Helena walked over, trying to keep her gait as even as possible. She still eyed the dragons cautiously.

When the teenager had arrived, the dragons looked down at her together.

"As per your friends' request, we shall examine you," the black dragon spoke.

"We shall find out the reason behind your body's uncontrolled transformation," continued the blue, settling onto its haunches and slipping its tail around its feet. "The reason cannot hide from our magic."

"With it, we shall show you how to control it. You will tame the beast within," finished the red dragon. It turned its gaze back to R.D. and Matt.

"Now, you two, leave us."

"Okay," Helena said.

Yeesh. How direct of them. Matt looked at R.D. and waved his hand back, then turned around and walked back towards Hugo and Ileyna.

R.D. simply shrugged when Matt looked at him, then began to follow him. "Dunno if that could have turned out better," he said as they walked back to Hugo and Ileyna. "I'm no expert on their kind."

"Well, hopefully things'll work out," Matt said. "Otherwise, I dunno what we'll do. I guess I'll at least teach her how to throw a better punch."

Helena watched Matt and R.D. go before turning back towards the dragons. "Okay...I'm ready now."

"Then let us begin," the blue dragon stated. Almost immediately, a large magic circle of silver-white light expanded around Helena on the floor, with various runes and lines slowly rotating around within the circle.

===

R.D. placed a hand on Ileyna's shoulder and had her step aside as another two medics ran past, rushing a man on a stretcher through the hanger and into a distant hallway. He frowned a bit as he watched, then looked about the room. The hanger was a mess--overturned ammo crates, destroyed sections of the floor and walls, blood... he hadn't really noticed it when Tamaran had entered the hanger bay and deposited him in it.

It was the first good look he had gotten at the aftermath of the battle.

"This is... this is probably the worst thing I've seen on this world," he muttered, looking back at Tamaran, who was unmoving and dormant, now that the battle had come to an end. "Even worse than when Derek's army got slaughtered in Antarctica."

Edited by RisingDragon on June 15, 2009 at 18:30:42.

"War sucks, doesn't it?" Matt turned around just as the magic circle surrounded Helena. "Um..." he called out, raising a finger. "Excuse me. Is that safe?"

The dragons ignored Matt--they had become fully engrossed in the spell they were weaving about Helena.

"We probably shouldn't interrupt them," R.D. said. "Some of the dragons down in Antarctica told me that their more complex spells require a lot of concentration."

"But what about the Essence?" Ileyna asked, finally managing to keep her stomach settled enough to allow her to talk. "Will they detect the Essence she has?"

"I don't know," R.D. said. "But if they do, they'll probably come to us about it. They already know of the Omega Essence, after all."

"They'd better not mess with it," Matt said.

"I'll keep an eye on her," Hugo said. "How about the rest of you get something to eat?"

"Good idea." Even now, mediocre army food sounded inviting. Man, war really did suck.

"Wonder if they even have a cafeteria left," R.D. muttered, taking Ileyna by the hand to guide her out of this mess.

He was impressed, really--she was taking this a lot better than any child reasonably would. Ileyna, for the most part, kept her eyes averted from the scenes.

After several minutes of walking, their plan was interrupted.

"R.D.!"

Turning, the boy in question turned towards the sound of the voice, and spotted Alasea running down the hall towards them.

"What's up?" he asked as she came to a stop in front of him, leaning on her legs and panting for breath. "Is something wrong?"

"You... you gotta come see this," she said, standing up. "The soldiers... they managed to find and kill Re-Tuul."

"... what."

"What?" Matt said, a bit louder. Who the hell managed to do that? The dude was IMMMORTAL, last time he checked.

R.D. started moving forward, and Alasea quickly followed, moving ahead of him so she could lead the way--they kept pace at a brisk trot.

As Ileyna moved forward to follow them, she looked up at Matt. "Who's Re-Tuul?" she asked, lifting a hand up to her beret so it wouldn't fall as they chased after R.D. and Alasea.

Matt leaned forward as he strode, his fists clenched. "Re-Tuul is a demon we've encountered a few times before. He's got a problem with R.D. and he's been impossible to kill, so far."

Edited by The Helldragon on June 16, 2009 at 19:46:12.

R.D. remained silent--the expression on his face was hard, unreadable. Alasea was a bit worried. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. No one could; only two people really knew what had happened between him and the eyeless demon in the past... R.D. and Re-Tuul themselves.

It wasn't long before they came to a set of metal doors. Alasea pressed in a quick code she had spied from her father, and the doors slid open.

"--ording to the report, the specimen was killed when a damaged Falken had crashed into the hanger and exploded," came the voice of a scientist. "The wounds here are from the shrapnel of the explosion. Death was almost instantaneous."

"So we know that these creatures are not invincible, as we previously believed," said the voice of Patrick Dagenais. "But to withstand such firepower before that..."

"Now that we've acquired a mostly intact specimen, we can begin work on finding weaknesses in them," said another scientist. "With the Doctor's help, it shouldn't take too long to find something."

