped the gown, looking over himself... then he turned and headed down the narrow row between the two beds in this... IE-whatever... room and the shelving units that were filled with all manner of medical supply: apparently it doubled as a storage room, and he got the uneasy feeling from how... vulnerable all the important-looking stuff here was that it was probably not a room where the mobile patients were often allowed to stay. A pause, and he glanced at the visitor in the other bed... before wincing and cursing quietly under his breath, murmuring softly as he walked slowly up beside him: "You're one of those... Unseen. But... my Gods...

Its sightless, white eyes had withered up entirely in its sockets... and it was gargling silently, cloth restraints around its arms and legs as it struggled uselessly. The burned flesh around its eyes had turned black and was pulsing sickly, pus and blood alike rolling down its face... and foam was coming from its mouth. The body beneath the plain gown it had on was so shriveled and emaciated that he could see the outline of his ribs even through the cloth... and the thing's scales had paled until they were nearly white... and in places, had turned black and were peeling back to reveal pus-covered, infected flesh beneath that was literally throbbing: and it was a sight the Drakkaren could only pity.

He shook his head slowly, then paused, hesitated a moment... before reaching a hand up and squeezing gently down on its throat. It writhed a bit harder, but it seemed to weak to fight as it began to wheeze in and out as the reptile put increasing pressure steadily on its esophagus, crushing it under his grip and recognizing the creature didn't even notice the pain... it just noticed the lack of oxygen. "Shh... shush..." he whispered softly, and the thing seemed to recognize his voice, to look up at him for a moment... before its head finally fell back and it lay still, the reptile's fingers leaving deep bruises around its crushed throat as Zerrex stepped back and shook his head slowly. "Sleep now."

Then he turned and headed towards the bathroom, slipping inside... and then staring at himself in the full length mirror inside, his eyes widening, trembling violently. He looked at the scale on the wall, which... had to be wrong, had to be... then down at his hands, then back up at himself, and finally he whispered: "What the hell happened to me..."

According to the carefully-etched scale that started from the floor... he was standing at no less than twelve feet tall, and his body was thick and powerfully-muscled... a bit bulkier than before. He reached up and silently removed the gown... and revealed his broad, powerful body, covered in scars. There was also a large burn mark around one eye, and the eye had turned partially crimson, like a gunshot bloodstain that had splattered over emerald glass. And even his hair... it was so much longer - how the hell had he not noticed that? - hanging all the way down to his ankles in the back now, raggedly spilling to his shoulders, and with the front propped up as always in the strange, natural bangs he had. His body was thick, powerful, his muscles bulged and flexed with his movement, showing that he had perhaps less than an ounce of body fat between thick scales and fleshy muscle beneath... and his body was chiseled far better than he'd ever expected. And he was definitely bigger down under too, and he stared stupidly at this for a few moments, before looking once more at his hands and clenching his eyes shut.

The horrible thing was... yeah. He liked being bigger than people, he liked his power... but this was... too much. A hundred and fifty percent, probably more, than his original height? His body thick and muscular, attractive and bulky and powerful even despite the scars... but he wanted him back. He didn't care that he was admittedly better this way, that he was obviously stronger, and that he was likely huger than even your average Dragokkaren... it had all come about the wrong way. Through freakish science, experimental genetics that had obviously ruined any chance of him being anything other than a war machine...

Stop being an idiot. Drake snarled, and Zerrex looked up into the mirror before punching it in a flash of sudden fury... and staring as he knocked a hole through it and into the concrete wall behind. Then he brought his hand back... and the scales were gouged and damaged, sure, but even with the chunks of glass that was stuck in his hand... none of them had penetrated through the thick, natural armor that had apparently been taken up yet another step by some biological experiment. Drake, however, got the point and shut up, letting Zerrex work through this his own way... before he looked at the last thing reflected in the broken mirror and frowned, looking down at his bulging right bicep with disgust. "Oh, what the hell is this?"

