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Breaking and Making Soldiers

Part 5

for Justacritic

by Draconicon

Meat was Meat, and there was no more than Meat when the machine came to its final rotation. The lights went out and the doors opened, and the hare stared straight ahead with eyes that were blank and empty. He saw nothing. He thought nothing. There was nothing but the obedient mind of a Meat soldier left.

The ferrets released the restraints as Meat gummed the air, his mouth idly repeating the same mantras and phrases that had been drilled into his head. He did not show any sign of noticing the Hunters on either side, but he obediently followed them out of the room when they told him to follow. His feet thumped against the metal, his shaft swung from side to side, and his muscles bulged as he moved along, sensations that went unacknowledged and unspoken as he was taken to a different chamber.

Time passed, unnoticed. Were they going just next door, or across the entire facility? To Meat, it was the same. There was no time that passed between the orders he was given. At one point, he was ordered to follow. The next, he was ordered to kneel, and they happened almost simultaneously as far as his conscious mind was concerned.

As he knelt there, staring straight ahead, a strong hand gripped him. He was made to look up. A sharp beak, the half-smile that never disappeared from an owl's face, the beady eyes of the Hunter doctor all stared down at him, meaning something and meaning nothing at the same time.

There were no words exchanged, just a stare, one that summoned no anger, no fear, no nothing. He was a shell, a Meat shell waiting to be commanded until it could no longer move. At that point, the Hunters would have him as they had had all the other failures.

"He is broken?" the owl asked.

"He hasn't said anything."

"Or done anything."

"All he does is obey orders, so -"

"We're pretty sure that he's broken."

"Let us test that."

No thought, not curiosity, no sudden worry about what might happen to him for the rest. Meat was past the point of being capable of such uncommanded thoughts. There was nothing in his mind. He had not been told to do something, so he would not do it. Not even think. Not even worry.

CRACK!

Iron knuckles clapped against the side of his head, sending it swinging to the side. He wobbled, though not as much as someone that had just been punched in the face should have. He barely leaned to the side before staring up again.

CRACK!

CRACK!

Two more punches, the owl beating his face in, making him swing from side to side. He tasted a hint of blood in his mouth, but the flow sealed up before it could be more than a taste, regeneration fixing it before it could become true pain, true agony.

He felt no anger. No fear. He was Meat, after all, and the Hunters could treat him as they wished.

A few blows later, including one that would have disarmed and unmanned another, unconditioned being, Meat merely continued to stare straight ahead. Not one word of complaint, not even a whimper of pain. He was no longer entirely a person, no longer what he had been. The hare that had been captured had been truly, utterly transformed into this being of Meat before them.

The owl doctor smiled, slowly taking the knuckles from his fingers and putting them to the side. He walked out of view, moving behind the hare, who continued to stare straight ahead. There was nothing. Nobody. Nothing.

"Submit."

The command sent him to all fours instantly, and he felt the pressure of the owl behind him. Not on his shoulders, or back, but between his cheeks. It was right. All that the Hunters did was right. They were Hunters, and he was Meat. He was Inferior. He belonged to them, and obeyed them.

As the owl pushed forward, sinking his shaft dry past a hole that was all-too-ready for it, the ferrets moved to stand in front of him. They were not there, then they were there, their cocks out and waving at the sides of his face.

"Serve," one said.

Meat did as he was told, leaning in and sucking one while stroking the other. Some part of him might have once been aware of the irony of the Hunters feeding their meat to Meat, but that part was long since conditioned to ignore those things. It was there to serve, to give pleasure and provide labor to those in the Hunters, and to think that it might have been valuable for something else went against all the programming and conditioning that had been done to it.

Meat rocked soundlessly between the owl and the ferrets, no more than a puppet for their pleasure as they used him. He could have broken free; he had the strength to shatter bones, but there was no reason to do any such thing. The Hunters had the power. He had none. The strength of body was nothing. Nothing compared to the strength of their hierarchy, their right society, their pressure to obey.

