“Access Denied,” the system intoned.

Euna hissed at the control console, baring her fangs and raising her claws to strike.

“Ho-hold on!” Hiro raised his hands in a placating manner. “It’s just an artificial voice produced by the system. It’s not actually alive Euna,” Hiro waved his hand over the console and sure enough the system repeated the same message along with a flash of red light.

Euna lowered her claws and stepped back, all while eyeing the control console suspiciously.

“Trust me, it’s safe. It has no means of attacking us anyways,” Hiro reassured with a confident smile.

“I’m not worried,” she folded her arms over her chest, “now explain to me why we’re here Hiro,” Euna commanded.

“To check if they had rescinded my access authority, and unfortunately… they have.”

“Why do you need this access authority?” Euna asked as she measured up the hefty metallic gate before her. “I can tear through this.”

“There are multiple composite layers of metals here…” Hiro glanced at Euna’s claws.

From her wrist to her disproportionately enlarged hands were scintillating black scales that gave way to claws that were as long as her forearm. What was ivory in color before--the last time Hiro saw Euna before she was dissected by Nequiv--was now a deep ebony that had veins of dark crimson running through them. They were hard to notice but they were there.

“...You probably can, but it’ll take too much time. Especially when we’re on the run, we can’t be making stops so that you can whack at the door until it tears. And there will be plenty more on each floor.”

“Okay. What’s the plan then?” Euna asked and just as she did, her head perked up. She could feel the reverberations in the floor and walls. “Hiro? Incoming. Two of them,” she announced as she glanced down the corridor.

“Ah. My identification code must have alerted the system when I attempted to access the door,” Hiro explained. “Everyone on the ship should know our current location by now. The two heading this way are probably the first to respond to the alert due to their proximity.”

Euna turned and glared at the control console. “I knew it, you should have let me destroy this thing. Stupid Hiro.”

“No Euna, this is one of the projected scenarios that I’ve already planned for,” Hiro wagged his finger at her while smiling mischievously. “This should work well in our favor… If you can pull this off right.”

Euna rolled her eyes impatiently. “Next time tell me your plan before you actually do it. They’re almost here. Twenty seconds give or take. Talk.”

“We can’t just waltz in to General Corax’s quarters without a few… assurances.I’m sure we’ll run into some obstacles and security on our way there but right now, a good chunk of the Augmented troops are deployed out in the battlefield as we speak. We’ve actually got a good shot at this. Also, we need a means of freely traversing the ship. Okay, firstly, I’m going to need you to avoid killing the two heading our way. Knock them out or whatever, but keep them alive. We’re going to need them.”

Just as Euna had claimed, the pair of Aug-soldiers soon appeared in sight from around the winding corridor. They were attired in the basic Augmented uniform, a skintight suit for maximum flexibility. Upon seeing Euna, they froze up for a moment, conversed with each other, then began moving forward cautiously as they armed themselves.

Euna stood stock-still as she silently assessed her prey, letting them encroach closer at their own leisure. Other than the scales wreathed around her body, her appearance was mostly humanoid. Her claws, wings and legs had degenerated into her body after she had taken a temporary respite in the underground tunnel she had burrowed into. When not in combat, the adults in her village often reverted to a more civil and human form. It was a custom and habit that had been ingrained in her since she learned to Alter her body. Euna would have degenerated her scales away but Hiro--being weird as he always was--had insisted with a flushed face, that Euna keep the scales on.

“Halt Altered monster!” one of them called as he trained his rifle at her.

Hiro quickly noted that these two were just basic Aug-soldiers on patrol, who probably hadn’t seen any action.

“Um, go easy on them?” Hiro suggested.

The other one stepped closer totting his rifle over his shoulder. “Surrender or we will-”

Hiro merely blinked, and suddenly Euna was no longer next to him. She reappeared next to the pair of Aug-soldiers. The one that had stepped forward confidently was already on the floor, out cold. The remaining Aug-soldier was stunned for a moment but quickly made the good judgement between a fight-or-flight scenario. He leaped backwards, dropping his gun in the process, and began running full pelt down the corridor.

