“Wh-where am I?” Euna’s voice came out weakly. Her words were slurred and her tongue felt numb and sluggish, almost as if she had awoken from a yearlong slumber.

“We're in doctor Nequiv's lab,” Hiro answered quickly. There was a tinge of anxiety or panic in his voice. “H-how are you feeling?”

Euna blinked again as she was distracted by the bizarre sight before her. The ceiling was a canvas of rampant destruction. What was once pristine white was tarnished by black smudges. Entangled jumbles of partially destroyed cables and mechanical appendages hung limply from the ceiling. But apart from the destruction, what disturbed her even more was the strange translucent membrane that she was partially encased in and the fact that most of her body was submerged in a warm sticky fluid. She tried to move but felt little sensation in her limbs. She had to exert a considerable amount of effort just to raise her arm out of the red viscous fluid and when she did, she noticed pink sinewy fibers attached to her skin.

“Um, here. l-let me help,” Hiro said as he reached down and tried his best not to manhandle a butt-naked, smaller version of Euna. With Hiro’s help, Euna managed to prop herself into a delicate sitting position where her lower body was still submerged in the cesspool of blood, fluids and flesh. Sitting up, and being on the table, Euna was now observing Hiro on an eye-to-eye level.

She noticed immediately that he looked different. He was noticeably taller, but that was mostly because he had legs now. She had kind of gotten used to looking down and seeing a diminutive Hiro with stumps flailing around as he spoke. Hiro was still wearing the ragged and torn uniform he had on when she had saved him from plummeting to his death. His legs and arms were exposed allowing her to observe the glowing lines running down his limbs in circuitry-like fashion. On closer inspection she could see that they were super thin gaps where the glow of teal-blue could be seen emanating from beneath. Then she noticed the decrepit state that he was in. Hiro was battered and bruised, his hair singed in places and patches of his skin was raw. As she observed him, she noticed Hiro nervously avoiding eye contact.

“W-what happened?” Euna asked.

“Y-you don’t remember?” Hiro frowned, deep in contemplation. “You were captured, Euna. I wasn’t awake to see it happen, but you lost to Helick, the Captain. You were sedated and brought to Nequiv’s lab. I thought you were dead. Nequiv, the doctor, he…” Hiro paused abruptly as images of Euna’s dissection surfaced. He wasn’t sure how he was going to describe that to Euna. “Actually, what do you remember?”

Euna frowned as she scoured her memories. Although they were hazy, and it felt like it had all happened so long ago, it was now slowly coming back to her. She had been defeated in her fight against the Augmented Captain.

Euna cursed, and mentally chastised herself for her shameful defeat.

How could I be so foolish?

The Augmented Captain exposing his heart--a vital organ for her to attack--was just a ploy to catch her. She had been deceived like prey to a lure.

Then with a jolt, she suddenly remembered. Before her consciousness had turned black, before her body and senses were inundated with a numbing sensation, she had touched with her somatic sense, the Alteration Code that would bring her to genetic supremacy. She had understood it as soon she had felt it within the endless depth of the pool of genetic code. Unfathomable power at her fingertips, so close that it was intoxicating. And yet, here she was feeling feeble and weak like a newborn.

“Euna, we have to go, we don’t have time,” Hiro’s eyes were fixed on the adjacent wall where she noticed a thick pane of transparent glass and behind it was a man who towered with three sleek metallic limbs. Next to the window, on it's left, were a set of massive doors. They were more like two thick slabs of chrome metal.

“Are we in danger?” Euna asked as she observed the man who was quietly observing her as well.

“Yes,” Hiro nearly shouted the word. “If it wasn’t obvious, yes, we’re in big fucking-”

Suddenly, through the glass and behind the doctor, Euna could see another set of doors slide open and revealing more of the pristine white interior. Even further away there was another set of doors and they were already open.

Augmented soldiers were already streaming in, one by one.

That must be the way out, Euna noted.

“Trouble,” Hiro stated wearily. “Shit.”

Euna's attention returned to the doctor, and the staring contest promptly resumed.

“He seems upset about something.”

“Euna?” Hiro said her name cautiously. “Did you forget that you’re inside the stronghold of the enemy fortress? Think of this place as the torture chamber where they do horrible stuff to you and that man by the way is the asshole who completely manhandled you inside-out. Literally.”

