A Day: Dragon; Klyk; Lukas

[Ixtlilton]

The first part of my ten part short story series with my precious Ansem babies. <3 First up is Lukas, since no one loves him yet. xD

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It was an average day in the life of Lukas Benjamin Engel... Lukas, or Luke, and hell, some people even called him Luck. That seemed a little bit ridiculous, but whatever made them happy, he supposed.

He woke up and took a moment to take in his surroundings. He was often waking up in weird places, but today, fortunately, he was at home. In his bed, even. That was a good start to a day. He sat up and stretched, a yawn breaking out of his mouth.

“Good morning, Lukey!” Only three people in the world could get away with calling him that.
“Good morning, Elisa,” he replied groggily, rubbing the sleep dust out of his eyes. “How's Mother?”
“A bit hung over,” Elisabeth admitted sadly. “Isa is making breakfast. Are you going to eat today?”

Lukas swung his legs out of the creeky bed and stood. The room was small... just enough room for the bed, a wardrobe, and a chest, squeezed in underneath the slanting roof. One might say he lived in the attic, but the truth was more that they didn't have an attic, they had a bedroom up there instead. Plus attics were normally more spacey, weren't they?

“No, I'll be heading out,” he said in response, glancing into the broken mirror on the wall by his wardrobe. Burning red hair glared back at him above pale eyes and paler skin. It wasn't his natural color, of course, no one had red hair that color naturally. But as much as it might stand out, his natural color was worse, and this had been the color of dye he'd... obcured.

His eyes fell on his leather wristband, the one he wore even when asleep, and he ran his fingers over it with a frown. Life had changed recently. Whether it was for the better or worse, he wasn't sure, but...
He pulled on worn leather pants and a leather jacket. He'd tanned the hides himself, years before he'd known exactly what kind of connection he'd wind up having with leather.

He turned around, and found with surprise that his older sister was still standing in the doorway, looking sad. “Lukas... We won't starve if you have breakfast with us once in a while.”
“...I... I'm just not hungry,” he insisted, looking to the side. “I'll be fine. Make sure Mother eats and... gets... gets to work on time. The new job is...” he choked a little bit, unable to actually say the truth, that his mother working in a whore house was actually a step up for them. He knew his two sisters bore the pain even more than he did... After all, their mother was working so hard to make sure her two twin girls never had to step foot in a brothel themselves.

He left after saying a quick, rushed goodbye to Isabell and Elisabeth. He wouldn't admit it even if tortured, but those three women were the most important things in his life, and as far as he was concerned, the world. Of course, that wasn't the only reason he did what he did. He also just happened to enjoy it.

He could have been a tanner. His mother often informed him that he could have been a tanner, and earned an honest, tiny living that might almost be enough to feed his mother and two sisters. Yeah. He could have been a tanner. Instead, he was a thug, and to be entirely honest, he preferred it. It was a good time and a good amount of money.

He didn't really enjoy being in a gang. They took a cut of money from his “profits.” However, the good outweighed the annoying in this case. He didn't have to worry about getting robbed himself while opperating within their “turf,” and he had people that would back him up if another gang started giving him shit. The horned snake tattoo the wrapped around his arm meant that he wouldn't have to take shit from anyone... other than people ranked higher than him in his own gang, of course. That was the down side.

The upside was that he was in an alley, watching cheerfully as a rich woman and her rich husband steadily approached him, oblivious of the trap laid before them. These were the best times, when he got people so obviously wealthy rather than just people slightly less poor than he was. They came steadily closer, but Lukas just waited, crouched in the dark of the alley, dirty water steadily soaking his pants with filth. It was sunset now, but come that night, he would have a nice meal to bring home to his sisters.

If there was one thing he knew well, it was his range, and as soon as the man and woman stepped into, he acted.

The thick leather arm band her wore unraveled without a touch, launching forward as it unwound into a rope-like strip. It wrapped around the ankles of the two and yanked, dragging them violently into the alley. A thicker handle formed in the leather, slipping itself into Lukas' hand. With his other hand, he threw out another strip of leather with split into two, spreading out to cover and gag the mouths of both of his new victims.

