[Black Dragon]

(Warning: Very gory chapter)

Chapter 3

When Magar awoke he could never recall feeling so sick. His body felt as if it had been ripped apart and thrown back together with little regard for correct placement. He slowly opened his eyes and found that he was back in his cell, his neck chained again to a pole in the middle. Magar licked his fangs and slowly got up on all fours. Wait a minute he thought, Since when do I have fangs and four feet? He ran to retrieve his metal food dish in the corner. He stared at his reflection and let out a scream, but what escaped his mouth was a low yelp. He now had long fangs, long arms with clawed fingers, a powerful tail, and two long, powerful hind legs with large clawed feet. What’ve they done ter me?! his mind screamed. His thoughts were interrupted by the clanging of a metal door and the familiar sound of Slig pants.
“Feedin’ time!” he heard one shout. Magar sulked into the shadows of his cell, waiting for them to approach him.
“Wuz dis one?” he heard a Slig ask as they stopped at his cell.
“It’s a new one. Dey say it was once Magar the bounty hunter.” The other responded.
“Yer kiddin’! Great Magar the hunter?”
“Yep, dey say he was slackin’ so da general canned ‘im. Performed da experiment yesterday, turned him inta a mutant…has some Slog in ‘im…. and some kinda DNA dey found in a meteor. Say it’s millions ‘a years old.”
“Alien DNA? That’s jus’ weird.”
“Yep.”
Magar listened carefully. Alien DNA? So, there was something in him that was a complete mystery. Magar looked at the measly little bowl of dry, processed food they pushed into his cell, and then he looked up at the two Sligs. I don’t want this crap, he thought, I want living flesh. A small bit of saliva dripped down his jaws and he licked it away, slinking closer to the Sligs.
“Good mornin’, #892,” one of the Sligs called to the creature in the cage next to Magar’s while the other stayed near his own. He hunched his back legs, then without warning, he struck. Magar grabbed the arm of the nearest Slig and ripped his fangs into it. It was a pleasing new sensation: the warm blood dripping down his jaw, the feel of the flesh in his teeth, the struggle. The Slig screamed in agony and the other cocked his gun. With a sickening snap, Magar dislodged the Slig’s arm from his shoulder and retreated to the back of the cage, lying perfectly still.
“Damn son of a bitch has my arm!” the injured Slig moaned weakly, gushing blood everywhere.
“I’d kill ‘im now, but I’ll report it ter the bosses, they’ll take care of that mad bastard,” the other Slig snarled.
The dying Slig looked painfully up to his comrade and put his untouched arm on the arm of the other.
“Do it…please…. just do it…” he said shakily, his voice fading.
The other Slig nodded slowly and raised his gun to the injured one’s head. With a deafening crack the dying Slig’s body jerked then fell over, not moving. The living Slig banged his gun on the bars of Magar’s cell.
“I’ll make yer pay, yer bastard!” he snarled again, picked up the limp body of the dead Slig, and walked out of view, leaving the food dishes in front of his cell. Magar happily gnawed on the Slig’s arm until it was nothing but gleaming white bone. He sat back and picked his teeth with a finger bone when a hissing voice from the cage next to his spoke.
“I have ssseen nasssty thingsss before…. but that wasss a firssst. Really daring thing you did there.”
“Yeah, thanks. Who are yer?” Hunter answered.
“Me? I’m sssome kind of crossssbreed. Praying mantisss, ssscorpion, and Ssscrab…though I’m made to be a sssuper-version of a real creature out in the wild. Lived here all of my life, never ssseen the outssside. If I’m not missstaken, you are Magar the bounty hunter, eh?”
“Yeah, yer heard of me?”
“Oh yesss, your name isss a common one around these partsss, usually said with fear. Many crossssbreedsss here didn’t dare essscape because they knew you were out there… many of them you’ve captured…. and sssome more you killed. You were more terrifying than the biggessst, ssscariest monssster in thisss place… oh wait, that’sss me!” the creature cackled.
There was silence as Hunter thought.
“Didn’ really know what it was like to be one ‘a my prey until I was stuck in their shoes.”
“As I guessssed. Of courssse, you will change your waysss now, won’t you?”
”Of course I will.”
“Yeah… if you ever get out of here… of courssse I sssussspect you know all the sssecretsss of thisss placsse.”
“Yeah, I guess I could make a run for it… and be free like I once was.”
“Uh huh, but if I wasss you, I’d do it pretty damn quick. Oncsse those Glukkonsss and Vykkersss find out you are a viciousss beassst, they’ll want to use you asss a hunting dog or sssomething like that.”
Hunter sat bolt upright. He had never thought of what the Vykkers were actually going to do with him.
“Yer right…. I got ter get outta here.”
