By the time he reached the house, it was too late.
The Scorpios Rex burst into the dark cabin without warning, his body weight ripping the hardwood door off its hinges, and slamming it to the ground beneath him. He unleashed a feral snarl, tail lashing and stubby jaws trembling in anticipation for a battle.
There was none to have.
Blink found the place just as he feared it: empty. He didn't just need context clues to figure out his terrible timing — the air was already far too cold for a human to consider comfortable, and the odors here were stale to him, like sniffing out an abandoned shed on a crude summer's day. He waded inside with caution; thin glass shards crunched like snow beneath his obsidian claws, and little copper beads (he assumed as bullets), bumped around his swaying tail with ease. Blink then looked to his right; holes riddled the drywall, evidence of a struggle. And the broken door on the opposite end of the house only assured him of it.
But Blink's heartache didn't start until after Seven's scent flooded his nimble mind. He found her at the front — just a splotch of raptor blood, nothing more. Blink drew in a deep breath upon approach; her enriching aroma swelled from the red patterns carved into the tiles, some fresher than most, others sweeter. His eyes dilated with interest, sampling the redness a second time. By his guess, she didn't seem to move from this spot. Yes, there was a scent outside on the lawn, but that was far older than here; the humans must have dragged her into the house. He couldn't put a thought to why that happened. But nowhere else in the house was she present.
That means she was lying in this spot the whole time.
Which means she's...
"N-No..."
He couldn't finish the thought. He knew it was true, no matter how much he went on to deny it. And he had nobody else to blame but himself; Blink remembered the blood oozing from her lifeless body as the truck drove her away, her fragile body riddled with his venomous thorns.
Too many to count. Too many to survive.
He killed her. Blink gave the humans exactly what they wanted. And with her scent gone and the trail gone cold, there was nothing he could do now.
Nothing but submit.
The dear hybrid faltered to his truth, losing his breath to a somber animalistic whimper, knowing it was him who doomed the white raptor. He figured all good things weren't worth protecting -- everything had already been stripped from him and now she was added to the pile. Another whine left his maw; Blink nuzzled the dry blood as if it was still her breathing self, continuing to take her scent for as long as possible. Trying to hold onto false hope. Resisting heartbreak for as long as he could before Nature (or man) robbed the memory of his love. As the tears flushed down his scales, Blink coiled his body around the damages and lowered down, resting away from the glass and easing his skull against the emptiness beneath him.
A minute passed. Then another. For a brief second he imagined Seven beneath him, embracing his warmth, nuzzling him as he once did for her. Studying his monstrous red eyes that she found innocent, just as he sought the fire within her bright blue orbs.
He pierced his fangs together, eyes squeezing shut.
Then he began to sob.
◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥
"You're lucky they didn't take away everything," A voice suddenly called, stirring Blink from his miserable nap. The Scorpios warbled in confusion -- he didn't expect to fall asleep. But he also wasn't expecting company. Blinking away his tears, he gazed toward the doorway; there stood a figure who looked just like him.
Almost.
The creature's glowing orange eyes were quick to swallow up the Scorpios's courage from afar, even if they were void of any desire to kill. His needled skin and jagged scales almost mimicked his tail had it extended longer, but he didn't look very imposing, just interested. And that alone was enough to force a thought to show; Blink expected a bit more than words from the male he nearly killed. Twice. He couldn't quite understand the raptor's kind demeanor; a splash of blood would have sufficed for any bloodthirsty predator. But not him.
"You don't look so angry..."
"Am I meant to be?"
"I would," growled Blink. The indoraptor's nares flared to taste the hybrid's scent, before letting loose a much needed sigh.
"Blame is the last thing I wish to think of," he said. "None of this was your fault or mine."
"It's too late now," Blink snarled, jaws trembling as guilt slipped from his grasp. "Doesn't matter how many times I tell myself that, I still hurt her with my claws. This was her blood... her life..."
He paused. Ripper tensed up, awaiting his next word. There was some truth in his guilt, those soft, little words of realization that still felt like fresh livewire.
Blink growled through his fangs, fresh tears welling up beneath his eyes. "I-I... n-never wanted to hurt h-her..."
Ripper closed his eyes. Silencing his breath, the raptor limped into the house, quickly finding a wall to slump against, and landing on the floor with a grunt of relief. Blink's wonder couldn't help itself; his eyes turned to his bloodied scales, maw salivating toward the strange metallic tang that the indoraptor expelled. His eyes then lifted; the thin spikes protruding from his skin were from his own tail -- he must've hurt him, too. Still, something about seeing an injured predator awakened something primal in his eyes, but Blink didn't dare give into his lust. He looked away before his mind could turn on him, refocusing on his loss and soughed.
Silence. The hybrid's head turned back around toward the indoraptor.
"How did you find me?"
"I tracked her scent," said Ripper. "But there's nothing beyond this house, so I figured you were still here."
At least I know I wasn't going crazy, Blink grumbled to himself. Eyes turning back to Ripper, he inhaled his scent to pose yet another question.
"How bad did I hurt you?"