The armband-whip thing wrapped its way around the struggling man, binding his arms tight to his body and roll him out of the way. The woman, he wasn't too worried about. She was a rich female floozy, no doubt... She wouldn't be able to do a thing. It was the man he needed to watch, no one walked along the street alone unless they knew some form of self defense to protect against this kind of thing. He checked to make sure the man was properly bound, dodging back when the angry rich fellow tried to kick at him.

He was so distracted that only a slight “shnk” noise from behind him warned him. He swung his head around, but not fast enough... he could feel the sharp point of a knife stabbing into his back. “Shit!” he swore. However... that was why he wore leather. He couldn't help twisting his hands as his shirt split apart in the front and spread out, turning into an impromptu leather net. The bit where she'd stabbed twisted and grabbed the knife, wrapping around it to keep it from actually stabbing properly. Then he sent his one-time shirt flying back, sending the knife weilder with it. It wrapped around... her, tying her up as securly as her husband. Damnit, he'd made a mistake... the wife'd had a knife?

“Oof,” he said, rubbing at his almost-stabbed back. “I guess I know who wears the pants in this relationship.” However, they were both thoroughly tied up now, so he did a quick search and grabbed their cash and various shiny objects, like the man's watch and the woman's jewelry. He twisted the leather around, letting him take a good look at her knife. It was a really nice knife, but it was pretty girly, and she had almost gotten him with it, so he decided to leave it. He threw it down the alley, though, before taking a deep breath, yanking all the leather into one large leather ball, which flew into his hands, and bolting out of their as fast as his feet could carry him, fleeing from the useless screams of “STOP, THIEF.”

Just another day in the life.

[Ixtlilton]

Alrighty, slightly longer (at just over 2000 words) is Klyk's Day, featuring a very rare occurance that I probably could have written better if I weren't so awful. =D

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Klyk looked out over the tundra, peering from behind layers of fur that wrapped his body almost completely. He was resilient to cold, whether from living in the dead stretches of northern Russia most of his life, or because of what he was, he wasn't sure. But he sure as hell wasn't going out until that snowstorm finally died down.

It wasn't really a blizzard anymore, but it was still coming down thick and heavy. There was no real need to risk his life in it, let alone Chance's or Sasha's. He glanced around his small cabin. There wasn't much to it, but it was sturdy and well built. He should know; he was the one who'd built it. This frozen forest was everything he needed, a source of wood, of food... And with wood and food, anything was possible.

He made rare trips to town during the summer using his sled. Neither Chance nor Sasha were traditional sled dogs, and with just the two of them, going was slow and dangerous. But Chance risked it once a year to sell furs and buy supplies. Mostly books, because everything else he could figure out how to make himself, but no matter how long he lived out in the wild, he'd never be able to figure out how to educate himself without someone else's help, without books.

And he insisted on being educated, too. Knowing all the things he needed to know to survive had been enough for him, for a while, but he'd felt a gap. He'd known if he just let himself grow in the wilderness, he'd become a dunce, and there'd never be any chance for him at all, out there in the real world. Of course... there still probably wasn't. But knowing trigonometry made him think like maybe, one day, there would be.

He hefted another log into the wood stove that the two dogs were huddled around. Now that he was out of bed, it was the warmest part of the room.

Chance was his. He'd raised the odd mixture of wolf and doberman from a puppy, watched him go from one pound to one hundred and forty. His father, Klyk reasoned, must have been one hell of a beast. No wonder the owners of that in-heat Doberman couldn't do a thing to stop it, he thought with a chuckle.

Sasha, on the other hand, was wild... ish. She'd gotten herself caught in one of Klyk's traps, and bad. He couldn't just let her starve alone in the wild, with a broken leg like that, but he couldn't bring himself to put a bullet between her eyes, either. So he'd muzzled her and taken her home, and slowly nursed her back to health. The hardest part, really, had been feeding her, since he had to take the muzzle off or just feed her tiny shreds of meat with a stick. Once she was fully healed and able to walk on that wounded leg of hers, he'd intended to let her back out into the wild, and did. Through a few unforseeable circumstances, however (IE, Klyk got attacked by a bear), she had wound up saving his life. After that, she must have just decided he wasn't worth leaving around to get eaten by bears, because she'd stuck within a few miles of his cabin, until she finally started spending the coldest nights indoors again. Cold nights became cold days, which was every day where Klyk lived, and now she was tame as anything, but only around Klyk and Chance.