Hunter thought hard for a while, then his eyes wandered to the sharpened finger bone on the floor in front of him. He grabbed it and began to pick at the lock. After a few minutes he managed to break it open. He was just about to make a run for it when he remembered his friend in the cell next to him. Hunter ran to the next cell and began to pick its lock.
“What are you doing?” the creature asked and came out of the shadows. He was about 7 feet tall with orange eyes and a black and red body. He had a small head with a sharp beak-like jaw, slanted eyes, and a long neck that ended in a point near the top. His upper body was muscular with powerful forearms that ended in large scythe-like blades. The creature had four Scrab-like legs that ended in long black talons, and he had two long spiked tails that ended in hand-like claws. Magar gawked at him for a second before remembering the task at hand.
“I can’t let yer stay in here… after all yer did give me a lot of information that probably saved my life.” he responded, finally getting the barred door open. “What’s yer name anyway?”
“They call my ssspeciesss ‘Panthisss’, but the other crossssbreedsss I have encountered call me ‘Tearror’.” he hissed.
A loud clanging told them that something was coming down the hall.
“Hurry Magar, we mussst flee before they catch usss!” Tearror screeched.
“Don’t call me Magar, that’s my old name. My mutant name is Hunter,” Hunter said with a dark grin that Tearror returned.
The two bolted down the corridor, knocking over boxes and food dishes that littered the ground. His own speed, let alone Tearror’s, who was surprisingly agile on his four legs, amazed Hunter. They were just about to the end of the kennels when four Sligs accompanied by Slogs stopped them in their tracks.
“End ‘a da line, freaks,” one Slig hissed.
“Puh, a puny little meatball like you against us? I don’t think so,” Hunter sneered, rearing up to his hind legs so that he towered high above the Sligs’ heads. A Slog and two of the Sligs ran away screaming in terror.
“Cowards,” the same Slig growled.
“They are sssmart, unlike you,” Tearror screeched, waving his bladed arms.
The Slig spat on the ground in front of him and sent the Slogs after the two creatures. Hunter barked fiercely and knocked one aside with one smash of his front claw. Tearror sliced the head off of another, and the last one he strangled and gouged to death with his long tails. Hunter growled and moved in on the Sligs, while Tearror hissed and watched his back. With two quick movements, Hunter ripped the throat out of the lead Slig and snapped the spine of the other. Blood dripping down his jaws, he barked for Tearror to follow him. He rammed into the door, causing it to fall to the floor with a clang, and continued down the dark corridor beyond.
“Which way now?” Tearror asked as they came to a “T” in the corridor. Hunter sniffed the air and pointed left.
“That way,” he barked and began running in that direction.
The alarm had been sounded and soon the whole lab was after the two runaway experiments. Just as Hunter had found the exit, an army of Sligs, Big Bros, and Slogs ambushed them. The desire to be free was stronger than his fear of death, so he charged straight into them, biting, tearing, and kicking. Tearror did the same and Hunter could hear him screeching and the metallic clang of his blades hitting bone. After a fifteen-minute battle, the corridor before the exit was flooded with blood and body part. Hunter glanced around, becoming nauseated by what he had just did, and having gory memories of the killings he had done in the past as a bounty hunter.
“What isss wrong, Hunter? The exit isss right there…but how do we open it?” Tearror hissed, bringing Hunter back to the present.
“If I remember correctly, each Vykker laboratory had a special code for the exits…give me a few minutes and I can decode it,” Hunter responded, crouching down next to a number pad by the door. He thought hard for a few moments, pressing buttons and muttering to himself while Tearror watched. Suddenly Tearror’s sharp hearing caught a sound.
“Hunter, Sssligsss! They are coming thisss way!” he shouted, glancing over his shoulder.
“Just another minute and I’ll have this thing worked out,” Hunter barked.
Tearror paced, his black talons clicking on the metal floor, as his anxiety rose. Soon the Sligs were within view.
“Dere deys are! Halt!” a Big Bro leading the group barked.
“Hurry Hunter!” Tearror hissed.
Hunter frantically punched numbers into the pad, sweat dripping down his head. The Sligs were now charging them, their guns cocked. They were just about to fire when the huge metal doors flung open, sunlight pouring into the hall.
“Run!” Hunter roared and leapt through the doorway, Tearror on his heals.
The door snapped shut just as the sound of massive gunfire reached their ears.