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PLAYING GOD

Part 5: Making Monsters

"He's awake."

"Excuse me?"

"Number 14." Redstone nodded curtly at the prone, unmoving form of the tall wolf, shackled hand and foot. "He's awake."

Dr. Hugo Vermont stared at the silent body. "He hasn't moved an inch for the past three hours." He blinked again. "And anyway... you'd claimed that you'd hit him with two Grade VI tranquilisers. Two? He should be out for at least 3 hours mor-"

"I said," the ex-Inspector growled, shrugging coldly."He's awake."

"Well, why the blazes isn't he responding?"

"He's waiting." was the rat's only answer, his cold, dark eyes never leaving his captive.

"Waiting for wh-"

Redstone ignored him, turning to observe the long, arduous process of setting up that would precede the Installation's first(and last, the doctor fervently hoped) experiment involving a sentient test subject. Vermont paused to glare in useless frustration at the rodent's back, but found himself averting his eyes. There was something unnerving about the way the rat moved: swiftly, smoothly, with all the brutally efficient sense of purpose of a snake about to strike.

The doctor sighed, massaging his temples. Never an easy task, as his horns seemed to constantly get it the way. Hugo Vermont was a goat, tall and lanky with coarse brown fur and the stereotypical tenacity (though many called it bloody-mindedness) so prevalent of his species. He'd studied, trained and worked for almost two decades to get where he was. He'd endured the ridiculously high levels of security that the Authority had placed on the Installation(what kind of name was that? It sounded like something out of a spy thriller, for God's sake) for five years to become head of the research team. He'd damn well worked his tail off to get to where he was. And now this.

_ _

He despised every last facet of this macabre pantomime of a plan. The Installation had always been an eternal sanctum of knowledge and research, untouched and untarnished by the chaos of the outside world. Here, him and his team could learn and understand, their funding and security forever assured by the Authority. Here was peace and patience.

And now this. He was playing now host to not one, but two clinically insane psychopaths (One would have been bad enough, but two? Two was just an insult, and also -though he tried not to show it in Brutus Redstone's company - absolutely terrifying). One of these two was about to be the subject of the most unpredictable experiment that the scientific world had ever had the misfortune to experience, and the other was - apparently - in charge of the whole damn thing.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his muzzle. He felt a migraine coming on. Perhaps it was just the Rift. It did things like that.

Twelve years of research, and that was, give or take, the sum of all they'd been able to find out about the Rift.

He looked at it, hanging in the air in the middle of Research Hall One behind the safety shield of bullet-proof, bomb-proof and who-knows-what-else-proof glass, and felt his eyes begin to water immediately. Would this insane, illegal idea get them somewhere? Would the lunatic be right? Would this total anomaly of everything they'd thought they'd known finally get an answer?

Glancing down at the still unmoving form of the other lunatic, he grimaced to himself. Vermont considered himself a reasonably ethical man. He gave money to charity, he'd gone on a couple of marches protesting against the Rebel Wars with his beloved wife, Elizabeth; he generally tried to... to be a good person. He believed the fundamental belief that the Authority was founded on: Every person has an unquestionable right to life.

But this was Mr Knives. The one, the only, and the hated - even the name alone sent a surge of horrified revulsion rising up his throat. He knew what Sharpe had done - of course he had. It had been the trial of the century, and the wolf had hardly been concise in his description of his crimes. On the contrary, Finn had seemed to relish it, describing every one of his "Works" in utterly flawless detail....

He'd heard that four of the jurors from the trial were now being treated for post-traumatic stress.

Could this... this creature even be described as a person? He looked at the lupine. Hm. Finn hardly seemed very terrifying. Even while asleep (and he was certain the wolf was asleep, no matter what Redstone said), he was smiling slightly, a cheerful, cocky grin that somehow, the goat found himself instinctively warming to. He just seemed... likeable.

And that was the bait for the trap. Vermont shook his head, trying to clear it. If the psychopath's theory was right, this would be the biggest breakthrough they'd be getting in twelve whole years. He found himself muttering under his breath.

"Come on, Hugo. Concentrate."

"An excellent idea."

The goat almost choked on his own words, spinning around to find Finn standing up and grinning lazily at him. The wolf nodded courteously at his captor's stuttered cry of alarm, his movements unnaturally graceful - even more so than Redstone's.

"You - you -"

"Oh, yes, I was. Trust Brutus to spoil the fun, eh?"Finn's tail of sleek silver curled around his ankles as he took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders and scratching at the heavy duty cuffs on his wrists. "Good luck, Dr. Vermont." The most dangerous criminal in the world winked at him, looking at the Rift itself without so much as blinking.

"Okay... Um. Yes."Vermont found himself stumbling over his words, felt himself blushing beneath his fur as he called across the hall. "Er... Everyone! Is the experiment prepared for?"