Steeling himself, R.D. strode into the room after Alasea. Within was a sterile, white chamber, with various shelves full of medicines, contained chemicals, and various medical implements, such as syringes, scalpels, tongs, saws, and other devices they could only guess at the function of. Several scientists and the General stood around a large steel table, with the mangled corpse of a Khaglessi demon laid on it.

"Ah, you're back, dear," said the General upon spying his daughter. "I was worried when you ran off like you did."

"I had to get R.D.," she said, looking back at him. "He... needed to see this."

R.D. strode up to the table, ignoring the burning stench. He looked down at the corpse, and examined the damages. Most of its body had been destroyed--the right arm had been torn off at the elbow, ending in a jagged, burned stump with a fragment of grayish-white bone sticking out of it; the other arm had been turned into a flattened mess that sported both the distinctive black markings and various burns, from where the meat of its muscles and its blood hadn't been forced out from being crushed. The side of its eel-like face had been torn at the lip, and its mouth hung open, allowing a gray tongue to flop out to one side. Blackish ichor ran down from what was left of its mouth. Both of its legs were gone... from above the right hip through the groin had been torn off completely, and its left leg was a crushed mess, ending just above the knee. The rest of its right leg had been recovered in various pieces, and rested on the table just below the corpse, where it would normally have been.

All he could do was stare at the creature's torso, which was mostly intact. He remained silent. Alasea started to get nervous.

"Ah, jeez!" Matt said, shielding his face at the sight of the corpse. "You didn't say it was gonna be so gruesome!"

R.D. didn't seem to be affected by the sight of the corpse, even with its innards spilled out from the wounds that hadn't been cauterized by the explosion that had taken its life in the first place. He didn't even seem to move.

"R.D.?" she asked, looking tentatively at him

"This... this isn't Re-Tuul," he muttered, looking angry. "This isn't him at all!"

Matt glanced at R.D., still blocking the sight of the corpse. "It's not?"

"It's not," R.D. growled. "The ridges on this Khaglessi's head are different. The markings on its body are different. And its missing the scar."

"The scar?" Alasea questioned.

"The one I gave to him on that day," he replied, tracing where the half-moon cut that he had delivered to Re-Tuul's left abdomen would have been. "It's not here. This isn't Re-Tuul."

"Of course its not," said a new voice, causing them to turn. In the doorway, flanked by a pair of soldiers who had their ZF-1s armed, was an graying old man. His face was aged and weathered, but his hazel eyes were full of clarity, and they peered out from beneath the bangs of his shoulder-long gray hair. He seemed unmindful of the men who had their rifles aimed at him, and he thumbed through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard. "Re-Tuul would be far too strong for the whole of Aube's infantry to destroy."

"Dr. Anstine," the General greeted, his voice sounding distasteful as he mentioned the new scientist's name.

"Then what the hell is this?" R.D. demanded, pointing at the creature. "This shouldn't even be possible! I killed all of them but Re-Tuul! He's the only Khaglessi that's left!"

"Ah, so you're the boy? I commend you. Not many people could take on a Khaglessi and survive, even in their infancy stages."

R.D. glowered at the old man. Who in the hell was this guy?

"They are pretty tough," Matt remarked. "What do you know about them?"

"I know all that there is to know about the Khaglessi," Dr. Anstine said, proceding over to the table to examine the corpse himself. Setting his clipboard down, he removed a pair of rubber gloves from the pocket of his labcoat and pulled them over his hands. "Years of study have gone into the science of genetic manipulation, and I was on the forefront of it."

R.D. had stepped aside to let the man pass him to the examination table, and now crossed his arms in front of his chest as the scientist began his examination of the slain Khaglessi. "Recently, Re-Tuul decided to further propagate his race, and used many research facilities across the world to create thousands of more Khaglessi. With time dilation fields, he was able to develop them all past the infancy stages, so they would not be slain so easily by angry demon hunters like your friend... R.D., was it?"

He said nothing, and simply continued to glower. Feeling worried, Ileyna slipped her hand into Alasea's, who gave her a quick, reassuring squeeze as Dr. Anstine used a tool to further prop open the slain demon's mouth.

Man, R.D. needed to chill out. He's never gotten this steamed before. "It is," Matt supplied.

"Yes, of course. Re-Tuul told me about that battle on Persior. Quite impressive, that you managed to destroy eight Khaglessi. Clever, too, for realizing that the infancy stage is the best time to strike at them," the doctor noted, proceeding to extract something from the creature's innards.

"What's this about their infancy stages?" Alasea asked, looking at the other scientists as they helped Dr. Anstine with his procedure. One of them opened their mouth to speak; R.D. beat him to the punch.

"Khaglessi demons are barely more powerful than a grown human adult for some time after their creation," he said. "Sure, they possess certain attributes that humans don't, but physically they aren't that much stronger than us."

Anstine nodded. "After a period of roughly ninety or so years, the Khaglessi's power fully matures and they become nearly unstoppable. It is the human potential within them that causes this phenomenon. That is why R.D. was able to strike down eight of the original nine at Persior."

"So how in the hell do you know all of this stuff?" R.D. spat out. "I mean, for God's sake, you've spoken to Re-Tuul! Did you help that bastard make these monsters!?"