There was a thick black swastika tattooed onto his arm, with a strange, twisting barbed vine running through it... some Gaelic design overdone with a national socialist symbol. The reptile muttered, now completely sure this was reality, before he turned to head back out and figure out how he was going to break free of the facility...

"Because you're all idiots!" screamed a furious voice, and then the door slammed, and Zerrex stared in horror at the Drakkaren that walked into the room, snarling... then staring at him... but instead of that look turning to horror, the other reptile slowly grinned and then began to clap, laughing loudly: "Oh, priceless! This is amazing, truly amazing!" Then he paused and looked over his shoulder with a frown, then he ran over to the bed, quickly lowering it and snarling: "Hurry the hell up, get over here and lay down! Those other morons will be here any minute, I need them to think you're dead so I can move you out of here!"

Zerrex blinked, then the Drakkaren literally jackknifed the bed in what looked like glee, turning the heart monitor back on and ripping the curtain aside to check the dead body of the Unseen. Then he looked up, frowned at Zerrex, and asked mildly: "So do you want to get out of here, or would you rather be reported to 'mister mein fuehrer' and get your ass killed?"

That got the reptile moving, running quickly over to the flat bed and jumping into it, at the same time trying to get a better look at his scrawny, bitchy savior. Before he could, however, he turned and threw a sheet over him, snarling: "Stay still, even if that little whiny bitch Pagel hits you, as I'm sure he will..."

There was something odd about him... his clothing... his voice... but Zerrex obeyed, at the same time hating the familiarity he had and trying to place it with a wince. Then he heard a dry curse, and the heart monitor above go crazy for a moment, glass shatter, and another loud curse before there was the sound of a curtain sliding back, and Zerrex tried to still his thudding heart as the door opened.

"What... oh my God! What happened?" asked the shocked, terrified voice of Dr. Caloha, the female. This was met by a snort, and Zerrex suddenly felt himself being wheeled along as the Drakkaren muttered, then he responded by shouting in her face as he passed.

"You killed him with the hypermorphine, that's what happened! Check his last stats on the heart monitor, it caused a massive cardiac incident. I'm moving him to the morgue for dissection and experimentation, and then I'll have to inform our great and terrible boss of what happened." As the Drakkaren spoke, his voice went from the angry shout that likely made the female cry to a loud calling as he rapidly wheeled the bed down the hall. Then a right, the sound of a door opening, and then another quick left, and a sigh of relief as the door slid closed and a lock clicked. "Here we go."

Zerrex blinked, then he sat up and began to turn to face the Drakkaren... before his eyes stopped in shock as flashbacks of voices played through his head, looking at the beaten brown desk in the plain office stacked high with papers, syringes, and boxes of ammo... the battered leather chair behind... and then what looked like a modified Narrius crest that was now apparently the Hez'Ranna flag, hung between two hanging Nazi tapestries, both with black swastikas in white circles, faded and damaged, obviously from some old bunker, with many of the golden tassels missing.

And then Mengele Tstegi walked between them, standing in front of his desk with his hands behind his back and grinning coldly at him, his eyes alight with madness and passion. He was short... scrawny... his lab coat was dirty white, streaked with blood and grime... and then he shrugged this off and sighed, tossing it away to reveal that he was wearing clothing made of fur... and an old, gold-plated luger handgun hanging at his waist.

The fur was black with brown streaks through it, the upper portion a tight, strange thing that covered his breast and upper arms, but left his forearms and thin stomach covered by fishnet. Then he had a belt with a double lightning bolt on the clasp, and a silver wolf head hanging beside this, dangling from the chain. Then his pants were plain, fitting into rawhide moccasins that looked like they were made of some other kind of animal's skin... and then Zerrex recognized that the bottom of them were made of a pair of grotesquely-large wolf paws that fit snugly over the Drakkaren's own feet, with silver chain wrapped around both ankles. And last, but certainly not least, he wore fingerless gloves over hands that were thin and small... and yet the shape wasn't like his own, but more like a wolf's hand, with smaller claws and what looked almost like black pads on his fingertips.