"Almost." called Redstone curtly from over to the left, his fingers seeming to blur as he rewired a testing apparatus. The technician who was supposed to be working the device, a somewhat disgruntled-looking hyena, tried to protest, but he ignored her entirely. The rat finished, took a single glance at the ferociously complex twists of wiring spilling out of the machine's innards - looking, Vermont thought moodily, like a three-dimensional model for string theory - and nodded to himself. "Begin the experiment."

"He's very good, isn't he?" Finn murmured, watching the rodent, who was now stalking back towards them, the twitching of his worm-like tail the only sign of any emotion. "Almost a shame he's going to die."

"W-What?" Vermont tried to stammer a question, but the wolf simply smirked at him, not answering. Redstone reached them, glaring venomously at them both as he spoke.

"Time to make history, gentlemen." He smiled coldly at Finn, who returned his gaze with a playful grin. The rat leant in close - dangerously close - to the wolf, who didn't move an inch, simply observing him.

"Time to burn, Mr Finn."

Finn raised an eyebrow, simply looking back at him. Then he sprung.

All Vermont saw was a silver blur as the wolf leapt for the rodent's throat. His shackles fell to the floor with a clatter -somehow, the creature had managed to pick them from behind his back - but Finn himself was totally silent, his eyes narrowed: not with anger or hatred, but simply mild concentration as a strong claw closed around Brutus' neck and -

• the tall lupine froze, every muscle of his body becoming utterly still. Even his tail, outstretched to balance him mid-swipe, was motionless. The rat hadn't so much as twitched.

"Come on, Finn. I'm disappointed in you."

Redstone grinned smugly at the wolf, ignoring the stunned stares of the scientists scattered all around, and produced a small, simple-looking PDA-like device from his pocket.

"The lab called this little beauty the "Conscience Chip". It's a pretty simple piece of machinery, really: just a small chip, implanted right under your skull. Reads basic vital signs, checks for dangerous spikes in brain activity, the usual stuff. And," he stepped back, his would-be assailant unable to even snarl a response, "at my command, it sends an electromagnetic pulse through your brain that totally disrupts all locomotive neural signals. Fun, eh? Oh... it also hurts like hell, but I imagine you've already noticed that."

"Y...You will burn for this." Even as blood started to drip from his nose, robbing the silver fur of his muzzle of its sleekness, Finn's voice was steady. His amber eyes smouldered.

The rat chuckled. "Impressive. Most people can't even scream, let alone speak."Redstone glanced at a small screen on the controller, and laughed again. "Oh my... your brainwaves are telling us that you're very, very angry. Furious, in fact." Feigning a yawn, he turned his back to the still-helpless lupine and watched the Rift. "Quite a sight, isn't it?"

It certainly was. The most inexplicable object in the known universe hung in the air, uncaring of gravity, roiling and churning behind the toughened glass dome that was the "safety shield": Never had a name seemed more woefully over-optimistic. The Rift's dimensions were -well, they were impossible to properly gauge, really. Because no matter what angle the observer might be watching it from - even above, below or behind - it simply appeared as a raggedly torn hole in the fabric of the world itself. Oh, the hole itself was easy enough - about thirty feet across, give or take, but it had depth as well. Depth that seemed as unending as the eternal void of space. What was in those depths? What lurked behind the tear in reality? They didn't have a ghost of a clue. Because the Rift burned. Every single inch of it - edges, hole itself and whatever lay beyond was consumed with a blazing - yet entirely heatless - inferno. The flames were coloured an unnatural, eldritch violet, with hearts of an impossibly dark black. There was no sound - until you listened hard. Then you heard it: a constant, thin wail, as if the universe itself had been wounded agonisingly by this terrible anomaly of science.

That didn't mean you could see nothing in it, though. Shapes flickered inside the Rift, moving at blinding speed. In the few seconds that Vermont looked at it, a dozen strange silhouettes burned themselves into his retinas: a trio of impossible, fantastical creatures, locked in some whirling embrace that could have been copulation or could have been mortal combat, a screaming, writhing face that seemed to look into his very soul, a bizarre and grotesquely complicated piece of machinery, cogs blurring within it, a flash of lightning striking a rearing, vaguely horse - like silhouette - but with wings that enfolded the creature and consumed it again in flame, a hundred more terrible and impossible things -

He wrenched his gaze away, realising that he was breathing as hard as if he'd just sprinted half a mile. Neither Redstone nor Finn - still trapped in the moment of attempted murder - had even blinked. And - the goats hazel eyes flickered from the two outcasts of society to the outcast of nature and back again - the Rift seemed to be reacting. The flames burned lower, spreading apart to reveal a flat, smooth area of liquid fire. It was as if it was beckoning to them.

"What in the name of the Catalyst itself is happening?" His voice sounded weak and cracked.