There was no way she was a full wolf either, she was way too small. Klyk didn't really know what she was a mix of, but it didn't really matter. She helped him, and he helped her, and they helped each other. And together, the three of them carved out a life for themselves in the harsh frozen forests of Siberia.

It had finally stopped snowing. Fresh snow meant very fresh prints, so Klyk decided it was time to go out hunting. Once in a rare blue moon, he'd be able to make himself transform and whenever he did, he'd hunt that way, but for the most part, he was an utter failure at the very thing that would supposedly make looking like he did worthwhile. But that was enough angst. He need to suit up.

Suiting up, in this case, was layers of warm but flexible furs and leathers, snowshoes, a hunting gun, and a bow and arrows, just in case of emergency. Plus, of course, the little things, like a thermos and a compass and a knife. Sasha and Chance recognized this behaviour and both got up, tails wagging. They were suddenly very excited, just because they knew what was going on. Klyk smiled at them, poking the flame in the stove out. It wouldn't do to come back to his house on fire, after all. Then he braced himself and opened the door.

The two canines rushed out, and Klyk quickly followed them, not wanting too much cold air to get into his comparatively warm and cozy house. The two wolf-dogs took off, but Klyk moved at a much more normal pace. He knew that if they spotted anything particularly interesting, they'd come back and get him. Before long, their yips and howls echoed out through the forest as they informed each other (and technically him, though he certainly couldn't understand the details) where they were and what they saw. He hadn't been walking over the snow more than fifteen minutes before he heard the distinct sound of Chance's alarm barks... he'd found something. He began heading towards the sound.

Before long, Sasha caught up with him and then trotted alongside, her tail perked and her eyes alight. They ran into Chance before long, and, skipping happily, he lead them back to his find.

Klyk rubbed his head with a gloved hand. He bumped against one horn, which stuck out from his hood. Not even bundled up like this could he find a good way to hide the damn things. Chance's find was of more concern, however...

“Moose tracks?” he asked out loud, shaking his head. Did Chance really think that was the best idea? But then again, one of them was clearly limping, and Klyk could really use a big kill like that to replenish his stores. Both of the dogs were looking at him intensly, knowing that he had to okay it before they could start tracking. He sighed. “Fine... We'll try it.”

Both dogs yipped with glee, then spread out to follow the tracks. Klyk smiled softly and shook his head. They were like children who'd been told they could go to the toy store, jeez. Klyk himself said a quick prayer, and set off.

Klyk increased his speed to a run. Running on snow was ridiculously difficult, but years of practice with running on snowshoes had made him as adept at it as it was possible to be. He knew he was still sluggish and clumsy compared to his two better hunters, but he—stopped dead in his tracks. He felt a surge, a familiar one. This sometimes happened, but it was rare. Quickly, almost eagerly, his stripped himself of all but his lightest layers and stepped out of his snow shoes, sinking, shivering, into the snow.

He tried to shut the cold away and focus on the feelings building in his chest. The joy of the hunt was at the forefront of that, but also blood lust and hunger. In folk lore, those sort of feelings would overwhelm a monster, but he had to sort of focus on them to get anywhere. He could feel them slipping away, and clung desperately, focusing on the yips and howls that his two wolf-dog friends were letting out. He knew he'd feel guilty for it later, but right then, he wanted nothing more than to be able to run along the snow quickly, and properly, with his friends.

Ah, there! He'd got it! ….Fuck.

It wasn't all sparkles and demons, unfortunately. As any werewolf movie could tell you, transforming from one body to another hurt, and Klyk was no exception. A screech gurgled out from between his lips as he doubled over in the snow. Fur shot out from every inch of his skin, his burning orange hair growing down his spine. Bones cracked and ground against each other, grating in Klyk's rapidly shifting and pointing ears. A few more horns cracked out of his skull and upper spine, curving down around his neck. His nose grew into a muzzle, and his teeth pointed even more, canine fangs stretching out of his mouth. His screams turned into yelps and howls as his vocal chords finished altering themselves.

He stood, panting, for a few seconds, before shifting. He stood slowly, then shook the snow out of his long fur. He looked up, seeing the world in a dance of scents from his new, powerful nose. Chance and Sasha had heard the noises and come to him. Chance was all too familiar with this transformation. This was Sasha's third time witnessing. Both of them had hunted with him like this once before, since it seemed a crime to waste... Also, all he really wanted when he was like that was to run, hunt, and roast things. Running wasn't running unless you had four legs.