"He did," the General said. "Re-Tuul came to him to create one particular batch of Khaglessi, in a research compound in Quebec, Canada. The Khaglessi were released shortly after Carnax attacked the facility."

"Why you? Why did he come to you?" R.D. demanded.

"That's easy, R.D.," Anstine replied. "I made Re-Tuul and his brothers in the first place."

It all happened so suddenly. One moment, Anstine was writing a particular finding on a sheet of paper; the next, the man was struggling to breathe as R.D. violently lifted him up by his throat and slammed him against the wall.

Edited by RisingDragon on June 17, 2009 at 2:09:28.

"WHOA!" Matt leapt in and seized R.D.'s wrist, pulling his fingers away from Dr. Anstine's throat. "Would you calm the fuck down?" he snapped at R.D. "You've been throwin' a fit ever since we came in here, what the hell's your problem?"

R.D.'s hand didn't budge from the vice-like grip it had on Dr. Anstine's throat. He ignored Matt completely, ignored Alasea's shocked cry and the sound of guns being aimed at him. He just glared hatefully up at the doctor, even as the rubber-encased hands shot up to his wrist.

"Do you know just what in the hell you've done?" he growled. His face was full of cold fury. "Do you know just how much I've had to suffer because of him!?"

"O-of c-cou-rse I know wha-t I d-did," the man managed to gasp out. "Al-all I di-d w-was c-create a n-new str-stra-in of e-evo-l-ution."

"Because of you, I have to worry about that bastard every time I wake up on this blasted world," R.D. snarled. "Because of you, I have him to taunt me with a fucking past I can't even remember! Give me one good reason I shouldn't just tear your throat out right now!"

"R.D.!" Alasea shouted, shocked at what he was saying.

"Unhand him, R.D.!" the General bellowed.

"Y-y-you r-reall-y do-don't re-remem-ber... do y-you?" Anstine choked out. "I... I w-was the one... w-who gave y-you the s-sec-ret to k-k-kill-ing them..."

R.D.'s eyes narrowed slightly, and he released his grip from Dr. Anstine's throat. The man collapsed to the floor, gasping and coughing as he massaged his throat. One of the soldiers moved in to apprehend R.D., but his hand smashed against a barrier he threw up between himself and the rest of them. He grabbed Anstine again, and lifted him up from the floor by the man's shirt, and slammed him against the wall again. At least this time he could still breathe, and had his feet on the ground. When Anstine looked down at R.D.'s face, he noticed that his eyes had changed--his pupils had dilated, and the irises had widen to cover most of his eye, making him look quite dead, or empty.

The scientist assumed that this was what Re-Tuul had meant when there was a noticeable sign that R.D. was channeling Lumiya's power. A wrong word here could kill him.

After a moment, the doctor seemed to know what R.D. wanted. "It was not my intention for the Khaglessi to become bloodthirsty killers," he said weakly. "I was simply trying to find new ways of augmenting the human race and realize the next stage in our evolution. When they went out of control, I looked for a way to stop them.

"After some time, I learned of a young demon hunter who was determined to find and kill all nine of the Khaglessi... you, boy," he continued. "I was the one who arranged for you to find the information regarding their weaknesses."

R.D. lowered his head a fraction, while still looking at Anstine--it made him look almost feral to the man. He quickly continued. "The second creation was not my choice," he continued. "By the time Re-Tuul had found me, he had long passed the point where his power would mature, and he had acquired even more power from the Destroyer of Worlds. I had no choice but to comply."

"Don't give me that crap," R.D. snarled. "You could've died. At least that way, Re-Tuul wouldn't have the knowledge to continue his blasted race."

"Dying would have achieved nothing," Anstine countered. "Had I chosen to die, his Master would have simply brought me back to life, and I would have lost any sense of self that I had. At least alive, I can find a way to destroy them."

Matt stepped foward, positioning himself in front of R.D., a bit to the side. "You have any idea on how you can do that?"

"We'll find out," Dr. Anstine said. Despite his claims, however, the other adults in the room didn't look convinced--they knew what Dr. Anstine was capable of and he had had an incredibly notorious past as a geneticist.

R.D. finally let go of the man, and stared at him for a few seconds. Then, he suddenly turned and stalked away, exiting the room. The steel door slammed shut behind him. Only then did the soldiers relax, and return their aim to Dr. Anstine.

"Well, that could've gone better," Matt muttered. "What now?" he asked the general.

The General shook his head. "For the moment, nothing. You're dismissed. Just try to keep out of the way of the work crews," he stated before turning back to Dr. Anstine and the other scientists as they resumed work on the Khaglessi cadaver.

"All right." He was still pretty hungry. Some food ought to calm R.D. down. "Come on, Alasea."

Alasea nodded, then looked back at the cadaver for a brief moment. Re-Tuul, one of the most dangerous creatures in existence... no longer the last of his kind? The thought was almost terrifying. She tore her gaze away from the body and, with a brief tug on Ileyna's hand to get her moving, followed Matt out of the room.