Dragons of War - Rising Storm

Chapter 6 (3/3)

There Lewis sat with his head in his arms. His hair was a mess, as usual, but I rarely saw him outside of his lab coat uniform.

"When you helped me get into the program, do you remember what I told you?" The words formed themselves from my mouth, I didn't know where they came from. My heart and mind were empty.

"Yes," Lewis replied without looking up. The general next to me took a step back, eyes wide with Lewis's forthcoming words.

"That I was doing this so that others wouldn't have to." I went on, my voice breaking now.

"So why would you do this? Why would you force this onto her?" I demanded.

Lewis looked up at me.

"Do you know what she told me before we began? 'That I would rather die than live a life like this'."

I stepped back from the cell, my eyes locked with his.

Was that true? It couldn't be.

The general next to me cleared his throat and I glanced over.

This wasn't a personal meeting.

I looked down at my feet and forced back the words I really wanted to say.

'You're a monster pretending to try and save the world.'

"Lewis we need to know what you did, Jaya isn't doing well." I finally said.

"What is she doing?" He asked.

"She's in a coma." I looked back up at Lewis but his expression remained the same.

"She will either wake or die, there is nothing I can do." He looked away again and leaned against the wall.

"Lewis, you did this to that girl now tell us how to fix it! Something is different this time." Gernard finally burst out.

Lewis glanced over at him but then returned his gaze to the wall.

"I rest my case."

Gernard let out an angry breath and stormed past me. I watched him stomp his way to the stairs and disappear, the other Warriors glanced between themselves and then followed him.

"Why would you do something like this when you knew she probably wouldn't survive?" I asked him.

"Probably." He repeated.

"What?" I questioned.

"The key here is probably." He turned his head to look at me for the first time.

"You risked her entire life on a small chance? And for what?" I cried out, my anger rising.

"Everything!" He suddenly jumped up from the bed. "Mark my words, she is my Masterpiece!" He went on.

I stared at him, dumbfounded and my heart dropped.

His words brought back memories of a time before I was involved in the army. I was just a dirty scavenger trying to help my mother and sister survive. Lewis found me one day and asked me if I wanted to give them a better chance and I agreed without hesitation. After that, I saw him many times in my training and almost every day I would hear him speak of this 'Masterpiece'.

A Dragon Warrior so powerful it would put to shame any other before it. A single Warrior that would change the world. A perfect design, from the scales to the eyes. Something few Warriors already made, even came close to.

Everyone knew it was a dream for him, something for him to aspire for but never realize. I thought he had given up on that foolish dream but I guess I was wrong.

Horror surged through me when I realized that his twisted fetish had put Jaya in that bed, and possibly the ground. If not from the coma, then by the war surely.

I had no more words in me and I only stood there, glaring at him.

"Aaron she is different, I know it. Whether it is what I think it is or not doesn't matter. She is like no other."

"What did you do differently for her?" I asked him.

He was silent for a moment and then I guess decided to trust me.

"I rewrote the code to transform her, from the ground up. But the base is part of the original code, the one I first started with."

"Are you joking?!" I cried out, "that fucked up stage created more monsters then living beasts!"

Lewis turned away and wrung his hands through his hair.

"You would never understand the science behind it! Those first stages were better than any that followed! They were smarter! More aware! More powerful than anything today, and more whole!"

"Yeah, and that's why they turned on us. You of all people should know how many died trying to take them down!" I turned away from his cell and stared at the ground. There were so many things I wanted to say, to scream out and punish him with, but it just wasn't worth it.

"You're a monster." I said over my shoulder and charged towards the stairs.

"Go see for yourself, when she wakes. She is different from them all!" Lewis called after me but I ignored him.

I felt sick.

What had he done?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you again for reading :) As always, if you are enjoying the story please let me know what you think of it so far through the comments or even a simple rate! <3 Means the world to me! <3