The Hunters were Superior.

The Meat was Inferior.

That was all there was to itt, and there was no changing it. He didn't want to change it.

The hare changed shafts, sucking the other ferret and stroking the first as the owl sped up behind him. In, out, in, out, the only lubrication being his own sweat, his body regenerating even as little tears and aches built up. Every time that he regenerated, even slightly, Meat was aware of becoming tighter again, squeezing the shaft inside of him that much more.

That, of course, encouraged the owl doctor to go harder...

They were in a different room after that. He was told to stay still, to extend his arm, to pose for them. He was naked on the lab table, tied down at the waist, but no more than that. After all, he was Meat. No longer anything else, no longer any_one_ else. There was no need to be afraid or concerned of any rebellion from someone that couldn't even conceive of how to blink on his own, let alone actually think of something more complex.

The final dose of the serum was prepared, and the owl doctor began the process of loading the syringes. Meat stared at the ceiling, waiting in silence, waiting in the empty-time that meant nothing.

"It has taken far too long to perfect this. Too many subjects lost. If we'd seen the results earlier - hmmph. Well, the others will see the fruits of our labor with you," the owl said, the words coming and meaning nothing, merely stored away. "We could have had a squad of you if you Meat had been more obedient, less stupid, less...inferior. But then, heh, you wouldn't have been Meat, would you?"

No answer from the hare, of course, save for the most miniscule nod. Meat did not respond unless directed to, and that was only a weak direction to do so.

"But at least we will have one. One soldier, one powerful agent. Nearly indestructible...nearly undefeatable. But totally, completely obedient, now. The perfected serum..."

A flash of light off a needle. The owl moved closer.

"Your mind could never be affected by this, more's the pity. We could have broken you with injection upon injection, but the mind is more than just chemicals. It is a circuit board, one that has to be convinced to rewrite itself. There is only so much that can be done with the various drugs we have...but you've learned. You understand what you are, Meat. It is only a matter of time until you help the rest of the Meat across the world embrace what they truly are, and where they belong. When that is done..."

The doctor sighed, laying the needle against the hare's arm. He did not move. He did not shift.

"When that is done, APS will be able to restructure all of society. The world will be as it should be, rather than as it has become. There will be no more of this faux equality. No more of this...insanity. Order will return, and the Meat will once again serve the Hunters. Starting with you."

The needle broke his skin. His flesh immediately tightened around it, a microscopic reaction to try and seal itself up again, but the needle was already firmly in place, and regeneration did not expel things normally. The plates in his spine, broken down as they had been, shattered, had been a different sort of reaction, something that had not happened again. Not since.

As the serum poured down the needle, injected into him, he stared at the ceiling. Meat had no feelings about what was happening to him, no thoughts or opinions on the goals of the Apex Predator Society. All that mattered to him were their commands, what his purpose was, obedience.

Yet, as the serum flowed through his veins, adding to and perfecting the drugs already in his system, something slowly ticked over in his head. Something...something that had come loose sparked, connecting to another part of his mind. A memory attaching to a memory, finding something else.

If the mind was a circuit board, then the hypnosis had done much to pull the wires around, connecting the different paths for neural activity to different places. Wires had been restrung, paths rewritten, but there was something that, perhaps, the doctor had not considered. The regenerative effects of the serum worked well on the body, too well in some cases, but they had never studied how it worked on the mind.

In this case, it worked just perfectly.

The spark repeated, and Meat thought of someone that he hadn't thought of for so long. A wolf corporal, someone else from boot camp. A name came to mind. Logan.

Corporal Logan.

Corporal Logan, MIA, presumed dead from a raid on APS.

Take care of the squad. Take care of everyone. But take care of yourself...

He remembered.

He...

Theo...

Remembered.

His eyes went wide, his heart hammering against his ribs as the memory leaped, the spark jumping from one to another to another. He remembered his time with that wolf, remembered that there were predators that were better than this, that did not do what APS did or believe the same as them. They had been together. They had been friends, and occasional lovers, when time had permitted such to them.