The male snorted once, pricking the thorn off his hip. "I've been through worse."
Blink's brows raised. He took another minute to rescan the massive wounds marked on Ripper's flesh, balancing what he knew from the agile raptor to how he fought. And, for some reason, it didn't add up.
"You held back."
Ripper rumbled to himself, dropping a thorn to the ground as his two eyes went unfocused and glassy out of annoyance. Then his eyes sank; Blink could smell the emotions rising in the indoraptor's body before he shook it off, and hissed wordlessly.
"Rrr... I had a good reason to," he finally said.
Blink tilted his head. A good reason? His growing curiosity caught the wandering eye of the predator beside him, who licked his chops to continue on for his benefit. "They sent you and I to kill one another. They can't do it themselves, we both know that. But I'm not murdering one of my own for their wretched works. Not again... I'm done being their little lab puppet. And I'm done seeing my kin turn into them, too."
"Surely there's a better reason than that..." wondered the Scorpios aloud, his eyes twinkling with appreciation. Ripper turned to him and nodded.
"You still have a purpose."
Blink's eyes narrowed. "To what? The graveyard?"
"You know what," Ripper huffed. Blink's eyes closed, and he shook his head.
"No. It doesn't exist anymore."
"It has to..." Ripper muttered. "She loved you. And you loved her. You cannot stop-!"
"They made me kill her!" Blink cried out, tail lashing from behind. "What's the point of finding a purpose if I'm going to lose it anyway!"
Another falter broke even between his jaws. The male looked away before his first tear could fall, and shuddered.
"What purpose..." Blink's voice broke into the emptiness. "I should've known better than to follow one. I warned myself that something terrible would happen if I let another in. I had a feeling..."
Another tear fell from his snout.
"I just wanted to be happy, but I can't. There's humans in the way. Too many to count. Too many to kill. They all want the same thing... a weapon to control. And they've done just that. So what am I to myself if that's all I'm going to be?"
The Scorpios swallowed heavily, letting his eyes sink over the puddle of red beneath him. Before Seven's image could get to him, he forced himself away, returning to the injured indoraptor (who was oddly quiet) for a third question.
"You said I was lucky earlier."
Ripper nodded. "At least you... still remember enough to know what you are and what you want." His eyes lowered. "I've lost that part of me a long time ago because of those devils. I can't get that back."
Blink whimpered softly.
"I don't know what I am meant to be," croaked the saddened hybrid, letting his quills fall flat against his hide. "I don't have a reason to go on... I'm just stuck. Living, breathing deadweight. I'm no help to anyone, despite believing that I could be."
"Is that why-?"
"That's... part of the reason."
Blink's heart nearly gave out. Listening to the poor raptor's voice break... it only pushed his spirit further into darkness. Into dread. He knew the indoraptor's terrible history well, and he could see the slight dim of his true self folding away into the night, like a candle blowing out, or a dying flame at the end of its thread. A hybrid with no meaning has no purpose at all. And, knowing evolution degrades those who don't belong, there was nowhere for them to go. Nothing gave them a purpose but the very creatures who now seek to destroy them.
Blink sighed; he knew he could try and make Ripper feel better by giving him words, quotes, opinions and whatnot, but what good will that do for him? He wasn't as noble as Ripper, he just wanted a human to crush under his claws and a mate to call his own. Both of which weren't coming true anytime soon.
"And now she's gone," Ripper finished, thumping his tail upon the tiles below. "They're going to do something to her body, I just know it."
"Another hybrid, maybe," Blink growled. "Another weapon to turn savage. If that's the case, then, I would just let it happen. They deserve what's coming."
"All of them?" Ripper asked. The Scorpios was about to answer 'yes' before his eyes trailed over to the glass scattered beside him. It was the musky scent of the liquor that interested him, but the faint scent of a human male that he remembered being attached to Seven's scales. Her person: Click, the one she had been fighting to get back to all this time. She trusted him more than either of the two hybrids, despite how many times Blink tried to relay how dangerous humans were. Whatever their connections were was precious to her. And, with Ripper's question hanging over his scales like a wretched storm cloud, he found himself battling what he wanted to say with a hint of denial. As if, by some miracle, Seven's opinion still outweighed his.
Blink hissed over his heart, standing upright as vengeance began coursing through his veins. Peering toward the waning moon on the southern horizon, a heavier snarl broke even with the night, and his tail lashed with anguish and need.
"Rrrr... I should have killed Wu when I had the chance," he rasped. Ripper stiffened up; the wretched name of his creator split the air like a knife, turning his moment of somberness into worry and fear. Already can he smell the burning, raging state of the raptor above him, condemned by the loss of his lover. And his scales were trembling. It was only a matter of time before he snapped.
Ripper's eyes flashed. "It wouldn't have made a difference."
"No, it would have..." Blink snarled, breaking into tears no matter how hard he fought to stay strong. "I'm sick of that roach! There's more blood on his claws than mine, why does he get to live?! He's done enough to torture my life and drag me back to hell!"
