Slady was violently thrown against a wall, inside a room. The redheaded woman was there too, but handcuffed and tied up.
"Sorry for putting you in this situation."
Slady sat up, putting his hand on his head, feeling weaker than he had ever felt. The scientist who had thrown him against the wall, gave a malicious and furious smile.
"How do you feel about losing your friend and now returning to your place of creation, Slady!?"
He begins to hit him brutally, the redheaded woman tries to get up to defend him, but ends up taking a punch from the scientist as well.
"Stay still, you bitch."
He snorts, giving Slady one last kick in the stomach, leaving the room.
"..."
He just remained silent, his arms wrapped around his stomach protectively.
"Cough-cough!"
He coughs up blood, the redheaded woman watches Slady with regret.
"They forced me to bring you back, I didn't know why, they're terrible."
She lowers her head, Slady crawls to the red-haired woman, trying to stay standing, but he ends up falling on the woman's lap. She felt extremely uncomfortable with Slady's face on her thigh, separating her legs.
"Please, don't touch me."
She says, without rudeness.
"I'm sorry..."
He sits next to her, starting to run his hand over his ocular prototype.
"What's going to happen?"
"I don't know... I just..."
She lets out a sigh mixed with a sob of tears, unable to free herself from the chains.
"They lock me here, force me to kill humans and demons and after all that, they put me in an Inférius simulation and don't take me out of it."
From the cold appearance, tears begin to appear. She can't control herself, just letting it out softly.
"I don't know how many *years* I've been in this simulation, but I can't take it anymore."
"Neither can I..."
The woman looks at Slady, wanting to understand her words.
"I can't take it anymore being trapped in myself, having my emotions absorbed with each passing time, losing the connections that I care so much about because of my lack of emotions."
The woman widens her eyes a little, feeling strangely similar to Slady: they both had a cold appearance, but a great vulnerability hidden. Maybe... just maybe... she had found someone she could trust.
"Please, help me get out of here."
Slady looks at her, still completely hurt.
"Help..."
He closes his eyes, losing consciousness.
***
Suddenly, he feels a painful shock in his chest. When he opened his eyes, he saw another scientist dragging him by the hair, one of the ones who had killed Raizer.
'Damn him...'
Despite the pain, Slady's only thought was pure hatred.
He was abruptly placed on a bed, the scientist took a syringe with Renkai Energy inside the object.
"Let's go to the first test."
He injected it into Slady's normal arm, he began to feel the corrosive energy flowing from his body, starting to cause absurd pain and fatigue.
"Hmph!!"
He fell off the bed, starting to cough up blood and feel his body craving more of it, feeling an indescribable pain in his body and an enormous fatigue
'no... I can't die like this.'
He salivated with pain, his mind became foggy. But in a short time, his body began to eliminate the Renkai Energy. The scientist laughed.
"Look... apparently someone managed to develop a way to gain more resistance to Renkai Energy."
He steps on Slady's face, spitting on him.
"It's ridiculous that a failure like you managed to be as smart as some of our best scientists."
Slady didn't have time to resist the Renkai Energy and the scientist already injected another syringe into his neck. But this was one that made his body weak, the cause of his constant fatigue. The scientist starts to pull him by the hair back to the containment room where the red-haired woman was, opening the door and throwing Slady towards her roughly.
"Stay with that useless weapon!"
The scientist slams the door hard, leaving them alone in the room. The woman felt uncomfortable again when she felt Slady's body touching hers. But now with her hands free, she doesn't use them to attack, she uses them to wrap Slady in her arms.
"Please... don't feel alone."
Feeling his face nestled in the woman's soft and firm breasts, Slady just closes his eyes.
"..."
A few days later...
It was dawn, Slady and the red-haired woman were on the floor with few clothes on their bodies due to the countless cruel experiments done on Slady and the woman.
"This seems to be routine for you..."
Slady says in a low tone, the woman lets out a shaky sigh.
"But even so, it's terrible."
The woman says, then Slady just looked at her with an emotionless look
"I didn't ask you about your name..."
"It's Ferinish, Ferinish Lawhell."
"Strange name, but beautiful."
"They're the ones who gave me that name. Your name seems a bit feminine, Slady."
The woman says, now named Ferinish Lawhell.
"They asked me my name once... I didn't even know what it was. 'Slady' was the only thing I ended up thinking at the time."
"And how did that name come to your mind, Slady?"
Slady places her hand over her temple, sighing.
"They once called me lady, they had mistaken me for a woman."
Ferinish gave a low laugh, she seemed much calmer with that man, but she still hadn't lost her cold nature.
"I see."
Ferinish lies down on the cold floor, staring at Slady's bionic eye through the darkness.
"You're the first person I've really talked to, you're not a bad man, Slady."
In that cold room, even with her power to manipulate fire, Ferinish still felt cold. Gathering courage, she approaches Slady and wraps her arms around him, a little hesitant with the touch.
Slady had been surprised, he had never been hugged in a non-intimate way, but he also felt the need to warm up, so he cuddles up to her and accepts the hug.
At that moment, Slady had realized that, that woman, Ferinish. Even in terms of strength, she was his exact opposite. Strong, powerful, a true killing machine. But also, he noticed his similarities with her and his vulnerabilities beneath a mask of coldness.
He felt good with her, even though he had only known her for a few days, he felt... truly connected.
In the middle of the night, Slady woke up and felt his body... on fire? But it didn't burn him or his clothes, it just warmed his body.
'Did she make those flames?'
He looked at Ferinish, noticing that she was indeed enveloping him in flames, but harmless flames. He pulled away from the embrace a little, feeling the flame starting to die out and the cold starting to return.