Redstone shrugged, his eyes not leaving the Rift as he spoke. "It knows."

"What? You're saying it's sentient?"

"I'm saying it knows when it's about to get an offering." snapped the rodent, absently clicking the button on his controller again. Finn collapsed to the floor, his muscles still in spasm, but Brutus didn't spare him a glance. "Every time I experimented with intelligent subjects, it was ready for them. It was hungry for them." He looked down at the expressionless, bloody-nosed wolf at his feet. "Now then, Mr Knives. You're going to get up, and you're going to walk straight into that burning hole in the universe, and you're going to see what you can see. Come on."

"And what if I simply try to kill you again instead?" The wolf got up slowly, wincing slightly. His tone was of mild curiosity.

Redstone rolled his eyes. "Then we shall have to try again. But Finn, you're not going to do that, are you?"

"Oh?" clasping his eyes behind his back, the lupine smiled innocently at his captor. "And why not?"

"Because..." Redstone spoke softer this time, so that only he, Finn and the nearby Vermont could hear, "...it's not enough, is it? Controlling the little people. That's easy. What you really want, "he smirked as an ear flicked, the only reaction Finn made, "is a challenge. That's why you wore that jacket to the funeral, that's why you didn't kill that irksome little cry-baby of a lynx, telling her you'd come back for her, that's why everything, Sharpe. You want to see if you can. You want to try it." He returned Finn's slow, mirthless grin, and motioned again to the Rift. "As I said, Finn, you're going to walk into that hole in the universe. And you're going to do it of your own free will."

Finn drew in a breath, cocking his head as he thought. Then he chuckled.

"One day soon, Brutus. One day very, very soon."

And he turned, walking towards the Rift. Except for the clack of the wolf's claws on the concrete floor and the wailing of the universe being torn asunder, Research Hall 1 was absolutely silent. Humming to himself, he opened the steel door - it locked instantly behind him - and entered the Shield.

Finn stood before the flames, like some believer about to be judged by his dark and angry god, and turned back to them. Vermont realised his mouth was bone dry.

"Oh, Inspector?" Finn gave the expressionless rat a final nod of recognition. "I forget to tell you. I was impressed as well."

"What?" Redstone spoke flatly, but his paws were shaking with the cruel passion that had consumed him for twelve years and cost the lives of so many. "What do you mean?"

The wolf shrugged. "I am a sadist, Redstone. I won't deny it. But... I'd never thought of doing what I do and claiming that it was for the good of civilization."

The rodent's dark eyes darkened further with pure fury, but Finn flashed him a cocky, cheerful smile, and leapt into the heart of the flames.

It twisted through itself, curling around him, and engulfed him. As if the tall lupine had simply been swallowed whole, gobbled up like something out of a children's fairy tale.

And then the Rift turned in on itself, tearing through dimensions, and vanished.

"WHAT?"

Vermont spoke at the same time as Redstone, both mouths silently agape as they stared at the place where the hole in the world had - had - hung.

"What in the world is - "

"I haven't a bloody clue!" snapped the rodent, his ears folded back against his skull. "This has never happened before!"

Twelve years of study, plus God knows how many more before Redstone had discovered it, and now the anomaly had simply disappeared. Like a visitor who had remembered some sudden appointment. Vanished, and taking their one and only live test subject with it. Vermont almost felt insulted at such a casual, by-your-leave disappearance as this. "But - it's gone! It's just gone!"

"I damn well know that!"

"Well, you said that chip device gave us his vital signs!" Hooves clacking as he hurried over, fear forgotten, the goat jostled the murderer of thirteen innocent people in his angry bemusement. "What does it say?"

"Do you think" spat Redstone contemptuously," that the signal is going to carry through another -

The device in his pocket bleeped. Urgently.

Swearing under his breath, the rodent whipped it out, glaring at the screen. His muzzle slackened.

"What."

"What?"

In answer, Redstone raised the controller. Experiment forgotten, the technicians clustered over to them, clamouring for a glance at it. The heart rate monitor was flashing, showing Finn's average beats per minute.

The numbers on the three-digit display simply read 999.

The brainwave chart was beeping now as well. Normally, it was a slowly wavering line, spiking occasionally as the subject's brain experienced more or less activity. Instead, the graph seemed to show a solid block: wherever he was, the electromagnetic activity of the wolf's mind was spiking and pitching several hundred times per second.

"That..." Vermont throat felt dry. "That is impossible."

Redstone flashed him a glare of disgust. "This is the Rift, you cretin. Nothing is-"

WHAM.

As if just waiting to be introduced, the Rift itself burst back into existence, in an explosion of blinding violet flame and obsidian-dark shadows. It rippled, convulsed, and spat out the body of Finn Sharpe so hard that when he smashed into the concrete floor, it cracked.