He also had a heavy collar around his neck with the Hez'Ranna flag on it... but it looked like it was made of flexible metal, not leather. It was loose enough, though, that Zerrex could see the long surgical scar that went from the bottom of one eye looked like it went all the way around his neck... and the reptile almost winced before he sat up slowly and said softly: "You're... the head scientist at this facility, aren't you?"

"Yes. I am. I'm not surprised..." he paused and smiled slightly, looking at him with mismatched eyes... and Zerrex noticed with horror that one was white, and a bit too small for its socket, giving it a strange, rolling appearance... and there were three long surgical scars that rolled out from this eye. The eye that had a color that only occurred naturally in a few species of canine and lupines. Oh dear Gods. "So how much awareness... did you have over all? Not as much as I'd thought, from the stares of terror I'm getting." A pause, then a grin. "And by the way, how do you like the tattoo? I gave some... idiotic, impossible reason to those morons out there, but in reality I just thought it looked good on you... I like to leave a personal mark on all my favorite experiments, you know."

Zerrex slowly stood, almost double the height of the puny, scrawny Drakkaren... but Mengele looked up at him fearlessly. Then he paused, checked the watch he had on one wrist, and held up a finger. "Give me a moment, will you?"

He walked around his desk, and Zerrex didn't think anyone had ever turned their back on him with such utter lack of fear. It made him feel both respect... and cold anger at being treated so callously, before Mengele shooed him backwards a bit, and Zerrex snarled. At first, his instinct was to step forwards... but Mengele pointed upwards, and the Drakkaren cursed quietly as he saw a small camera built into the ceiling. So instead he stepped slowly back, and the Drakkaren smiled coldly before suddenly smashing his hands across his desk and then turning and kicking his chair over, and then he threw himself backwards into the wall with a wince. He slid down it, shook his head as he drew his handgun, and then called in a raw, furious voice: "Emergency! Security!"

The camera above clicked once, and then a cool, deep voice spoke over the intercom: "This is security operator ID 9-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Mengele screamed, then he hobbled to his feet with a snarl, wincing in what looked like agony and half bent over as he shouted furiously, waving his handgun around angrily: "Code A5 biohazard alert, Subject-0 has escaped, lock down the entire fucking facility! Close it down, close all the security shutters!"

"Authorization, please, Dr. Tstegi." replied the voice on the other end, but it sounded shaken, and Mengele's eye twitched before he rose the handgun.

"Here's your fucking authorization!" And with that said, he shot off five rounds into the security camera, and Zerrex leapt back, wincing, as chunks of metal flew from the ceiling and then the camera fell out of place. There was a buzz of static from the intercom, and then an alarm began to go off and a heavy shutter slammed down in front of his office door, muffling the sound slightly as a cold voice repeated the same message about a biohazard lockdown over and over again.

Then Megele straightened, hit the safety on his Luger, and holstered it before grinning over at Zerrex coldly, walking back towards him around the desk and spreading his arms as he stood on the other side of the small, burning wreck of the camera. "That will buy you a few hours, maybe a day or two. You'll be able to leave this facility through there." The Drakkaren pointed at a hatch in the corner of the room by a bookshelf, adding mildly: "It's my private shuttle back and forth, and my emergency escape route. After they built it, I made sure it wouldn't be affected by any of their... idiot lockdowns or alarms or whatnot, and wouldn't set off any, either. We have information there's a rebel base somewhere nearby... if you're half as strong as the stories say, then you'll find it."

Zerrex frowned at the scrawny Drakkaren, whose eyes were glinting and looking at him with both impartial entertainment and strange interest, before asking slowly: "Why are you doing this? You're the head scientist here... you even called me your... 'favorite experiment.' So why help me like this instead of putting me back into coma or killing me and dissecting me?"

Mengele looked down for a few moments into the fire smoldering between them... and then he smiled a strange, lost smile as he said softly: "When I lived my real life, and even for a little while after I first was revived, I would have told you to shut up and go. But I have learned lately... that risk is fun, and story time is the best time of all. So I will tell you, lizard, my story.

