Turning the Bandits: A Kai Lee Story
I've been dying to make a story around Kai Lee and his backstory, and the stream yesterday gave me the perfect opportunity to do something with that. This is a little story of the snow leopard making his escape from some mysterious people, only to have a bit of tragedy and opportunity strike at the same time.
Written by me, for me.
(Yes, the Kai Lee figure here is not of 18 years of age, but no sex happens, just violence, so it should be okay)
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Enjoy.
Turning the Bandits A Kai Lee story By Draconicon
Blood. It was hot, and a little bit sticky, and it was all over his hand. Kai Lee paused, looking down at the man he carried.
Man. The word was wrong. Not a man, not even a teenager by the terms of the world above, though the cheetah had the body of a near-man. The spotted feline stiffened in his arms, a few flickers of red running up and down his back, a little bit of life still in his eyes despite the new bullet hole going straight through him.
"How much left?" Kai Lee asked.
"Not enough."
The words should have brought anger. They didn't. Shaking his head, the snow leopard slowly pulled the cheetah's arm out from around his shoulders, slowly lowering him to the leaves and roots and dirt of the jungle around them.
A sharp crack of a bullet hitting a nearby tree was followed by a distant boom. Whether their latest attacker were the surviving hunters from the facility or someone else that called the jungle home, they hadn't broken line of sight yet. Kai Lee shook his head, looking down at his...
The word failed him again. Not friend. Not even acquaintance. Partner in pain, he supposed. Companion. Those were more suitable, but inaccurate. #032, who hadn't yet decided his name.
The red light crackled around his wound again, the feline not quite gasping, not quite shaking as the injury failed to heal again. He looked up, their eyes met.
"Take it," #032 said.
With a nod, Kai Lee did. One punch, claws sinking through flesh, past bone and organs to the burning core in the middle of the other cat. He clenched his hand into a fist, and #032 was no more.
As the energy crackled into nothingness, the body of the cheetah faded away. Red dust was all that was left, and the snow leopard's hand shimmered with the energy that he had taken from his...his...
No more. No. #032 was gone, and there was no time to think of him.
The next bullet made no sound; he did.
As it ripped through his side, pulling a chunk of flesh along with it and spinning him around from the impact, Kai Lee hit the ground hard. He flexed his fingers, one hand pressing against the earth, the other against his wound.
Blood. It was hot, and he was cold.
"He's down. Get him before he can run!"
Run. As if he would do that now. But yes. Let them come. Let them come to him instead of extending the hunt.
Kai Lee took a deep breath as the energy he'd taken from #032 worked with his own supply to take care of the wound. He rolled onto his healthy side, feeling the red lightning burst through him. It rippled out from his core, blasting and arcing across the sides of the wound. In rapid succession, skin cells were forcibly generated, regenerated, populated with the strands of fur that would keep it from looking out of place.
It could not regenerate the hole in his uniform, though. Torn and shredded as it was, the snow leopard doubted that it even counted as one anymore. It had once been akin to a prison uniform in the more civilized areas of the world, he had found out. Not orange, but gray, with thick sleeves and pants. That was how it had been. Now, it had holes through the back and front, the sleeves ripped, barely enough left to cover his modesty.
The red lightning faded as the regeneration finished, and he slowly sat up. The snow leopard managed to get to his feet, taking his time as the hunters arrived. He looked up, flicking his eyes from one to another.
They weren't from the facility, though that weapon could have easily been one of the ones that they carried. None of the ones currently pointed at him matched the caliber, however. The other gunman was still out there, at a distance; these ones were expendable, or stupid.
One of them, a jaguar with a machete at his waist and a large pistol in his hand, stepped forward. He chuckled, holding the pistol against the snow leopard's forehead.
"Heh. I don't know how my sniper missed, but you're gonna regret not running, kid."
Kid. Teen. Adult. The words lost meaning when one did not pass through time properly. How many years? Six? Twelve? At least four in the field, now, four years on different missions in the world, ripping things apart for the people that ran the facility. Four years after who knew how many more in the tank, out of the tank, in the chair, in the training rooms.