The beeping stopped. Slowly, Redstone and Vermont turned to look at the controller. They were greeted by a succession of totally motionless flat lines.

Mr Knives, maniac, madman and murderer, was dead.

And then he stood up.

The wolf swayed slightly, looking almost comical: a drunkard trying to keep their balance. His eyes were closed, his lips trembling as if speaking to something only he was watching.

Redstone stepped forwards, a cold smile on his pointed muzzle. "Well then, Mr Finn. What... what did you see?"

Finn's head blurred as it snapped round to face him - so fast and so hard that there was a quiet, gory snap as his neck broke. Even the rat looked visibly shaken at that, but the wolf didn't even seem to notice. He opened his eyes, and they were on fire.

It wasn't a metaphor. The lupine's eye's weren't simply glowing, or blazing with emotion, they were actually on fire. Twin flames of deep violet streamed up from the sockets, licking the fur around his eyes. Vermont was certain the silver was starting to blacken and singe.

Finn's lithe body, once so graceful and poised, lolled around those insane, blazing eyes, slumping forwards as if the purple flames were the only thing holding them upright. His mouth gaped dully, his flawless white teeth stained violet by the light of the Rift. His heartbeat was still on zero, his brainwaves and breathing likewise. But that tongue moved, as if the wolf's body was being manipulated by some invisible, macabre puppeteer, and words rasped forth in a language older than anything, and yet one that every being that heard it could understand perfectly.

"He... is... chosen."

And the burning flames vanished. His heartbeat skyrocketed back to something vaguely in the realms of biological possibility. The lupine blinked, stumbling back, his eyes returned to the warmth of their liquid amber. But now, they were scared. And this was no facade, no masquerade of emotion for the monster to hide behind. Finn was terrified.

"No..." he whimpered, sounding like a child. "I don't... I don't want to..."

And then he curved over backwards, bending his spine in an insane reversed C that snapped most of his vertebrae with a gory crack, and started to scream.

***

Pain.

Pain.

_ _

It was bemusing. He couldn't understand. Pain was his pet, his plaything, his little toy. He made it dance for him, made it twirl and jump through hoops. Oh, he'd experimented of course, curious and cautious, and he'd bid it sting him, and observed his gashes with detached interest, and then he'd laughed and threw it away like an unwanted Christmas present. Pain was his to control. It was something that happened to other people.

But not like this.

Nothing could compare to this.

No glittering shard of cold metal, no snap of finger-thin bone. He'd felt it as his spine broke: the third, seventh, eighth, tenth, twelfth, sixteenth and eighteenth vertebrae, commented some scrap of vaguely conscious thought amidst the firestorm, have been crushed, and six of the remaining have experienced massive fragmentation. He'd felt the pain of it. But it was nothing. Nothing could come close to this new agony. He screamed, but if he made a sound he could not hear it. Every cell was alight and incandescent, every thought consumed by the flames until all the thought he could muster was a desperate plea for an end, any end, even in DEATH.

But no. Because it was there, inside every flame and every agony. Probing through his mind and his body, searching him. Changing him. Forging him anew in the heat of the Rift itself. He snarled at it, clawing psychically as a tendril twisted within him, sentience forgotten in the flames. He was brushed aside like a troublesome insect. He thought it might have spoken, but no words, no ideas could possibly live in this white-hot excruciation. Nothing could be remembered... Except. Except for one word it had told him, one terrifying blast of pure malevolence that shook even his twisted soul.

Void.

Then the agony surged over him again, and no memory could survive the inferno.

***

The storm was over.

And the new day began. Finn woke up. Or rather, he ascended at last to a level of actual awareness, rising like some undersea leviathan from the depths of his consciousness. There he had tried in vain to shelter from the firestorm. There he had screamed. But now he went above it.

He opened his eyes, and for a second they glowed a deep and blazing violet. But then the warm orbs of liquid amber, that had taken in and trapped so many, so delightfully many young innocents, returned to Finn, ready to serve him.

He was lying prone, a few feet from the flames of the Rift.

The Rift.

Void.

_ _

Suddenly, terror welled up inside him. True, pure and absolute terror (Of what? That agony that had taken him, mind, body and soul? Instinctive fear of the Rift itself? Or the terror of what lay beyond?) and he yelped, scrambling back and onto his feet. The fear vanished, as swiftly as it had come. He had control over it now. He would not, would not let it be the other way around. It was his. He was Lord and Master now. He was control.

And with knowledge, came power.

Finn looked around, noting with interest the disarray of the area. Great ragged scratches had been gouged into the solid concrete - and, he realised, they matched perfectly with the pattern of his own claws. Some parts of the ravaged ground were blackened and scorched, some stained with a congealing fluid of dark, rusty scarlet, and some had simply melted away, leaving small craters filled with eternally trapped bubbles of air.

It was a magnificent sight.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Very well done, Finn."