Once he'd given himself time to get used to his new body, he gave himself one last shake and took a good whiff of the tracks. Once he was like this, it was Russian Roulette as to how long he would stay, so he had to get moving. As if as one, the three of them took off again.

Now that they could all go at top speed, even Klyk's broad paws carrying him quickly across the top of the frozen snow, they caught up to the moose rather quickly. It was limping along. It looked like it had caught it's leg in one of Klyk's smaller traps... not enough to actually cripple it, but enough to hurt it and slow it down. Klyk licked his jowls. His sense of smell was enough that he could practically taste the moose meat now... a real treat!

The three of them took the advantage they had, being downwind, but it was clear from the wide-eyed look on its moosey face that the large male knew he was in some serious shit. He was right, too... but still, caution had to be given when dealing with such a large creature, especially one so prone to kicking and head butting and other such painful actions.

Chance and Sasha moved forward, both coming up on either side of the frantically run-limping moose, while Klyk ran behind, keeping it from stopping suddenly in an attempt to loose them. Chance jumped in and placed a quick nip on the beast's hide before having to dodge back away from the flailing antlers. Sasha moved in while the moose fought Chance off, landing a better bite in. The moose tried to slow to veer away from the two aggressive half-wolves, but Klyk snapped at its rump, and it jumped forward and continued to run along.

The three of them harassed it like that for some time, snapping at it and focusing on its wounded leg, keeping it from stopping or attacking them back successfully. Soon, it began to slow, and Klyk saw an opening. He darted in beside Sasha, who was about to snap again as Chance drew its attention, and lunged up at the animal's neck. He landed a solid bite, his long fangs sinking in and tearing violently as the moose flailed wildly. It began to kick and buck, causing Sasha and Chance to back away quickly. But the beast didn't last long. Blood quickly poured out of the wound, into and around Klyk's mouth. The moose fell, and Klyk tore the neck wide open. The moose bled out in a matter of seconds.

Klyk had just enough time to congratulate himself before he realized he was suddenly naked in the snow, covered in blood, and had a lot of moose fur in his mouth. Ah... where had he left his clothes again?

[Ixtlilton]

It was that kind of desperation that had gotten her into this mess...

She could cut her life into segments, Dragon decided, drawing herself an invisible diagram on the blinding white padded walls. Zero through five. On the streets, no memory. Five through eleven. With Dr. Nova, Alexa, Phoenix, and the others “working” at Nova Technologies. Eleven through twelve. On the streets. Twelve to present. With Dr. Craven, “working” at the asylum.

Funny how she kept running into doctors who gave her “jobs.” In return for “safety.” She returned to her corner, furthest from the door, and curled up, her face buried into the matressed wall. If she closed her eyes hard enough, and hid her face well enough, she could almost pretend that it wasn't burningly bright in her “room” twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

This was a “precaution.” That's what he called it. A precaution to make sure she couldn't run away when he wasn't looking. She didn't know why he still bothered. To prove, maybe, that he still had absolute control over her life. But he'd started taking her outside, and letting her out of the room when he was around, and frankly, she could have made a run for it. He liked to think he was careful, making sure she didn't have access to any shadows that connected far enough to take her outside. But it had been two years. If she'd been willing to risk her life, she could have escaped by now.

But she hadn't.

She wasn't even sure herself what the reason was. Maybe it was his veiled threats, implications he'd bring the mutant-hunting officials down on her head if she tried anything. Maybe it was her reluctance to risk being shot down, to risk being locked up in this damned white room for the rest of her miserable life, only good for experiments instead of missions and paperwork.

Maybe at this point, she couldn't even see herself functioning in a world that wasn't this one.

Two years wasn't a long time, she reasoned. Out of a fourteen year life. She'd spent far more time with Nova. And yet it felt like forever to her, like she'd always been in this white room with the burning florescent lights. Like Dr. Craven had always been the one in charge, like she had always just been doing what he said. It seemed like always and forever. If she somehow managed to escape, would she even be able to function? She wasn't good at making her own decisions. She was fourteen. Young enough to want freedom, old enough to know she couldn't handle it. She'd be alone, starving, and desperate, craving someone, anyone, to take enough of an interest in her existance to give her a spare glance, let alone a job, or food. And it was that kind of desperation that had gotten her into this mess...

