Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language.
Chapter 13:
It was 22:05. Fox slowly sneaked down the empty corridors towards one particular destination. Her footsteps were lighter than a feather and her night vision helped her navigate the pitch black corridors. She stopped outside the door, pressing her ear against it. Silence was all she could detect, so she slowly turned the door handle. As she felt the resistance of the lock, she sighed.
Life is full of surprises, eh?
She began twisting and turning her hand, attempting to unlock the door without having to break it completely. After a few minutes, her claws turned and opened the lock. Fox smiled as she walked in and closed the door softly. She walked over to the desk and began scanning through the piles of paperwork on it. One particular folder caught her eye, the name of which was quite intriguing:
“ENHANCED EXORCISM”
Fox slowly opened the blue file and read the papers within:
“The Enhanced Exorcism is a specially adapted Satanist chant which allows for the restoration of humanity in the Enhanced. This chant’s words have to be accented perfectly and have to be sung by someone in Catholic priesthood. If these requirements are not met, the effects may vary from the death of either the chanter or the Enhanced, or possibly an increase in power in the Enhanced...”
She flicked to the next page.
“... This chant has been tested by Dr. John May Corbyn, the creator of the Enhanced. These tests - including ones for finding cancer cures in Enhanced cells and testing the chant - were funded by the UK Department for Scientific Research. Corbyn created the first Enhanced in 2011, almost a decade before any kind cure of Enhancism was created…”
“... The Enhanced Exorcism tests were made on five rogue Enhanced. All of them lost their supernatural abilities and became regular humans, although their minds appear to be wiped of any memories of being Enhanced. It is unknown whether Corbyn was intending this effect…”
Fox didn't continue reading. Instead, she placed the file back as she found it and quickly sneaked out of the office.
What kind of sick world do we live in? Fox thought. Why is everyone trying to rid the world of us? Why can't we use our abilities to make this world a better place?
***
The next morning, Fox woke up to knocking on her door.
“Gimme… A sec…” Fox said, still half-asleep. The door opened, Fox saw Dragon in threshold.
“Good morning,” he smiled. “Sorry to wake you to up so early, but I wanted to talk with you.”
“About what...?” Fox rose from her bed slowly. Dragon closed the door and walked over to her.
“Ryan told me we can do our first job for him. It’s nothing dangerous apparently.”
“Dragon,” Fox didn’t seem very happy; she scowled at him. “You wasted my precious sleeping time for that bullshit?”
“Yep! I regret nothing!” Dragon laughed. Fox let out a short growl, but Dragon didn’t seem to notice it. “I’ll tell him to wait a bit for you, you know where to find me if you need anything.”Dragon left the room, Fox still laid on her bed, with absolutely no intention of leaving it.
***
Vixen knocked on Jack’s door. He opened it and entered slowly to see the large cheetah sitting on his bed, already in black t-shirt and trousers.
“Good morning,” Vixen said softly.
“Good morning,” Jack replied.
“Can I come in?”
“Well, you’re already in, so I’m not going to kick you out, am I?” Jack chuckled.
“Fair point,” Vixen went a bit red. “I want to talk about the past.”
“Not a place I’m eager to go to,” Jack replied, his tone was very serious. “But I’ll try.”
“I haven’t really met anyone who I could talk with about my past…”
“And of all people you choose a huge, intimidating half-cheetah?” Jack raised his eyebrow.
“I know, it’s weird,” Vixen laughed. “But I just seem to find you quite approachable. More approachable than Fox, anyway.”
“What’s your deal with Fox?” Jack seemed to be intrigued and slightly angry at the same time. He stood up from his bed and slowly walked towards Vixen, trying to emphasise his size as much as possible “She’s been through a lot, you know?”
“A lot of us ha-”
“Oh yeah?” Jack was clearly angry, but Vixen could also tell this was only a small fraction of his anger. “Have you lost your entire family in one day? Have you been tortured for a month straight? Have you ever attempted to kill yourself through drinking any chemical you could get your hands on?”
Vixen seemed to be very shocked by things Jack has listed, but he seemed to be in a world of his own.
“I-” he began, “I never knew she suffered like that. I’m very sorry.”
“Just try to watch your mouth next time,” Jack said, a bit more calmly. He sat back down on his bed, Vixen wondered whether now would be a good time to leave. But then, a single question came up:
“How come you can remember your name?” Vixen asked. Jack looked up at him in confusion.
“What do you mean? Jack is a name I gave myself after forgetting my real name, unlike Dragon.”
“Dragon remembers his name?”