He -

Theo gasped for breath as the regenerative effect of the serum hit him harder and harder, the needle snapping off as his skin closed, pushing it out of his arm. The doctor cursed, stepping back, but it was too late. The needle was already out of him, and he was moving.

One punch and his arm was wet, soaking wet with blood. There was one less ferret in the room, and he didn't have the mentality to look down, didn't have the thought to. His mind was utterly consumed with one thing.

Take care of yourself, Theo.

Take care of himself. Step one. Free himself.

He was off the table, and the other ferret was gone. The stink of a dead body was already in the air, and blood, too. He knew that there was something wrong, that it was something that he had done, but it happened too quickly for him to realize that he had -

Irrelevant. Step two. Get out of the room.

The doctor was gone. There was no third body. No third person. The door was shut, made of metal.

No obstacle.

Bang. Bang. Bang. The perfected serum had strengthened and toughened his arms further, and the dents of hare fists and feet began to grow along the metal door. The rims bent and deformed around the edges of the doorframe, giving in bit by bit until it finally broke free. The metal plate hit the floor on the other side, knocking one of the security guards that had come running off his feet. The other two raised their weapons, pointing them at him.

Step three. Stay alive.

Theo moved in a blur, faster, stronger than any of the Hunter soldiers. Their eyes could barely track him. Their guns could not follow him as he moved among them, between them. His hands jammed their weapons up, his legs found their weak points and broke them. Kick. Kick. Kick.

Broken legs and shattered ribs brought them to their knees, but he did not kill. Not this time. He didn't want to. Didn't need to.

Step three needed to be maintained. Step four, get the hell out, was already in motion. He ran down the hall, outstripping the shouts of the other security guards that were following him. The hare didn't know how he was supposed to get out of the facility, but he knew that he had the strength and the stamina to find out.

Subject Theo Carter escaped the lab and the custody of Dr. Arseny Vlad at 9:03 AM on a Thursday. The search and rescue team responding to the explosion in the region touched down at 5:10 PM on the following Sunday to find a naked, half-bald hare sitting in the ruins of a massive facility, caved in and all but obliterated. He was barely conscious, but he was able to salute them and give his designation before he fell unconscious.

The rescue helicopter shipped him to the local military hospital, on shared soil with his native embassy. Theo remained unconscious for a grand total of two days, during which time he had his blood taken, his ID confirmed, and his various injuries treated, insofar as they needed it. The doctors were shocked to find out that the vast majority of his issues seemed to be purely exhaustion-based, requiring rest and sustenance more than anything else.

On the third day, a Wednesday, Theo woke up. He was not tied to the bed, as he half-expected, but he was staring up at a featureless ceiling. He shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts.

His thoughts. He could think again, though it was hard. He had to push himself, had to force himself past the empty time and space feeling that he had become too used to in Arseny Vlad's facility. But he could think again, which was a drastic and much-welcome change.

Slumping back against the bed, he almost didn't notice the officer that sat at the bedside. The fox looked down at him, wearing the official suit and uniform of someone from the justice segment of the military. Someone that had been sent here to get information, he imagined, someone that needed to know what had happened, so that they could prosecute others.

He opened his mouth, wheezed, and reminded himself to salute. The fox returned it.

"At ease, soldier."

"Thank you...sir..."

"Here."

The lawyer passed him a paper cup, and he eagerly took it, sipping what he could for the first mouthful, and as soon as his throat was properly lubricated, forcing the rest of it down in one large gulp. With his throat no longer so dry, he felt able to talk, and he turned his attention to the fox properly.

"Where do you want me to start, sir?"

"Let's start with making sure you are who you say you are. Name and rank."

"Theo Carter, Corporal."

"And where have you been since you disappeared on the patrol mission?"

"Imprisoned by the enemy. By -"

"Name of individuals, first."

"What?"

"Individuals. Name your captors first, corporal, then we'll get to groups."

"I was...captured by soldiers under the command of Arseny Vlad."