Euna scrunched up her face in disgust. Although she didn’t have any memory of it, it sounded unpleasant.

“Including your ovaries too,” Hiro added.

Euna narrowed her eyes, still glaring at the doctor. “What’s ovaries?”

Hiro smacked his head. “Nevermind. What's more important is that he dissected you, and well, I stopped him. Now we’re in grave danger. Please tell me you’re going to start changing soon.”

“I-”

Suddenly, Nequiv’s voice boomed through speakers. “Surrender. You are surrounded, trapped, and at my mercy.”

Behind the doctor stood twenty Augmented soldiers in organized formation. All of them were toting rifles and a few were carrying nets.

“There are various contingency measures in place that I have not bothered to engage. I would very much prefer not to have everything incinerated. Hiro, disarm and disassemble yourself. Altered creature, please allow yourself to be subdued. I assure you, that if you obey, you will be dealt with leniently. Otherwise, things will turn very ugly. I am a man of my words. You will have a minute to make your decision.”

Euna turned away from the window and found Hiro with a distressed look on his face.

“Euna… You've no idea of the things this man had done to you while you were sedated…”

Although Euna wasn't conscious through the dissection, she did remember being acutely aware of an array of painful sensations sundering her body apart. Accompanying those painful sensations were a deluge of dream-like memories that were so vivid, she had assumed that they were real. But that simply couldn't have been possible, she realized, for she was physically and mentally here. Not in a world of ashes, nor in the forest where her home was but here, where the Augmented fleet had attacked her village.

She was here to end a war.

“If he got his hands on you again…” Hiro shook his head, then continued speaking hurriedly. “Nequiv wouldn't activate the incinerators. He wants you alive. They'll have to come in or somehow force us out. I believe our only option is to fight and I can’t take them all on by myself. I need your help. I know you probably don’t trust me after what I did to you. This is my fault after all--”

“Half a minute,” Nequiv’s voice sounded through the speakers.

“but I’m in this with you now," Hiro said. "I’m a traitor to the empire. Th-this is all very weird for me still, but I think… I think this is right. It feels right. I don’t say this very often but… my life, my fate… it’s in your hands Euna,” Hiro lowered his voice and added, “and please tell me you’re not permanently this tiny.”

Euna didn't speak. Her eyes were closed and her mind was already deep within a meditative state. To her surprise, it only took a brief instant, for her to awaken her somatic sense. Unlike her past, it would usually take half a minute or less if she was more focused. There would be long moments of darkness where all her physical senses were muted, then the slow rising sensation of every fiber in her being, flaring up one individual cell at a time. Now it was almost instantaneous. An overwhelming explosion of stimuli flooded her somatic sense all at once, threatening to combust her mind into unconsciousness. She gasped as she felt her mind reel painfully from the surging fire of sensations. Promptly, Euna began to repress her somatic sense lest her mind become rendered insensate.

Euna opened her eyes and saw Hiro lowering his stance in front of her, getting ready to fight.

"Of course not," Euna said in reply to Hiro's concern.

She brought her hand out of the pool and observed with her somatic sense. Her body was like a newborn. Delicately soft skin, undeveloped muscles, and flimsy bones. But she was sitting in a pool of nutrient-rich soup. The mass that had birthed her, was in essence a part of her. She was connected to it via hundreds of tube-like tissue. With a thought, her body began absorbing the soup, and mass.

"Your minute is over," Nequiv announced into the intercom. “How unfortunate, it seems that we must do things the old-fashioned way.”

Euna felt her bones twist and contort as they grew. Within seconds she had gone through puberty, and reached adulthood for the second time in her relatively short life.

Suddenly, a murky yellow gas began seeping into the room, circulating and smothering the room until everything was a thick fog of white-yellow.

One sniff and Euna could feel a numbing sensation swell in her nostrils. She brought her hand to her nose to block the gas but then felt the numbing sensation disappear. Puzzled, Euna looked inward with her somatic sense and observed her overactive immune system neutralizing the foreign substance. This was something that she had never seen her body do on its own before.

“Par-paralyzing gas,” Hiro coughed. Euna couldn’t see his face through the haze but she could hear Hiro wobble unsteadily.

Euna simply breathed it in, letting her body neutralize it on its own.