“None of the Enhanced do, from what I know of. That’s mainly why we don’t bother with surnames: we won't fit into society anyway. Fox came up with her and Dragon’s names.”
“Oh… Do you think we have any chance of remembering everything?” Vixen moved closer to Jack’s bed, and when the latter nodded, he sat down.
“Maybe? I don’t care personally.”
“Why not?” Vixen asked, surprised.
“I know I’ll never be able to socialise with human society, but this body has given me the ability to do everything a human can only dream of doing. I can lift almost anything, I can see what the human eye misses. Why would I want to throw that away?”
***
Dragon walked past Ryan’s office, heading back from the cafeteria. As he slowed down, the barren corridor filled with Ryan’s faint voice:
“... So you need them locked up? … Will do. … Wait, should I send D there?”
Who the hell is D? Dragon thought. Does he mean me?
Dragon walked back towards the door and listened closer.
“... Hello…? Are you there? Wait… Who’s outside the door?”
Dragon’s heart stopped. He could hear Ryan walking. Walking towards the door. Dragon looked from side to side, looking for a place to hide. But there was no where to go. Ryan opened the door.
“Dragon, knowledge is useful,” he said calmly. “But only in small doses. Too much knowledge can be lethal.”
***
Fox stretched, groaning loudly. She was already in her suit and walked over to her door. As she opened it, something strange hit her. Namely, the silence in her surroundings. She looked around and decided to go and check out what happened.
Fox walked half-sneakily up to Dragon’s room. When she was just opposite the door, she slowly turned the handle… Before swinging the door open quite violently. However, the interior was lifeless. The bed was neatly set out and the room itself seemed untouched by human or Enhanced hands. But most of all, Dragon wasn’t there.
She went to Jane’s room, with great suspicion guiding her way. Fox knocked loudly and Jane opened the door widely a few seconds later.
“What’s the matter?” Jane asked.
“Dragon’s gone missing,” Fox said directly. “Have you seen him?”
“Oh… I honestly have not… Have you tried checking Vixen’s room?”
Fox thought of this as an attempt to deter the suspicion from Jane, but decided to not mention this.
“Not yet. Do you want to come with me?”
“Of course!” Jane soon realised that that sounded way too enthusiastic. “I- I mean… If you want me to…”
“Why not?” Fox said, putting on a fake realistic smile. “The more the merrier.”
They walked cautiously across the corridor before Vixen’s room, Fox carefully leading Jane. Each one of Jane’s footsteps seemed clumsy when compared to Fox’s. As they approached the iron doors, Fox knocked on them. Even after a few seconds, there wasn’t a response. She pulled the handle down and opened the door slowly. The ladies peeped inside and gazed at the interior. It was similar to Dragon’s room: neat, calm - and most of all - empty.
“Where the hell has everyone gone?” Jane asked.
“If only I knew myself,” Fox replied, turning back to Jane. “Jack’s room is our last hope.”
Jane nodded in agreement.
“Let’s go there.”
They carried on sneaking to Jack’s room. This time, Fox’s ears rose up to resemble radars. She could hear people laughing cheerfully. Two different voices: Vixen’s and Jack’s.
At least they’re ok, She smiled. However, that smile made way for one grim thought. But if Vixen and Jack are in there, then where’s Dragon? Wait… If Dragon said he’d go tell Ryan to wait for me...
“What’s going on?” Jane whispered, almost impatiently. “Is he in there?”
“No, but Jack and Vixen are,” Fox replied softly.
“Should we go ask them?”
“No, I'm almost certain I know where he might be.”
“Ok then, lead us there.”
Fox got up and walked down the corridor, not caring whether her steps were heard. With each step, both of the ladies’ heartbeats sped up. Jane followed closely behind, attempting to be a bit more cautious than Fox. They carried on towards the office, every one of Fox’s steps fueled by determination and, what she thought was love. Jane followed obediently behind, wondering what happened to Fox. Was she revealing her true colours?
Fox knocked on the door of the office firmly. She couldn’t hear anything from the inside, until the handle turned and the door opened widely.
“There you are!” Dragon smiled happily. “I thought you’d never come!”
Fox’s heartbeat slowed down immensely. She sighed in relief.
“I was this close to going fucking insane because of you!” Fox laugh-yelled, indicating a very small amount with her fingers.
“Either way,” Ryan said. Fox looked behind Dragon to see him seated behind his desk. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”
Author's Note: Jeez! It's been a while! Also, is there a word for yelling and laughing at the same time? Like, so I have something to replace "laugh-yelled" with? Either way, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter!
