Author:
Audience Rating:
Publication:
Genre:
Character Age:
TG Themes:
Permission:
By
Morpheus
I stood at the beginning of the base obstacle course, dressed in my workout clothes as were Rebecca, Nicole, and Dani. Yesterday, we’d spent nearly the entire day at the shooting range while they taught me how to use a gun, and today we were going to work on familiarizing me with my own physical capabilities.
“There are actually two obstacle courses,” Rebecca told me. She gestured to one path and said, “One is for the regular soldiers and the other,” she gestured to the second path, “was built just for us angels. It’s a bit tougher so some of the guys in the unit will try running ours to show how tough they are.”
“Some of them try challenging us to races through it,” Dani said with a smirk, looking quite pleased with herself. “I’ve won a few bucks betting on those.”
“You’re just a showoff,” Nicole teased her, only to have Dani flip her off.
“And you’re one to talk,” Dani responded.
Rebecca glared at them and said, “Knock it off you two. This is serious.” Then she turned back to me and continued, “Every demon is different, but most are bigger and stronger than us. We rely on being fast and maneuverable so we can keep out of their reach until we take them down. As you’ve seen, it can get pretty messy if we let them get too close.”
“And whatever you do,” Nicole said with a wince, “don’t let yourself get distracted.” She absently rubbed her side where she’d been sliced open, though I knew there was no longer even the hint of a scar remaining.
A minute later, we began running down the path and through the obstacle course. The first obstacle was a giant monkey bars contraption that the others slipped through with ease. I followed behind, being a lot slower as I made my way through it. Once they others were through, they stopped and waited for me to catch up, then we all went to the next obstacle together.
The next few obstacles followed the same pattern, with my sisters getting through them first and waiting for me to catch up. Each time they seemed to get harder as well, demanding that I do things like go over a tightrope that was strung above a pond, jump over a wall that was twice my height, and hop from one log to another of various sizes. Some of the obstacles looked so tough that I knew I never would have been able to make my way through them before my change. But after seeing my sisters scramble through these obstacles with the same ease they had the monkey bars, I had no doubt that I could do it as well.
It was no surprise that my sisters beat me through each of the obstacles. Not only were they more familiar with the course, they were also more familiar with their abilities. However, with each obstacle, I developed a greater understanding of my own capabilities and grew more confident because of that.
When we finally finished with the obstacle course, I was sweating pretty good but wasn’t really breathing hard. In fact, I was full of energy and could have immediately started on the course again.
“Good job,” Nicole told me with a broad grin. “Not bad for your first time.”
“We’ll get some water in us and then go again,” Rebecca told me, pulling some bottles of water from a cooler that had been left at the beginning of the course and handing them out.
“That wasn’t too bad,” I said, feeling rather proud of myself for having managed to make it through all the obstacles. I was actually kind of amazed at that, especially considering how impossible some of them had seemed at first.
Dani slapped me on the back and chuckled. “It gets pretty easy after the first few times. And trust me, it’s a whole lot easier doing this when you don’t have something chasing after you.”
After a ten minute break, we began going at the obstacle course again, though this time my sisters didn’t wait for me. Instead, once they finished one obstacle, they’d continue on to the next one at a slow pace, giving me a chance to catch up. Since I’d already been through these obstacles once, I was able to go through them quickly and more easily than before, though still not at the same pace as the others. For the most part, they called back encouragements, though Dani did joke about my being slow.
By the time we’d finished with the third trip through the obstacle course, I was almost able to keep up with my sisters, though it was clear that they were still holding back a little. However, I was making clear and obvious progress which seemed to please them almost as much as it did me.
“This is crazy,” I told Rebecca while we took a break after the third time through. “I can’t believe I’m not completely exhausted yet.”
“I know,” Nicole responded with a grin, handing me a protein bar and another bottle of water. “Isn’t it awesome?”
“Don’t worry,” Dani told me as she took a drag on her cigarette. “By the time we’re through today, we’ll all be exhausted.”
Rebecca put a hand on my shoulder and said, “I wish we didn’t have to push so hard, but once you come face to face with another demon, you’ll probably be wishing we’d trained you even harder.”
Dani nodded at that. “Practice now so you can stay alive later.”
I nodded at that, almost regretting my decision to join Angel Squad. Almost. I was still terrified by the thought of actually going into demon zones and intentionally facing those monsters, but I couldn’t let my sisters go alone. I was determined to be there with them so I could make sure they came back alive.
