Lanara/DarwinsDaughter

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

(((Story, Dated: 24-Dec-2007)))

It was a bank robbery, but Lanara was ready for it. Normally they would have called Shelly, but she was gone. Lanara said she'd fill in. She couldn't take the hits like Shelly could, but Lanara could dish it out with the best of 'em. The fire was dancing from her fingers, tossing aside thugs and random infiltrators left and right. Founders Falls was never short of imposters.

After a terrific remodeling spree in the room that combined Moonrise's room with Yolanda and Lanara's room. But then, suddenly, Lanara had moved out to room with the Emma's. The pair of radioactive newcomers to the Foundation treated the newest Field Officer to the foundation just like a radioactive housecat. Much to the surprise of everyone else, this made Lanara blissfully happy. She still went to school during the day, and came home and was a very... large... kept housecat. She wasn't completely sure WHY she enjoyed this so much, but it made her feel SO much better about her unusual blue and white appearance. And when she had time, she still went out and burned crooks to cinders. All in all, for Lanara, life was finally looking up!

Lanara saw police men turning to men in blocks of ice... living ice cubes. Lanara's burning heat thawed them out. She gathered all of her focus and strength, to explode on the villain trying to rob the bank...

...Rhiannon's face. "Hello again dear."

Lanara's eyes went wide. She couldn't decide to attack or run in fear. But it didn't matter, she found she couldn't move. She was trapped in a block of ice. Rhiannon took out a small device with a red spider logo on it, placing it on Lanara's base porter, which went dark. And so did everything else...

"Good good, take her to my lab back at the base." Rhiannon told her helpers, who wore face masks and jackets marked with a big "X", who put Lanara's ice block on a teleporter device.

Lanara came back around to find herself in a position she was VERY VERY familiar with. Her wrists were strapped down. Her ankles strapped down. Something strapped over her waist. Her wings were pinned down with clamps. Her tail was clamped down. There was not a single part of her body she could move... not even her jaw. She tensed and snarled.

"She's awake, Madame Gladstone."

"Good good, she survived freezing and teleportation without a problem." Rhiannon's voice was audible.

"Why not just kill her and be done with it?"

"Because killing her would be wasteful. Human beings in general tend to be wasteful. They have the entire planet, and cover it in waste. But slowly the meta-humans are increasing in number, generally more intelligent than the old humans. So all we need now is the flame to start the forest anew. A new variety of human, more powerful, stronger, that would gain dominance over the old one, and would be a lot smarter about it's use of resources and treat the world with greater respect."

"And this... blue girl... is how you would build this new race of super-humans?"

"Yes. By combining science and sorcery we can build a genetically true neo-human race with the magical and intellectual capacity to make better decisions, clean up their waste, and make their world a better place, once the old race has become extinct." Rhiannon entered Lanara's visual area, holding all kinds of pointy medical sharp objects, pointing them in her direction. "But it only works when there's two, and they 'mingle' and make new ones."

Lanara struggled against the restraints, trying to explode with flame and knock them all backwards, but she found she was too tired - all her strength and energy were drained from her. She fought against the restraints, but they had been made in such a way that they had been designed to hold someone like Lanara. She felt the needles and probes sticking through her fur and into her skin. Probing into her head and into her eyes...

Lanara screamed.

Lanara drifted in and out of consciousness. Occasionally she could pick up voices. She couldn't see anything. There was a storm of confusion in her mind. She was having trouble thinking coherently, all kinds of stray ideas dominating her thoughts and then blowing away like a leaf on the wind.

"That's gross. Why the eyes?" The male assistant asked Rhiannon.

"Most direct way to upload information from the computer directly into the brain."

"But... why upload?"

"Well, firstly, my young protege, you must have 20 unique genetic codes to preserve the existence of any new species. Lanara and Blackstone were the first, but that still means 18 more have to be built. I've spent the last few years building those 18 more codes, so now I just need the volunteers with the intellect, stamina, and fortitude to withstand the process, and I needed to perfect the means to program their minds to accept the changes and remain loyal to me above all else. I've perfected the latter part with Arachnos's help in the last few years with the help Ghost Widow's Fortunas." Rhiannon explained, long winded.

"...oh. You mean we need to do this nineteen more times?"

A smacking sound. "Stop whining, little human. Get me those test results. Can't let our star patient zero go wrong again, can we?"

