The Huntress Descent

The Storm: Prologue

"This is a complete and utter mess," the Chancellor said, her tone stiff and surly. "How has one little mistake a culminated into this?"

"I-I ... like I Hexblained to vu Chancellor. Ve do not know how sche Hescabed zee room afder zee Horiginal Hextraczion," came the reply.

The Chancellor sighed in response, infuriated with the answer she had received. Instead, she focused her attention on the girl that lay on the small hospital cot in the centre of the room. Surrounding her were various machines, all hooked to the girl's chest, all providing a different function to keep her alive. For what purpose, the Chancellor was unsure. She had every mind to pull the plug and dispose of the subject quickly. The girl had caused the upset and delay of the results they so desperately needed. But something nagged at her mind, something hinting to her that she was yet done with the girl. Somehow, she needed this girl. They all did.

The Chancellor moved closer toward where the girl rested and gently placed a hand on the thick bandage securing the broken ankle obtained from a nasty fight with the monster. A nasty fight that ended with the girl victorious and the Griever strung up like a little rabbit.

"How long will this take to heal?" she asked the two scientists located by the entrance of the room. Both handcuffed, both scared for their lives.

"Vith vat ve haffe giffen her, ve zink zat Hanozer three days for zee zerum to knit und pind zee vound togezer."

"How surprising that you think," the Chancellor retorted. She twisted her head toward the scientists and determined what she should do with them. Such hope she had placed upon them, such disappointments they turned out to be.

Dr. Chiyoko Takeda, the promising plucky scientist who showed signs of a breakthrough in her experiments. And her mentor Dr. Filip Adlai, the veteran in his field of work and a respected member of their community at the base who was fondly nicknamed 'Einstein' by his younger colleagues due to his striking resemblance of the German physicist. They were both brilliant. Brilliantly stupid in the Chancellor's mind.

"I'm done with the all these excuses. You had one job, one small little job. Fix the goddamn chip, get the data, dispose of the subject!" The Chancellor paused. "How anyone could mess that up is beyond me."

"Vu do not Hunderstand-"

"No, you don't understand!" the Chancellor snapped before Adlai could complete his sentence. "It was a simple extraction and disposable. Fix the chip, gather the data and dispose of the subject. Heck, even one of the kids could have done it. But no, you two had to complicate things and lose her in the process. And then to find out she entered Group A's experiment. You can imagine my anger."

The Chancellor watched as Takeda's lip trembled in fear as the reality of her situation dawned upon her. Adlai took her hands within his and squeezed them for comfort.

"You are both lucky that we were able to rectify your mistake and able to replicate a similar experiment within Group B's test." The room fell silent with the hum from the machines filling the air. "And now that 'Aris' is dead, everything should figure to a similar conclusion we are expecting."

The Chancellor turned her attention away from the disgraced scientists towards the small table located opposite the bed. Here she found a file filled with pages of data collected from the girl's chip and time spent in the experiments. She opened it and flicked through until a small detail caught the attention of her eye. The Chancellor examined the page further, taking in every last scrap of data, trying to make sense of what was presented before her.

"This is interesting," she murmured in part to herself and in part for the audience surrounding her. The Chancellor clicked her fingers together and a tall man with thick glasses appeared in the doorway. "García come see this."