The room was dark. The projector screen glowed at its far end, lighting up the several present pairs of glasses like headlight in the night.
Waiting for this highly important government meeting to commence, Nega sat back in her chair feeling very important.
A man in an army uniform stepped in front of the screen. He was gray haired, just past his prime, but his broad shoulders and towering height were evidence of his past glory. He was High General of the Loreth Army, Erwin Marcus, the man with the titanium posture. “Welcome, Council Members, Army Leaders...and Valued Warriors...” Marcus nodded to Nega and her twin brother, Suku, experiment 400 of the Loreth Government, the ultimate warriors... “We have gathered here today to discuss the plan of attack against the Everlast Republic. Please role the slides.” he said as he stiffly marched to the podium off to the side of the screen.
Presently, the soft white glow that coloured the screen was replaced by a projection that was a lot less ‘soft’. It was a shot of monumental destruction, the wreckage of an Everlast city by the name of Scijhell. “This is a photo of the formerly some-what-large city of Scijhell, located on the plateau between our Shiparu base and the Everlast capital city of Knot. It is the most recently attacked city by our warriors.”
The slide changed to an aerial view of the city prior to the attack. It was a clean and happy town. It’s streets, from above, were grid like. It was a very green place, too, even for an Everlast city, famous for it’s ancient gardens. The slide changed once more, this time to an aerial picture of Scijhell’s currant state. It was now dry and brown, and the orderly city’s scraps were tossed around in a chaotic manner.
As Marcus continued to narrate in his mighty voice, Nega spotted Suku smiling broadly from the corner of her eye. His face was thin and pale.The boy’s body, too, was quite thin, but extremely muscular after his near endless years of battle training. His eyes were a striking blue, almost white, and his hair, tied back into a spiky burst, was silvery blond. He was almost an exact clone of his sister. The teenager was handsome, especially now when he smiled. He did so because he was proud of his work, the destruction of Scijhell.
16 years ago, the Loreth Empire decided that they’d need a new weapon to win this war. Many ideas had been presented to the Council; new atom bombs using absolute zero to maximize their destructive capacity, a similar bomb, the cold fusion bomb, and many of new models of lazer guns. What was decided on, however, was nothing mechanical. It was decided that Loreth needed better, more efficient soldiers. A project was started underground and through steel doors in secret laboratories, titled experiment 400. Scientists began madly hacking and adding to DNA, trying to create the code of the perfect human. A person with unimaginably enhanced powers, both in strength and intelligence. After one year, the scientists, Council Members and Army Leaders were satisfied and gave their DNA form. Five embryos were created, two survived: Nega and her twin brother, Suku. More were to be made after seeing how the first two worked out. They were so successful, though, that it was never necessary.
The scientist who bred them raised them down in that lab, educating them in various university subjects, training them physically for their predetermined destiny. Their above average quality genes were obvious from a very young age. Suku and Nega were able to read before they could even talk, at the age of six months. They beat their trainer, the high and mighty Leader, Erwin Marcus, in hand-to-hand combat at three. By the age of five, they each knew four languages. By the age of six, the two little Einstines were familiar with every weapon in Loreth’s possession. By seven, they knew how all these weapons worked. Finally, at the age of ten, the two destroyed their first city, just the two of them. Life was a breeze for the warrior twins, neither had much enthusiasm. Except for one thing, a particular challenge, neither had any care for a thing.
Marcus, up at the front of the room, had finished speaking of the destroyed city and had switched the topic to the city about to be destroyed. Today: The Everlast capital of Knot. This was a large city. Huge. And well guarded. It was the governmental and military home base of the opposing Empire. Experiment 400 was to steal a couple of government files, then blow this city, and this damn endless war, to kingdom come. As impossible a task as it seemed for an entire army, none the less two teenaged kids, Nega knew it would be as easy as opening a can of pop.
Fighting was the one thing in this world that challenged her, the only thing that therefore excited her. As the thought of this massive comsopolitain city filled her mind, she felt both a zap of fear and a tingle of pleasure.

The meeting concluded at 1200 hours, leaving them 3 hours to get ready and arrive before their planned attack against Everlast’s heart.
The twins leapt out of their chairs, almost instantaneously at 1000 from zero, not sparing the second to bid those at the meeting goodbye.
Erwin Marcus, as physically superb as he was, couldn’t even catch more than a quick silver streak to wish good luck. The twins heard a familiar “Be careful!” screamed out to them. Erwin Marcus was a very caring and compassionate man, though it was rarely obvious. He’d never gotten married, never had children. The man had almost died of his hidden loneliness, until Experiment 400. At first he hadn’t been completely jumping for joy at the idea of him being chosen to train the products of the experiment. Who’d want to to hang around a bunch of science projects anyway? And with that weird monster movie strength they’d pull his arms off! But when Marcus walked into the lab the day after the twins’ birth to see them, those two pairs of striking blue eyes pierced straight through his emotionless shell and into his caring insides, he suddenly felt as though he did have children. They’d been able to reach his heart, the first, and most breathtaking example of the twins’ strength. Over the years they really had become his children, it was for this overwhelming maternal instinct that he’d told them to be cautious. As their trainer, he knew better than they did that Nega and Suku didn’t have a thing to worry about.
