This picture is a followup to this submission: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19883168/
"We have to watch out around this block" huffed Nikolai, running towards a fallen building as night approached.
"Why?" asked Mikota, shutting the door behind them.
"It's a long story. I guess I'll go ahead and tell you since you're the only one left. Remember what I said about the clones, and one of you thought I may have been one?" said the arctic wolf, keeping a close hand on his AK just in case his guest may not be okay with the rest of the story.
"Go on..." said the skunk, keeping a close eye on Nikolai's rifle, realizing he might not trust him as much as he thought.
After searching the room and barricading the doors for the night, Nikolai and Mikota sat down around what was left of a living room.
"Well, I'll start off by saying I'm not a clone-" he paused "but I'm a lot closer to them than I wish... I was part of an experiment, I never really had a childhood other than being a lab rat, figuratively speaking of course. You know, arctic animals like me are easily picked out for our white fur, that's why we've been kept to experiment on, like slaves. Those big government funded labs you hear of in people's whispers. The ones the media always said never existed. The things people got thrown in prison for talking about? They did, they still are I bet... the red plague... the constant mutations... this entire mess we're in right now!" Nikolai grudgingly spat out, hands shaking, remembering back to those dark days.
"Go on..." Mikota said, now much more interested in this story than he was before.
"I was one of two cubs born, three really, though the third one died from the experiment. They were trying to see if they could make a "vanguilla" hybrid with a virus-"
"What's a 'vangilla'?" Mikota interrupted.
"The... they... they're making monsters. The perfect killing machine. From what I know, they've been splicing DNA of lots of different animals; anything that they could try, they did try. They didn't get very far until they found some dragon DNA, from some old cave on another continent from what I overheard. That's what perfected it, made them stronger and faster than anything we've ever seen. I'm telling you personally, they're a living nightmare. They're poisonous, they have big dragon-like wings, and can do a screech that can rupture your eardrums. Extremely hard to kill on their own, and they were trying to find a way to make them in mass numbers. That's why they were trying to make it into a virus, to get more of them without having to go through the whole cloning process." he said, more aggressively as he went on, then became saddened at his next thought.
"The first one from the virus, my "sister" was successful, and her DNA embraced the change, the mutation. The second one died, I'm not sure about the details other than it never formed correctly. Then there was me, the third. For some reason, my body entirely rejected the virus, even before birth. That's probably the reason I never got sick from anything afterwords either. I'm not sure if that makes me more natural or another abomination just like them." Nikolai finally whispered out, looking straight ahead as if there was something in front of him. Mikota sat back, trying to take this all in; wondering if this wolf was telling the truth, or if he was flat out crazy.
Nikolai went on "My whole life from there was them attempting to make it work, or trying to see if I was useful to them in any other way. They did terrible things to me, from testing chemicals to doing live vivisections, but mostly pitting me against their other creations, it was awful. For nearly fourteen years it went on, me being their test dummy. You have know idea what ungodly creations they made, though some of them I've seen roaming the wasteland now. Even after all that happened to me, the absolute worst was the vanguillas. One detail I left out is that they can get right into your head. I don't mean by saying things that bother you, I mean worming their way right into your mind itself!" Nikolai screamed, Mikota jumped back at his outburst.
"What do you mean" choked out the skunk, not quite understanding what he meant.
"They get right into your head. Reading your thoughts, saying things to you without even talking, even giving you hallucinations, putting you into an entire other reality. I've even seen them make people do things for them, even make other test subjects kill themselves. I never let them get to me usually, as long as you're level headed it's harder for them to get you. Most of them never got to me, except for her. My sister herself, she was able to get right into my head; make me relive all the worst things that ever happened to me, and even go through things worse..." Nikolai stopped there, almost in a trance, staring off into nothing.
"NIKOLAI!" Mikotai yelled, trying to shake him out of it "Why are you here now? How'd you get out?"
The wolf shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts "Like I said, it was for about fourteen years, give or take a few months. I never learned to read until I escaped, but I could understand most of the charts. When the labs got a cut to funding, one of the billionaires who had a big hand in politics, and was fond of arctic animals, wanted to add to his sex slave collection. Myself, being one of the few of the lab's subjects that was healthy and still in one piece, and was chosen. One night, they drugged my food and took me from my cell and into a dark cage. Once the door opened, I realized it wasn't into one of the many open rooms they'd release me into to pit me against their mutants. It was a basement of a mansion. Like I said, they'd been pitting me against other experiments my whole life, so I'd gotten good at staying alive. Once I saw that fat bear standing there next to his two guards, I lunged at him and slashed his throat out with my claws. Then a few more punches, slashes, and bites and I was the only thing left." Nikolai said, not showing much emotion about it all, other than an odd reason to have confidence.
"Hmm, you said you couldn't read, and hadn't even seen the outside world before, how'd you figure all this stuff out?" Mikota asked, really deep into the story.
"I didn't, and couldn't. After I realized I wasn't stuck in the labs anymore, I began roaming the house, and not being used to the prospect of not being in any danger or being told what to do, I continued getting rid of or disabling anyone else I found, except for a maid on the top floor. She told me to stop, then said something about how that she could help me. Not wanting to continue the violent path I was on, I obliged and did as she said. A few days later, I was being taught everything about the world in some old dingy building filled with people like me, some faction in the underground who helped those who were taken as slaves by the government. They gave me a name, taught me how to use my few learned skills more effectively, and helped me adjust to a normal-er life. A few years later, once these plagues started occurring in these mass numbers, they gave me a fake I.D. and told me to join the CDC, as an inside man. A bunch of stuff happened in the two years that followed when we were trying to get rid of the plague while it spread, and I even had to escape the labs again, but that story's for another time; wada bing bam boom here I am now." Nikolai let out in a much more gleeful mood.