“Another run?” I asked, trying to sound confident about this.
“Give it a few more minutes,” Rebecca told me with a grin, holding up a protein bar. “I want to finish my own snack first.”
A minute later, three men in workout uniforms arrived in order to use the obstacle course as well. Dani casually greeted them, “Hey Mike. Hey assholes.”
“Nice seeing you too, bitch,” the man she’d addressed as Mike responded. However, he was grinning as he said this and Dani didn’t seem bothered.
“You guys looking for another race?” Dani asked him. “I’m getting low on cash.”
“You’re on,” Mike said, still grinning. “The usual bet. But this time, we can do teams. Morgan and Reece will run with me.” He gestured to the two men who’d arrived with him. “If any of us beats you, we win.”
“Three against one,” Dani mused, then shrugged. “Sure, why not. In fact, let’s make this more interesting.” She gestured to me and continued, “My sister Monica races too, and if any of you three beats either of us, you win.”
“What?” I asked in surprise at being volunteered to be part of her wager
Dani just grinned at me. “See if you can beat all three of them to the end.” Then she looked back to Mike and added, “We’ve already run the course three time and are a bit tired. That should give us a bit of a handicap.”
“Sounds like good training to me,” Rebecca added with a chuckle.
Reese stared at me with an odd expression before saying, “So you’re the new angel…”
“Damn, you look different,” Morgan muttered. “I am NEVER getting infected with that shit…”
I stared back to Morgan and Reese, then at Mike, gulping in sudden recognition. These were three of the guys who’d pointed guns at me and had taken me into custody after I’d saved Nicole.
“I remember you three,” I stated, glaring at each of them.
“It wasn’t anything personal,” Mike quickly said, watching me with a wary look and tense body language that suggested he expected me to attack him. “We were just doing our jobs.”
Nicole put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Monica, relax.”
“We’re all on the same team,” Rebecca told me. “Now that you’re on Angel Squad, you’re going to be working with them.”
I nodded at that and let myself relax. “I’ll take it out on you in the race,” I stated, determined that I wasn’t going to let these guys beat me. Dani smirked at that.
Two minutes later, we began the race and I started running through the obstacle course for the fourth time. Dani ran alongside me while Rebecca and Nicole came along but actually went around the obstacles. They were watching the race rather than participating and both seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“You can do it,” Nicole called out to me.
Dani could have gone ahead but she remained with me while I kept pace with Mike. Reese and Morgan were a short distance behind, but we were slowly leaving them further behind. I was a bit amazed as Mike scrambled through one obstacle that I would have considered nearly impossible before my change, though he was obviously breathing hard and giving this everything he had.
“Now,” Dani exclaimed, jumping off a rope tower and tearing off at a rapid speed. I grimaced and hurried to catch up with her, leaving Mike behind.
Dani and I reached the end of the course well before Mike and had to wait another two minutes before he caught up, breathing hard and looking tired. It was another ten minutes before Reese and Morgan rejoined us as well. They may have lost the race, but I couldn’t help but being impressed with them anyways. After all, I knew that before my changes, I never would have been able to make it through the course much less at that speed.
“All right,” Mike grudgingly told Dani as he handed her a twenty dollar bill. “You win again.”
“I can’t believe we got our asses kicked by the rookie,” Morgan muttered in disgust.
“A rookie angel,” Dani pointed out smugly.
Reese shook his head and told Mike, “That’s almost enough to make a guy want to get infected. Almost.”
“Fuck that,” Morgan responded. “There ain’t nothing worth waking up with a pair of tits.”
Mike, Morgan, and Reese were obviously unhappy at being beaten like that and having their pride hurt. Because of that, they didn’t stick around much longer and made their way off to the other obstacle course, the easier one.
Once they were gone, Rebecca smiled at me and said, “That was your best time yet.”
“I wasn’t going to let those guys beat me,” I admitted, a little embarrassed that I’d gotten caught up in a grudge match like that.
“It would have been embarrassing if you had,” Dani pointed out.
I hesitated a moment and then admitted, “They were pretty good though.” I shook my head, knowing that there was no way I could have made it through the course at all before my transformation. The fact that those guys could said something about how good they really were.