Slowly, Finn turned. Brutus Redstone stood a few feet from the safety shield, relaxed and unruffled, He grinned at the silent lupine, theatrically consulting a stopwatch.

"Seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, and nine seconds." The rat smirked. "I'm curious, Finn... were you actually aware that you were screaming? Or was the pain too much?"

Finn shrugged, and smiled back. He looked at the rodent, and it was if every last dark brown hair had been brought into razor-sharp relief. And more, oh so much more. He could feel the blood pulsing through Redstone's veins. He could see where it ran close to his skin, where the simplest slice could bring the sanguine liquid gushing forth like a waterfall...

Finn felt his silver tail start to wag gently. He spoke quietly, testing his liquid-velvet voice.

"That... hurt."

"Yes, I think we understand that. But what was through the Rift? What was-"

"No." Finn felt himself begin to laugh: first a low chuckle, then a rising giggle, then at last great cackling whoops of maddened glee. He He swallowed down the last chuckle, and spoke again, his voice trembling with mirth. "I don't think you do. That hurt. The pain I experienced in there" - he tipped his head towards the churning mass of the Rift, "it goes beyond anything my little knives could have done. It goes beyond everything. It was agony incarnate." He smirked. "It was fascinating, really."

"That" snapped the rat impatiently. "is unrelated. What is behind the Rift, Mr Sharpe?" And suddenly the lupine felt anger rise up within him. Redstone did not see it for what it was. He seemed as blind as the rest.

"Its name", Finn snarled quietly, "is Void."

"The void?"

"No. Just Void."

He smiled, sensing his body for the first time. Sensing the sleek strength, the power, the control. Every muscle waited eagerly for his slightest whim. Who was Finn to deny them? From a starting start, he turned a backwards somersault and turned the momentum into a graceful, gigantic leap that carried him over the Rift itself. Forty feet into the air. The wolf spun as he flew, glancing playfully at the total tear in reality. It seemed to wink at him. Laughing, he landed easily on his feet. The impact cracked the concrete and left a crater. And there was more. So much more.

This was going to be fun.

***

All around there were exclamations and shouts. Brutus noted them, and sent them to the back of his mind. They were unimportant. He watched the wolf's leap, almost cartoonish in it's nigh-obscene height. He watched as he cleared the Rift itself, twirling in the air, laughing with joy.

The Rift changed you. Fascinating. He wondered if any of his earlier subjects had been gifted with these insane powers. Perhaps. It mattered not: they had been too weak-willed to control even their own bodily functions after the experiment. Power like that would have been far beyond them.

"Impressive, I'm sure. This is a major development." His voice rang out across the hall, and the lupine looked up, cocking his silver head. "But Finn... could we get down to business?"

Finn appeared to consider it, strolling back towards them. "Hmmm... No, I don't think so."

Brutus narrowed his eyes. "Do you think you have a choice?"

The wolf grinned. "Yes. I have. I'm going to walk out of here, Brutus, and see what the world can offer me now. But first..."his voice turned hard and cold, "I'm going to kill you."

The rat didn't blink. "This shield, Mr Sharpe, is designed to survive a direct missile strike. Whatever's happened to you, I doubt that strength will be enough."

Nodding, Finn closed his eyes and raised a silver-furred paw. "Correct. But I think that the Rift has a sense of humour, you see. It's given me more than you can even imagine. It's given me more than I can even imagine."

"...What?"

(He drew the points of light together, shaping them, moulding them into a form he knew so well. Oh, this he had missed, alright. Slowly, it gained some eldritch parody of mass, feeling solid in his hand - but utterly weightless and otherworldly. He opened his eyes - his outside eyes - again, and growled with pleasure as it took shape...)

_ _

Brutus swallowed back the froth of sudden anxiety that had clasped him, clearing his head. Something was happening to the lupine's outstretched hand. Something was appearing. It glowed the same unnatural, slow-burning purple of the Rift itself. It was translucent - he could see his captive's soft pawpads behind the glinting handle, watch Finn's smile behind the blade as he raised the knife to his muzzle, smelling it... but there was nothing to smell. This was a dagger of pure thought, with no mass, no materials, no existence.

"You can't..." and yet, his throat suddenly felt very, very dry indeed. "You can't tell me that that little toy can get through six inches of toughened glass. Come on, Finn."

Dr Vermont, standing slack-jawed a few feet away, started to whisper something. It was a prayer. The lupine tossed the blade in the air and made to catch it, but the knife simply slowed to a halt, seven feet off the ground. Chuckling, as if at an endearingly naughty child, Finn reached up and took it. "Oh really? This isn't a "little toy", Brutus. It's a knife that doesn't need to be made of steel. It's the essence of a knife, unburdened by unwieldy matter. It is everything that makes a knife, without the knife." He looked straight at Redstone then, for the very first time since the blade had appeared, and almost sang with pleasure as he spoke. "How sharp do you think it's going to be?"

