Act 1: The Encounter



The sun was beginning to retire from yet another day of warming the leaf covered grassy fields which were surrounded with few trees, but with bountiful shrubbery and bushes, while a chilling breeze started to mix into the already cool autumn winds of the season. Evening red-orange skies began to darken more and more as the night befell the area and soon became quiet. Yet, it would not remain as peaceful as it was at the moment for very long.


After darkness had officially been set in nature, a black pelted creature was awakening from a day of his usual wandering from here to there, searching for the meaning of his own existence in life. As his canine lids lifted themselves, his topaz orange optics had peered into the darkness of the tunnel he slept in while he stretched himself out with an added yawn. With a standing shoulder height of about 35 inches and a weight of about 137 lbs, he seemed to be a decent enough size to be on his own and survive as he does. Though, something else deep within of his body almost kept him alive even if he was to injure himself beyond normal means of medical attention.


"Well, it looks like it is time to move on from this area now. I think I've been here long enough." Vaxtin spoke out aloud to himself as he cave another short stretching session before stepping from the den he had dug out himself and crawled out into the level grounds of the land. He scanned his somewhat familiar surroundings while his eyes began to adjust to the lack of light, besides what was being given by the Moon which was in its first quarter stage.  After waking himself up and observing the seeming unoccupied area, he started his journey again, not knowing where he would end up, but just following wherever his cold wet nose lead him.


Eventually while the black furred wolf, who blended in almost perfectly with the darkness when he was crouched low to the ground, was stepping through grass clumps, over logs that had fallen seemingly long ago, and through a small river or two, he came upon which seemed to be an operating building. It was large with a flat roof and its outline contrasted against the now black skies with its vanilla color coated outside walls. There were a few search lights positioned on each corner of the facility. The whole site seemed to have been built on a large concrete platform. The whole laboratory was fenced with barbed wiring and signs posted along them that read; "WARNING," "DANGER," "DO NOT CROSS," and "BEWARE: HIGH VOLTAGE". Vaxtin soon started to wonder why such a place was built here and for what reason. A sly mischievous grin started to form on his face as a peak of interest began to rise and thoughts of infiltrating for some midnight crossed him mind.


Vaxtin began to look around for a way in from where he stood, which seemed to be the backside of the building. Having decided to test the warnings of the posted signs, he raised a paw near the barbed cable wires and using his claw, slowly neared it within about 1½ inches of touching it, and as he closed the gap, an electrical arc of voltage linked the wire to his claw within a millisecond and sent, as expected, a very high voltage of electricity through his body with forced his muscles to tense and lock up, which in turn made him fall over onto his side. The sudden shocking he had just received left some parts of his fur sticking up here and there and his balance slightly off.


After regaining the ability to control his own body again, he shook his head side to side a bit to set his mind straight. "It is something definitely going on in there for sure. I'm going to find out what that it, and maybe cause some trouble of my own while I'm at it." Vaxtin spoke aloud to himself once more, now sure he was going to figure out why such a solid structure would be built out in what seemed to be nowhere. The male soon stood and bared his 1 inch long claws and slashed at the ground near the barbed wiring, digging a short "U" shaped tunnel underneath of the perimeter of the lab. Within a minute of starting, the wolf had gotten to the other side of what seemed to be the only defense, which was probably intended to keep normal animals and anyone else who happened to come across the site as Vaxtin had out of the main site. After shaking his pelt of excess dirt and brushing off is white fur colored chest of dirt he once again turned his sights to the facility he was planning to infiltrate and went on with making his way towards the building to find a way in.


Using the cover of the darkness, his black pelt concealing his body besides light reflecting his bright orange eyes, he managed to slink his way through the leafage on the ground and against one of the walls on the right side of the building. Although he was as near as he could be, the search lights forced him to wait in the middle area of the wall, with both lights enclosing him within 2 feet of extra darkness to work on either side of him. "For a building with a lack of intense security, they still managed to make me be careful where I position myself around here. I can't let the fun end before it's even started now could I?" Another slick grin came across his muzzle as he followed the edge of one of the search light's diameter and then quickly dashed through fast enough to not be detected by its sensor as it was retracing its path. After accomplishing the light task of getting to the rear of the building, the canine boldly spoke out in confidence, "Heh, this just might turn out to be just a little too easy for me."


