Chapter 14: Building Trust.
Wisp had remained silent the entire time of the kidnapping, her every instinct had told her to go for help but there were two problems with that, one she'd have to invade Gregory in order to communicate and two: if she didn't know where the creature had taken Seven she'd be utterly no use to anyone.
So she'd sat and waited for them to stop at their destination, to her surprise she'd found that while Seven was in this state of deep unconsciousness she actually had some limited control over his body, she couldn't move his arms or his legs though that might be due to the effects of the toxin he'd been hit with having a kind of paralysing agent, but the stuff connected directly to his brain like his eyes etc she could now work.
So the whole time the odd creature had been carrying him Wisp had been watching the path she'd taken, it had been a twisting turning path through the mine tunnels but thanks to being a non-corporeal being her mind didn't work the way most flesh and blood beings did, she had an eidetic or flawless memory.
Once it had reached its destination it had secured Seven's body to a bunk bed with wire at his wrists and ankles, which in a way was a good thing, because it decreased the likelihood that the creature intended to either eat or harm Seven, though what it did want still remained a mystery.
That's when an idea struck Wisp, Seven himself was out cold, that toxin it had hit him with was pretty potent stuff, he was in a deep state of unconsciousness and was going to be out for hours, that she could already feel, perhaps if her control was strong enough, maybe she could pretend to be Seven and get some answers here, because the way the creature was acting said to her it blatantly intended to question him or ask something of him, otherwise why go to all this trouble of taking him away, securing him down and now sitting there with a book on a chair waiting for him to wake up.
Through Seven's eyelashes Wisp got her first proper look at it, the first thing she realised as it was a she, the second thing was her species, she appeared to be something people referred to as a Nightstalker.
She was about seven feet tall, a mixture of reptilian and mammalian traits blended together, she had a snake's head, mounted on a furry body with long digitigrade legs and a huge tail that would easily make Visa jealous, though her tail was a lot thinner and had a large rattle mounted on the end of it, she looked like someone had cut a snake in half and mounted it to a distinctly canine body then gave it the ability to walk upright.
Though that wasn't to say she was ugly, when in all honesty she was anything but, yes she was different and yes she was highly exotic looking, but she was far from ugly, her head was streamlined like a cobra with dark onyx coloured scales and intense yellow eyes that didn't seem to blink, though oddly she had a pair of triangular furry ears stuck on the top of her otherwise smooth scaled head.
Her face was very feminine, a narrow jaw and pointed snout gave her face an almost delicate quality, her body itself was blatantly feminine, while powerful and toned looking even through her sleek golden fur she had a distinct hourglass shape with a pinched waist and flared wide hips, not to mention two fairly large breasts sat on her chest hidden only partially by her fur.
Though it was her muscles that caught Wisp's attention the most, this girl was no stranger to hard work and hardship, she was solidly built, her long arms and legs were bunched light a weight lifter and looked like they packed some serious power to them, her stomach was covered in two rows of abdominal muscles that looked like they could be used as a washboard to rub wet clothes on.
Her shoulders looked like she could probably lift either Visa or Ven and do squat thrusts with them on her back, this odd Nightstalker girl was definitely not someone to take lightly, though Wisp had never heard of a sentient Nightstalker before, from what she'd read on the creatures in the Enclave's archive research files, they came in two verities, both looked almost the same with just minor subtle differences, they were quadrupeds with the body of a coyote and the head and tail of a snake, they moved in packs and were utterly nocturnal.
The second verity had only been encountered on a handful of occasions and while they looked similar to their brethren they had a darker appearance while also having the ability to cloak themselves a will making them an almost perfect ambush predator, these were usually solitary creatures though they had once or twice been encountered in packs and these encounters had always been deadly.
Given what Wisp had seen on the way here she believed that this strange woman was of that second genus, though again why she was sentient escaped her, but given that she was living cloud riding around in a telekinetic guy's head who was friends with two sentient deathclaws one of which loved her best friend, who the hell was she to judge anyone?
With considerable effort Wisp began to lift Seven's head and opened his eyes making a point of looking around himself, she wanted to give the illusion that he was just waking up, so far so good the muscles were working though they were heavy thanks to the toxin but Wisp's control managed to override it somewhat.
Now to test the voice, "W-W-Whats going on? Who are you? Where am I?" she said and it was seriously odd hearing her words come out in Seven's voice.