Brutus licked his dry lips, and forced a laugh. "Well then, it's just a shame you're never going to use it."

"Excuse m-?" and Finn froze. Enhanced and transformed as his muscles might have been, the rat thought with a snarl of vindictive pleasure, if he couldn't send a single signal to them, they were useless. He nodded to the stunned goat beside him.

"Get some security forces in here, and shoot the bastard in the head."

Behind, them, Finn's amber eyes darkened.

"What?" Vermont stared at the rat. "But... there's so much we can learn! So much we can - "

"Not when he's got shit like that, we're not. He's too dangerous. Too uncontrollable" Brutus ignored the doctor's protests and turned back to the wolf, letting his frustration translate into cruelty. It was an easy change. He'd suffered it with every other test subject. It hadn't given him any more pleasing results, but it had been enjoyable. Calming.

"Change of plan, Mr Knives. No drama, no romance, no nothing this time. You're just going to die."

Finn didn't move, but his lips parted , and he spoke waveringly. "Tell me, Redstone... Is the "Conscience Chip", as you've so delightfully termed it... Has it been placed just over my right temple?" His hand jerked and spasmed at his side, trying to indicate the spot. The rodent smirked.

"Impressive. Did you feel the scar? Does it hurt? Does it burn?"

"Excellent." His lips twitching, a small fire catching light at a tuft of his fluffy, grey-furred ear, the wolf closed his eyes again.

And the blade of thought rose out of his hand, turning smoothly to come to rest, razor-point-first, at the side of his head.

"What are you doing?" Brutus' voice was terse... and he knew it was terrified. And Finn could hear it. His eyes sparkled.

"Oh, you little fool. I'm establishing control."

And the knife jerked forwards, and sank unresistingly into Finn's skull.

Instantly, blood gushed forth. Slowly, agonisingly, the impossibly sharp dagger of violet light started to rotate. Behind Finn, the Rift seemed to glow brighter, as if in approval. But the wolf just kept grinning, patiently gouging his head open.

(Oh, it hurt of course. But Finn had entered those flames, and the pain of this... it was nothing now. He laughed at it, gloated at it's weakness.)

_ _

For almost thirty seconds, the knife kept up it's gory work. Redstone should have been giving orders, shouting alerts... but he was unable to do anything but watch. By the gods. What had they done?

And "Ah-ha!". Calmly, Finn raised a hand and inserted it carefully into the gore-drenched, blood-stained hole in the side of his head. Out it came, dripping scarlet. Out came a small, metallic device, wired and rewired and attached to a small piece of the wolf's brain. Behind Redstone, someone started to vomit.

"You...You should be dead."

It was Vermont who spoke, his voice shaking. The lupine cocked his head and looked at him, exposing the ruin of his skull.

"Yes. It was your Authority who sentenced me, remember." He laughed. "But, Dr Hugo, Brutus should have said... I don't really care much for what the world expects of me." He closed his eyes, and the gaping wound burst into flames - searing, purple edged and hearts of deepest midnight. It was as if the Rift itself had latched onto the bloody hole, as if his brain of this monster was composed of fire and death.

And with a blink of Finn's eyes of liquid amber, the flames were instantly extinguished. Behind them was left sleek, unblemished silver fur. Finn brushed it back loving with a gore-stained paw, smiling invitingly at them. The knife sprang eagerly back into his hand, not so much as a trace of blood lingering on it, and Mr Knives was complete again.

He growled softly to himself, and looked up at them.

"Goodbye, gentlemen."

Behind him, Redstone heard a sharp gasp as Vermont realised at last that he should have started running a long, long time ago.

Finn tossed the violet blade into the air again, and it morphed and sculpted and sprang forwards like a bullet. Straight through the solid glass of the shield, leaving a nigh-invisible line of crystal - what use was mass against this, which split the bonds between individual atoms? Straight at Vermont, who shrieked with fear and made ungainly by terror, promptly fell over backwards. But it simply passed over him in a blur of violet.

For he was not its target.

Not yet.

With an explosive crackle, the knife punched into - and through - the controls of the one and only door out of Research Hall One. The Authority had been extremely careful about security for this long running experiment. There was only one way out - no convenient air conditioning vents, no drains, no windows. Just one solid steel bulkhead which could only be opened by entering a twelve digit code that changed every other week.

That is, assuming that said controls had not just been sliced apart by a blade as sharp as thought itself.

They were trapped.

Finn's eyes glittered with anticipation, and the knife vanished and reappeared in his hand. It thrummed eagerly.

He stepped forwards, towards the dome of the shield, and the mind-dagger leapt like a salmon from his paw, morphing and splitting into four glimmering blades that blurred around him, hacking the toughened glass apart piece by piece as Finn walked through it, his arms by his sides, his eyes closed, his muzzle split, like a bloodless wound, into a maddened grin of insane delight.