While he wandered the backside of the area he remained close to the walls, still in the shadows, as he watched the grounds for possible trip lines, cables, or sensor beams. Then, without any warning of it, an ear defining explosion to Vaxtin's right side erupted. The wall next to him blew out from the force of the blast inside of the building while debris from the explosion finding its way into his right eye, pushing through the cornea and piercing his pupil, damaging and severely reducing sight in that eye. The wolf was thrown several feet back as his body knocked against the ground, rolling to a skidding stop. He lay motionless for about 7 long seconds before coming to and slowly getting up, peering through the slowly dispersing smoke into a hallway of the building. When the smoke cleared, nothing seemed to be in the walkway, but this was a chance to make his way inside of the structure.


By this time, sirens and alarms were blaring in response to the blast as the canine used the chance to infiltrate the building, using the remaining smoke as cover just in case. The wolf snuck through several hallways before turning a corner to see a group of what seemed to be Human doctors or scientists who wore long silver colored lab coats carrying white plastic clipboards with mouth masks and black tinted goggles covering their faces. He quickly backed himself around the corner and began to closely listen in to the frantic conversation with his finely tuned senses. One of men seemed to be giving a large number of gathering people orders, pointing and yelling at them to hurry and secure the halls. "Well what do we have here...?" Vaxtin thought silently to himself as he tuned his ears to the orders.


"You five go check out corridor A-12 through B-17! You three there, go check the security and surveillance cameras for any evidence on where the Experiment may have gotten to now!" The man who seemed to be in charge continued to give orders to the remaining team of workers. "The rest of you, go to your stations and make sure none of the other experiments try escape like Experiment 1124-6894/428AP is trying to do now!" After everyone was sent off he balled his fist, biting his lip in a nervous expression seeming as if he was trying to hold onto his composure. While Vaxtin continued to listen he overheard the man talking to himself. "Curse that thing… If it escapes from us, I am sure 'She' will have my head for this. I was the one who was made Head Director of maintaining this project by her, and now…"


Just then, as if on cue, a woman just a tall as most of the men already seen who also wore a long lab coat as the others did, but instead was a deep violet color with red and blue patterns and designs lining the basic areas where stitching would normally be in the material, also holding a metal gold colored clipboard compared to the white plastic ones the others had, could be heard coming up one of the tunnels yelling out the name "Dotan!" as she approached the man who was just talking to himself about the trouble he may get into if he lost the creature that seemed to be causing the whole base trouble at the time.


"S-Sir H-Helen! W-What it is?" Dotan responded quickly and nervously to Helen as he waved his hands in front of his chest dropping his clipboard as he took one or two steps back. Helen easily closed the gap between them and grasped some of the folds on his coat, pulling the man within inches of her face while giving him a seriously annoyed and peeved look on her face. "What is taking you people so long to retrieve Experiment 1124-6894/428AP?!" Helen exclaimed aloud, her dominant voice hear clearly over the sirens still blaring inside of the building. Dotan began trying to explain the situation to his superior, who still had him by his lab coat's collar fold. "W-Well Sir Helen, I have already ordered everyone available at the time to search the whole building for Experiment 1124-6894/428AP, but you see… He seems to be more evasive and um… More cunning then we may have predicted first off, so just if you would just give us a little time then maybe-"


Before Dotan could even finish his explanation, Helen suddenly had pushed Dotan to the ground, balling her fist in the air as she spoke out. "Excuses! I will NOT let some failed experiment get the best of me! You and all of the other men in this facility are all useless! I can't even trust any of you to watch over a worthless test subject. I will recapture him myself and break him back down into the basic elements used to create him. Then I will start over from scratch and make an even more perfect version of Experiment 1124-6894/428AP." Dotan, still nervous of his superior, tried to add a concern he had for the situation. "B-But Sir, we can't just capture him. It is not as simple as-" Helen again cut Dotan's sentence short before he could finish. "There is no excuse for failure on this project. Everything must be perfect so working alongside you scrubs is humiliating enough for me. I will see that he does not escape personally. As for you, Dotan, see me in my quarters after I have the secured the put him in its place for good. As of now, you are no longer the Head Director of this project any longer. You disgust me. For all I care you could just drop dead." And with those last words, Helen retired to her command center to send out something reliable in her eyes to capture the creature causing so much drama.