Still enthused with her newly heightened somatic sense, Euna took in a breath of anticipation and peered into the pool of genetic code that would allow her to alter her biology at a whim. Her mind reeled as an explosion of genetic codes blossomed outwards in the void of her mind. With a clarity she had never felt before, Euna glanced into the matrix and immersed herself in a universe of helices unraveling and weaving together endlessly to form infinite possibilities. Even more sequences that was mostly incomprehensible to her before was now suddenly comprehensible.

Once again, Euna found herself transfixed by the incredible beauty of the Genetic Alteration Matrix. But then she remembered the disaster that had taken place the last time she had reached this stage. Although she wasn’t entirely certain of the true cause of her incapacitation, whether it was the tranquilizers, the Alteration Code, or something else entirely, she chose to avoid the Alteration Code that she had selected last time. Euna accessed with her somatic sense a selection of simpler and more familiar codes.

Euna opened her eyes and observed her body begin to change. She wasn’t sure how long she had spent in the depths of the matrix, but Hiro was still standing--although with his hand on the table for support--with his breath held, as the gas continued to smother the room. Within moments, she had sprouted wings that were more akin to massive claws, her legs had taken the form of the hind legs of a quadruped, and her hands had morphed into razor sharp claws that were as long as her forearm. Then her skin began to peel off making room for cancerous growths which formed plate-like scales that took on a reflective obsidian quality. Euna took a moment to appraise the crystalline scales that were forming over most of her body. It overlapped in certain areas such as her torso and back, and protruded like spikes in other areas. Everything from her ankles and to her neck were wreathed in scales.

“C-can’t take anymore,” Hiro muttered before taking one last breath and collapsing onto the floor.

Just as Hiro fell, the blast doors to the containment room opened with a hiss. Augmented soldiers began to stream into the room.

Euna could see the trails of glowing blue lights through the yellow haze as they swarmed in and surrounded her. As some of them came closer she could see that they were wearing metallic masks which filtered the gas for them.

“Fire at will!” one of them shouted.

With a thought, obsidian scales grew from her neck and snapped over her face like a mask, before enveloping the rest of head.

Euna watched with amusement as the tranquilizer darts bounced off her body.

“Ineffective! I repeat ineffective!” one of the Augmented soldiers shouted, almost whimpering.

No one listened as they continued to fire repeatedly at Euna. Most of them simply too afraid to do anything else as they spotted crimson eyes peering at them from within the sleek armor of black scales.

“Fuck this! I’m switching to live ammunition!”

To the detriment of having super acute senses, Euna flinched painfully when a deafening ear-splitting boom resounded through the room, followed by a projectile slug tearing through the air audibly before slamming into her chest with enough force to send her off her feet.

Groggily, she shook her head, and glanced down at her chest. Her scales had taken most of the impact, crumpling inwards from the force and leaving a small indent where the shell had smashed into her body without actually penetrating her flesh. Although there was no penetration, she could feel several broken ribs and flesh that had been severely cooked from the incinerating heat.

Still a long way from father, Euna noted.

Although she had managed to cover most of her body in scales, she knew it was but a fraction of durability compared to the sheer volume of her father's.

Not wanting to take another shot, she quickly got up and pounced at the Augmented soldier who had shot her.

In a panic, the Augmented soldier began firing erratically.

Euna shielded herself with her scaled wings as she lunged lithely through the air. Her entire forearm went through his chest, cleanly tearing his heart out.

The soldier glanced into her eyes as he sagged on her arm, dying.

Euna merely blinked.

She moved onto the next soldier who also began firing at her with lethal weaponry. By now, most of the Augmented soldiers have gone into full panic mode, pulling out everything in their arsenal just to survive.

By the time the yellow haze had lifted, Euna had dispatched most of the soldiers. Only those who had tossed their weapons and yielded in cowardice, remained standing.

Euna glanced at Hiro who had peacefully slumbered through the entire ordeal underneath the safety of the table. She then turned her attention to the thick pane of glass where she spotted the man who Hiro called Nequiv, punching in commands on the control console hurriedly.

The hiss of the blast doors was hint enough for Euna. He was closing the doors.

With a single stride, Euna bounded towards Hiro and hefted him over her shoulder, then with three easy strides, made it through the doors before they could close.