She drifted off into sleep, the florescent lights burning against her back. Her sleep was restless and nightmare filled, as always. She awoke, unsure as to what time it was and not really feeling like she'd gotten any sleep. She twitched a bit, biting back the panic that rose in her chest every time she realized she was trapped she was trapped she couldn't run there was no where to--in that room. She faced the corner, arm tucked around her legs, and concentrated on the wall. There was a wall there. But there could have been wide sky up above her, trees behind her. That could be there, as long as she didn't look.

She didn't know how long she'd slept, or how long she'd been there, staring determinedly at the wall. She jumped, however, when a voice came in over the intercom. Dr. Craven, of course, because there was no other voice. There was nothing else.

He was informing her of a job she had to do. It sounded average, but besides, she knew the missions were all the same. He'd be going to some kind of meeting, the “don't call the police, don't bring any weapons, don't bring any friends” kind of meeting that involved briefcases full of money. And when you couldn't bring any weapons or friends into a hostile area full of people that were probably going to bring weapons and friends anyway, it helped to have an invisible friend. With weapons.

Nothing ever came of it. They might as well have been going for Sunday afternoon strolls, for all it effected her. She'd been given the lessons of what to do in case something went wrong. How to stab, how to shoot. She knew the signals and what they meant, when she was supposed to scare someone and how. It was considered a rare occasion if she even had to pop up behind someone and hold a knife to them. She'd never actually had to use a knife or a gun on a person, and she didn't honestly expect to. She was security, the exception, not the rule.

She liked the missions a bit, though. Because she got to actually leave, and go outside. It was a sunny day, of course, it was always a sunny day. Once she was outside, Dr. Craven couldn't really do anything to keep her from running if his shadow collided with someone else's, and it frequently did. But he still did his best to avoid it, staying away from allies and subways, away from crowded streets, and never taking her out on a cloudy day. That way, if she made a break for it, it would be on foot, and he could deal with that much more easily.

She supposed he might also have put some tracking device on her clothes somewhere. That's what Nova would have done, and Craven and Nova were alike in some ways, not that either would have liked that comparison.

But riding around in his shadow was about the only time she ever got to exercise her power, to curl up contentedly in a spot of darkness, and float. Float in sweet, sweet obliviousness for just a short time. And that made it worth the risk of possibly having to shoot someone.

They got to the meeting place, a suitably shady, seedy looking warehouse. Whomever Craven was dealing with had watched too many gangster films, in Dragon's opinion, and she snuck out of Craven's shadow to do a quick once over of the surroundings. The warehouse was unlit and shadowy, with both Craven and the other man awash in darkness. This was going to be ridiculously easy. There were some people hidden, with guns, just in case, no doubt. She slithered back to Craven, letting her hand pop out of the shadow and tap him on the ankle five times, one for each armed man in hiding. A precaution. It was all precaution.

Dr. Craven and the gangster-man were posturing, trying each other out, battling for dominance, whatever the hell you wanted to call it. She wasn't really paying attention. It only mattered what they were doing if he let out a sign that she was supposed to do something. The gangster-man was raising his voice. Hands slammed on a table, and amongst the ruckus, she heard and saw Craven stomp his right heel onto the ground. Oh, boo...

With a sigh, she slid up behind the guy. He was so hidden in shadow that she could go right up his back, hilariously enough. The guy who'd been smart enough to meet in a deli had been way smarter than this idiot. When she appeared, it was squooshed up against him, gun barrel digging against his spine. The reaction, of course, was priceless, yelling in the shadows, alarmed “shit don't shoot, he's right up on the boss!” type exclamations.

A deal was swiftly met, and she and Craven excused themselves out of the building, using the gangster-man as insurance until they were a safe distance away. As they headed back to the asylum, Dragon slid back into his shadow, not really intending to walk when she could hitch a free ride. She napped a bit on the way back, enjoying the comfort of darkness while it lasted. She loved having someone's shadow to hide in. Being alone was, well, lonely. Depressing, and cold, no matter how much shadow was around. It wasn't warm like a person's.

But then, it was that kind of desperation had gotten her into this mess.