After Helen was completely out of his sight, he finally took in a deep breath, but remained sitting on the floor. "Man, she is one scary woman…" He closed his eyes and adjusted his glasses, and when he opened them looked around for his clipboard which was to his left. Although when he picked it from the ground, something just out of his view caught his eye. When he looked up, he saw Vaxtin as he stood with an excited smirk on his face while in a position as if he was about to charge at something. "A wolf? In a place like this?! Impossible!" Dotan clenched his teeth together as be slowly began to get up, but as he did, Vaxtin dashed towards and past him in what seemed to be less than a second. Dotan flinched at the sudden movement, throwing his arms over his face at first, but when he turned his body to see where the canine had gone, he once again saw Vaxtin, though he was licking his claws, a few drops of blood already had fallen onto the marble floor. By the time Dotan noticed that detail, there was a sharp pain in his throat, quickly grasping in response and immediately feeling a thick cold liquid leaking from a slash that has been effortlessly been placed on his next by the wolf. "What the…! How did you…?! This can't be! There is no way that you could have-" At that moment, Dotan's ability to speak had abruptly ended as he lost more blood as it spurted between his fingers at rapid pace. The last thing he could see while he fell onto his side gasping for air, only to swallow and cough up more blood, was Vaxtin's demented evil grin and dark red demonic facial markings with his fangs bared in a smirk with his right eye still injured from the blast earlier, then watched as the wolf turn leave him to die where he was as Vaxtin continued through halls to find exactly what the cause of all of the commotion actually was.


While the black furred brujo ran through tunnels and halls, turn after turn he seemed lost until something very, very strange happened. Just as he was about to run into another two-way turn section, a larger than himself, completely white colored creature bounded past him. Quickly being followed by what seemed like mechanical claws. "That MUST be the Experiment I have been hearing so much about in here…" Vaxtin's interests were now highly interested in what was unfolding in front of his eyes. Down the left of the hall a machine, oddly shaped with its shield plated lifted seemed to be where the claws were coming from. The strange white creature managed to avoid the first few waves of grapple attempts, but as he tried to avoid the next set, several more of the mechanoids seemed to team with the first, also shooting their claws at the said failed Experiment, overwhelming him quickly, the seemingly elastic arms of the robots wrapping around his body, constricting and binding him forcing him to the floor unable to move on the right side of the hall. As the wolf watched and observed, it seemed like the creature was weak in its condition, emitting a whimpering and screeching noise as he desperately tried to wriggle free of the droids grasp with what strength was left inside of him.


A familiar voice was then heard behind the group of machines, by now the sirens had stopped the ear defining blaring so the voice was much more distinct than it was before as it echoed down the corridor. "Ha! You thought you could escape from me and my ingenious machines?! Your genetics must be more screwed than I first had thought!" As Vaxtin watched the scene in front of him, he then decided for himself that this was now the time for the fun he had wanted in the beginning. The wolf scraped his right paw against the ground, his claws dug into the hard marble textured floor before he dashed from the side hallway he was in and leapt onto the bundle of robotic arms in front of him. The wolf clawed at the hard surface of the machine's arms, biting and quickly ripping them apart, spitting out a few pieces that were left inside of his mouth. The large white creature took the chance he was given and struggle his way free of the remaining machinery that bound him. As he got himself free and stood up, his sights were set on the black wolf that seemed to have rescued him, though he was yet to even begin trusting anyone with the situation at hand as he continued watching for another moment before running off into different passageways of the building to find a way out.


"Impossible! There is no way a lowly mutt like you could have destroyed these advanced machines of mine!" Helen boasted out in denial of what had just been done to her precious mechanical pets. "Fine then… I'll simply capture you AND that worthless trash you are trying to save, dead or alive, and use you BOTH in my future experiments. The end result of my life's work will be beyond anything possible when I'm done with you two!" The woman took out a device the side of a calculator, quickly pressing several combinations of buttons and turning small knobs built into its frame. Then, pressing one final button the alarms once again started up, alerting everyone inside the building to switch to immediate lock-down of the facility. Helen then input several more combinations of buttons and soon, a low but nearing sound nearing. "I'll see to it you will never leave this base alive! HAHAHA! I will be the winner here, not some foul beast as you are. My machines are perfect, and you will take your last breath where you stand!" Helen laughed aloud in a crazed manor, but afterwards, in her seemingly usual fashion, the woman then turned down one of the halls back to her command center to watch over everything happening in the facility.


