Origin: Feral Cheetah
#1 of Feral Cheetah
Alma Perez Mitchell flicked her clawed, paw-like hands to shake off some of the blood that coated them. This one almost reached the panic button before she saw him. Now she turned again to face her father, her adopter, her...creator. "I trusted you, Roger!" She screamed in her feline voice. "You said these mutations were unnatural, and that you were trying to STOP them but, you were behind them, creating them, ENCOURAGING THEM!" Her rage colored her vision blood red as she stalked the only man left alive in this...laboratory; this room that was her home for 8 years. Roger Mitchell kept his back against the wall, edging around the room attempting to keep distance between him and her. He was pale white with terror and his eyes wide with shock and fear. When she got loose, he had tried to placate her as he had before with lies she wanted to believe, but she was eighteen now, and no longer a fool. Her heightened senses were giving her the clues she needed to discover the truth. Smells that told her what was in her food and drink. Vision that could read papers beyond the distance they thought she could see. And most important, feline ears that could tune in directionally to conversations she wasn't supposed to overhear. It took 3 years to convince herself she was not the unfortunate victim of random mutation, but was in fact the innocent subject of direct experimentation.
Hot tears blurred her vision as she recalled everything he told her, and how she BELIEVED HIM! Angrily she blinked away the weak fluid in her eyes so she could savor the ripe fear in the blood splattered man in front of her. He betrayed her trust. He raped the innocent faith she placed in him like all daughters do to their fathers. But he was not her father, he adopted her. And now she knew why. Her DNA was easier to manupulate. He hunted for subjects in third-world orphanages for months before finding her. He wanted her as a test subject, an experiment; never as a daughter. So she would not be committing patricide, she would be killing her attacker that, like a flesh-eating bacteria, ate her flesh slowly, and irreversibly.
As she stalked him, movement to her left caught her eye and she turned to face it. The face of a long, black-haired girl with the markings in short fur of a Royal Cheetah stared back at her. She could no longer recognise her own reflection. Her skull had changed to accept a larger jaw and teeth, her nose flattened and became triangular, and her ears morphed into feline shapes. Even her body and limb bones elongated till she was as tall as the man she once loved, and now reviled. Her head snapped back to face him. "Is this," She thrust a finger toward the mirror, "what you wanted in a daughter?" Roger's breath was fast and panicked, preventing speach. She lowered herself down on all fours, oddly comfortable in that position. "ANSWER ME!" She shreiked as she prepared to pounce.
"Alma, please!" Roger sputtered. "I.. I can fix this. I can change you back."
The lie again. She knew what it smelled like. She rebuked the part of her that believed it. "No, Roger. You won't." She angled to the right on all fours like the big cat she was. "Have I become all you ever wanted?" A growl rumbled in her chest and she bared her fangs. "Have I become the weapon you were designing?" Roger's pants went dark from liquid in response. "You know all I am capable of. You said you wanted me learn Martial arts to help me focus through the painful mutations, but it was all training to become..THIS!" Alma leapt straight at Roger, who dived to his right to avoid her. She landed on the countertop, turned and launched again at the scrambling form desperately clawing at the slick floor. She landed right on top of him and set her four inch claws into each of his limbs. Roger screamed in pain but jerked very little as his movement served only to seat her claws deeper into his flesh. She lowered her open mouth to his neck and let him feel her hot breath. He wimpered weakly, fearfully, hopelessly. She retracted the four claws that sheathed inbetween her fingers and toes on each hand and foot. Roger yelped and gathered his arms under him. Alma picked him up and brought him to the mirror. "Now tell the truth for once!" Alma demanded. "Why!?"
Roger winced at their reflection in the mirror and tried to staunch the blood flowing from punctures in his forearms. A rising growl from Alma made him stop and shudder. "I... I wanted to be r..r..rich and r..r..respected."
Alma slid her rough toungue up his neck, sampling his terror. Then she pushed her nose behind his ear and inhaled deeply. "Truth." She declared, "Continue."
"The Deterian Government was offering large rewards for a successful engineered mutant." Roger was whimpering now, and holding himself like a cold, scared child. "I thought you would just be a..a...a proof-of-concept. Not actually Deterian property. After all, you didn't volunteer."
Alma smelled him again. "Truth." She exhaled, "Now tell me: Are you proud of daddy's little girl?" She bared her fangs and glared at him in the mirror.
Roger looked up to the reflection at the prompting of her clawed paw. "Yes. I am very proud."
Alma sneered. "Do you even have a miligram of shame at what you have done!" she screamed.
"No." Roger said weakly
Alma smelled something familiar. "What?!"
"No!" He coughed up the word. "I felt no shame."
Alma could scarcely believe her senses. That was a lie. "You are lying to me," Alma purred, "and not to your benefit. Why?"
Roger looked at her through the mirrior. "Just kill me, please. I can't live with what I've done anymore."
Alma regarded the man now weak, frightened, and helpless in her claws. "One more question," she choaked out as conflicting emotions tore at her determination to end his life. "Could you really change me back like you said earlier?"
Roger blinked slowly and swallowed. "No."
Alma shook as rage ran fresh through her veins. "I am going to make you proud of me now." Alma told the reflection as she curled her fingers and pushed out the claws of her right hand. "You have earned a quick death." Then she drew back her hand and struck. The claws sunk into the base of his neck and with a tug she severed his spine. The body jerked and dropped like a puppet clipped of its strings to crumple at her feet.
She stared at cat-woman in the mirror until she stopped shaking and crying. Eventually, her breathing became regular again. She stepped over the body to the sink and began washing the blood off her paws however, she stil felt dirty, so she washed her face, then her whole body in the lab's emergency shower. A cat's scream interrupted her needless scrubbing. She leapt out to face whatever had excited the cat. The room only contained the dead bodies of the scientists that created her. She shook her body to dry it and walked to the cat's cage. DANGER: FERAL CHEETAH shouted at her in red letters as she knelt to see the cat. The Royal Cheetah inside stared at her for a minute like it was confused, then it lay down submissively. Alma opened the cage door by popping the lock off with her claws. The cheetah scurried out and lay down again at her feet like she was its' mother. "You're not property or an experiment anymore." Alma told the cat. It licked at her offered paw and yeowled. "Neither am I." Alma smiled. The cat got up and began lapping at the blood that had pooled around one of the bodies. "I am just like you," Alma stood up and began studying the evacuation chart on the wall of the lab. When she was certain of her escape route she walked over to the intercom and pressed the transmit button. "To all occupants of this facility, a feral cheetah has escaped," Alma now let the feline quality of her voice scream, "I am Feral Cheetah! And I am coming for you all!"