The woman looked up from her book and looked at him with an expression that could have been astonishment, though given her snake features it was kinda hard to read if her wide eyes were astonished or just neutral.
"It ssseems that you are mossst resssiliant to my venom," she said in a surprisingly light feminine voice, though she was seriously rolling her S's making it sound like she was hissing as she was speaking.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?" Wisp repeated.
"You are not the one asssking quessstions here human!!" she snapped angrily, crossing the room in the blink of an eye and leaning right down in Seven's face making Wisp flinch though only the muscles in his head responded.
Ok so it seemed she wanted to question Seven about something, she knew that much at least now, that explained the snatch and grab as well as the restraints.
"I am going to assssk you a sssseries of quessstions human, do not think about lying to me, or I will know and you will be punisssshed" the Nightstalker said in a voice that sounded like it was filled with a mixture of what could be excitement and possibly anger, though it was hard to tell thanks to her accent.
"You could have just asked them you know? You didn't have to do this" Wisp said and the Nightstalker glared at her/him with unmistakable fury burning in her eyes, that was an emotion that was unmistakable regardless of what species they belonged to.
"No! Humanssss lie! Humanssss hurt! Humanssss kill! If I ssssimply assssk you would lie or hurt me, thissss way you musssst anssswer me!" she snapped obviously angrily, it was obvious that she had had a really rough time with humans up till now, that was something Wisp could sympathise with easily.
"Trust me I hear you on that one, not exactly a fan of my kind myself not after what they did to me, but not all humans are bad, some of us just want to be left alone to live whatever life we can make for ourselves in this place," Wisp said and that seemed to catch the Nightstalker's attention.
"What did they do to you?" she asked curiously.
"Experiments of the worst kind, tried to see exactly what I could live through, tried to use my abilities for their own ends, tortured me, abused me, belittled me, you name it, hell I wasn't even allowed a name, only a number, I'm called Seven by the way," Wisp said watching the Nightstalker very closely, there was more than one flicker of recognition in her eyes at those words, it was obvious to Wisp she had been through something very similar herself.
"Why would humanssss do thissss to one of their own kind?" the Nightstalker asked curiously.
"I'm not like them, I might look like them but I am different, I do not even know if I was made or born, I have no memories beyond waking up in a skyship owned and run by people who call themselves the Enclave, they are evil, vile, horrible people, the very worst humanity has to offer, obsessed with power and control beyond anything else, they have all this technology and influence and rather than use it to help the common people, they use it to try and control and rule them through fear, then anything outside of what they consider the norm either gets experimented on or simply exterminated," Wisp said with genuine bitterness in her voice.
That name caught the Nightstalker's attention, "You knowssss the Enclave?" she said and Wisp nodded Seven's head making it wobble and bounce like a bobblehead on his rubbery neck.
"Only too well" Wisp replied.
The Nightstalker seemed to consider this then something like a mental block seemed to shoot up in her head, like her guard was slamming back into place, "No! Thissss issss a trick! You liesss to me! Humansssss would not do that to other humanssss! Kill and hurt yessss, but not experimentsssss!" she yelled.
"I told you I'm not a normal human!" Wisp exclaimed as the Nightstalker loomed over Seven menacingly, she was losing her and she got the feeling now might be a good time to reveal herself to her, if she was going to gain her trust this might be a good way to do it and if it went wrong she could make her escape and bring the calverly in the form of Visa and Ven because let's be honest if Visa discovered Seven missing she would rip this entire mine apart with her bare claws to recover him and if anyone got in her way while doing do, well let's just say they wouldn't be having a good day at that point.
"Well I should say we are not normal humans," Wisp said and the Nightstalker cocked her head and her long forked tongue flickered in and out of her mouth like she was trying to taste a lie.
"You mean the other human with you?" she said and Wisp shook Seven's head.
"No that's Gregory, he's a normal human, ahhh look I'm technically not Seven, Seven is still out cold from that venom you stuck him with, my name is Wisp," Wisp said and the Nightstalker looked triumphant.
"I knew it! I knew you were lying to me! Wait, what? How issss another human talking through hissss mouth then?" she said going from triumphant to confused in less than a second.
"Seven is the human male you are currently looking at, but he's unconscious thanks to your venom, but what you didn't know is that I'm currently riding around in his head thanks to my robotic body being sacrificed in order to help us escape the Enclave, my name is Wisp, or as the Enclave used to like calling me, number three" Wisp said.