As soon as she disappeared, a large, metal plated, sphere shaped robot that used tank treads for its mobility, rolled itself around the corner accompanied by several drone robots that resembled a camera's tripod. As soon as it fully showed itself, it took a scan of the tunnel, quickly targeting Vaxtin as its prey, opening its metal plates revealing its massive weaponry and output potential consisting of mounted machine guns, rockets, a mounted 50 cal. sniper barrel attachment in its mid section, grenade launcher barrels located on either side of the front of its frame, and several other weapons that had been built into its body. The drones also did the same, revealing their rapid fire, frame mounted, fully auto machine gun capabilities under their plated bodies along with sturdy, recoil preventing, three toed foothold mechanisms. The whole group of mechs seemed to target Vaxtin at once; the large tank-like bot activating its internal speech program to sent one warning to the canine before its massive build. "Do not resist the inevitable. You are greatly outnumbered. Surrender now and you may be spared an unnecessary death." The steel plated machine's sensors continuously updated information at a lightning pace on Vaxtin's statistics, making sure it could detect the slightest change in body motion and react accordingly in the shortest amount of time if he did not take his only warning and give up the meaningless battle.


Vaxtin smirked with yet another excited grin and though his right eye could be opened again, he had next to no vision in it anymore. "Teh, I wouldn't miss out on this fun for the world. It has been so long since I've had a fight! This will be a great warm up for me so give me everything you got inside of that metal body of yours and don't hold back or you'll be destroyed before you can even process it."


As Vaxtin prepared himself for the battle against the large tank built by Helen herself, the strange white creature that was causing the initial trouble had came back, to his own surprise, to see what had happened to the wolf after he ran from the scene. He was standing on his three toed feel, clasping the corner of the wall with his four digit hands, peeking around the corner to the unraveling scene as he began thinking to himself in a worried and concerned tone. "I wonder if he will be captured in my placed and used for more experiments like I had been used for… Oh no, that would be most bad for him. I don't think anything would want that to happen to them at all. But is he really going to try to fight that big machine thing? He might get hurt or worse, even killed like that person is trying to do to me. Ohh, I really hope this is not all my fault… I only wanted all of the never ending testing and experiments to stop so I tried to break free. Now this strange animal is about to fight a battle he might not win. Should I just leave him here or try to help somehow…? This predicament does not bode well at all…"


The mechanical android gave one final response to the wolf saying, "You were warned. You will now be terminated." Its sensors then switched to firing mode layout, loading several chambers into its weaponry, the tripod drones copying the command as they too loaded ammo into the barrels. The canine yelled out with a sneer as he grinned, "I'd love to see you try to take me down you malfunctioning reject!" He then bared his razor sharp claws and fangs before taking the first move. He charged head on at the group of opposing enemies and almost at the same time, the three drones began firing their chain guns at him, the bullets whizzing towards his body. Vaxtin quickly shifted his weight, jumping to the side of the first few shots before using the wall by jumping off of it to evade the auto targeting system they used. He ran through the waves of bullets before the tank took his turn to add in, firing off both of its front mounted grenade launchers at Vaxtin, causing a large explosion that created a smoke filled hall which, at first, seemed to stop him, but after scanning the tunnel with its sensors again, it picked up the signs of life and was just about to fire another round into the smoke before Vaxtin himself bounded through the smoke, aiming for one of the drones. He pounced upon its cold metal body and quickly stabbed his claws through its head sensors, also managing to damage its internal processing box, which forced a shut down on all of its system making it useless. Next he used the now inactive drone as a foothold, using it at a base to jump from and onto the next drone. This time, his fangs were sunk into the outer plating of the robot's head unit, biting on it several times in such a way that it eventually smashed the processing box apart, making the second drone useless as well. Before Vaxtin could even react, the tank-like robot with its much thicker arms had grabbed him around the middle of his body, lifting him in front of the grenade barrels. The furry beast struggled against the machine's hold on him but before he could do anything, he was met with a barrage of explosions at point blank range as the mechanical creation took several lethal shots at the furry canine. Vaxtin's body had been blown back far enough to almost be on the complete opposite side of the hall now.


The sudden, up close blasting left the fur covered beast motionless on the floor of the hall, his body twitching from the aftershock now and then. Still watching the wolf from around the corner, the strange large creature kept a close eye on the tank unit. Its machine guns were locking onto the still motionless mutt, as well as the last of the three drones. A second later, another set of ammo was loaded in several of the barrels, then releasing a barrage of weaponry at once. Grenades, bullets, and a rocket were all launched to finish off the wolf. From the tank's sensory view an explosion could be seen, which seemed to be on perfect lining with his target. His sensors could not yet pick up anything through the thick black smoke, though when it cleared up, two figures were presently being picked up on the sensors. Experiment 1124-6894/428AP was standing in front of the fallen wolf, the still hot bullets shot off by chain guns seeming to float in mid air, still spinning, nearly 2 inches from the creature's face. The Experiment seemed to be defending Vaxtin, without speaking, using a special ability of his own to repel and block the incoming ammunition. The large metal machine then reloaded itself for another output of ammo.