They were practically immortal.
The twins rushed down the familiar halls of the secret base. The Plomadri base was the closest to the Everlast border, which had now receded to the point of hugging its capital. The twins had been transferred here last year. Long enough for an average human to to memorize the many winding halls of this labyrinth like base; The twins had it down in about an hour. So now, on their run to the weapons room to be suited up, the two warriors swooped around corners in perfect sync, simultaneously leaping up entire stair cases in a single bound. Both of them were extremely excited at the thought of the attack! In a world where things were so easy for them, fighting was greatly enjoyed by the two, being such a rare challenge. They always felt quite competitive on those days.
It wasn’t long before one exchanged with the other a challenging glance
...their simple run had turned into a race!
Two silver zephyrs streaked passed a government worker, so close to his face that, shocked, he let fall a two foot stack of papers.
They moved too fast to focus on. Their legs flying at speeds so tremendous even their super human eyes only made out a blur. They felt the numbing knuckles of gravity needing their faces.
Nega’s eyes, being locked with Suku’s, hadn’t noticed the janitors forsakened mop bucket until she’d set a foot into it. She let out a yelp of surprise at its squishy, icy bite. Nega stumbled, the bucket somehow got kicked off her foot while she tried to regain her balance. It landed it front of her a few feet and murky water sprayed out, skinning the floor in a large puddle. Suku had been watching this all happened, and managed to jump in time to fly over the puddle. But as for his unfortunate sister, still stumbling, she accidentally landed in it and slipped. The girl shrieked again as, on one wobbling foot, she slipped forward, unable to stop.
Suku watched as Nega’s body continued moving forward at her tremendous velocity. He suddenly felt a memory nip terribly at his consciousness, and looked up to come face to face with the upcoming wall. There was a turn coming! Suku ran to get out of the way of what would inevitably happen next. Like in an action movie, Suku jumped forward and planted his feet against the wall, then ran against his new floor down the perpendicular hallway. Nega remembered the wall, too, but kept on sliding, unable to avoid it, until she slammed into it. A great thump echoed through the base. Nega fell flat onto her back, revealing an imprint of herself where she’d hit. For a moment the super human lied still in the puddle, not dazed at all, but in paralyzing shock at her own failure. Her view of the ceiling was suddenly blocked by her brother’s superiorly smirking face. “Mwahaha. I guess I’ve won this time.” He stated cockily.
Nega hissed. “Give me a hand up, jerk.” Suku unsuspectingly extended an arm by which his sister treacherously yanked him down. Suddenly they both sat in the puddle.
“Well,” said the boy, wiping off some goopy puddle grime. “you certainly are a sore looser!”
“I only lost because of that stupid janitor. Leaving his stuff around...” Nega pouted. She was so extremely angry with herself for messing up.
“A true warrior would have been able to react to that bucket if the thing were a micron away!”
“Swipe that look off your face, fool.” Nega snapped sworly. She knew what he said was true, at least for a super human warrior. “You don’t win every time! I’ll win next time.”
“If we destroy this city, there won’t need to be a next race.”
“Well, then, Knot’s our race. I’ll destroy twice as much as you!”
“You’re on!” Suku said with out a breath, snatching up the challenge.
The two warriors stood and walked the rest of the way to the weapons room, giggling as they threw bits of the goopy mop grim at each other. They left the little white-haired janitor to stare in disbelief at the shattered-on-impact remains of his bucket strewn for 40 feet down the hall.

Nega landed in the seat of the ship. There were many to choose from, but this one was her pick, even though she’d never flown it before. It was very small and slender, equipped with four bombs, perfect for the mission.
She buckled herself in and checked out the control panel before her. It was unfamiliar, seeing how she’d never flown this model of ship before. She had, however, quickly glanced at a blue print in a text book one day, so she knew a few. Using an inhumanly fast process of elimination, she learned the rest of the controls. She reached out and hit a few buttons, testing her calculation, and to her satisfaction, felt the engine rock her gently with the vibrations of ignition. She’d correctly guessed the the controls, she was always right.