"Ah, how unfortunate," the doctor made a disappointed expression as he put his hands in the air. "It seems you've matured magnificently into a monster."

Euna tried to speak, but forgot that her lips had morphed into a part of her scaled mask. With a thought, the scales on her face peeled away like a mask, revealing a pink and raw face of flesh and muscle. New skin soon began to grow in. "You're Nequiv?"

Nequiv nodded.

"I don't know what you did to me... I wasn't conscious for most of it, but I believe I felt it. It was..." Euna paused, not knowing how to put the unimaginable pain she had felt into words, but she knew how to communicate it through action.

With a flick of her wrist, she raked her claws through Nequiv's abdomen, carving multiple crevices into his partially synthetic and mechanical body. It wasn't deep enough to separate him from his lower half, but it was deep enough to leave him hanging off of his waist by the thread of his synthetic skin and fibers.

Nequiv didn't say anything. He only looked at Euna dispassionately as he hung from his waist. "Are you going to kill me?"

For a moment Euna observed Nequiv. Although she had sheared him nearly in half, she knew that this was nowhere near actually killing him.

"I should," Euna answered, but shook her head slowly. Slaughtering someone who couldn't fight back was frowned upon among the Altered. Regardless of how wronged she felt, Euna still had principles that she would prefer not to break. "You call me--you call us monsters, but how are you any different?"

Nequiv gave himself a look-over and chuckled. "I guess we are both monsters, huh."

Euna was not amused. "I heard you manhandled my ovaries."

Nequiv made a weird face. "Hiro told you that?"

Euna nodded.

"And... wh-what of it?" Nequiv asked cautiously.

"What are ovaries?"

Hiro woke with a throbbing pain on his cheek. As his eyes opened wearily, he found himself entranced by swirling marbles of lustrous violet and blood. Euna's face was hovering close enough for him to smell her breath. He saw his own face trapped within her eyes. Patches of skin on his neck and cheek were pinkish raw, there were yellowing bruises on his temple, some of his hair and one of his eyebrows were singed off. Not both, but one eyebrow, which made it asymmetrical and all the more appalling according to Augmented beauty standards. All in all, it wasn't a pretty sight. He would need extensive reconstruction when he returned--that is if he ever returned back to the Augmented Empire.

"What's up?" Hiro broke the silence first as Euna was being characteristically quiet as usual. Then he noticed it. Euna was wreathed in dark crystalline scales that covered her from her ankles and up to her neck, cutting off abruptly around her jawline. And she was now just as tall as him.

Euna drew herself away. "There's nothing up."

Hiro frowned. As expected, there seemed to be a discrepancy in their vernacular. "I meant, what's going on? Seeing that I'm alive, it means that you must have dealt with the soldiers. Did you kill Nequiv?"

Euna shook her head.

"Seriously?" Hiro sat up alarmed. "He's going to have the entire ship on our asses. We've got to get moving."

He looked around and quickly took in his surroundings. They were currently sitting in a large ventilation tunnel that ran in between the floors of the ship. Not too far away and on the ceiling, was the offending hole where Euna had apparently torn through to reach this compartment of the ship.

"We?" Euna intoned as she glared at Hiro.

Uh oh, Hiro thought.

"Did you think I forgot what you did? You alerted your comrades, and they attacked me, captured me, and mutilated me."

Hiro turned away from Euna, and scratched his head. "Hey, didn't I apologize already? If it helps... I'm sorry. I'm still really confused about everything. I don't even know what's going on anymore."

Hiro gave Euna a sidelong glance and found her still staring at him. Apparently, an apology wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't. She saved my life and what did I do? I got her killed. Almost.

"I won't blame you if you're mad at me. If... If you want to kill me," Hiro said calmly, "I wouldn't be able to stop you. What Nequiv did to you was unforgivable, and I was there to watch it happen. It was my fault..." Hiro clenched his hands. "I-I thought you were dead Euna. Actually, I still can't believe that you're alive right now. I'm not even sure if this is real anymore."

"I'm not mad at you," Euna said.

Hiro blinked sheepishly at Euna. "Umm, but you look mad."

"No, I don't."

Not wanting to provoke a girlwho could easily rip him apart, Hiro conceded. "Y-yeah, you're right. Never mind then."