Training. Instinct.
The gun pressed against his forehead harder, and he reacted. Claw to the finger, sever the nerve to pull, leave it limp. Other hand to the back of the pistol, keep it from clicking and firing. Pull. Throw.
Rip.
The jaguar went flying over the snow leopard's head, hitting the tree. The other guns clicked, armed and ready. He shook his head, throwing the pistol down.
As the jaguar screamed, holding his hand where his missing finger had been, one of the other jungle bandits stepped forward. Green camo, old, scavenged, taken from surplus supplies where soldiers had once cached their stuff was all they wore. Not professionals. Sloppy.
He saw this and more.
"Where's your friend, punk?" the panther muttered.
"I will assume you are second in command."
"I said, where's your fucking friend?"
"And I assume that you are smarter than your previous commander, because you aren't touching me with your rifle."
"I'm not going to ask you again. Where the fuck is -"
The panther stopped talking as Kai Lee turned. Their eyes met, and the snow leopard...twisted.
It was the only word he could think of to describe how his eyes worked. It was an experiment - everything was an experiment, everything about him - but this one was the only one devised to keep other people alive instead of him. A strange design, a biochip that spun in a circle just over the iris, following a loop that pulled the minds of others in, that drained them and made them just...stop...
It hurt. It hurt enough to make him clench his teeth, but it made the panther stop talking.
"Put. Down. Your. Weapon."
Click. The panther did as he was told, and Kai Lee stopped the twisting. The feline looked down, then back at him, eyes wide.
He didn't make the mistake of going for the rifle.
"You wanna go? You can go," the panther said, taking a step back. "I don't know what the fuck you are, but I'm not -"
"You did not answer my question."
Fighting the ache in his eyes, the snow leopard slowly pulled at his sleeves, adjusting them until they fit somewhere close to properly. It was still wrong, still ill-fitting, but it was better than it was. The holes in his chest and stomach, burnt through the cloth by pistol rounds and rifle rounds, shreds along his back and shoulders from worse...
30%.
#032 had given him 3%, or somewhere in that vicinity. Less than that remained after fixing the big wound. It would be enough.
No more running.
"Are you the one in charge?"
"Well...second."
"I see."
Kai Lee turned back to the jaguar. The feline was just starting to get up again, still holding his hand over the lost digit on his right hand. There was no resistance as the snow leopard pressed his bare palm to the jaguar's forehead.
"Nnngh?"
The snow leopard looked into the bandit's eyes. Some other people would have said 'this is for 32.' Others might have said 'this is what happens to people that hurt kids.' He had no words for this. He had no feeling for it, either. Practicality and pragmatism demanded the same result.
The lightning glowed in his palm, and the jaguar's head exploded, ripped apart into a hundred gory pieces that splattered against the tree, the earth, and against him. Kai Lee shook his head, slowly turning back to the bandits.
Half of them were throwing up, and the other half held their guns on him with shaky hands. The only one smart enough to do nothing was the panther.
"I believe that gives you a promotion."
"...What the fuck are you?"
"More than you need to know."
Bandits. Hardly the best place to start. The moment that they realized where he came from, they would find a way to sell him back, or try to. Criminals could not be kept under a boot of fear for long. Ambition would demand that some try and dislodge anyone above them; cowardice would see them try and kill him for their own safety.
Running, however, was no longer an option. #032 had been the last one that he knew had escaped with him. Others might have, but there was no way to be sure until they made contact.
If you did not run, then you either dug in, or you fought. And he did not have the strength to fight the facility yet.
"Take me to your base. We have much work to do."
The panther stared at him for a moment, then nodded. Whether it was out of curiosity, practicality, or a desire to take him somewhere where it might be easier to kill him, Kai Lee didn't know. But whatever the panther's reason was, it meant that he'd made the right decision.
It's time to see what I can make, for a change...
The End