As the reloading process began, Vaxtin's eyes were now slowly opening to take in the scene, though when he tried getting up, a sharp pain had shot through his heart making him cough up some blood, his body beginning to reach its physical limits as he lost control of himself. Without control over his weakened body, something deep inside of his body was starting to take over as it had done a few times before in other places. His eyes turned from a bright topaz orange to a dark crimson blood red. The demonic markings on his face gave off a slight glow, including markings on his hind legs, as a circle of flames engulfed his own body in a spiraling fire column. At the same time both the large tank and tripod drone machine began to fire off their rounds again, but as soon as they had, a wave of heat was burst out in a 360 degree range from the wolf, the heat seeming to be on a frequency that disrupted the senses of the remaining two machines, melting the internal wiring and the bullets being shot towards him and the other weakened creature into a fine dust-like ash. An electrical surge shot through the robot's mechanics and systems, immobilizing them at once from the heat being pushed against them in searing waves. Although the larger alien like creature was also hit with the intense waves of heat, he seemed to be almost unaffected by it, even in his weakened condition. Within seconds of taking down Helen's mechanical creations, scientists and lab workers filled the halls around the two, pointing their plasma rifles towards Vaxtin and the other white colored creature. But before anyone could even shoot off a round, the flames that continued to spin and surrounded the wolf in his half demonic state had then burst off into a second heat wave, disrupting the mechanics of the weapons, making them unusable, and knocking most of the men back into the walls from the shockwave of the blast.


While in this demonic state, Vaxtin had no real control over himself until he were to run out of stamina. But at the moment, the only thing on his mind was himself and escaping the building. Several times after another the wolf raised his head to face one of the walls nearest his body while opening his jaws to form a fireball within his mouth only to shoot it off in multiple directions, nearly having one or two of the blasts hit one of the workers, barely missing them within inches of its scorching temperature. Several of the blasts hit the walls of the building, eventually burning out a circular hole into it that went fully through to the outside. The new exit caught the attention of Vaxtin's left eye, still the only one that had any sight in it, as he took the chance and jumped through to the other side.


Also seeing the chance to escape, noticing that some of the workers were standing back up to fire off plasma rounds with the weapons that still could be operated, Experiment 1124-6894/428AP took a chance of his own, as he too managed to crawl his large body through the hole burned through the wall to get to the outside world. By the time he had gotten through, he could see that Vaxtin was already at the perimeter of the base, slashing the electrified barbed wiring seeming to be unaffected by the high volts of electricity that ran through his body as a result this time. Not knowing where else to go, the cream colored creation of Helens decided to follow the wolf, running after him as a few of the lab members shot through the burned hole at him, though being far enough away to evade just about all of the shots except one beam of plasma that skimmed his side as he was dodging a different beam on the other side of him. He had barely managed to make it past the shredded area of barbed wires, while also being able to slip into the cover of the surrounding mini-forest in the cover of the black night skies, that he had finally been able escape the never ending testing and nightmarish sessions Helen had been putting him through since he was first created.


As the last sign of her life's work seemed to disappear into the night, Helen stepped through the halls that were now riddled with bullet holes, destroyed robots, claw marks and half melted walls. As she came upon the hole where Vaxtin and her latest Experiment had escaped, a group of three men yelled her name with in a desperate tone. "Boss Helen, Sir! We have just come upon the body of Dotan. We found him lying on floor of one of the corridors when we found him. He wasn't responding to our calls so we decided to take a closer look. When we did we found that-" Another one of the men cut off the one talking to finish the sentence. "We found that he was dead. His throat seemed to have been cut very deeply into it and in four jagged lines. We also discovered a pattern of claw marks on the floors leading away from his body. Do you think Experiment 1124 did this, Sir?"


Without responding directly to the new information just given to her, she only balled her fist and bit down on her bottom lip as mumbled under her breath in an annoyed state of mind. "Curse them! Who does that mutt think he is? Coming into my facility and ruining my life's work like it was nothing…They may have escaped me for now, but I'll see to it that they will pay for destroying my research center." Helen sighed as she stepped outside of the building through the burned hole, looking up at the crescent moon shining brightly in the night sky. "This will definitely not be the last that they will see of me! I'll make sure of it!"