"I was the head scientist for the Standard Rule Pack, a species-separatist movement that had nothing to do at all with national socialism... was quite the opposite in some ways. But because this happened... many a year after the Nazi movement that swept across Ire, we often used their bunkers and their abandoned camps to set up our own. It was the easiest, after all... and we were in the North, campaigning, killing, and fighting to set our wolves apart, to create not just a pack, but an Alpha Pack that would rule over all the northern wolves... perhaps even eventually all the world.

"One of our main enemies to this was not the other wolves... quite the opposite, we were gaining new members every day, new people supporting the Lupe Council. But the cetaceans, who had already inspired their own order in the northlands and who were always so damned arrogant, thinking themselves better, stronger than us, and yet fearing what we would do should we organize ourselves akin to them, began to make more and more vicious attacks upon us, to which we responded with greater force every time. Finally, however, my people... lay broken and bloody in the snow, and as I worked frantically in the labs to make cures and weapons to kill our hated adversaries...." Mengele shook his head and then he smiled cruelly. "But there were good times, too. Times when our ambushes went successfully, times when we took power in cities... many of the other species recognized our superiority as well, in numbers, strength and pride, and of course, they were all happy to join us... the cetaceans with their... corruption and disgusting controlling ways, so often they ran the cities in gangs and by criminal, urban battle...

"But they summoned help, running crying to Ire, as back then we of the north were our own country, and they sent a great army to support the cetaceans with bombers and fighter planes and tanks. We were crushed back and destroyed by superior weapons..." Mengele snarled at this, closing his eyes and clenching a hand into a fist, smacking his thigh angrily. "The bastards... ran crying for help, because they realized they were losing the war... so they got someone bigger! Someone meaner than us, and hid like cowards behind their... mechanical, pathetic toys! I, I do not dabble in such unrefined bullshit, but the art, the symphony of genetics and mutation..." Mengele looked down in utter disgust at his strange, padded and gloved hands. "Those weaklings... they call me a monster, a monster, because I dared to experiment upon the living and the dead, I dared to probe the mysteries of the unknown and explore the untamed wonders of the body, finding cures as often as I found killing drugs. But no, that they leave out of the textbooks, that they don't dare speak of...

"And then they charged the living members of the Pack with war crimes, inhumane cruelties and... all other manner of... utter bullshit!" Mengele scowled, looking up and crossing his arms, fury burning in his mismatched eyes, canine-like teeth drawn back in a snarl. "If we had won, we would have been heroes! But we lost... and so they were the heroes, and they got a gentle smack on the wrists for what they did to us!

"Ten thousand tons, ten thousand tons, of liquid nitrogen was poured into our deep bunker and the surrounding area! No one talks about that, though..." Mengele snarled and shook his head furiously. "All of us standing there, hearing the sound of what seemed to be a sea coming towards us, listening to the ceiling crack, the planes overhead dropping loads of the stuff, and finally the doors breaking and being frozen alive! Frozen alive, half-drowned, but before you can, the stuff freezing in your lungs, turning solid! The agony..." Now the Drakkaren grabbed his head, wincing, and then he slowly composed himself and looked up coldly across at Zerrex.

He paused though for a few moments, then put his hands behind his back and turned around, gazing at one of the flags with fondness, and his scarred features smoothing out as he said softly: "They too, were misunderstood, swathed in black and called evil. That is why I loved the bunkers, too... because of all the strange things you could find inside, and study the history from a different side. Understand that in the early days, before they began... blatant genocide, they were supported by the very people who turned on them later and attacked them. See the love letters the officers wrote that never got delivered... the way they cared for those injured, and about the tortures that not they used, but were used on them from the other side. Starting in the far nation of Frerica, which had been so long repressed, children in the schools beaten, beaten if they sang the old national anthem instead of the new, standardized version not even written by a person of the nation's blood... do you call them mad for patriotism?"