“Pl-please! Spare my life! I don’t get paid enough for this shit!” he screamed as he ran.

“Hiro,” Euna turned around, “do we need this coward too?”

Hiro felt a pang of guilt as he sympathized with the Aug-soldier running for his life. “Yeah,” Hiro answered unenthusiastically, then called out to the Aug-soldier, “sorry mate!”

Euna broke into a sprint, chasing after the Aug-soldier. It didn’t take long before she also incapacitated him. She then collected the Aug-soldiers and dropped them in front of Hiro.

Hiro hunkered down and motioned for Euna to come closer as he began fiddling with one of the Aug-soldiers' wrist.

Euna tried her best to stay attentive as Hiro launched into a lecture. He started off with illustrating their current location as he tinkered with a hologram display from the Aug-soldier's wrist. Euna watched as he cycled through different color codes, icons, and layers of the miniature projection of the ship’s core layout. He pointed to the fore of the ship where there was a circular disc. This was the bridge, which Hiro elaborated was essentially a control room. Then he pointed to a compact room elevated directly above it. The commander’s cabin, Hiro called it. Here was occasionally where the highest ranking soldiers would confer privately but would otherwise be served as a private quarter’s for the highest ranking Aug-soldier on board. In the heat of battle, the commander would usually oversee the operation from the bridge, where he can observe the battle from the display feeds and issue commands as he saw fit. These two areas, Hiro explained, were most likely where they would find General Corax.

Euna had nodded blankly as she observed the partially see-through, three-dimensional geometric shapes floating in the air, giving off a fluorescent glow. Even though Hiro had dialled the hologram to the simplest setting, it still appeared like a complex labyrinth of intermingling shapes and layers.

“What if he’s not there?” Euna asked.

Hiro shrugged. “If Corax isn’t there… then it's beyond me. Where he stays and goes is information that I wouldn’t have access to. The more pertinent question however, is what we’ll do once we do find him?”

Euna avoided Hiro’s pointed gaze. She still didn’t have a clear picture of what she was going to do, but Hiro and Euna both knew it wasn’t going to be friendly banter.

“What the hell do we need these two for?”

“I’ll explain that in a moment, but first...” Hiro stood up and motioned for Euna to come closer as he began fiddling with his arm. “I need you to take my hand and don’t lose it.”

A lithe shadow with dark scintillating scales leaped into the air as another projectile whistled past, missing the target by a narrow margin. Slung over her shoulder was a limp body that was being held in place with one arm.

Tailing close behind Euna in hot pursuit was a squad of Augmented soldiers.

“Incendiary slugs proving ineffective, Squad DZR-044 alternate to homing missiles and shock-nets!”

“Targets sighted at sector corridor 3-7! Requesting for reinforcements to intercept at 3-8!”

At the peak of her leap she unfurled her wings, altering her trajectory preemptively and avoiding another projectile as she dived to the opposing wall of the corridor. The corridor that she was speeding through was hexagonal in structure, allowing for her to easily scale the walls in haphazard fashion.

As Euna soared through the air in mid-flight again, she spared a quick glance at the unconscious Augmented soldier slung over her shoulder. No, this was not Hiro, but the unfortunate Aug-soldier that had foolishly confronted Euna and was consequently conscripted for Hiro’s stupid plan. To the squadron chasing her, the Aug-soldier she was carrying would appear to be Hiro, who was last seen on her shoulders when she had escaped from Nequiv’s lab.

Euna wrinkled her face in distaste as she remembered Hiro's smug smile as he elaborated on his plan.

“Yes, Euna. I meant it literally. Take my hand and run it through as many checkpoints as you can. I want you to lead the Aug-soldiers on a wild goose cha--no, a wild Altered chase,” Hiro corrected himself with a smile. “Oh, and you take this guy, and I’ll take this guy. Think of them as tickets. They’ll allow you to bypass the doors when the sensors pick up their neural signature.”

“What about you?” she had asked.

“Me? Uh, well, I’m going to make a visit to the Armory,” Hiro had answered.