Nega flicked on the screens surrounding her, at first only to flicker with static, but then display radar, statistics and images of the ground below her. One screen showed images of Suku’s cockpit. She watched as he buckled himself in and flicked on his own screens. He spotted his twin watching him from her own ship and gave her a Loreth style salute. Another screen was of the mission command room, in which were many overseeing Army Leaders, including Erwin Marcus. He and the rest of the home base crew took their seats to survey the attack as it progressed. They, too, saluted her. Nega saluted all of them in return, then grabbed a lever in each hand and slammed her thick soled army boot down, pushing the pedal to the floor! The super human girl felt the ship rip forward, then slowly lift. She was momentarily followed by her brother. “401 departed!” She said mission command.
For the next hour, the only thing Nega had to do was remain cloaked from the Everlast radars below. The ship guided itself to the edge of Knot’s perimeter where Nega would then take control of the wheel. For now, the girl sat back in her seat and thought. The sun was bright and warm, fitting her mood exactly. She was content. About to show off her fighting skills in a great battle! The Everlast people in Knot today must be enjoying the sun, too, she realized. Within the hour, the day wouldn’t seem happy to them anymore. The population nearly in its entirety would be nullified. Nega never really did mind the killing, though. That she enjoyed too. Many, many people had shunned her for being a murderer, claiming that no one had the right to make people scared, to make them suffer, to take their lives away. It wasn’t as though she was leaving them to die slowly. She killed everyone quickly, got it over with, but people seemed angrier that had been compassionate enough to do that! Nega hadn’t ever quite comprehended why it was a crime to take a life away, it wasn’t like normal human life was valuable!
How strange it must be to die, and how scary. She judged this by the fact that every person she’d ever killed had screamed before they died. She was never scared when fighting, even if she was injured. Only once had she felt fear, the primal instinct to panic that even the scientist weren’t able to rid her of, and that was on an occasion where she was so near death that even she wasn’t expected to survive. Both of her legs had been blown off from the thigh down. Helplessly she’d sat in a warm ever-expanding pool of her own blood as her body around her turned cold. She didn’t know what was happening when her stomach clenched until she’d vomited, or when she couldn’t calm her breathing. She hadn’t realized how close she’d come to loosing her own life. If Suku hadn’t found her when he did, she would have lost so much blood that she would have died.
A buzzer sounded and Nega popped out of her thoughts and into reality. “10000 feet and closing you two!” Said an Army Leader back at the base.
“Thanks mission command. Ready 402?” Nega asked.
Suku turned to his screen, a smile upon his face and the steering wheel clutched in his hands. “Never been readier, 401!”
A moment passed, another buzzer buzzed, and the ships simultaneously snapped out of auto-pilot. Nega leaned forward on her steering wheel, easing her ship downwards. Relishing her tingle of anticipation, Nega hesitated, then hit a single button in a row of four. She heard the ships hull open, then felt the ship suddenly jut upwards as it dropped two hundred pounds of it’s weight. Bomb number one plummeted to the ground, where, in a single, massive ball of light, it demolished a city block. The people in the screen back at mission command and the her twin brother in the other screen let out a cheer. Almost instantaneously a noise like a bag of popcorn popping came from the ground below her. Two glowing torpedoes, only the size of a football, shot past her leaving thick black trails of smoke, many more showed up on her radar, coming from various locations. Nega's knowledge and experience with air crafts splendorred the eyes of the Everlast citizens below. She gracefully slipped between torpedoes and hit the second button in the row of four. A second bomb dropped from her hull and for a moment the attacks on her ceased, every torpedo’s aim was focused on the falling bomb. Nega watched those on her screens hold their breaths. The terrorist girl watched on her screen of below, every clumsy Everlast torpedo missed its mark, and another city block was atomized. Nega avoided torpedoes with no ease at all all this cycle repeated itself twice more, then, all her bombs used up, didn’t care if the ship was hit. Her job now was to use the ship itself as an extra bomb by smashing it into another building. Pushing so hard now on her steering wheel she could nearly feel her muscles tearing, Nega lead her ship into a major nose dive right above one of Knots important government buildings. She had to clench her teeth and narrow her eyes as gravity pounded her. The terrorist girl unbuckled herself then climbed up, with much difficulty, onto the control panel which was now under her instead of in front of her. She reached a heavy hand up to the latch on the back of the sun roof. She thrust it downwards and the pane of bullet-proof glass on the roof was released. With a roar loud enough to blow someone’s head off, the pane was sucked off the top of the ship. Everything inside the ship was nearly sucked out, too. Nega clutched onto the ship with her tremendous grip and stood fast. She stuck her head out the hole in the roof to see how far she was from the ground. The tremendous strength of the wind seemed to grab her by her wildly flailing silvery hair and yank her helpless head around. The blasting wind dried her eyes, and in response they swelled with tears. She had to squint to focus and the ship was spiraling as it fell, so to her, the ground was spinning like after a mondo carousel ride, but managed to calculate that she was about 1000 feet off the ground.
