Take me in now! There is no more time! The voice snarled, echoing in my mind. It was Ventus, that angry bastard who swore up and down he would show me how wind was meant to be used. And - and with her scream echoing in my mind, in my ears - MY EARS, I gave in. Because she was here. And she needed me. Needed me to be more than just a voice in her head. So I gave in. I let that dark, suffocating wind fill me. I screamed, loud, as my body cracked, snapped, shifted.

My skin tore and stretched. My bones were ripped apart and stretched out. It felt like every fiber of my being was being twisted and tugged wide and out. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything they had done to me in the years in this dark shithole. My arm was the worst. It felt like more than my bones being separated at the joints - no it felt like the bone itself was being separated, sliced apart in many, many placed. My eyes shot open wide - and I could see, just barely. One arm was normal - for the most part. I was taller, thinner. I seemed almost - ethereal, like I wasn't there, but was? Not quite a ghost, but more like - fog, or smoke, forced to look like a human. The other arm though - it was decidedly inhuman. Monstrous. It was a whip, coiling and twisting, and I could move it however I wanted. And the flat edges were sharp, terribly, terribly sharp. Good.

There was more than pain in this transformation. There was satisfaction. A deep, filling satisfaction, like I had finally done something I should have years ago. I just - had never had a reason to, I hadn't cared. Hadn't known the voices in my head were real. I thought - had been told so many times - that they were figment of my imagination. But she was real - and hurting. And she needed me. If she was real, they were real.

ESTHER! I'M COMING! I bellowed out in my mind, Ventus’ roar echoing my words. I was - weaker, I could feel it. But different. I didn't need the muscles I had been grown and experimented on into having - no, here, now? This was me. This was Ventus. And our arm, was sharper than the bonds they had made to hold me could withstand. They were nowhere near strong enough to hold me now, to keep me from her. The thin, whiplike appendage snapped out and sliced through the metal, shearing it from my legs and my other arm. I fell to the ground heavily - the first time I hit the ground of my own free will in years. Ventus bellowed in triumph, and I let out a roar of my own. This place - these men. They would not hold me any more. They sure as all the burning hells would not keep me from my star.

Wind swirled around me, surging as Ventus and I worked together. We lashed out - wind and blade smashing into the door of the cell, and it trembled for a moment. Again, and again we chopped, tearing through the heavy wood door, until finally, finally it split. Light spilled into the room, and it hurt my eyes for only a moment. I didn’t care. A strong surge of wind shot from my right hand, blowing the shattered remains out of the doorway. My wind - our wind. It was different. There was no chill, cool feeling. No, this wind was hot, almost boiling as it left me - and it carried a weight mine never did when I used it. I had focused on sharp, cutting, biting cold winds. Ventus, working through me, used heavy pressure and heated winds. It was odd, feeling myself contort the element I used in such a different manner.

Bursting out into the hallway, my head snapped back and forth. I had to find her - I would find her.I saw motion down one hall. Winds carried the words to me.

“Damn, that girl can scream loud, can’t she? I was surprised at that - thought she couldn’t even make noise these days. That stare of hers is so weird.” I snarled. Esther. Once, she had told me she was quiet in person - which I had thought was my mind dragging up the conditioning that these fuckers were trying to instill in me to be silent unless giving a report. These fuckers - they knew where she was. My legs blurred as I charged down the corridor, towards the voices.

Two people - a man, and a woman. The woman had been the one to speak - so the man died. Literally - my left arm shot out, and pierced through his throat, driving into the wall behind him as I crashed into his still-standing corpse. I ripped my hand free from the wall, snapping his blood off my arm, and turned my red eyes towards the woman.

”The Girl. Where is the Girl.” My voice was not my own - distorted, an echo of Ventus’ howling winds overlaying my words. Still completely understandable - and entirely inhuman. The woman was staring, frozen, at the slumping corpse of the man she had been talking to seconds ago. I reached out and grabbed her - and noted idly that her flesh was oddly pressed upon my the shifting surface of my right hand. ”Tell me where the Girl is now, and I make your death painless. Don’t tell me, and I’ll give you a taste of the hell I’ve endured here for years.” I saw her start to scream for help - so I ripped the air from her lungs. She gasped - her eyes went wide - and I let her breathe again. Trembling, she stared at me - and spoke. When she was finished giving me directions - I drove my bladed arm into her forehead. I dropped her to the ground and let out a deep breath. I knew now, where she was.

I ran past the other cells, other experiments. Other prisoners. They didn’t matter. None of them mattered - like I wouldn’t have mattered to them. There was only one person who mattered to me right now, in this hell of isolation and experiments. My star was flickering, fading, and if I didn’t get to her now - it might be too late.

I got to her cell; dark and surrounded by iron bars. She was being held up like a rag doll from a man wearing a soldiers uniform, he had his hand pressed around her neck. Her head was sagged and there was a flower that was...wilting - my eyes went wide. She’d mentioned once, that she hoped her flower never died, because it would mean she was. My star - Esther!

Then the other man, he had atray next to him with a series of syringes - one was in his hand and he had picked up her arm to inject her with it. I let out a roar, a bellow of rage and hate - and wind slammed into him, ripping from my lungs as I shouted. The scientist staggered backwards, the needle flying from his hand to shatter against the wall.

My left arm shot out. Blade bit through flesh, and the hand that dared to touch my star was severed. The soldier reeled backwards, his good hand clutching at the bloody stump. Both men were staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. I moved swiftly - and the soldier backed away as I stood in front of Esther.

“Wha-what are you?”

”I am the one who assumed the facade of a monster. You tried for years to make me do this - well, now I am. And you will die for hurting my star.” I cracked the whip that was my arm - once, twice, picking up speed as I spun the natural weapon. The soldier tried to run - tried to get away. He was too late. Terribly sharp bonemetal sheared him in half, as my arm snapped down, bisecting him from head to toe. I ignored the corpse as it fell, and turned to look at the scientist who was now retching in the corner of the room. ”What were you bastards going to do to her.” It wasn’t a question - it was a command, to force him to answer me. I didn’t know enough to know what these medicines would do to my star.

Unlike the soldier the scientist knew when he was beat. “Sedation. Shipment. Experiment 25 is part of our telekinetic experiments, one of the few successfully fused participants.” His voice shook. “Rogue experiment. Hostile. Cell 25. Kill on sight.” Orders? He was giving orders?

“Experiment 25 initiate command FSR-1-”

My blade smashed into his throat as soon as he was speaking. Damn it - damn him. They must have some kind of communication system - or NO! I snarled as I lifted him from the ground. I realized now what he was doing. He was trying to make my star try to kill me - I just hoped I had been in time.I flung the carcass, gurgling blood, out into the hall - and moved away swiftly, body shifting as I prepared to avoid whatever Esther tried to do to me under the thrall of the command, if I hadn’t succeeded.