Instinctively, his body moved towards Ferinish, who was the source of the heat, she had also moved a little during her sleep, enveloping Slady with an even stronger embrace.
Normally, he felt uncomfortable with hugs too, even if they came from Elisa or Shaphira. But with that woman, he felt something strange... something he had never felt... a desire to reciprocate, not out of respect or empathy, but because he truly wanted to.
Even though they were both wearing few clothes due to the experiments, Slady hugged her for real, increasing the intensity of that flame even more.
This time, Ferinish's body did not tense or extremely uncomfortable with her touch, but rather... as if he was at peace in that moment.
Two suffering and lonely souls, finally finding true comfort and peace in their hearts so cold and at the same time, so wounded.
***
Very early in the morning, a female scientist enters the room, holding two tranquilizing syringes. Upon entering, she only sees Ferinish lying on the floor.
"Where is he-"
Bang.
Slady appears behind her, shooting herself in the head with the pistol she had managed to recover and had fitted with a silencer.
"It's time for revenge."
Slady bends down, picking up the woman's scientist clothes and badge. He starts walking through the corridors, entering a room where he had his clothes, Ferinish's clothes and her sword.
"They are more meticulous with her."
Slady picked up her clothes and put them on quickly and silently, picking up Ferinish's kinomo and his sword, returning to the containment room.
"Woman, wake up."
He says in a low tone, gently patting Ferinish's face. But he felt her legs wrap around his neck and simply neutralize him at that moment.
'I forgot she hates touch.'
Ferinish wakes up, separating her legs from Slady's neck.
"Sorry."
She sits down on the floor and sees that Slady had retrieved her things.
"Oh my... how did you do that?"
"It doesn't matter."
He throws the sword and the kinomo to Ferinish, who quickly gets dressed and holds the sword in his hands... with his expression becoming much darker and colder.
"It's our time to escape from here."
Wasting no time, the two begin to invade several rooms and kill all the scientists who were sleeping or awake at that time. But upon entering a specific room, Slady looks at a scene with... disgust.
It was an incubation room, where there were small incubators that kept small, deformed and limp creatures, some with several eyes, others with nothing at all, basically being forced to not die in some bizarre way.
Slady, someone who had witnessed the worst things a man could ever witness, was disgusted by the stench and the grotesque sight of those humans made in a laboratory.
"..."
He walks around the room, finding a computer in its center and begins to search for information about those humans and even about Ferinish.
But one of them surprised him:
***
*The date of the document was not specified, but it had "000". In local scientific language, it would be centuries.
"The First Success"
*The image was of a naked and 'unconscious', weak body. But the fact that his hair was naturally long and other details on his body made Slady recognize that it was not just any creation...*
*It was himself.*
"According to the experiment, the body was not awakened even with the most powerful electric shocks. It should be discarded to be consumed by the Renkais Creatures in a forest far from Libretãnhya, or rather, from the entire society."
"A success or a failure? Both, your body and potential cannot be used due to lack of consciousness. But the formula and method used to create the body, whether female or male, will be the same or close to similar."
***
So that was what Slady was... a weapon that would be used and abused until a replacement arrived or lost its usefulness and was discarded.
He couldn't even search for more information about Ferinish, as he ended up crushing the computer screen with his bionic hand.
"No... it doesn't matter... it never did."
"Of course you do, Slady."
Truth appears next to Slady, letting out a sigh.
"That shows how you, along with me, ended up being born. Or rather, you being born and me inside your mind."
"Please, shut up."
"Wait a minute...!"
Trurh didn't even have time to explain herself, Slady had already expelled her from her mind.
When he returns to the corridors, he finds Ferinish in front of him, holding his sword and with only his cold eyes staring at him in the darkness.
"Have you done this?"
"Yes."
She walks towards Slady, standing in front of him.
"Let's go, together."
She extends her hand to Slady, who holds her hand firmly. Ferinish felt a shiver at the touch, but he made an effort to keep their hands together.
As he starts walking through the corridors, Ferinish breaks the door of a room with a kick.
"This was the exit route that..."
Ferinish looks at the empty space in the room, where there should have been an Inferius to escape.
"They probably knew something could happen, so they decided to face and close the Inferius so we couldn't escape."
Slady says.
"Damn."
Still holding Slady's hand, almost naturally, she continues to lead him to several rooms.
"Where is this exit?"
Ferinish mutters to herself, looking at a door.
"This must be it."
When she tried to pull it, she couldn't, the digital part of the door asked for a password. Slady sighs and turns her back, going to separate her hands...
"I'm going to look for the password-"
Boom!!
Ferinish pulled Slady back into his hand while she ended up destroying the door with a single kick.
"Do you think I'm a weak woman, Slady? You're wrong."
"I never said anything."
After Slady's sentence, a voice echoed in the place.
"Exit door has been destroyed, preparing to eliminate the intruder!"
Before she could think, several firearms appeared from inside the walls of the place, starting to shoot at the two. Slady quickly threw himself on the ground along with Ferinish, with his mechanical claws emerging from his back and starting to cut through all the ammunition at high speed.
"..."
"..."
The two just stared at each other for a few good seconds with Ferinish underneath Slady and him on top.
After the ammunition in their firearms ran out, a voice echoed again.
"Intruder not eliminated, self-destruct system of exit area activated."
Slady and Ferinish quickly got off each other and started running towards the exit, which was several corridors in a maze-like style.
10...
9...
8...
7...
6...
5...
4..
3...
2...
1...
At the last second, the two manage to reach the exit at the time of the explosion, their bodies are thrown through the air with speed, Ferinish quickly wrapped Slady's body with his in a protective instinct, then the two fall on an icy and snowy surface.