The squad of Augmented soldiers had been chasing Euna for at least a good ten minutes now. They fired at her haphazardly as their sleek and aerodynamically designed Aug-legs went into overdrive in order to keep up with Euna’s spry pace. They leaped and sprinted after her with reckless abandon and near limitless endurance. The painful sensation of lactic acid saturating muscle, was a trait that the Augmented did not have to endure. Their only outward limits would be the malfunction of their Aug-limbs via overheating, or incurred damages. Other than that, it was mostly the neurological and mental limits that an Aug-soldier had to acclimate to. In this case, the Aug-soldiers were almost visibly fuming with uninhibited motivation. The prospects for re-capturing an Altered were a blindingly bright future. To be showered with accolades, wealth, and a well-to-do position in the higher ranks of the military was an aspiration shared by all within the Augmented Empire. Although their target was a dangerous Altered, they had less to fear since Euna was a target that they had already managed to capture once. It meant that there was less danger overall.

In addition to all of that, there was an Augmented soldier by the code of 7H14093Q8G3H who has been charged with desertion, insubordination and mutiny. Their orders were to capture him dead or alive. His charges were heinous and nerve-wracking for the fifteen Aug-soldiers within squad DZR-044. His punishment would be supreme. That was unquestionable. When they had heard the charges against what Code-7H14093Q8G3H they had shuddered and wondered what in the world had went on in Code-7H14093Q8G3H’s mind when he had carried out his heinous crimes. It was a mystery that would become mouth watering gossip for the bulk of the Aug-soldiers within the lower rungs of the military.

Euna could hear the missiles trailing close behind her despite her attempts to shake it off. She turned and caught sight of one of the missiles pulling ahead of the cluster. It was a sleek and compact projectile with tiny thrusters propelling it alarmingly me close to her face. She swiped at it with her wing, derailing it from its trajectory. It spun out of control before colliding with the adjacent wall. It detonated, catching the cluster of missiles within its radius and causing a chain reaction of snowballing explosions.

Euna remained calm as she felt her body being forcefully launched into the air by the tempestuous shockwave. She braced herself, riding the shockwave with her limbs tucked close to her body before springing into a dive. She landed on the ground skidding a few meters before breaking out into a full sprint again. Flying wasn’t a viable option for her, since being indoors meant that there was little to no winds. Flying would simply be too slow. Euna had to resort to erratic zig-zags and an occasional leap to evade the incoming projectiles.

“Where do I go next?” she shouted into Hiro’s detached hand which she held firmly in her hand.

After a moment, Hiro’s voice came through. “Keep going straight, you’ll see doors ahead soon. Turn right after you pass the doors.”

Euna was still disgruntled by the fact that Hiro’s voice could come out of his hand, but the fact that she could speak with him despite their distance was outrageously convenient.

Before long, she could see the gates pop into view from around the winding corridor. Then her momentary respite ended as the shrill sound of a whistle heralded the arrival of more homing missiles. Not wanting to deal with them again, she closed her eyes momentarily and gazed with her somatic sense, the Genetic Alteration Matrix. Her mind brushed over the mass of genetic sequences and immediately gained comprehension of each of their effects. Then she selected.

Euna opened her eyes and felt the change immediately. Her spine began contorting as it lengthened. The joints in her arms twisted backwards becoming the hind legs of a quadruped. Her tailbone grew, as her neck extended forward. Her facial structure changed, elongating slightly until it was reminiscent to a snout.

In the next moment, she was springing down the corridor on all fours, each stride of her lithe legs carrying her bounds and leaps further than before. The walls around her became a blur as her vision focused on the doors in the distance. The sound of the homing missiles were now a distant memory as she sped down the corridor. Within seconds the massive doors were looming before her, and for a moment she panicked, afraid of crashing head first into the heavy doors. But as she came close, a green light signalled and the doors slid open just enough for her body to clear the gap without slowing down.

Oh shit, Euna thought, as she zipped past the corridor that she was supposed to turn into. Instead, she had went straight on ahead.

“Umm, I missed the turn, I’ll turn back,” Euna spoke into Hiro’s mechanical hand which she now held with her wing instead of her hand.