"I see. And were there any other named individuals employed by him?"

"No, sir. But they admitted that they were under -"

"Silence."

Theo's jaw clamped shut, and it took him a second to realize that it wasn't just the commands of a superior officer forcing it to happen. His body...his body had responded the same way that it would have done to the predators in the lab.

There's more...they infiltrated...

The fox leaned forward, his slender build belying his own power. He reached down, poking Theo's forehead with a small smile on his face. A small, smug smile.

"Freeze. Obey."

"..."

"Good. You might have escaped, Meat, but don't think that everything is fixed in that head of yours. You're still one of ours, even if you've come to cost us a great deal of time and money."

The hare flailed against his own muscles, but no matter how much he fought, no matter how he strained and tensed his limbs and core, there was nothing he could do. His body was too obedient. The fox leaned back, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

"A pity that you got so powerful before they completed the mental conditioning...and a greater pity that your rescue was so well-publicized. Vlad certainly screwed this one up...mostly."

"Nnngh..."

"I said silence, Meat."

Even the little whimpers that had been capable of slipping past his clenched teeth stopped, feeling as if there was a metal band around his vocal cords keeping them from vibrating or making even the slightest of sounds. For all his strength, he wasn't allowed to use it. All he could do was glare at the fox, trying to find some way through the bindings that still held his mind in check.

"As I said, Vlad screwed this one up. There are too many paper trails with your orders to go to that jungle base, too many little bits and pieces that go back to the officer that ordered your reassignment, too many celebrations in certain officers clubs to entirely silence this. Otherwise, we could disappear you and nobody would be the wiser, but with everything that's happened since...

"Well, someone's going to have to be the sacrificial scapegoat, and it's not going to be me. Lay, spread."

The orders had him on his back again, his legs spread beneath his hospital gown. His captor moved, sidling over to the foot of the bed and getting comfortable. The fox flicked the blankets up, exposing the hare's bits down between his legs. Dexterous fingers moved down there, and then below them, a finger pressing against his asshole. Theo wanted nothing more than to leap forward and beat the grin off the fox's face, but he was in stasis, paralyzed with mere words.

As the fox's finger slid in, his cock rose completely against his will. It stood out tall and proud, and though it was not the longest shaft from those that had been experimented on, he wasn't entirely sure that it was the same size that it had been when he had been captured. It felt thicker, larger, just like the rest of him did, though he could be wrong. It might just be a feeling.

But it didn't feel large, nor manly, as the fox delicately fingered him, hooking his fingers around to hit Theo's prostate with every thrust of his fingers, grinding down on that little button and making sure that the hare felt it. His cock jumped, jerked, spat pre-cum against his stomach.

"The one good thing that I can say that Vlad managed here was creating you. You are not an ideal tool - certainly not conditioned enough for the full use that we had in mind - but he did create a suitable serum for a super soldier. Of course, it would be pointless to use it again without ensuring that there was a better candidate to receive it, but that's manageable. We can always find another bit of Meat to fix up, and this time, better than we did with you. We've already done the hard work, already laid all the foundations for what we need...

"Well, except that we need a new facility...And better oversight on the hypnosis."

Theo struggled to speak, but it was as if there were wires dragged through his jaws, keeping them from parting, and a hand that was choking out every word that tried to pass through his throat. His vocal cords felt stiff, sore, strained. The fox leaned in, one finger becoming two, then three inside of the hare's hole, and it was only getting worse, more embarrassingly pleasurable as he remembered the many times that he had been used.

"But if we're going to continue with our plan, Meat, then you need a few new commands."

"..."

"Clearly, you won't follow all orders, and the more that I give you, the less likely you'll follow them the way that I want. So...here's what you'll do.

"Silence: you will never speak of the APS or the members within it. Whatever other story you want to spin, you may, but you may never speak of APS or the predatory society that we are trying to build. Our name, our mission, will never pass your lips. Understand?"