My three sisters all nodded agreement at that. “They fight demons for a living,” Rebecca pointed out. “And they don’t have our advantages. They’ve got to be good if they want to survive.”
“I’m just imagining what they could do if they were like us,” I thought aloud.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Nicole told me with a scowl. “You don’t want to give anyone ideas…or just as bad…make them think that we have ideas.”
“And there is no way in hell I’d let a bunch of random people get turned into angels,” Rebecca spat out almost angrily. “I don’t want people I don’t know or trust looking like me.”
I winced at that, remembering that it was purely a matter of my being in the wrong place and time that had resulted in my becoming infected. I certainly understood what she was saying, but it still felt like she was rejecting me.
“I didn’t mean you,” Rebecca gasped in realization and grabbing hold of me. “If I was going to choose someone to become my sister, it would be you. You jumped in and helped Nicole when you could have been killed. I told you before, that’s the kind of person I want as a sister.”
“If it was someone we didn’t know,” Nicole said quietly. “Someone we didn’t trust… Then in spite of our shared DNA, she wouldn’t be our sister. She’d just be a stranger with our face.”
“Exactly,” Rebecca said, nodding agreement. “That would actually be kind of creepy. I know you’re not happy about this, but I’m glad you’re my sister.”
“I’m glad too,” I admitted self-consciously. It wasn’t that I was thankful for losing my identity and turning into a woman. It was that I’d never felt as close to any of my friends as I did to my sisters. Then I cautiously asked, “But what about that prime virus your mom made? Couldn’t they just put someone else’s DNA into it?”
“Not gonna happen,” Dani pointed out with a snort.
“Two reasons,” Rebecca responded with a scowl. “First, that kind of manipulation of the virus is strictly against international law. Anyone caught doing it would be executed and it could even lead to a world war.”
“Oh shit,” I gasped.
“The second reason,” Rebecca continued grimly. “During the first demon outbreak, they tried stopping it with an emergency containment…”
“That means the lab was sealed off and they incinerated everything,” Dani added with a snort. She lit a cigarette and shook her head.
Rebecca nodded at that, shaking her head with a sigh. “They tried destroying Yavich and all traces of the virus before it could spread. Unfortunately, they were too late and the demon strain was already out. All they ended up doing was destroying all research and samples of the harkon virus.”
“That stuff would have been useful for finding a cure,” Nicole said bitterly.
“It probably wouldn’t be difficult to reverse engineer my mom’s prime strain,” Rebecca said. “All we’d have to do is use the angel strain and filter out my DNA.” She shrugged at that. “Of course, we still have the ban.”
“So it’s not gonna happen anytime soon,” Dani added with a scowl.
“For the foreseeable future,” Rebecca told me with a wry smile, “there won’t be any cure for the demons, no custom made super soldiers to fight them, and no more angels except the ones created by accident.”
“Enough talk about this,” Nicole exclaimed with an expression of exaggerated boredom. “Let’s talk about something more interesting…like lunch.”
Rebecca laughed at that and even Dani grinned. “All right,” Rebecca agreed. “Let’s go get lunch. Afterwards, we can hit the course again.” She gave me a mischievious grin and added, “I’ve got some ideas of how we can make it more interesting.”
I groaned at that, not sure what she had in mind but knowing that it probably wouldn’t be fun for me. “My sisters are sadists,” I exclaimed, only to have Dani give her best evil laugh.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
Comments
beating guys
some guys dont take that well ....
Eventually, they'll either
Eventually, they'll either have to resort to incinerating entire infected towns, or restart the research to find a cure - even if that's just a partial optimization inoculation vaccine.
I'm guessing that after the first time they have to MOAB a decent sized town, the government will tell the international community to take a long walk off of a short pier.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
The more the story talks about the virus
the more likely, I think, that Doc Asswipe or someone else (not yet revealed) is doing secret work. Doc makes sense - he's pretty clinical toward the Angels, and studies the crap out of them, he's got the background, and he seems like he's one lab accident away from being a supervillain. Everything is too neat, too convenient - every sample, and all data destroyed?
The way it's set up, the demon plague is way too infectious to NOT do anything or to be contained. What if they were to have a battle with a demon where the demon's blood were to infect a watershed, which then would infect every city using that as a source of water? The outbreak of demons would be astronomical, given how communicable it is. The virus has been built as a super-plague - highly communicable, fast-spreading, and fast-acting. From the descriptions, the incubation period is practically non-existent. And if it DID have an incubation period where it was still communicable, EVERYONE would get the damned virus.