After a few moments, Hiro responded, though he was slightly out of breath. “Th-that’s fine. Keep going straight and turn left at the next corridor you see. It’ll be farther from me but I’ll come to you.”

“Okay.”

She decided to slow down so that she wouldn’t miss her next turn but as she went further down the corridor, a blockade of Augmented soldiers popped into view. This time they were armed and ready. This squadron also had fifteen Aug-soldiers and they all stood in formation behind a pulsating electric field. Placed on the floor were four cylindrical pylons that spewed arcs of blue interlocking lightning.

Great.

Euna slowed to a crawl as she informed Hiro.

“Hmm,” Hiro pondered audibly through the Comms for a moment. “You need to get past them in order to reach the next elevator shaft in the left corridor.”

“Alright, I can do it.”

“Wait. You shouldn’t take the risk of getting caught again. How about turning back? The last corridor you missed also has an elevator shaft that you can take. It shouldn’t be that far away.”

She glanced behind her and spotted the squadron that she had left behind come into view. She also noticed that she had a long serpentine tail that swished languidly from side to side.“Umm, I’ve got more on my... tail, but I can handle them.”

“Alright,” Hiro said, “I trust whatever decision you make, but please try not to get caught again.”

Euna’s eyebrow twitched. “You know what? I think I’ve had enough of running around as your personal decoy. Maybe if I start tearing the place up, then Corax will come to me.”

“Hey, I’m on your side, don't get mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” Euna said as her tail lashed out against the floor audibly.

“Lo-look, sorry if I offended you, but tearing the place up is not a good idea. They could have an entire squadron of Augmented Vessels descend on you in a matter of seconds.”

“Good. That’s what I want. The fewer there are of them out there, then the better it is for my people.”

“Euna… don’t do anything rash,” Hiro advised through the Comms.

Suddenly, Euna whipped around and hissed at the squadron of Augmented soldiers that were now cautiously creeping closer.

They froze as if paralyzed by fear, but their expressions were not of fear. They were a twenty odd meters away, which was ample room for them to start firing away. But they hadn’t.

Euna soon learned why.

One of the Aug-soldiers sauntered forward arrogantly. “Stand back guys, this one’s mine. My name is Lenveer. What is your name Altered monster?”

Euna glanced behind her. The blockade of Aug-soldiers with the electric field hadn’t moved an inch.

She turned back to the Aug-soldier who had asked for her name. “Euna,” she answered with a sweet smile.

The last time someone had asked for her name was before a bloody melee had ensued. And she had lost.

No, not this time.

“Whatever it is that you're doing Hiro…” she whispered into his detached hand, “it better be good, because I’m about to tear some of these Aug-soldiers a new hole.”

“Euna?" Lenveer tasted the name aloud. "Interesting name for a monster. I shall decimate you, and with your blood and remains I will put them on display for all of the Augmented Empire to see.”

Lenveer tossed his rifle to the floor, and reached behind his back. He withdrew a short metallic rod and a compact, elliptical object. With a twist, the rod extended outwards until it took the form of a spear. The elliptical object opened up like a flower with metallic plates jutting out like petals. Lenveer wielded it like a shield.

Euna coiled up, waiting patiently for Lenveer to make the first move.

With a war cry, Lenveer charged forward.

Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the entire corridor. Everyone froze, as if bracing for impact. Euna merely gazed around confused.

Another tremor. This one closer and more violent.

The Augmented soldiers had turned to look at each other with faces stricken with fear.

"Eu-euna," Hiro's voice trembled through the Comms. "Can you hear me?"

Euna nodded, then realizing that Hiro wasn't actually next to her, answered, "Ye-yeah?"

"An impact of that magnitude, I think-"

Suddenly, the shrill blaring of alarms sounded across the ship. Red lights flickered, coloring everything with a deep red hue.

"Hull breach!" the Aug-soldiers frantically relayed the message they had heard through their Comms to each other.

Suddenly, with one deafening crash of sound, Euna found herself aloft in the air. The walls had come apart, and the floor was no longer below her.

The next tremor had completely demolished the entire corridor.