Slowly, against his will, Theo nodded his head. He could already feel the walls coming down in his head, the barriers that were breaking up the healing that had been done by the last dose of the super serum. He didn't know what the long-term damage from the new barriers would be, but he already knew that it wouldn't end well for him. Still he strained, and still he failed to shift even an inch along the bed other than nodding his head.

And still, those fingers plundered his insides, rubbing against his inner walls, claiming his pleasure, forcing his shaft to harden further, to tease him and make him grit his teeth in unwanted need for more.

"Listen: you will obey the words of the APS. If you hear us, you will listen. We will know what you are, and we will see you for what you are. This is your only warning; if you try and hold out, we have other commands that can bring you to your knees."

He could only imagine. They were spread further than he realized, more fully entrenched in the military than he could have thought. They were...they were a plague, a cancer, and it would only be a matter of time before they found someone else like him to send out to the labs. They were going to keep doing this until they could accomplish their goal, until they could take over and reshape the world.

It was only a matter of time.

Three fingers became four, and his hole burned as it tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened. The fox's face was right in front of him now.

"Silence: you will not fight the procedures that happen next. You are going to be honorably discharged, removed from the military. Whatever you do next, you will pursue to the best of your abilities, but you will not question what happens, nor push for anything more. After all, we are doing you a favor here. If you were still in the military, you might be used by other branches of the APS. And we'll even do you another."

"..."

"Vlad presents those of us in the APS with differing opinions with an opportunity to bring him down. The scientist might be useful, but he has done enough damage to ensure that the rest of the leadership will see things my way...and my sponsor's way. You've allowed us to make a shift in the APS. And for that, we'll even make sure that the one that got you into this mess is taken care of. A little...gift...for you, for surviving this long."

"Why...me..."

It took every ounce of his willpower to get the two words past his lips, and it clearly surprised the fox as much as it did him getting them to come free. The vulpine officer cocked his head to the side.

"Why you? Heh...do you mean, why did we pick you for these experiments?"

Theo nodded.

"Two reasons, I suppose...First, because you were already loyal. All we had to do was shift that loyalty from the squad to the APS. All we had to do was make sure that you would be more loyal to us than you would be to yourself. I don't know what finally broke you out of that, but I suppose we'll find out. There are enough transcripts from the old lab that we should be able to figure that out.

"Second...because you were weak. Accomplished, focused, but you were weak. Anything done to a hare can show up much quicker than something done to a stag, or some stronger member of the Meat species. If you were able to be fixed, improved, then so could anyone."

The fox leaned in, his thumb joining the rest of his digits at Theo's hole. The feeling of burning pressure grew, just before the thumb popped in, the officer's hand in him up to the wrist. He hissed through his nose, even if the rest of his face refused to move as he was all but puppeted, literally and metaphorically, by the officer over him.

"Now...you clearly have a full 'glass.' Let me raise it in a proper 'toast' to your discharge..."

The procedure went as the fox had promised. Theo Carter, Corporal, was discharged with all due honors, a Purple Heart, and a few other awards for getting back alive. He didn't really care about those. They weren't earned, as far as he was concerned, particularly as the mission had been a failure.

The other members of his squad had never shown up to the proceedings, which made him wonder what had happened to them. Were they guilty? Was his squad leader in on it? Had the others been aware of what he had gone through? Had they gone to look for him, or had they abandoned him in the jungle?

He didn't know. He wondered if he ever would.

Just as the nameless fox had promised, the officer in charge at his previous posting - the one that had put in for his transfer to the jungle patrol - was dismissed dishonorably from the service, put under arrest and taken away. As far as he heard, there was an 'accident' in transfer, and the officer ended up in a coma, left in a hospital to deal with that if he ever woke up.

As for Theo...

Well, he found a different sort of occupation. If he couldn't be in the military, then he would do something else, something that took full advantage of all his strength, stamina, and other improvements that the APS had given him. After all, the fox had told him to pursue whatever he did next to the best of his abilities...

Crunch.

Pop.

Shreeeeeeeee.