Sorry, Morpheus, but on this one, you've made the virus too perfect as an infectious agent. While the story is entertaining, there's a little too much suspension of disbelief required wrt the spread of the disease.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
A. Einstein
I think the human race should get infected.
Maybe making us into just deamons would be an improvement.
G
Remindes
Reminds me of the game "The Last of Us" and how the plague started there.
A part of me agrees in possibly having the doc as the villain but another part is suggesting its more than that. What's keeping the virus going? How is it spreading. I know that it's contagious but where is the virus finding hosts to keep thriving as it is?
Also I would think that the girls are a little naive if they believe that nobody is willing to risk them working on either a cure or another strain of the virus itself.
The virus isn't 'perfect'.
The virus isn't 'perfect'. It doesn't appear to survive outside a human host for long, if at all, and isn't particularly airborne contagious.
I would also suspect that the replication 'drive' of the virus would cause the host to self-destruct quickly, which argues against a long incubation period before becoming symptomatic. It looks like it goes symptomatic _fast_, which is when it is at maximum infectiousness - otherwise, it wouldn't show up by someone going 'demon' in the middle of an office.
Cascade effect, basically. Viruses don't tend to be contagious early on, because they're spending their efforts to replicate in the host. Once they have enough impact on the body, then the infection effects begin. Think of the flu, or a cold. You tend to have a 'I don't feel so good' period before the coughing, sneezing, or nose running happens (causing you to blow snot). Most of what we think of as 'airborne' viruses aren't. They're actually encapsulated in phlegm, which you sneeze out at high speed.
So, it's a contact virus that _needs_ a host, and at least for the angels, requires intimate contact when not in 'healing' mode. Even in healing mode, it requires skin to skin (moisture transfer).
With the demons, who knows - as part of their 'roid rage', they are probably spewing spit everywhere. Bets that the lifespan of an unattended demon is less than two days? (Meaning in an area where it can't get to infect anyone else).
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Based on the description
being in proximity to a Demon is enough for exposure. That's pretty airborne if you ask me. Second, it has to either have a long incubation period, or it has to survive outside of hosts, or it has a reservoir in nature. Given the discussion about how the demon strain acts immediately, we can rule out a long incubation period. As to whether it has a natural reservoir (e.g. marburg, ebola) or can live outside a human host, it's not specified. In either case, however, humanity is screwed. If it can survive in, say, a water supply, then there's no stopping it - period. If it has a natural reservoir, then it also is virtually unstoppable.
Now, it was noted that the town was firebombed due to the widespread exposure. The only reason to do that would be to decontaminate the area, both of people who were exposed and the residual virus.
This is a zombie apocalypse scenario - the virus is too good for humanity to survive. If it wasn't, it would have been possible to isolate and eventually eliminate it, as with smallpox.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
A. Einstein
Wouldn't
it also be possible to have a 'carrier' that is being used to keep the virus alive in a certain state? Giving the time period that the virus has been around it seems that its somehow surviving. This could be like as you said a lake, but perhaps an animal? Given that they said the place wasn't decontaminated in time lab animals may have been used to test the virus on. This could be rats/monkeys and whatnot, hence the survival of the virus itself.
Humans could then come in contact with the animal and become infected.
It's like 28 days later, only
It's like 28 days later, only worse. I mean realistically the demons shouldn't live very long, but if they're really as infective as indicated they should have wiped out large parts of humanity already. I mean even if the virus survives only minutes in the air that would be enough to infect whole cities under the right circumstances.
Well, let's look at the
Well, let's look at the example we have from the Angel strain infection. Infected, then a couple of days before changes started to occur. Now, the A strain had to completely alter the DNA across the body, so let's say that the B strain would have taken effect at the time that the A strain just started to show effects. Again, we have to look at saturation and tipping points. It is unlikely for a virus to become infectuous before it's thoroughly compromised the host, because most of the time, the host's immune system defense reactions are part of what spread the virus.
I'm envisioning that once someone has demonized, their bodies go into overdrive, eating into energy reserves - but also rapidly spewing sweat and phglem. Like Ebola, the virus destroys the host. _Since it is designed for humans_, there wouldn't be the _immediate_ risk of species jumping. As there was no reason to design in survivability, there's also no reason to assume a natural reservoir.