"No, Madame Gladstone. And their eyes? They'll need those."

"The reclamators can fix their eyes when we're done."

Yolanda was already having a bad day. Instead of being home - at the foundation - for the Christmas holiday, she was out with her family. This was not really a good thing, since her family lived apart from normal reality. Dealing with her family - while not bad - never put her in a good mood. Feeling rather cranky, Yolanda went looking for Lanara immediately. She needed the relaxation.

Moonrise commented immediately when Yolanda arrived. “Hey there stranger! How’d the family thing go?”

Yolanda shuddered. “Ugh. Where’s Lanara?”

“She moved in with the Emmas. Just you and me in here now.”

Yolanda looked at Lanara’s empty bed. “But… they don’t live in the Foundation.”

Moonrise blinked. “They don’t?”

“Not that I knew…” Yolanda’s voice trailed off. She returned to the commons room to start asking around. “Anyone seen Lanara?”

Yolanda was starting to get concerned. Lanara was her protectorate. She'd been doing so well...

The wharf in Independence Port was generally quiet. A few ships were being cleared through the war walls and into the Atlantic. A light fog was settling over the city in the early morning hours. Young men with tommy guns patrolled the docks only to be battered aside by the young aspiring hero or heroine. A typical foggy morning in the Independence Port.

But there was one thing unusual. One thing that was tiny, insubstantial, to whom no one gave any regard – literally. A small little wisp of spirit and light darted about, searching under every bridge, in every office building, in the back of every truck, and every inch of the bottom of the ocean.

Finally in a dumpster where a large sack had been dumped, the wisp stopped and vibrated. In a matter of minutes, Yolanda Gladstone came to a rest near the wisp, and encouraged it to fly back into her sleeve. Turning to the dumpster, she retrieved the suspicious burlap sack, and burned it aside, to reveal the bruised, bloodied, and eye-less form of Lanara. It was unclear how long she’d been there, but a quick pulse test revealed she was alive… barely.

“SHIT!” Yolanda cursed to herself, checking Lanara’s MEDCOM device. It was dark – no lights. Yolanda quickly took her own and put it on Lanara’s wrist. It immediately made a whining alarm sound and a red light. Yolanda pressed the ‘Recall to Base’ button and held on for dear life. “Gladstone to Foundation, notify MD7, we have 1 incoming.”

Standing in the base, Yolanda watched as the reclamator repaired Lanara’s body, returning her unusual blue and white appearance to normal. Once the blue light cleared, she went limp into Yolanda’s arms.

Alarm Klaxons. Yolanda turned around to see the Zenvious Foundation’s internal alarm going off. A bell on the medlab wall was ringing nearby. Lanara blinked, stirring to life, looking into Yolanda’s eyes.

Lanara’s eyes were glowing a dull red.

“No…” Yolanda whispered to herself in horror. Lanara let out an ear-slitting cat howl and her claws tore into Yolanda’s protective body armor. “LANARA, NO!”

“WARNING: Air born contaminant detected in section 7, sealing section 7.”

Lanara made for the hallway, running on all fours like a wild animal. Yolanda was tossed to one side but quickly followed her. “STOP!”

“WARNING: Air born mutagen detected in sections 6 and 8, activating quarantine seals.” The computer alarm was blaring.

“LANARA, STOP! It’s me!” Yolanda was shouting as she gathered her best sprint to try to tackle her. The chase had taken them both from one side of the foundation facility to the other, and now the whole base was in a state of bio-alarm containment.

With the forcefields in place in every hallway, sealing off each section of the base, there was nowhere else this seemingly possessed Lanara could run to. She backed into a corner, claws out, turning to Yolanda, and hissed, rumbling like an angry tiger. Yolanda sprang, tackling her to the floor. “I don’t know what happened, but your not yourself, Ms Myers. Please stop!”

Yolanda could have sworn she heard a voice, somewhere, laughing at her. A voice she recognized. Yolanda concerned expression turned to anger. “Mother…”

Rhiannon looked up from her control consoles and computer displays, each marked in the corner with a red and silver ‘X’ motif. Across from her console, a man with foxtails stood, sipping a wine cooler. “I’ve got a clear signal. The transdimensional homing device is working. I’m taking note of the coordinates of their transdimensional fortress now. We can teleport in with ease now. But you’d have to get past their spell wards. They are quite formidable.”