Nega raised a hand above her head, then swung it down with force that would make that whipping wind jealous, and dug her fingers into the think metal of the ship’s exterior. She needed to get a good grip. She did this once more with the other hand and pulled herself up out of the cockpit. Now outside, torpedoes zipped past her, sometimes only a few inches away, but she didn’t care. Their immense rubble was drowned out by the roaring of the wind. With her super strength, she then swung her lugs and dug each foot into the side of the ship, too. She continued to crawl along the side of the ship until she got to the tail.
Looking up, the girl noticed her brother’s ship still flying, he’d be doing the other half of the city. Looking down, the girl saw her own ship continuing to plummet, the swirling world only 1000 feet away.
1000 feet, that was close enough for her to land safely, she decided, and released her grip of the kamikaze aircraft. Suddenly, she was airborne. There wasn’t a part of her in contact with a thing! She was free! Falling was like being dragged by the leg through an icy lake at super high speeds. Nega closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the feel of the wind rushing past her, feel it knock her wind out of her, not caring about the torpedoes zooming past her, but then focused her attention on the task at hand: landing. She’d done this many times before. It was a simple matter on landing on her feet, but she would admit that it wasn’t pleasant. The only way she could think of describing the feeling of landing was that it was like getting hit by a 2x4 in the ribcage. The wind is knock clear out of you by the impact, and it doesn’t feel like you’ll ever be able to inhale again. Every bone in your legs cracks loudly as the bones are pushed together when absorbing the impact.
As loud as the wind cried in her ears, the sound of her ship smashing nose first into the 30 story building two blocks away made it to her. The building disappeared completely in a huge orange fireball. She could even feel the heat of the explosion against her frozen cheeks. A few moments later painful little chunks of debris is what they felt, thrown at her at bullet-peering speeds.
Only thirty feet to go before Nega had her own crash. She strained to keep from closing her eyes in a pathetic attempt to forget about the speedily rising road, and forced herself to watch where she landed. Twenty, ten, five- Smash! The girl’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she experienced the normal landing pains. Though she couldn’t see them with her eyes shut tight, she could hear clearly the cars all around her swerving or hitting the breaks to avoid the girl that had suddenly come to be in the middle of the road. For a moment, she wobbled a little on her sprained legs, trying her best not to fall and make herself, a supposed superhuman, fall on her butt. Nega had only just gotten her balance back when the building two blocks away collapsed, sending both violent vibrations through the ground and strong winds in her direction. Nega finally did fall over, face first into the pavement. No one seemed to notice, though. Anybody still alive this close to the explosion was too busy fleeing to save their damned souls.
The girl quickly scraped herself off the ground, totally unharmed, got to work. She grabbed a leech off her belt, a small but powerful bomb that could stick to the sides of buildings. This hidden in hand, she jogged across the road to the closet building, where she attached and activated it. The building now had five minutes to stand. Making use of her time, she ran down the road, repeating this until her supply of leeches was gone. This happened about the time the first leech went off. She’d come pretty far on her inhumanly fast legs since then, but those leeches gave off a lot of energy for a bomb so small, and she was able to hear it. She also heard, far across town, what was unmistakably a second kamikaze ship crashing into another building. Around Nega, panic was breaking out. The street was like a river of people. Nega stopped her attack for a moment to take in the site. They herd like cattle, she thought, down the road to get away, not realising that they were doomed. So pathetic. So utterly terrified. Their terror, the looks on their faces, the blood running down some, it was nearly orgasmic to her. It gave her an immense sense of power, she was god! She decided who lived and died!
Feeling the urge to create more havoc, a deeply excited Nega turned her back on the street, and back to the buildings. Now out of leeches, she improvised. In one smooth motion, the warrior brought her leg up and into the cement corner of the building. Even cement was no match for her strength, and it shattered on impact. Nega quickly left the building’s side. It was difficult to push through the crowd, so dense and rapidly flowing, but she managed to get within safe distance of the building she’d just attacked in time. There was a great rumble from behind her, then a choir of screams as the building collapsed, crushing hundreds. On the other side of the road, she picked another building at random and tipped it over.
More and more buildings fell. The teenager plowed through concrete, solid wood and brick as though stepping through a gently swaying curtain. All the while, she hummed a pleasant tune to the background music of huge explosions. Came to the corner of a building that had an ally way running along side it. She casually glanced down the ally as she raised her leg, then did a double take and stopped kicking only milliseconds before smashing the building. Down the grimy garbage can lined path was a man. Sure, there were hundreds of humans, thousands flooding the streets, but this one caught her interest. Hunched up in a quivering mound, whimpering slightly in the lee of a garbage can, he seemed far more pathetic than the other humans, giving Nega an irrestistable, filthy urge to put him out of his misery. She forgot all about destroying the building instantly. Smiling maliciously, she made her way into the dark. Hearing her footsteps, the Everlast looked up. He was middle aged, obviously an office worker from his clothing. His face was both puffed and red from crying and pale from terror. He looked up at the stranger and, for a moment, he stopped crying. He was taken aback by her beauty, another trait she’d obtained from her scientist creators. She had the same features as her twin brother, silvery blond hair, piercing blue-white eyes, a small nose, supple lips and a thin face. Many, many people reacted to her in the same manner.