He turned back around and smiled, and this had a touch of softness to it that made him look strange, embers of the fire swirling up around him. "Yes, patriotism. That is the only charge I see them guilty of... do you... really think what they did was so terrible? They killed innocents, they killed people for stupid reasons, but dear God in his empty Heaven... that happens in every war, and every day. Races abused and mistreated, species crushed out of existence? The same thing happened to us, the northern wolves, and the surviving cetaceans were given medals and gold stars, and now there is no longer such a thing as the arctic wolf in this world.

"Death camps? There are plenty around the world, holding innocent people hostage, using torture techniques to get information and crush the life out of people... no. They had an ideal, and they tried and fought for it, because they had their back against the wall with shitting-idiot trade agreements that were crushing the life out of their once noble nation that had stood a thousand tests before this. But because they targeted once specific religion, one specific race, they were seen as villainous and hateful... but yet, we see 'evil' people every day abused and mistreated, tortured by the 'good guys...'

"Do you think they're so good? Are they so... pure at heart, so brilliant, such children of the one you call God?" Mengele smiled as Zerrex glanced away, closing his eyes. "Exactly. And I myself... brought back as... a belly-sliding reptile now, by your father, by the all-inspiring Patriarch, to repeat history, do again a great service to the world, but the world resists..." Mengele paused and smiled slightly, shrugging as Zerrex looked up at him. "And this time? Many reptiles see him as a hero, and Hez'Ranna all but worships him despite the state it sits in now, this divine city damaged and in ruins... but even I see him as a monster, and I know you do as well. I've listened to Drake's reports, heard what you've said about him, and think about him. But herein is the irony of the situation, and what I want to prove true once and for all; if you win this battle, they will call you a savior and your father a monster who uselessly slaughtered millions... but if you lose this battle, he will be the savior of the world... and you will be forgotten and painted black by history as an ignorant savage, a disobedient son who led army after army to their demise trying to stop the world from finally being at peace."

Then Mengele turned and walked over to his desk, searching through the still-standing metal box on it as Zerrex looked down, snarling and clenching his hands into fists... then he glanced up when the scrawy scientist cleared his throat, standing nearby and holding out two thick file folders. "These are experiment details on yourself and... call it a tour of the city. You might want to go over these later... keep them safe and secure." He paused and glanced over Zerrex as he took the files, then turned and added mildly: "If you're still convinced you want to save the world, there's a security booth at the main station, where my personal shuttle is. It's only manned once a month, however, and there's still a few weeks until the next routine check. I recommend you get some pants if you still want to challenge history."

With that said, he turned away and began to straighten out his desk, dismissing the Drakkaren. And Zerrex looked at his back for a long few moments, before Mengele straightened and finally said: "This is simply another experiment. No matter what, Narrius will not kill me... you read the files, and you will find out why. But that swastika on your shoulder... wear it proudly. It symbolizes evil, hate and prejudice... but it's for you to decide who is really the sinner and sinned-against, and if you're interested in standing up to the world to do the right thing or sitting on your ass to do wrong. But should our paths cross again, the only time we'll have for discussion is between the gunfire."

Zerrex paused at this, then he snorted and gave a slight smile, feeling hate, respect, admiration, and even sadness mixing in his chest before he said softly: "Thank you, Dr. Tstegi."

"Mengele. As you are Zerrex, I am Mengele..." but when the Drakkaren turned, Zerrex had already vanished, the hatch in the corner just falling back into place as the Drakkaren's eyes flashed, and he added softly: "But next time I'll be the mad scientist and you'll be the experiment come back to kill his creator."

The white-haired Drakkaren, however, was already hurrying quickly down a narrow stone passage, wincing a bit and feeling a cold draft touch his scales... his body was starting to ache again, and he wished idly he'd stolen some of that super-morphine or whatever the hell it was. But as he moved... pumping his arms and jogging at an easy pace... he felt his joints limbering up more and more, and his muscles becoming more responsive and bending and flexing easier. Then he paused as he reached a door at the end of the dim hallway, and pushed through into what looked like a private subway station, complete with platform and guard booth... but as Mengele had promised there was no guard in the empty station and no stairs leading out, only what looked like a white, armored subway car with black-tinted windows sitting idly, the doors open and the vehicle ready to move.

