[AU Cavan] Grounded Raven; Chapter Six
Lynzie Austin
Chapter Six:
The emergency lights painted the corridor in pulsing crimson, each flicker revealing another otherworldly horror. Reynard's back hit the bulkhead as the werewolf—no, not just a werewolf, something utterly twisted—circled him with a menacing prowess. Its too-long limbs moved all wrong, joints bending in directions that made Fork's own transformation look natural by comparison.
Fork crouched between Reynard and the creature, his golden eyes flickering between awareness and animal rage. Blood dripped from the gashes across his chest where the thing's claws had found purchase.
"Fork," Reynie hissed, thumbing the power setting on his phaser to maximum. "You with me here, big guy?"
A rumbly wet growl was his only answer.
The creature let out a cackle of laughter, a sound like bones caught in a meat grinder. "Little brother," it rasped, its voice layered with something that wasn't vocal cords. "You fight the song?"
Fork's claws scraped against the deck plating. His snout in the air in brief confusion. Reynard saw the exact moment recognition cut through the racket. Fork's nostrils flared, his entire body going rigid.
Reynard didn't have time to process the interaction before the creature lunged. Fork met him mid-air in a collision of fangs and fur. They crashed through a console in an explosion of sparks, rolling in a whirlwind of snapping jaws. Reynard raised his phaser— and froze.
They were identical. Same tawny fur. Same jagged scar across the left shoulder. Same fighting style. This wasn't just another augmented werewolf anymore. This was Fork somehow. A perfect mirror of him. A distorted reflection that was nearly perfect and Reynie couldn’t possibly tell them apart anymore. Until a voice cut through…
"She promised a pack," he snarled, saliva dripping onto Fork's muzzle. "Why do you fight it?"
Fork's reply was a choked whine.
Reynie's phaser whined as he charged it. "Hey, Fido!"
He aimed past the panting wolves, directly at the plasma conduit behind them and fired. The explosion blew them all backwards. Reynard hit the ground rolling, his ears ringing. Through the smoke, he saw the other stagger—his matted fur on fire, his too-long limbs twitching. Fork was already moving, his claws slashing across the other's muzzle in a spray of black blood.
The acrid stench of burning fur filled the corridor as Reynard scrambled to his knees. His vision swam, the afterimage of the plasma explosion still dancing behind his eyelids. Through the smoke, two identical werewolves circled each other - one panting with ragged, desperate breaths, the other moving with unnatural, twitching meticulousness. His eyes darted without the slightest movement.
Reynie's fingers tightened on his phaser. The similarities were uncanny - same golden eyes, same battle scars, even the same way Fork's ears twitched when assessing a threat. But where Fork moved with an aggressive raptorial advantage, from hunting no doubt; Jace jerked like a broken marionette, his limbs occasionally spasming out of rhythm with his actions.
The realization hit Reynard like a plasma bolt to the chest.
They hadn't just cloned Fork's appearance. They had tried to have the puppet become him in every way, shape and form. Absorb his essence in some perverted way that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Fork charged first, leading with his left shoulder exactly as Reynard had seen him do a dozen times before. The other mirrored the move perfectly, until his right arm suddenly snapped backward at the elbow, claws raking across Fork's flank in a move no natural creature could make.
Black blood splattered the bulkhead.
The Other's head snapped upright with mechanical precision, neck tendons creaking like overstressed cables. Its muzzle hung at an unnatural angle where Fork had dislocated its jaw - yet it smiled, a hideous smile. "Little brother," it gurgled through a mouthful of black fluid, voice modulating between Fork's growl and something colder. "You always... were... the flawed one."
Fork recoiled as if struck. Reynie saw the moment it truly registered - the way this creature moved with his mannerisms but none of his soul. The way its golden eyes didn't reflect light so much as absorb it.
"Okay, new plan," Reynard muttered, slapping his combadge. The channel fizzed with static. "Ellie, if you're hearing this, we've got a Fork doppelgänger situation down here and—"
The Other’s head whipped around, those golden eyes locking onto Reynard.
"Ah shit."
The werewolf moved faster than anything that size should, crossing the distance in two bounds. Reynard barely had time to raise his phaser before massive jaws closed around his forearm. The crunch of breaking bone was drowned out by his own scream. Then Fork was there, slamming into the puppet with enough force to dent the bulkhead. The wolves rolled in a whirling mass of fangs and fur, their identical snarls making it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Fork pinned the Other down, growling right in his mangled face. Then the Other's arm twisted behind its back, joints popping as claws raked upward, tossing Fork onto his back and pressing his gnarled claws to his throat. Reynie did the only thing he could do with his one arm.
The phaser beam caught the Other square in the chest, sending it skidding backward. Its fur smoldered, revealing patches of rotting charred flesh beneath.
"Combadge isn't working," Reynard panted, dragging Fork behind a collapsed console. "That thing's emitting some kind of interference field." He risked another glance. "And I think it's learning your -"
A metallic snick cut him off.