Another bomb some ways off in town exploded, distracting the man from her, causing him to jump and break back into tears. “It’s awful!” He sobbed as he crawled to him knees before her. “D...death...everywhere. This-this awful war! I never though it’d hit here!” The man continued to sob and hugged her around the knees. “Oh, beautiful woman, you must be an angel, sent here to save us!”
Nega had been growing increasingly annoyed at the whimpering coward, finding it harder and harder to keep from killing him, holding off to make it just a little more sweet, but at this last comment, the one in which he’d referred to her as an ‘angel’, she lost it! Nega screamed, gabbed the Everlast by the throat and single handedly slammed him against the brick building. “Wha-what?” He gasped.
Nega replied very slowly, letting each word take it’s impact. “I-am-no-angel.” Anything but an angel, Nega tightened her grip of the man’s throat. She felt him begin to struggle, kicking out his legs and sometimes hitting her, though she couldn’t feel it. She kept her sinister gray eyes locked with his, wide and scared. She smiled maliciously, enjoying this beyond her wildest dream. After a moment, the Everlast began to seriously wriggle and his face turned red with lack of oxygen. It was now that Nega reached for the foot-long gun strapped to her leg and pointed it at the man’s face. If it was possible, his eyes grew even larger. He started to beg for mercy, “N...n...no! I have...wife...children-”, but was interrupted. In a split second the man’s entire head was spread out across 10 feet of brick wall. There was nothing but a stub of smoldering neck left behind. The man’s body stopped struggling, and Nega let it fall into a crumpled heap on the mucky ally ground. Killing individually was down right useless, humans where like bacteria, they grow in huge numbers. Still, she enjoyed the odd individual killing.
Nega looked at the hole in the wall her bullet had made in admiration. There did exists something as physically magnificent as she out there. A gun, made of titanium to last forever, and able to kill just as efficiently. She titled it in her hand, admiring the way the light reflected off it’s smooth surface, before slipping it back into it’s space and deciding what to do next.
Heading back down this alley and out into the street to blow down the stampeding masses was an option, or she could destroy this building like she’d planned. She had been destroying buildings for quite some time now, but she didn’t know just how much she’d destroyed. Nega remembered the race she was in with Suku, and wondered how much he’d destroyed so far. I could get a good view of the city from the top of this building, she decided as she noticed how tall the brick structure was. So, instead of destroying this building, she climbed up the side of it using the same technique she used to scale air ships.
Did she ever wish she’d chosen another building to climb...
...any other building...
Reaching the top, Nega pulled her steel-like fingertip from the red stone wall and wrapped them around the top of the building, then hoisted herself up. Instead of seeing the great Capital city of Knot stretched out before her, all she could see was up the tube of a canon. On the roofs of various buildings all across the city where located gunner stations. The second she’d started bombing the city, gunners had sprinted to their posts and started firing at her. The girl had unfortunately forgotten about those stations, and had climbed a building before thinking of what could be up there. It all happened very fast from there.
A young boy dressed in an Everlast military uniform, no older than her, spotted the little spider woman. His eyes widened, then he turned to his buddies, two more young soldiers, and cried, “You guys, it’s her!!!” The boy then turned back to her. “Go to hell!” He spat with more hatred in his voice then Nega had ever heard, and pulled the trigger of the cannon.
Nega tried with all her might to leap out of the way, but even with her enhanced speed and strength, the felt the heat of a newly launched torpedo burn through her.
This was a level of pain she had never dreamed of before. Before she could scream, she found herself slammed back against the wall of the building opposite of the brick one, then started falling. The ground painfully knocked the wind out of her when she hit it.
For a moment, the warrior lay still and silent. She couldn’t even move. She couldn’t breath. She was completely helpless. Most of all, she couldn’t believe it. Nega simply couldn’t believe she’d let herself get hurt.
A terrible tingle of fear whisped through her as she recognized a certain sensation, she recognized the warm touch of blood.
With all her might, she immediately pushed herself off the ground. Blood made her think of mortality, her mortality. The pain of the simple task made her eyes bulge, gasp for breath and strain to keep her arms from collapsing under her own weight. Nega hesitantly looked down to where she could feel the unimaginable pain radiating from to see a sight that shocked her. A massive hole, large enough to reach an arm through, was blasted the entire was through her chest. Blood spewed from it, showing that it had probably hit her heart, and her difficulty breathing was undoubtable due to it’s ripping straight through her lungs.