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Heyo, you're right it has been a while!
Nit-picks:
This didn't make a great deal of sense. Vixen knocked on the door, Jack opened the door, but then why was Jack entering somewhere?
This seemed to be from Jack's POV up to this point so this switch was a bit jarring.
The way Jack said "unlike Dragon" did make it sound like Dragon was Dragon's original name, so it's a bit confusing for Jack to say that then explain that what Vixen takes from that is wrong. I do however like the idea of Jack taking a normal name for himself, although it maybe doesn't fit so well with him basically denouncing normal life.
It seems likely to me that he'd be too busy collecting himself to think something so coherent. I'd imagine his thoughts would be like What the? What's going on in there?
That's another of those POV switches that's just a bit too sudden.
"ladies" seems like quite an odd word there.
How would she be able to tell that?
Overall:
The way you've split between people is interesting, but I'm kind of unsure what the desired effect is. Often it's to get a sense of people existing separately but simultaneously, you know like montages in rom coms--oh, the bit at the end of the first Shrek film where Fiona's getting ready for the wedding and it cuts between her and Shrek. Anyway, this has a lot more plot advancement than those kind of fluffier sequences. What that means is that so much of this is just [i]important[i/]. The result of moving between characters so much is that we don't get to go into a whole chapter's worth of depth. This means that important stuff feels less dealt with, and it makes it harder to maintain suspense because I'm being pulled out of my immersion quite frequently.
The individual scenes are pretty good however. I especially liked Jack and Vixen's conversation. I think you got interesting information over to the reader while showing us the character's emotions. This meant it didn't feel like infodumping because I was engaged in the characters. Doing something similar in the first section, ie showing Fox's reactions as she reads each bit of the book, would make that feel less like the writer telling the reader directly what's going on, which it did tend towards in places.
As for laugh-yelled, maybe exclaimed? Not perfect, but I'm not sure.
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
Thanks for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter despite all the errors! I'll try my best to work on my perspectives a bit for the next chapter. I'll try watch my writing as well, to make sure there isn't a misconceptions. As I said to Pan below, I will add some flashbacks and other content to make clear all ambiguity.
Once more, thank you for the review!
Hi, Dragon! Back again to review.
First Impressions
The improvements keep on coming. I'm super pleased to see that your chapters are getting longer and better paced, as well as much more balanced on the prose and dialogue front. I was a bit confused when I started reading this because it seemed to pick up in an unexpected place. It might just be that it's been a while since I read chapter twelve, but I found it odd that this chapter didn't focus at all on Fox confronting Vixen about what he said. You also introduce the notion of Fox sneaking to the office with no preamble, which made me feel like I missed something.
Anyway, I'll come back to my overall impressions later. Onto the nitpicks.
Minor Points
Why is it surprising that an office full of secret information is locked? It would be more surprising if it wasn't locked.
Her claws...turned? How does that work? It sounds painful. I think you need a slightly more detailed description of how she shimmies the lock open because I can't really picture how she does it. At the moment it sounds like she just turns the handle until it gives way, but that would definitely damage the lock.
I find it odd that the folder is just out on the desk. Even if the door was locked, I feel like they'd take a bit more care to hide confidential files. It seems like quite sensitive material.
Who knew the Labour party leader was so talented? Haha, only joking. The name choice made me chuckle, though.
It isn't really necessary for you to tell us she doesn't seem happy - we can gather that pretty easily. Also, full stop rather than comma after 'Dragon'. You close dialogue with a full stop when there's no dialogue tag.
1) Comma splice. Should be a full stop instead of a comma after 'you'.
2) 'Dragon left the room...' should be on a new line.
3) There's actually another comma splice; you need a full stop after 'room'.
This whole exchange came off as very strange to me, and uncharacteristically rude on Jack's part. He's not usually so aggressive. For one, there's no evidence that Vixen has a problem with Fox - we haven't seen him being standoffish or rude to her, so Jack's anger is unjustified. I can't see why Jack would object to Vixen finding her unapproachable, because he knows how blunt and intimidating she can be. Vixen was hardly being rude about it.
It's also weird that Jack gets so angry when Vixen says 'a lot of us have', because it's not like Vixen was insinuating that Fox hadn't faced trauma in her past - he was just making a pretty neutral comment. Jack also has no idea what Vixen has personally been through, so it's very presumptuous for him to just assume that Vixen doesn't know what it's like to have a tough time. Even if he's not been through as much as Fox, it's still awful to discount someone's potential traumas just because someone else has faced worse.