The Other stood perfectly balanced where they'd left it, examining the phaser burn with detached curiosity. As they watched, its damaged fur rippled, the scorched patches flaking away to reveal fresh tissue beneath. "Fascinating," it said in Angelienia's voice, then Fork's, then something neither of them recognized. "The original remains... superior."
“What the fuck are you?” Reynie whispered.
The Other's head tilted exactly 37 degrees - the same way Fork's did when analyzing threats. "We are the perfected. The obedient." Its muzzle split in that terrible smile again. "The replacements."
Reynard's blood turned to ice.
Every pod contained a warped reflection of someone from Starfleet who had cloned and botched. A Victor with too many fangs. So many others with mutilated and distorted features…
Reynie’s arm began to burn.
The Other leaned forward, whispering in Fork's ear with perfect mimicry:
"Welcome home."
Reynard's vision swam as he staggered against the bulkhead. The bite on his forearm screamed. His veins pulsed black beneath the skin, tendrils of darkness creeping toward his elbow.
Well shit.
"Fork—" His voice came out slurred. "I think your evil twin's bite is—some fuckin—toxin or something—"
Fork didn't answer. He was locked in a brutal dance with the Other, claws flashing in the flickering emergency lights. Every strike was mirrored perfectly—until the Other's movements *glitched*, limbs snapping at unnatural angles to land blows no real werewolf could.
Black blood sprayed as Fork's claws found purchase in the Other's ribs—
—and Reynard felt it.
A jolt of agony up his own arm. The blackened veins pulsed in perfect sync with the Other's wounds.
Oh, that's some bullshit right there.
Across the corridor, the Other laughed through a mouthful of broken teeth. "Connection established," it rasped in Angelienia's voice.
Then it lunged again.
*****
The forcefield shimmered as Victor slammed against it, his fists leaving smears of black blood. On the other side, Angelienia adjusted the neural scanner descending toward Ellie's forehead, her fingers dancing across the controls with intimate precision.
"You loved me once," she murmured, not looking up.
Victor's snarl died in his throat.
The memory hit like a dagger—Angelienia's lips against his in a dimly lit lab, her cold hands tangled in his hair as she whispered "Let me show you forever." The way her teeth had scraped his neck, not to feed, but to sample.
Ellie's gasp snapped him back. The scanner whined as it activated, her brain waves flickering across the display.
"Stop!" Victor roared.
Angelienia smiled. "Why? Afraid she'll see what you really are?" Her black eyes gleamed. "Or afraid she'll understand?"
Fork's claws tore through synthetic flesh again and again, but the Other kept healing. "You're slow, little brother," it taunted, voice shifting between Fork's own and something scratchy. "Weak. Flawed."
A kick sent Fork crashing into the wall. Before he could rise, the Other was on him, mangled muzzle inches from his face.
"She improved me," it hissed. "No more rage. No more pain. Just... purpose."
Fork's golden eyes met the hollow gaze of himself back. The Other hesitated. Just for a second.
Long enough.
Fork's claws found its throat.
*****
The corridor tilted violently as Reynie stumbled forward. The bite's venom burned through his veins like liquid nitrogen, yet one thought cut through the haze:
Ellie. Get to Ellie.
Every step sent jolts of pain up his nerves, but he forced himself onward. The further he was able to drag himself away from the Other, the weaker he felt, but it seemed the weaker the stranglehold appeared to be. Lucky for Reynie, Fork had kept the bastard occupied.
Behind him, Fork's battle raged. Ahead, Victor's silhouette burned against the forcefield.
Somewhere in the chaos, a new sound emerged; the screech of rending metal as something tore through the station's lower decks. “Of fucking course there’s something,” he muttered, cradling his arm. “I need to get Ellie and get the hell out of here.”
Reynard's boots dragged against the deck plating, each step sending fresh waves of fire through his bitten arm. The black veins had reached his shoulder now, pulsing in time with the stuttering overhead lights. Every breath tasted like copper and burnt ozone.
Just a bit further.
The forcefield separating Victor and Ellie shimmered ahead, its harmonic barrier vibrating with the same three-note sequence still echoing through the station. Reynard's fingers twitched uncontrollably, his nerves thrumming with each note's resonance. If he blinked he wouldn’t have seen it—
Victor was shifting. The vampire's usually pristine uniform hung in tatters as his bones cracked and reformed beneath his skin. His fingers elongated into obsidian claws, his pupils swallowing the irises whole until only twin pools of endless black remained. And his jaw distended to make room for rows of fangs… as he sang that goddamned song.
Angelienia stood triumphant behind the forcefield, her hands resting possessively on Ellie's shoulders as the neural scanner whined to life above them. Ellie's back arched against the restraints, a scream trapped behind clenched teeth as silver static danced across her temples.
"Vic!" Reynie's voice came out a ruined thing, shredded by venom and pain. “Don’t do this!"
Victor's head snapped toward him. For one terrifying instant, Reynard saw nothing in those eyes—no recognition, no humanity. Just the endless dark between stars.
Then the forcefield shattered.
Because of course it fucking did. OOC: And back to the mines... someday, I'll write something of substance again... today is not that day...OOOOOOO what about the substance though----- that movie rules