The sound of bending metal was something that Theo would never get used to, but considering the strongboxes that some of the criminals he went after used, the invocation of his super-strength and the general ripping and tearing of the metal containers meant that he had to get used to it. The sheer ease such a feat could be done with wasn't lost on him, either, and neither were the lines of red that rapidly faded from his arm from the little slivers of metal that broke just sharp enough to pierce his skin.

Regeneration. It wasn't the same as invulnerability, nor was it always instant. Larger injuries took longer to heal, and he'd noticed that the more time that passed between the injection point under the owl and the modern day, the longer that it took for it to start even for minor injuries. At one point, it almost felt like he could end up being 'normal' again, save for the fact that he never entirely slowed down, nor would he lose his memories.

Whether he was disappointed or relieved to keep his 'powers' of super strength or regeneration depended on the day. Sometimes, he wished that it would go away, letting him live a normal life that might have some chance of him moving on, forgetting about what had been done to him, and best of all, proving that the serum wasn't so perfect as Arseny Vlad had been convinced it was.

Other times, like now, he was rather thankful for it. The drug dealer in the corner of the hotel room, a badger with a bad eye and a busted arm from their short scuffle, had been a problem for the area for a while. Not just because of his shifting habits and the way that he kept giving out little 'samples' at the local high school, but because of his ties...and the fact that the drugs had a habit of awakening other things in the teens and young adults that took them.

Theo shook his head as he remembered seeing one just yesterday. A wolf that had gone on a trip with the patch on his arm, spitting acid, but not having the body biology that would keep him from melting from it. They'd managed to save his face, but he was toothless, now, waiting for the chance to get some reconstructive surgery and dental implants to fix that damage.

That was a minor case. There were far worse ones.

As he pulled the stash of drugs from the hotel safe, Theo turned to the badger. He raised an eyebrow, shaking the bag.

"No way that you were able to make all this on your own."

"Hmmph. Youngsters, thinking their elders can't figure this out."

"No. Not this stuff."

"You think I'm too dumb?"

"Yes. But also, I know Apex when I see it."

The badger stiffened, just for a moment, but long enough for Theo to know he was right. He'd guessed as much when he saw the science work that went into the drugs themselves, the biochemistry that was involved in altering genetics at such a level, but he hadn't been sure until that moment. He tossed the drugs to the side, thankful that the APS restriction hadn't quite bridged to the word 'apex'. Close, but not quite. He crossed the room, grabbing the badger by the uninjured shoulder and giving just a little more of a squeeze than he needed to.

"Where is your supplier?"

"Nnngh...why...you can't..."

"You'd be surprised what I can do. Now, where are they?"

"Nnngh...I...I can't..."

"...Conditioned?"

The badger nodded, and Theo groaned. Another layer of defense, he'd found. Even other species that were predators themselves were bound in the same sort of hypnotic conditioning that they'd put on him. One more layer of protection to keep anyone from finding where they were, who they were, where they operated.

He pushed the badger away, tossing the patches onto his lap.

"Cops are already on their way," he muttered, having called them before entering the room. "Good luck explaining that."

"But...but they..."

"Sometimes, we have to make hard decisions. You made yours...very badly."

Shaking his head, the hare hopped over to the window, pulling it open and stepping out on the sill. The city dropped away below him, and the fire escape ran off to the side. His route to the roof was clear, but he still shook his head in frustration.

He wondered, sometimes, if there would ever be a moment when he would be able to go back to being himself, when he would be free of this. He wondered if, when that moment came, he would want it.

Theo shook his head. Until then, until he could act as himself again, until he could have his own life again, he would be Helix Hare, and take care of things as best he could.

The End

Summary: Theo, as Meat, is brought for his final injection. It doesn't go as well as the predators hope.

Tags: M/M, Hare, Barn Owl, Ferret, Beating, Oral, Anal, Blowjob, Humiliation, Mind Control, Body Control, Triggers, Military, Breaking, Recovery, Epilogue, Series, Nudity, Superhero,