However, two days is long enough for someone to get a good distance away from the infection sector, and if the air currents run right, you couldn't cordon off the area - but unless it happens in the middle of a concert or mall, it's unlikely to nail too many people. The virus just isn't peaceful enough to spread like, say, HIV. (There's no such virus as AIDS. That's a syndrome, and can have other causes besides HIV)
As for the relative rarity of the demon explosions? It could be that many people have a natural immunity to the carrier virus. Using as an example, my mother was given the smallpox vaccine three times before it 'took'. Apparently she had a natural immunity they had to override before it could be reinforced. Think of it as your body could kill 10 of the viruses, but if hit with 10,000, it's compromised before enough resources can be brought to bear. So the people going demon are those with slightly weaker systems - again, not something they'd worry about when designing the virus, because they'd be injecting enormous amounts of it in deliberate infections. I.E. "Angel blood" on them.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
You know?
You know I am starting to find it amusing at how we try to make a story like this Real!
It's called minimizing suspension of disbelief
When we read fiction, we want to believe it, and by human nature, we'll forgive a few little oddities. The further future it is, the more we'll let pass on things like warp drive and wormholes and transporters, but there is a point where the suspension of disbelief fails. If a story is too far out of what is (or was, for historical fiction) possible within what we know, then it's not possible to suspend disbelief, and the reader tends to have a suspicious nature through the story, which takes away from the pleasure of reading.
Take Progenitors. I did a LOT of research on that, to make sure things were plausible with only a few technical advances in rocket science. The result was (I hope) believable, which allowed the readers to identify with, and empathize with, the characters.
That, in my opinion, is why we struggle to make it believable and explicable - so we can get past our disbelief and relish in the characters.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
A. Einstein
Still
Still I think the doctor is a living A**hole. ";)
*snrk*
You don't have to have suspension of disbelief for that one.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I just know that there is a cure.
I just know that someone will either make a super villan or they will start hunting for a cure. It is against human nature to leave well enough alone.
Gwendolyn
Somehow I get the feeling a
Somehow I get the feeling a certain Angel will start to use her genius to become a doctor and finally a genetics researcher.
I'm not so sure about the angels though. I could easily believe that they're stronger and faster than a normal human - if they got lucky even smarter - but that they also have more endurance is really really hard to believe. Considering that the only thing in the animal kingdom with more endurance than us are wolves, I find it rather hard to believe that some genetists manage to incredibly increase the power of the human body while adding to the endurance. That reminds me of the devisors in the Whateley universe. It shouldn't be possible, but somehow it is.
Anyway, great story so far, thank you for writing,
Beyogi
Humans can build up more
Humans can build up more endurance than most other animals, especially for long distance running. You can't say that wolves have more, or less, endurance than another species, because they're different.
Now, that said, endurance is driven by how the body deals with fatigue poisons. If they process oxygen efficiently, energy storage efficiently, and scavenge fatigue poisons quickly, they could go all day - or for days.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
It is all about chemistry.
There really is no magic in metabolism, so assuming they eat more and are more efficient, I can see more endurance. A couple authors have used drawing on energy from upper level dimensions, and I like that.
G
?
If the Angels are more better than the other soldiers I have to wonder why they would even bother trying to beat them. One of the possibilities I can think of is that the soldiers are looking for a challenge and hope the girls will slip up. As these are the same people that work with the Angels then they should already know what their up against.
Dani does have a kind of mean streak in her when it comes to males it seems. But it may be more likened to a gambler who knows that the odds are stacked in their favor and loves to take advantage of it.
One thing that Monica will need to do is learn to do the obstacle course with a small pack of medical supplies. This is to ensure that she can perform emergency work as needed while they wait for reinforcements to arrive and so on.
Monica
Is really becoming part of the team now, which I knew was going to happen but is fun to watch anyway. And now the Angels have a medic they can trust and one who won't be in danger of getting infected so holds back at critical moments.
Beating the guys on her first day of training was impressive but given how Angel DNA works not all that surprising. What was really impressive was that the guys finished the course.
Maggie
At this point i am about one
At this point i am about one third of the way thru this based on the number of chapters posted. It just keeps getting better. The posted comments are adding to the overall experience, many are very thought provoking. Such a treasure.