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. It was all Nega could think. She was too good for this, she was too good a fighter. She was too superb to be killed by the little 15-year-old hired when all the adults in the army had been killed off.
Drizzle, drop, drop. She watched this gaping puncture bleed, not aware at all of anything except for it and it’s threat to her perfection, until she heard something. Nega looked up to where she’d heard the noise coming from, and saw the boy leaning over the side of the building. “I got her! I got her! I got her! I got her!” he screamed, “Come look! I got her!” The boy jumped with joy. His two friends ran to the side of the building and gawked down into the alleyway, their faces filled with the youthful excitement apparent in the boy’s voice. “Dear Everliving!!”
“Everlastin’ Bono, you got ‘er! She and ‘er freak bodder destroyt 17 Everlast cities single handed! And you got ‘er man! You kilt ‘er!”
The three boys bounced around happily, practically signing of their triumph in celebration. The last sentence spoken set Nega’s soul on fire. ...there was no way in hell she’d let that boy think he was a tenth as mighty as her...
“Don’t flatter yourself, pathetic human...I’m still alive...” she screamed up to them weakly.
The look’s on the three lad’s faces vanished behind a pale white. “There’s...no way...anybody could have...” they stuttered, staring at each other.
The three boys shot back to the ledge and looked off. To their utter disbelief, there was the Loreth terrorist raising to her feet. She looked up to them with eyes that would haunt their souls, and gave them a sort of smile that was malicious, evil, superior.
Spotting the blood coating almost her entire body, one boy shot out in defense, “Not for long, ya’evil witch!”
“We’ll get your mutant murdering brother, too! We’ll kill him!!” another spat out.
Nega only continued to smile wisely. “I..I, Nega, have destroyed 17 Everlast cities. I have killed a calculated 1,759,400 people, 1,321 of them I can recount in gruesome detail...Mogway, Soren, Scijhell, Honako, Eneni...”
“My entire family were slaughtered in Eneni!” spat the young boy who’d shot her. Nega swayed on her feet. “Yes,” she grinned broadly, “that was an easy one...”
The boy’s face contorted with despair as he heard these words. Rage then took him over. “You die NOW!!” He roared in a voice bigger than such a small person could usually produce. His hand shot to his side where he grabbed his gun.
Nega reacted within milliseconds, pointing her own gun into the air before the boy had closed his hand on his own gun. She pulled the trigger and, at what seemed the exact second due to it’s baffling speed, a red line scrapped up the side of his neck. His gun fell from his hand and down into the alley. The young soldier shook, then dropped to the ground. The two other soldiers looked white enough to be mistaken for already dead. They stared down at her in shock. One of them foolishly reached for his gun. Nega had pulled the trigger before he could even draw it, but found that it was out of ammo. Bullets hit the alley ground at her feet and Nega’s eyes shot about in search for the gun the young boy had dropped. It the shadows of the buildings, however, she couldn’t see it. As a last minute resort, Nega flew to the side of a garbage can, picked it up and hurled it upwards at speeds so high the metal of the can probably melted. There was a massive thud, and the second soldier fell. The third, after watching his two comrades fall at the hand (or can) of a mortally wounded young girl turned and ran! Still enraged by those soldiers’ mockery of her, she wasn’t about to let him go. Like she’d done a hundred times before, Nega lifted her leg behind her then threw it upwards. Brick buildings, she found, were the easiest to knock down, though it worked better when a corner was attacked. The entire wall shattered like a giant puzzle, bringing with it a large amount of the rest of the building. The collapsing building rumbled as the great pile of bricks, fractured drywall and a canon fell to the ground.
Nega closed her eyes and dropped her head back. Drops of blood speckled her pale face. Bits of garbage fell like snow, the can hit the ground a few feet away with an earsplitting clang. The sun was now shinning down on her, seeing how the building previously blocking it had been, well, completely destroyed. Panting with exhaustion and pain, Nega wrapped her arms around her aching torso. She collapsed onto the ground.

Stupid Everlasts...stupid, stupid boy. He’s shamed me forever, that damned boy. I’ve lost my pride, beaten by a child...how could I...

Nega continued to curse her enemies as her own blood spilled out of her body. She wasn’t as scared as she was angry, though. As scared of death as she easily was at a time like this, she knew it wasn’t a true possibility.