In short, the exchange was just too accelerated and seemed out of character for Jack, who's usually more of a level-headed pacifier. It just seemed like an out-of-nowhere attack, and it was irritating to see Vixen apologise when he'd done nothing wrong.
This struck me as a bit odd. Surely it's more likely that they don't bother with surnames because they have no knowledge of their family history?
Referring to them as 'ladies' is a bit odd. I think it has so many connotations with being fancy and high-class that it feels out of place. 'The two women' might be a bit more neutral, or even just 'the pair' or 'the two of them' - you don't need to specify gender.
You don't need that comma.
I don't really understand what you're getting at here. It's too vague.
It's maybe a bit tell-y, this writing. Maybe something like: 'holding her thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart'.
I'm not sure 'either way' is the right choice of words here, because it's not like there are two ways being compared. Did you mean 'anyway?'
Overall Thoughts
1) As you can tell from the nitpicks, your control of grammar and phrasing has improved by a mile. There's still the occasional comma splice here and there, but most of my nitpicks are related to small realism things rather than punctuation errors. Style-wise, you're getting loads better.
2) You've taken a bit of a sharp turn in regards to character values. While I don't object to the idea that Fox and Jack don't want to be 'cured' of their oddities, it feels like it's come very much out of the left field. Up until now, we haven't had much insight into how they feel about it - I've never had the sense that their powers were something particularly precious to them. If anything, I got the impression that Fox secretly wanted a normal life.
If you redraft the story, it would be good for you to delve more into the extent of their powers and what makes them so appealing. It has to be more than just being super strong and feeling like a superhero, because most of their abilities would be pretty useless in everyday life. You mentioned Jack being able to see things that the human eye misses, and that seems like a good thing to develop. Do the Enhanced perceive a lot more of the world than humans do? Is Jack afraid that losing his powers would be like having the volume turned down on everything? I'd love to see a conversation between him and Jane (or any human) where you give us more insight into what, despite everything, is so amazing about being an Enhanced.
3) A similar point, but Fox's desire to use her powers for good has come on very suddenly. She's never given a damn before, and nothing notable has happened to change her perspective on it. It feels like both Dragon and Fox have become better people but that their characters haven't actually changed in response to anything. It's hard to believe in the development when we can't trace a cause for it.
4) I'm not quite sure why Fox was so worried about Dragon when he wasn't in his room. It's not like they don't spend time apart from each other, and there was no reason to think that he'd been taken away or harmed. I also don't get why the facility was so quiet, seeing as Dragon turned out to be fine and there wasn't actually anything unusual going on.
5) It's nice to see Fox and Jane being a bit more civil for a change. I am questioning Jane's place in the plot at the moment, though - she seems to be hanging around without much to do. I hope you have something in store for her soon.
I'll call the review there. It was great to read more! I'm looking forwards to the next few chapters - I get the eerie sense that something sinister is brewing. It's been a while since we've had any really dramatic action, so I feel like I'm being lulled into a false sense of security.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Thanks for the review! I missed out Fox's reaction intentionally... partially. I will go back on it from Vixen's perspective, but that will be a bit later in the story. Also, I will have quite a lot of flashbacks of events before the time of QSS, like Fox and Dragon escaping their asylum, as well as many more elaborative conversations, like the one you suggested with Jack and Jane. That outbreak of Jack's isn't something out-of-blue, considering what I have planned. In future chapters, he will be portrayed a bit sensitive to talk about the past.
Also, about Fox going insane in this chapter... How would you feel, if your dream future-husband who also happens to be your best friend and partner-in-crime disappears in a bunker, which you were essentially forced into, with a very strange host who seems to be involved in crime? I'd be pretty cautious, especially considering what you read about Dragon's encounter with Ryan in this chapter...
Anyway, thanks for the review and I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the errors!
I think it's mainly because Dragon wasn't gone very long, or it didn't seem that way. It was like she just woke up, saw he wasn't in his room and immediately went into panic mode, even though it's not like they haven't been apart in the facility before. If it was something like they'd arranged to meet somewhere at a certain time and then he wasn't there, I'd understand it more.
Looking forward to finding out more about their pasts. It seems like there's a lot to discover.
I understand what you mean, but I'll probably fix it with a flashback to explain Fox's attitude towards Dragon. To be perfectly honest, I will probably attempt to rewrite this and try to be more prepared for the plotline and character personalities.
Rewriting is a good idea. All books need to go through a few drafts befor they really find their feet.