Fudokazu grinned to himself, waving off the elderly fae woman. “Tsk tsk tsk, no faith Madame Gladstone. It’s all part of the plan. Send the coordinates to the teleporter, so I can teleport into their base as soon as I’m ready.”

Lacy Myers.

That’s what her name had been. She’d tried so hard to forget it. But right now it stuck out in her mind like a sore thumb. A street rat, a little girl without a home, living in the cold. A girl with nothing.

But it all changed one night, when she was 10, back in 2001. She was sleeping under an overpass. It was noisy and cold, but at least it was dry and she was away from the icy cold. A breeze kicked up, an icy breeze. She cuddled into her blanket tighter. But the next thing she knew she was trapped in a block of ice…

…She awoke inside the paddock. The walls were 6” thick reinforced plexiglass with periodic 1” round holes bored through it to provide air. There was a little door at the back through which food was delivered. Her blanket… and all her clothes, such as they had been, were gone. The ground was covered in a light layer of grass, and there was a little stream of water in the back of the paddock that she could drink from. She couldn’t see outside the glass, but she couldn’t help feeling like an animal in a zoo. The plexiglass walls were clear but on the outside were 1-way mirrors. All Lacy could see was her own reflection, but she knew someone was watching, because they brought her food every day. And there were the strange bruises on her arm, and little red dots like she had been injected with something using a needle.

Weeks passed. Agonizingly boring weeks. She had no idea how long she had been trapped in there, because she couldn’t see the sun. There was always the bright white fluorescent lights above her, shining down. And her only clue to what was happening to her was the light layer of black and white striped fur that was growing everywhere on her body, and a craving for raw meat. Why were they turning her into –what appeared to be- a tiger with wings?

Of course when you are using retrovirus to replace the old 4-chemical genetic information in a cell with new 5-chemical genetic information takes a lot of monitoring to make sure it was proceeding correctly. They would gas her and knock her out everytime they took her out of the cage. But finally she found that she was strong enough to wake up while she was supposed to be unconscious. She saw a woman arranging small multicolored gems around her and looking at computer screens. A tall woman in a black dress that reminded her of a spiderweb.

Rhiannon Gladstone.

She remembered the lab tech shout that Lacy was conscious. Lacy’s adrenaline hit immediately, and she reached for a gem. A little blue one. She only had the one arm free, and suddenly felt a jolt of pain as the lab tech tried to tazer her back into submission. Her hand unconsciously clenched, crushing the stone in her hand. She felt a swirl of energy filling her body. She felt… strange. Powerful. She snarled ferally like a tiger. The restraints snapped.

Rhiannon Gladstone watched her as the lab techs tried to subdue her. She was… smiling…

Lacy managed to break free to the surface through the subway and sewer tunnels. She was covered in grime and dirt, completely naked, but managed to get to a pay phone and get connected with 911. That was when she learned that 5 years had gone by. It was 2006.

A quick trip to the police station, a nice shower, and a bathrobe later, she was sitting in an office being interviewed. A few weeks later, she testified in front of a Grand Jury. Someone tried to kill her, but she survived – entered witness protection. Testified at the trial of Rhiannon Gladstone, who went to Zigursky.

Eventually she had to start a new life. But people in New York laughed at a tiger woman with wings, whose fur was no longer black but blue and white, thanks to the magic in the gem. Humiliated, she moved to Paragon City, Rhode Island – hoping there she’d at least be respected and able to go to school normally like any other normal kids her age. It was 2007, and in Paragon City she finally got the chance.

But she was ashamed of the name Lacy Myers. The bum. Street girl. People thought she was a prostitute, and she had never knowingly had sex, ever to her knowledge. In shame, she left the name of Lacy Myers behind. She called herself Lanara, intending never to call herself Lacy ever again. To be as normal as she could and to leave behind the horror of what had happened to her.

The memories played over and over in her mind. She couldn't stop what she was doing. She couldn't think. She couldn't control her own body, like some kind of passenger. She felt frightened – so very frightened. She was tiny again, a small ten year old human girl trapped the mind of a 17 year old part tiger, part bird, part human… monster… with her face.

She wanted to reach out to Yolanda, but couldn’t.

Help me…