The scientist who’d created her and her brother had all had great achievements, and were put on Experiment 400 because of those scientists’ discoveries’ benefits to her. Some contributions were things like being able to go with out food and water for a month, the ability to survive in temperatures above 100 and below 100 degrees, and the replacement of normal muscle matter with a stronger kind. One scientist had discovered a drug that stimulated the gene controlling growth. He’d done an experiment where he removed ten rats livers, five with the drug, five without. The five rats without the drug died soon after, but the rats with it had astonishingly regrown their livers! This was what that scientist had given to Suku and Nega as his contribution, the ability of regeneration. Like that time when both of Nega’s legs had been severed, she’d regrown them in about two days. If she could regrow two entire legs, she could fill a hole! She’s probably still need to get it checked out, though.
As her body repaired itself, the warrior just lied still. She tried not to think of the mind-boggling pain. She listened to the swarms of people in the streets screamed and as sirens of all sorts sounded. And as she listen to far off explosions, she noticed the sound of footsteps moving slowly closer. As they stopped right next to her head, the beaten girl opened her eyes. There, looming above her was a little girl, maybe six or seven, and definitely the last thing Nega needed at a time like this.
Nega looked in another direction, ignoring the child. Perhaps she’d grow bored and go away. She waited a minute, then two. The child continued staring down at her. Her face was calm and lacked any expression at all. The third minute rolled by as though it were a wheel trying to role uphill. Five long minutes passed by and the child was still there, not even having moved a muscle. The warrior felt the fingernails of annoyance scratching at the back of her neck. What was the child’s problem anyway? She’d kill her in a second if she’d had any energy at all. Finally, not able to bare the child watching her any longer, she turned her head to her and spat, “What do you want!?”
The child continued to stare down at her with an expressionless face. This bothered Nega beyond words. Who was this kid, honestly!! “Listen, you little freak, go run away and hide from the evil Loreth. Leave me alone!”
The child, again, looked unfazed by the warrior’s scolds, perhaps feeling unthreatened because this warrior had been struck down. At least now she spoke. “You’re Nega.”
“Yes I am.” Nega snapped. “What do you want?”
“Funny how you’ve killed a trillion people, and now you’re the one who’s dying. Did you know you and your brother killed my mommy and daddy you know, then you killed my sister. It’s true, Nega. Now all I have left is my brother. Did you know he’s a gunner? It’s true! He’s a warrior!”
Nega hadn’t noticed, but from this view from below, she did really look like one of the soldiers from the roof, she couldn’t remember which one. The gunner boy had mentioned that she’d killed his parents, but it was probable that she’d killed all of those boy’s parents. “I haven’t killed a trillion people kid. It’s only an estimated 1,759,400. Now please, leave me alone!”
The child brushed the girl’s last words off and happily squatted down by her head. “Why did you kill so many people?” The girl asked her this in an innocent fashion, but Nega got the distinct impression that she was in fact being interrogated.
Nega listened to the child’s newest question, but found herself shocked that she didn’t have an answer. She’d never actually thought about it once! The warrior had always just killed. “Well...” Nega started slowly, “I kill because I have to.”
The child replied to this very fast. “No you don’t.”
Once more, the superhuman found herself at a loss of words. This annoyed the girl that a child could perplex her. Her desire to kill the innocent little squirt continued to grow. “Yes I do! I was created by the Loreth Empire for the sole purpose of killing. I was made strong to kill!”
“Well then, if you’re so strong, you don’t need to let the Loreth tell you what to do...why don’t you just kill them, too, then be on nobody’s side?”
“I don’t just let them tell me what to do. I’ll do whatever I want, I guess I just...don’t feel like killing the Loreth, that’s all.” Nega didn’t really know how to answer these questions, having never given them any thought. Why hadn’t she just killed the Loreth, taken the power for herself and Suku? “So...you just don’t kill them since they’re like your family?”
Nega gasped. This child had been correct once again, and about something that made Nega look like a weak human so much she’d never once let herself think about it! Family. Becoming attached to others around her. The only family she’d thought herself to have was Suku, not only her brother, but her twin! However, this child was right, though she hadn’t even seen it herself. She did consider the Loreth her family! The scientist who’d raised her, the military personnel at all the bases, Erwin Marcus!
At this question, the warrior lost control. This demon child was making a mockery of her as some twisted form of revenge. “Listen, kid, GET LOST!” she barked.
The child stayed there.
“Good Goddess!” said Nega, rolling her eyes. She searched around for some sort of weapon she could cruelly splatter the Everlast with. Bricks from the building lied unaware of their desirability, only a few feet away. The beautiful canon that had been on top of the building protruded from the mounds of rubble, and oh the things Nega would have given for that! Nega’s eyes finally came to rest of the gunner boy’s hand gun laying only a couple feet away. If she made a jump for it she could-
A foot suddenly set down on the gun. No! No! She thought. Nega’s eyes darted up to see the little girl. She’d seen where Nega’d been looking and did the math.