Zerrex let out a sigh of relief, then he shook his head slowly, glancing down at the files... and deciding he'd read them later. For now, he had to get out of here... and he knew that it wouldn't be long before Narrius would have his soldiers doing sweeps of the city to look for him. He frowned though, remembering Mengele's last comment as he headed quickly for the door to the small security station, easily knocking the crappy door open with little more than a bump of his shoulder, and he looked around to see a desk, a small microphone on a stand, another intercom... and a row of lockers. The Drakkaren decided to check these first... frowning when he saw the lock on the door... then blinking when he yanked on it bad-naturedly and simply tore the plain combination lock right off with the strips of metal that had held the door closed.

It swung idly open with a creak, and the reptile stared at a locker with a few magazines piled on top, a picture of a pretty Drakkaren in a bikini - it was really pathetic that he was tempted to steal it - and a small, old-style strap-shut backpack. He grabbed this and dumped it out, finding a box of condoms - like they would ever fit - some ugly-looking dress shirts, and a few pairs of pants... including a pair of black military pants that the Drakkaren seized on immediately. No boxers... but he slid into the pants with more thankfulness than he'd thought he'd ever have for such a simple thing, even after his loincloth experience.

He checked the rest of the lockers as well... finding a calendar in one and having a moment of horror as he realized how many years it had been, then fighting off the shock and instead forcing himself to search through the locker, not letting himself shut down. He could cry, yell, punch things, whatever, once he got on the train... for now, he had to move, and move fast.

The only other things he found of interest, however, were a few boxes of bullets and one of shells, a few scattered gun parts in a plastic bag, a pair of combat boots, and a heavy, plain cleaver sword. He frowned a bit at the last, wincing at how heavy it probably was... but then blinking as he lifted it with ease. He inspected it: it wasn't very well kept, but it would more than do for now...

The handle of it was plain, wrapped rawhide... and the blade was thick, thinning to a narrow, brittle edge, and rectangular, maybe seven feet long and the handle adding another two feet to the total length. The handle also had a crappy leather strap on it that allowed him to throw it over one shoulder and carry it like that, and the backpack he decided to simply carry for now. He also managed to dig out some plan cloth bandages, which he added to his pack after contemplating wrapping up the tattoo... but decided against it and instead frowned a bit as he thought of Mengele's words, heading out to the plain subway car.

He stepped inside, looked back and forth in surprise at how luxurious it was; red padded bench seats on either side, a small table in the center of the room that he threw his junk on, and in the back a tiny bar and fridge unit. There was also an open door leading into what looked like a cabin... and he walked forwards into this before blinking as he saw only a set of windows, a plain chair, and a transparent electronic monitor.

He peered at this for a few moments... then a double beep sounded before a technical statistics readout printed across the screen in plain black font and a female voice said cheerfully: "Hello sir. Please identify yourself."

Zerrex stared back and forth in surprise, staring around at all walls and corners of the room, then he stopped with his eyes on a tiny camera hidden in the corner. He stared at the camera for a few moments, then blurted stupidly. "Mengele Tstegi?"

"I'm sorry, sir, your voice readout and image don't match Dr. Tstegi's. Please try again." said the female voice in a comforting tone, and Zerrex frowned as he looked into the other corner and caught sight of another camera. It made him horribly nervous, and he looked into the screen and finally said: "Uh... Zerrex Narrius?"

There was a pause, and then his own voice said clearly and calmly: "Zerrex Narrius." A moment later, the computer buzzed, the stats printout vanished, and instead a train route appeared with twenty different dots, seven of them larger than the others as the female voice said perkily: "Welcome, sir, to your first trip on the personal shuttle of Dr. Tstegi! We've been given a specific route course in mind by Dr. Tstegi to take you on, but if you have other plans in mind, we're more than happy to comply. Please don't hesitate and just ask if you'd like to go anywhere specific along the route, or feel free to take your seat in the passenger cabin and we'll take you Dr. Tstegi's preplanned place-by-place tour."