"So, you said you have to watch out around this part of the city for something, you said, right?" the skunk asked, trying to get his mind off the somewhat depressing story he just heard.
The wolf lifted his rifle and pointed towards the door "Just out there is where I saw her again. That damn hybrid, the only thing I have to call family. I saw her one day, though under much different circumstances. I was trying to find some working xenon lights. I heard lots of gunshots and explosions in the distance, and people calling for help. I decided to go investigate, seeing if I could help. After getting over another pile of rubble, there she was, armed to the teeth, armor from head to toe, and breathing from a gas masked that made her look like even more of a monster, being fed from one of the tanks on her back. The other tank was for a flamethrower she had in one hand and some sort of rifle-minigun with an automatic grenade launcher in the other, all being supported on some exo-suit. She was probably a replacement for the death squads they've been sending out, the ones that've been a problem for us since society collapsed. She'd just mowed down a patrol from a friendly settlement nearby..." he paused "Needing to literally kill the "demons from my past", I set up onto an old billboard. Fortunately, I had a bipod on my trusty AK-12 at the time. I loaded up the only magazine I had of armor piercing rounds I had and took aim. My first shot, which was at her head, missed, like she new it was coming. I emptied the rest inter her torso, which did nothing more than sink into the ammo boxes on her chest or ping off of the armor. These 5.45s don't do anything to that depleted uranium armor, same stuff they put on battle tanks. My last round shot through one of the tanks on her back and exploded into fire. That was when she got her guns loaded fought back. She was engulfed in flames, but it looked like she didn't even notice; she let loose a barrage of bullets at me, then let off that grenade launcher. I jumped down just before it blew into a million pieces. Knowing there was no way I could fight back, I ran as fast as I could away from there. While I ran, I could hear her in my head, saying "Please come back, we haven't played in a long time. I'm not going to hurt you..." I ignored it the best I could and ran and ran until I found some good shelter, then set up there until I knew I was safe. That was the only time I saw her outside of the labs, but if I see her again, I'm not going to miss." The wolf said, with a look of determination on his face.
The skunk sat up and opened his backpack. He reached in and grabbed out two cans labeled 'Bob's beans and bacon'. "Well, after as much talking as you did, it's best we get some food and some rest. We can continue our journey in the morning".
"Well at least with the two of us left, we can probably still manage to fight off anything" Nikolai yawned, stretching his arms and collapsing onto one of the old couches.
"Not going to miss me, brother? That's too bad, I've missed you so much" a voice whispered in Nikolai's head, and at the drop of a dime he was up. He grabbed his AK, and yelled at Mikota "SHE'S HERE!".
They both quickly raised their rifles at the front door. There were soft footsteps approaching to the left side of the door. Nikolai sent a spray of bullets through the wall, where the sound of a small thud occurred shortly after. Wanting to make sure he got rid of the threat, Nikolai sprayed a few rounds through the wall again, towards the ground where the thud was, then slapped in another magazine.
The wolf and skunk opened the front door, and in a professional, military like order went outside with their weapons raised. To Nikolai's horror, on the ground rather than seeing the wolf-vanguilla hybrid he feared so much, there instead was the body of a small child filled riddled with dozens of bullet holes, laying in a puddle of their own blood. A skinny horse kid who was likely an orphan looking for food, now being picked apart by a swarm of flies, dead at the hands of Nikolai.
"YOU TRIGGER HAPPY PSYCHOPATH!" Screamed Mikota, raising his ACR at the back of Nikolai's head. "THE ONLY VOICES IN YOUR HEAD ARE THE ONES YOU MADE" he screamed at wolf, who was now hunched over with tears coming from his eyes.
Then from the distance, they heard a single rifle grenade being launched, which hit the building above them, showering them with pieces of rubble, followed by bullets whizzing all around them.
"What, you're sad you killed someone? You used to love killing, especially those that were weaker than you. Now c'mere and apologize for killing my pet." said the voice in Nikolai's head, he knewit was the cause of the machine gun fire.
Nikolai switched out the thirty round magazine in his AK for the RPK drum mag he kept on him for emergencies.
"Run Mikota, I'll take care of this!" Nikolai yelled over the gunfire. Mikota ran around the side of the building, trying to find cover. A swarm of rifle grenades hit the building again, sending more pieces flying.
Nikolai knew he had to end this once and for all, even if it killed him. He stood up and charged at the silhouette and muzzle flash in the distance. With his AK on his shoulder, he squeezed off rounds every few steps while sprinting forward, hearing a 'clang' sound on some of them.
"Now don't be like that, brother. We don't want to hurt each other now do we?" said the voice again.
Two bullets grazed Nikolai's arm, tearing through his right sleeve, though he didn't even notice. An explosion knocked him down, and knocked his rifle out of his hands. The silhouette began marching towards him, blinding him every quarter a second from the muzzle flash. He could feel several of the bullets hit him, knocking him onto the ground. He coughed up some blood and stood back up. The wolf took his only grenade from the pocket of his coat and pulled the pin.
With the grenade ticking in his hand he charged ever closer to the source of these voices, to his only family tie, to his only loose end...