Nega screamed in furious rage. “Damn you! Damn you child, leave me in peace! When Suku get’s here he’ll rip your damned little arms off!” The girl spat out ever awful comment she could think, dug deep into the shadows of her brain for every last bad word she’d ever heard grunted by a soldier on the battle field and barked those at the girl, too.
The child just stood there watching her parents’ murderer’s outburst, the same calm look on her face. Nega had become so worked up that, in her weakened condition, her vision began to spin. Nega gave up and dropped her head grumpily back to the ground. The little girl slowly bent down and picked up the gun. “Do you feel sad for the people you kill? Or...do you enjoy killing.” Nega noticed that the girl was staring at the body of the dead Everlast man as she asked.
“I enjoy killing.” Nega replied to the child bluntly. “I probably enjoyed killing your parents.”
The child walked back to Nega’s side and sat down. She stroked the large gun in her little hands, holding it in a protective way, as though she was saving it for later. Perhaps after she was finished her questioning. The little girl was quite for a moment, her face, staring down at the ground, now actually showed an expression, that of sadness. “So they’re close to you, ay?” she asked. The child raised her sunken face to look into Nega’s. Tears were streaming from her eyes and rolling thickly down her round baby cheeks. “Are they as close as my family was?”
Suddenly all of Nega’s anger and annoyance towards the little girl evaporated away. For the first time in her life, the warrior felt sorry for some one. She felt compassion. This little girl had been totally orphaned. The people she loved had been ripped from her and this realm. Where would she be with out Suku?
A shock stronger than the brick wall she’d hit earlier knocked the very wind out of Nega. Her blood ran icily cold with the terrible epiphany. She’d done this to the girl. She’d done this to millions of people. 1,324 grisly murders flashed before the terrorist’s eyes.
What had she done...
Millions...how could she ever live with herself...
The shock of the realization made her tremble. Nega looked up at the child, wondering if she dared embrace her.
Nega hadn’t noticed that the explosions were getting closer. She’d been too distracted by the anger. Suddenly the sobbing child seemed to explode. Blood sprayed the entire area, especially Nega, being so close. A huge chunk of the child had been blown out, leaving a bloody cavity. The little girl’s tear-filled eyes were now unfocused. She swayed, then fell over on top of Nega’s injured body.
The superhuman could barely even breath, what had just happened? Her eyes shot up from the body of the dead girl to where the shot that killed her came from. “Suku!” she cried. Her twin brother was right above her, leaning over the edge of the remaining building. He smiled slightly and swung his gun around his trigger finger skillfully.
“That one was almost touching you!” he called down, then placed a hand of the edge of the building and flung his body over the side.
Nega’s eyes turned back to the body of the girl. There was a strange feeling of anger over the loss of the child filing her, though she wasn’t sure weather it was because she’d made emotional contact with her, or because Suku had gotten to kill her. She felt the body of the girl suddenly lifted from her, and looked up to see Suku picking her up by the arm. The large chunk taken out of the girl was on the left side between her head and shoulder. The child’s body barely held on.
Suku took a look at the damage, then swung the body over his shoulder carelessly. Nega’s eyes followed it, not knowing why.
“Man!” blurted Suku as he bent down to talk to her, “You’re just loosing every race today!” Suku chuckled at his poor sister’s failure.
“Suku...don’t joke. I don’t have the...the lung capacity to laugh right now.” Nega found herself struggling to speak, she was feeling weak and dizzy.
“I’ll say! You’re a wreck!” said Suku, stating the obvious. There was scarcely a square centimeter of bare skin on her blood-covered face. She had bits of debris and garbage in her hair. The most obvious, of course, was the gaping six inch wide whole in her torso, spewing blood and bits of shredded tissue. Nega suddenly became quite self conscious of her injuries as she realized that Suku was nearly spotless. Shame took her over. This was her greatest defeat. She’d almost let herself get killed, while he’d had no trouble at all. “C’mon,” Suku said, “let’s get you back to the base!” The boy took her very delicately in his arms and started off to where Loreth soldiers were to pick them up. They left the alleyway behind and ventured off into the mountains of ruble that had once been a city. Nega now saw just how much the warring twins had destroyed. For such a large city they’d done incredibly well. The skyline of the city was now mostly horizon, for very few buildings were left standing. Long fingers of smoke reached out of the ground and into the clouds. The sun was setting far off in the distance, turning the burning city was a shadowy silhouette. There was still much screaming going on, sirens still sang out sharply.
“As soon as I get home I’m gonna kill those Loreth jerks for being my family!” she swore weakly.
“What?” asked Suku.
Nega had no energy at all left to talk with, she couldn’t explain. The warrior just lay silently in her brother’s arms and thought about the things the strange Everlast child had opened her eyes to about humans until she passed out.