And Mr Knives was free.

***

The final scrap of glass tinkled to the ground. Finn looked at the people who had sent him into that hell , who had, in a few short hours, gifted him with more agony than he could have done in a lifetime of torture. He smiled pleasantly, and gestured with a casual flick of his hand. The blades of violet split again, and again, and again. Until twenty knifes of pulsing thought hung in the air, slowly orbiting the graceful from of the tall wolf like some bizarre, bladed solar system.

"There is one here for every one of you." Finn chuckled, and the daggers slowly twirled to align perfectly with the hearts of every last one of the trapped, doomed scientists. "Would you like to run? It would add to the spirit of the thing." he smiled, spreading his arms wide. Invitingly. A wolf among his prey: take your time, take your time.

"...Please."

It was Vermont. The lanky goat was trembling from head to foot, his fur stained and darkened by rivulets of terrified tears. His horns shook as he spoke, trying to ignore the glinting of the one violet blade that pulsed gently in time with his heartbeat. He tried to back away, and it moved to track him, a bloodhound with the scent of its prey. He whimpered.

"M - Mr Sharpe. Please. You don't have... you don't have to do this."

The wolf smiled politely, a single paw motioning at him to continue from within the cocoon of vicious knife-edges. Even the Rift seemed to burn low as it listened to him. Vermont's voice trembled.

"Look... Finn... you don't .... I don't.... "He broke down, standing alone with his team huddled behind him like wide-eyed schoolchildren, his sobs echoing into the vast hall. "Please... I have a wife. Th-three kids. Beautiful kids.Please... I don't want to... to d-d-di - "

"WHY is it", Finn interrupted sharply, his amber eyes narrowing with frustration, "that no-one can say the word? What is so hard? Everything dies, doctor. Everything is destroyed. It's the way of the world, little Hugo, the way things work. All I do, all that I do, is ensure that the process goes to serve some infinitesimal value."

He flicked a finger, casually, and a violet blur shot for the whimpering goat, about to impale him straight through the chest, and -

"WAIT!"

The doctor's eyes were closed. His shoulders heaving, he opened them and stared in terror as the impossibly sharp point of the blade pricked his pectoral. It was still. It was an inch from his death. He looked up, blinking back the tears. His voice barely rose above a mumbling whisper.

"Mr Sharpe... Finn... please. Not like this. Not with my Elizabeth still waiting. Please. D-Don't you have anyone? Anyone you care for? Anyone you love?"

You love.

Along came the big bad wolf. Along came Mr Knives. And he loved her.

_ _

Oh yes, my dear. My dear Sarah. Please don't think that part wasn't real.

_ _

Sarah.

_ _

Whatever the Rift ( Void , hissed his memory, but he went above it) had done to him, it had done nothing to extinguish what he felt.

Sarah. His little lynx, so young and innocent and beautiful. Sarah. And he remembered his promise.

...I'll finish you properly. One day.

_ _

She would be his first as the new Finn. She would be his baptism. He gazed at the knives that played slave to his every thought and whim, trampling over physics in their quest to obey, and imagined what he could do now.

He opened his eyes, Vermont was weeping openly now, but Finn cared nothing for his sorrow. He had his prize, his point of control. He needed no other motivation for anything anymore.

He didn't bother with a witty repartee, simply flexing his hand and letting the blades find their mark. The goat screamed, but at the last split second the blade turned onto its flat and smacked into his temple. He sprawled simultaneously with his team, unconscious before they hit the floor. But not dead. Finn didn't need their deaths. He needed something - someone - else. But oh, how he craved that one person.

"Sarah." he whispered. And started to lope purposefully, towards a wall that he estimated could lead to the big wide world outside. A world of so much potential... and of his prey. He purred to himself. The walls were solid concrete. His knives were pure thought incarnate. Which would win?

"Everything."

Finn froze, like a burglar caught red-handed as he tries to sneak away, and his amber eyes flickered with interest. He turned round, his aura of thought -blades vanishing.

Brutus Redstone walked towards him, stepping out of the ragged hole in the shield. He'd hidden behind the Rift. Finn was impressed - again. No, really, this was unacceptable. The rat had seemed so simple at first. The tough, relentless cop, fervently in pursuit of his ridiculously idealized "justice". Then he'd taken off that mask. But still Finn had thought he could predict him, control him. And he'd paid for his mistake. Oh, he had paid. And had been rewarded.

After all, he had burned for it, hadn't he? Time for Redstone to taste his own justice... but the rat would get a fair trial, all right. He felt himself start to smile.

