FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

_ Fight and Flight _

She didn't have a name. Only a serial number assigned her while growing in the tank. "Born" barely a year ago, her body fully mature but with a brand new mind, her time since then had been divided between endless tests and training to refine the skills programmed into her before waking for the first time.

She'd noticed immediately that she was different from the others. Not quite as large but far stronger and faster because her muscle structure was denser, packing a bigger punch into a smaller package. Her bones were reinforced with a synthetic material that, she would learn later, was similar to carbon fiber. Her hands had only four digits while the others had five, hers a bit thicker and stronger than theirs, and her legs were digitigrade while theirs were plantigrade, giving her the ability to run faster and jump higher.

It was how they'd designed her. Their culture insisted on being the best hunters through natural strength and skill, but a handful of them had begun experimenting with cybernetics and gene editing to give themselves an advantage. They'd made her smart, too -- able to think outside the box and quick to adapt to new situations.

She was an experiment. They planned to use her as a scout for larger hunting parties.

Someone else had decided what her life would be. Once she'd spent enough time learning and thinking, she'd begun planning to take control of her own life.

The testing and training sessions were brutal, always leaving her with bruises and scars and not nearly enough time to recover before the next session. And, after a year, she'd had enough of that shit.

She learned the layout of the base containing the lab in which she'd been created. Learned where the weapons, armor, and ships were kept. Learned how to pilot and maintain the ships. Learned where the others hunted most frequently and decided to make it her new home someday. And when she had all the information she needed ... she struck.

It started as a simple sparring match. They always did -- and always ended with her battered and bloody even when she won the fight. But not today.

Today was a very different day.

It started as a typical sparring match. It ended in a bloodbath, her melee weapons smashing skulls open and her blades slitting throats and gutting her enemies. She fought with a ferocity she'd been careful not to ever show before, wiping them out in a whirlwind of motion before they could even process what had been unleashed.

She'd never bothered to remember any of their names any more than they'd bothered to give her one of her own. It had never mattered to her ... least of all today.

With the blood of her enemies splattered all over her and none of her own shed, she tore through the corridors and cut down everyone who crossed her path. They were all in on the daily pain of her existence. They were all targets, nothing more. She took what she needed from the armory and raced to the hangar as alarms blared, announcing her rampage to everyone who didn't already know.

One of the things she took from the armory was a self-destruct device that every Yautja brought to every hunt. She picked out the ship that would suit her purposes, armed the device and planted it near the reactor of a larger ship, and sprinted to the one she'd chosen. She lifted off and passed out of the blast radius moments before the self-destruct ripped the other ship apart and set off dozens of secondary explosions that reduced the entire hangar to rubble.

She jumped to hyperspace while still in the atmosphere, taking a vast amount of air along with her before the vortex closed and leaving a level of destruction in her wake that would dwarf the worst hurricanes on her chosen homeworld. Because fuck everyone on this planet.

Once safely away, she set course for the planet more Yautja chose for their hunting grounds than any other ... Earth. Once there, she would settle in, hide, and learn everything she could about the place. And the next time a hunter landed on Earth, she would be waiting for him and he would become her prey.

She leaned back in the pilot's seat and contemplated the glowing blood dripping from her blades as the ship carried her to her new home. No one had given her a name, so she decided to choose one for herself. It came to her almost immediately and, as she would find later, would translate into two words in the native language of the place she would eventually land.

Defiant Blade.