Zerrex blinked at this, then he shrugged before mumbling: "Um. Thank you?" and quickly turning to flee the cabin as the computer laughed at him in the simulated female voice. He winced and rubbed his head, then stared as the doors slid closed and a red light flashed above them. The Drakkaren stared at this, then the train gave a small lurch - nothing more than a tiny jerk forwards, really - before sliding smoothly down the tracks with a comfortable electric hum, the floor barely vibrating under the feet of the reptile.

He sighed and brushed his hair back from his eyes, wincing a bit and looking back and forth, then carefully sitting down and mumbling as he pulled his own hair, and shifting to brush it out to the side as he reached out and grabbed his backpack, pulling out a file. He looked down at it and the Hez'Ranna double Dragokkaren on it, feeling his stomach lurch, then he opened it, trying to think of anything but how long it had apparently been... but then his eyes settled on the front page and the four faces on it.

"Oh... god..." he whispered, trembling violently as he stared down at the pictures... himself, Cindy, Cherry, and Marina. All with ID numbers, all old pictures, obviously... but the timestamp on the top corner of the page told him it had been printed on the fourteenth as part of a daily report, giving the reptile some idea of what day it had been as he laughed faintly and closed his eyes tightly: beside what he guessed were experimentation numbers, they were all stamped as active... and even though he knew Mengele was more than good enough to fabricate fake stats on a computer, the report was official... and had been stamped several times with different identifiers by those who'd seen it and authorized it, and it included his father, Narrius.

"And Mengele's insane... but I don't think he's suicidal." Zerrex said quietly, looking down at the report with relief, and simply gazing over the faces of his family, before his eyes locked on Marina's picture. She was the only updated one, even though the stamp below noted it was a few years old... and her eyes were serious and cold, defiant and so damn bright that they just about burned out of the page, and she was beautiful and looked older than she would have been... thirteen but she could pass for twenty. Her face said she'd seen Narrius's cruelty first hand... but he smiled and held back tears because he also thought her cold, icy look said Narrius had still failed to even bend her will. "She's always been... so damn... stubborn..."

Just like her father, is she? Drake asked in a softer tone than usual, making his reappearance in his head as Zerrex snuffled and rubbed at his eyes, a few tears falling on the paper. The dark nephilim seemed to hesitate, then added mildly: They... they are all alive. They've all suffered, and I don't think the older two females are doing so well... but they are alive.

Zerrex nodded and glanced quickly through the report, but much of it was coded... and all he could make out was a few locations, snarling as he saw that Cherry was being kept in a breeding facility... and then grinning as he muttered: "No, they wouldn't have to rape her... she'd rape them or screw 'em for kicks just to tell me later how strong she is... and Cindy's in a genetics facility? Probably a POW death camp or genocide lab..." He shook his head slowly, then murmured quietly: "And what the hell is this..."

At the back of the report, were stapled notes, handwritten by Mengele, containing complicated figures and calculations so intense and insane that Zerrex couldn't make out anything from it. He did, however, recognize almost immediately what it was, especially with the spiraling DNA graphs hand-drawn and illustrated by the mad scientist on the sides of the page in the margin. "No... it's not possible. They tried that before, it didn't work..."

It was a mutating, viral disease... the most fearsome weapon of war, a biological monster that would infect and kill entire armies. But this one, from the bits of English babble and the few science concepts Zerrex recognized from his military training on searching for important documents, was targeted specifically to anything non-Drakkai... and kill them. Likely slowly, because even though Mengele and Narrius seemed to be at odds on most other things... Zerrex could tell from one encounter with him they were likely almost equally as cruel.