"I saw it, Hiro. I think I knew you would help me, that you would stop Nequiv. I feel like I've seen him before."

Hiro narrowed his eyes.

"You think I'm crazy?" Euna asked.

"I... I wouldn't be so certain. When I was in the lab, when I stopped the dissection and touched--whatever that was--I found myself in a place I've never seen before. Flowers. Flowers everywhere, and a massive tree in the center. Then I saw you standing there all alone. I even called out to you."

"In-interesting," Euna's lips quivered. "So, I'm not the only one?"

Hiro shrugged.

"When I was being dissected, I-I saw a lot of things. I was back home in my village and there was no war. No Augmented Fleet came, and I was safe. We were safe. Everything was as it should be. But I was also told strange things by a voice. A voice that lurks in my head. I-I don't know if it's real or not, but it told me that we're in a simulation."

"No," Hiro shook his head almost as if denying it would make it less credible. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I know," Euna agreed. "The thing is, that voice is what lead me to you. I think. Somehow, I knew you would help me. But what I don't understand is... why? Why did you do it Hiro? Why did you suddenly turn on your own people in order to save me?"

“Well…” Hiro pondered for a moment. “why did you save me?”

"I told you. The voice. I just knew that saving you would provide me some form of return in the future."

Hiro smiled. "Nah. I don't believe anything of that for a second. Sure, maybe, just maybe all the stars aligned and you could see what kind of outcome would come of out your every move and you knew that saving me would end up benefiting you, but you," Hiro pointed, "are the one who decided to do the things you did. At any moment in time you could have chosen to kill me and move on. I don't believe the future is set in stone Euna, it can't be, otherwise... there would be no point trying. And besides, even if it is set in stone, stone can be broken."

Euna laughed, "You still haven't answered my question."

Hiro shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. "I guess it was a spur of the moment decision. I saw you getting cut up and it really sparked something in me."

"You think I don't know what sarcasm is?"

"I'm serious," Hiro said with a deadpan expression. "I was never cut out for this sort of thing. I was supposed to be sent to the capital where I would spend the rest of my life as a basic grunt, but somehow, I was recruited into the Augmented Empire's 57th military campaign. Yeah, I'm a coward, that's the gist of it. I guess they needed some expendable grunts and I just happened to make the cut. That's how I ended up here. I should be dead right now, and even if I wasn't, they would send me out there again where I would become fodder once again. I guess something in me just snapped."

Euna watched silently as Hiro shrugged again, but the expression that he made, it was a bitter one.

"Why are you so different from your people?" Euna asked suddenly.

Hiro laughed. "I'm different? My god, you should look at yourself."

"What, am I that monstrous?"

"No, not in that kind of way. More like you're a walking angel of destruction. I feel mundane standing next to you."

Euna stood up, taking a moment to let that sink in without showing any emotion on her face. "Alright. Time to go."

Hiro stood up quickly, following after Euna. “Wait, where are you going?"

"To find General Corax."

"That's suicide. The entire ship is probably looking for us right now. Look, if you can just give me a few moments to formulate a plan. If we can just get to the hangar bay without being spotted then we can hijack a vessel and bust our asses out of here. I just need a moment to go through the map layout and find the safest route there. As long as we make it to the hangar bay we'll be golden.”

“Not yet. I still haven't accomplished what I set out to do here. I'm sorry Hiro but this is the closest I'll ever get to the general. My family are fighting out there and dying. I can't just sit around and run for my life when there's danger. They would do the same for me."

“No, no, no,” Hiro shook his head vehemently. “After the trouble I went through to save your ass, you want to go back and get yourself killed again?"

"Things will be different this time. I won't be killed."

"People who say that often get killed," Hiro retorted.

"Shut up."

Hiro reached for Euna's shoulder, then stopped short as Euna wheeled around on him before staring into his eyes. Just as always Hiro was literally stunned for a moment.

"Hiro," Euna said. "You're free to run for your life. You're not obligated to me in anyway understand? I never asked or expected you to do the things you did."

Hiro watched Euna walk off as her words sunk in. That's right. Who am I to even try to stop her?

Euna was underneath the hole that she had created in the ceiling now.

Suddenly, Hiro found himself smiling. “Do you even know where he is?”

Euna paused, “No.”

“Then how are you going to find him?”

"Shut up."