The rodent... did not. "Everything." he spat again. "Everything I worked for. Everything I gave this bleeding, stinking cesspit of a world. You ruined it. You've destroyed it. I'm going to kill you." He raised a shard of the glass of the dome, echoing the blade that was slowly coalescing into existence in his opponent's paw. "I don't care what you've got, Finn." He threw the shard away. "I'm going to rip out your throat with my bare hands."

Raising an eyebrow, Finn held out the blade. It vanished in a flare of violet light.

A fair trial...

_ _

Trial by combat.

_ _

He smiled.

"Very well. I won't use any knives for this, Brutus. We'll find ourselves some justice, shall we?"

"What? Honour among murderers?"

"If you wish."

Brutus laughed, and halfway through the laugh he sprung, so fast that an observer would have seen only a blur of brown fur and controlled rage.

But Finn was no casual observer. He was ready.

He rolled back, catching the rodent's leap and using the momentum to throw him head over heels, planting a foot hard into the rat's lean stomach for good measure. Redstone roared in pain, but flipped and landed, catlike, amidst the bodies of those to whom Finn had shown mercy.

This time, there would be no such mercy. They both knew that. The rat sprang up, ducked Finn's charging punch- if it had connected, it would have smashed his head from his shoulders - and struck low, raking a claw across the wolf's belly -

But the wolf wasn't there anymore. Redstone blinked, and then Finn grabbed his outstretched arm from behind and twisted it into a painful half-nelson. He'd moved so fast that there had been no movement. Just Finn, over here about to have his stomach clawed open, and then Finn, whispering gently into the struggling rodent's ear.

"I only said I wouldn't use knives."

Brutus snarled, and slammed an elbow back into the lupine's shoulder. Grunting, Finn reared back - and the rat twisted away, freeing himself. He spun round and executed a perfect karate kick into the chest that sent the wolf staggering. But Finn laughed and flipped over backwards, catching his opponents chin as he went so that Redstone performed a somersault too and smacked into the concrete floor. Crack. That had been, Finn thought happily - had been - two of the ex-inspector's ribs. He landed on his feet, and watched as Brutus levered himself up, growling at the pain.

"Does it hurt, Brutus? It's nothing compared to what you sent me to. But hey," Finn laughed, gesturing at the devastation around them. "It made me what I am. This is your justice, Brutus. This is what you wanted."

Brutus wiped away a drip of blood, and stood to face him. "Justice was the Inspector's trick, you pathetic animal. I wanted progress. I wanted knowledge. You gave me nothing. Nothing."

"Oh? I'm so very, very sorry..." They looked quite the double act, he reflected: the funny, insincere one and the serious, hard-faced one, ready to tackle the world... except that they were trying to kill each other instead. Such a pity.

And then Redstone charged again, and Finn laughed and rolled back to throw him over again - and instead the rodent's foot crunched into his ribs, Brutus ducking his grasp as he launched another vicious kick. The rat had learned. It was impressive - again. Damn.

But pain was temporary. The lupine cackled and Redstone spat at him as he twisted to the side and smashed his fist into Finn's temple, jarring the newly regenerated flesh. Finn rolled away, the other way, but Redstone changed direction and threw his stocky form over the wolf's, his hand's locking about Finn's throat at last, and the wolf felt the terrible, insane strength behind those claws, and...

...and a lance of violet light speared from Finn's hand and impaled his opponent through the stomach. Redstone stared at it as Finn stood up slowly, brushing the dust off his fur. He twitched his elegant, bloodstained fingers, and the blade disintegrated, leaving only Redstone's intestines to start spilling out. The wolf smirked, watching as the rat tried to speak and found no breath.

"I cannot believe you were taken in by that "honour among psychopaths" nonsense."

He turned to go. And through choked, bloody lips, Brutus whispered:

"I wasn't."

Even as Finn started to turn, he knew what he would see. Brutus' lifeblood was pooling on the floor, but his gun arm was steady. A Turnweiser and Warden .303 handgun, mused the wolf in the nanosecond before Brutus pulled the trigger._ Fires rounds at almost 700 metres per second._ By the time he heard the shot, it would have blown his head apart like a melon. He was fairly certain that that couldn't be simply regenerated.

Even kneeling, the rat had the stance of a crack shot. He would never miss. The only hint Finn got was the finger tightening as it pulled the trigger.

So he did what his instincts told him: a projectile is coming to harm you.

_ _

Catch it.

_ _

So he did.

BLAM! The gunshot echoed throughout the empty hall. Finn stared at Redstone, his eyes cold and unmoving. He opened his paw.

Resting in the middle of his pads, glinting in the light of the Rift behind them, was a mangled pellet of steel. The lupine chuckled, tossing it onto the floor.

"I think I like this new stuff."

Redstone tried to speak, but only a thin trickle of blood escaped his muzzle. Slowly, he keeled forwards onto the floor. The blood began to spread.

Smirking, Finn started to walk away. He had so much to do.