And now all of Mengele's words made sense, his speech about good, evil, right and wrong, the 'experiment' he said he was running, the reason that he'd let Zerrex go... maybe, although being Narrius's head scientist, he wasn't as evil as the reptile had thought at first, or he wasn't nearly as cruel after all, in retrospect. Or hell, maybe he just wanted to save his own goddamn species... but whatever else, he'd given Zerrex something that forced the reptile to choose between participating in a war to save the world, or a war to save his family... but the chances of doing both were slim-to-none.

The reptile closed his eyes, cursing Fate, cursing the idea of god or God, cursing his miserable life and dropping his head into his hands, snarling angrily. Of course he had no choice... he had to do what was right... and even though he was trying to keep optimistic, he knew that... goddammit, he knew they could be broken, not dead but wishing for it... tortured, experimented on like him, darkened and destroyed... and then Drake said in a hesitant voice: There... is a way to do both.

He blinked and looked up, then asked in a raw voice as tears spilled down his face: "How? How, Drake? How can I save them and... and do what's right?"

You will never cease to amaze me... Drake said softly, and Zerrex frowned as he rubbed at his face slowly. Offered Heaven in your own world for... who knows how many days, weeks, years that could all be as long as you wanted... the control you've lusted for, the powers of God... and you fight to throw yourself back into Hell. Into a reality that's a worse punishment than death ever could be... for what? A chance at seeing your family again? No... your motives are more and less selfish. To do the right thing, to be back in the war, to kill your father while blood and battle boil... you're almost a saint with how many sins you've committed to 'do the right thing.'

But you're an idiot too. Drake remarked dryly. As with everything, the rule is location, location, location. You know your father... breeding facilities, genetics facilities, where he creates his soldiers. He's obviously no longer recruiting... why recruit when you can clone, revive, create a soldier that will last forever and build an army out of ashes that could conquer nations with some gum and a roll of twine? Cindy and Cherry are kept at two facilities, probably in secure areas... if you can get to them, you can get them out, learn about the experiments going on, and then blow the building to bits... instead of being an idiot and blowing it up before you try going inside to look around, you fucking moron. It's more dangerous... but the rewards are higher in the end and it still sits in your goal of doing right. And as for Marina... you remember what Narrius wants to do with her. Which means...

"If I find Narrius... I find Marina. And I can accomplish two objectives at once..." Zerrex said slowly, and then he closed the file and carefully put it away in his backpack as a dark, cold smile spread over his face, and Drake snorted. See how much you can do when you stop and think instead of just going into 'everything's tragically hopeless' mode? "Shut up, Drake. But yeah, I get your point."

The reptile looked down at his hands slowly... at his shirtless chest covered with the scars of old experiments, as he touched the raw, black-burned scales over his eye... and then finally looked down at the swastika tattooed into his arm as a reminder from Mengele of what the war was about, what he was, and what he was fighting for. The vines seemed to twist back and forth, rotate as he flexed and relaxed... but before he could reach for his other folder, he heard the shuttle gearing down and then halt with a gentle bump, and the perky female voice said warmly: "First stop, Sector 10, otherwise known as Necropolis! Please enjoy your tour of the area, and let me know when you wish to continue the tour! The shuttle will lock down once you leave, and you only need to use the hand scanner outside next to the door to come back inside. Only you and Dr. Tstegi will be permitted inside, so please, don't worry about your valuables! We'll take excellent care of whatever you leave behind and have a state of the art security system in place as well. Please, enjoy your tour and have a nice day."

Zerrex stared blankly at the ceiling... then he decided it wouldn't hurt to take a look around... but he was careful to sling the massive cleaver over his shoulder as he stood up and left through the now-open door, which slid quickly closed once he had stepped through. He winced a bit at this, feeling the usual insecurities stir in him and a few paranoid worries that now it wouldn't open and some shock troops would charge down the single stairway he saw leading up... but nothing happened, and after a few minutes, the reptile walked down the small platform and towards the only way out, looking back and forth mildly at the thick concrete walls and back and forth down the tunnel, wondering how far he'd gone from the facility as he began to climb the stone stairs leading up to the light.