Blink whirled to Ripper, crimson in the eyes. "I want him gone. I-I have to-"
"No you don't..."
"She would still be alive!"
Ripper closed his eyes, parting his jaws under a grieving sigh. "We're still monsters to them, Blink. You get rid of him, another human will take his place."
"Then I'll kill them, too!" The Scorpios's tail suddenly lashed out, impaling the wall nearest the door and scarring the fresh wood of his thorns. It hurt Blink for a moment, but the emotions ravishing his soul seemed to mitigate it all. The indoraptor watched the poor hybrid tremble over and over again, too heartbroken to accept Ripper's word despite knowing how true it was. He slumped back over the fallen door, staring at Seven's blood splatter with a pained whine.
"S-Someone has to pay..." Blink whimpered, staring off into the darkness. "It can't keep being me..."
Defeated already. Ripper knew the look and the smell; the slight dimp of his tail thorns seemed to ensure it in Blink. He couldn't keep trying to encourage the hybrid either; words alone wouldn't help tender a saddened hybrid or make any difference to what's already come. What's done is done. What's lost is lost. That was for certain.
But what could they do? Running has already proven itself useless. Giving up will only ensure another win under INGEN's belt. And, while fighting has been the only method Ripper found reasonable, humanity still held a strength so great that even an intelligent hybrid like himself stood no chance against it.
And then, a memory came to life in Ripper's head. More like a dream; a dream that felt real. Between the blurs of his past, something slipped from his skull and into his heart, sparking a reminder of a life like no other.
A life he never had.
For a split-second of time, Ripper found himself on a street -- bruised, battered, and bloodied across every scale. Beneath him was Wu, gurgling on his injuries, eyes wide as he watched Death stare him down. No matter how hard he begged, fought, or strangled to get out, Ripper's weight held him down. Just a bite was all he needed. It was over for him. They both knew that.
'End it...' came a voice from the wind, forcing Ripper's claws to dig deeper into the scientist's lungs. 'Show him how much pain he deserves, how he deserved to die like the rest of them...'
'Show him the monster you've been hiding...'
Ripper blinked, now returned back into the house, eyes locked to Seven's blood stain on the tiles. His jaws shivered with hate; he understood why Blink felt so obligated to kill. He would if he lost something that precious, like being robbed of all control. Ripper placed a claw against the blood and closed his eyes again.
Wu's throat was in his jaws now. The blood was collecting here, staining his fangs, flooding his tongue with life and death all at once, and it made his heart sing. But the tighter he clamped, the more agitated his mind became. The more dreaded his heart grew.
The more he began to realize how wrong he was.
His mysterious life flashed before his eyes. His birth. His battles won and lost. The human family that took him in. Nature. Trees. Stars and Suns. The whispers of the past seemed to haunt him more than his mind ever did, and he couldn't fight it.
Because they were true.
Ripper stared down at Wu, heaving heavily as his limbs began to tremble, unable to stand any longer. He watched those cruel and frightened eyes, those powerful but soft hands, that heart, filled with blackness but entitled by desire and worry. Rather than see a monstrous Wu, Ripper saw something else; a child, a terrified little human staring back at him. Seeing the monster he knew he was. The weapon he created, and begged to destroy.
Kill what you see in your prey.
Ripper blinked again, back into the room; no Wu, no injuries, just the soft whines of a Scorpios Rex echoing beside him. Ripper's tail twitched; he knew it was right of him to not kill Wu. It wouldn't make a difference.
But something else would.
"The past never truly dies, and neither do your mistakes," Ripper whispered, catching Blink's attention in an instant. "But... that doesn't mean we can't redeem ourselves, right?"
Blink frowned. "I... guess?"
Ripper nodded. "Then we'll make them pay."
"H-How?"
"You're here," Ripper snorted. "You survived the island even when everyone said you didn't. I'm here, too -- I should still be on those horns. And there's other hybrids, right?"
"Seven... was Seven," Blink corrected solemnly. "And the Indominus she was talking to... I don't know where she is-"
"That has to mean something."
"We only survived the impossible, Ripper," Blink snorted. "That doesn't mean-"
"It has to. Otherwise, why else are we here?" Ripper growled. "There's more of us now then there has ever been. We're not alone anymore, we can win for once."
"Mankind will run us into extinction no matter what we do-"
"We're not killing them," Ripper grunted, turning to Blink. "We're stopping them. They took Seven for a reason, and they're going to either turn her, or use her for something worse. I'm favoring the second option."
Blink muffled his growl. "But you said it yourself, fighting won't make a difference."
"It will if they have nothing left to use," Ripper argued back. "We've already done half the work because the INGEN building's gone."
"It blew up a week ago..." Blink trailed off, eyes growing wide. "N-No, that's a terrible plan."
"They'll always see us as monsters, but not themselves," muttered the indoraptor. "The world only knew about their mischief when the INGEN building went up in smoke, and if the same thing happens where they took Seven, then they'll turn against one another."
Blink shook his head. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I..." Ripper ceased in tune. He knew the hybrid wouldn't understand that he was basing his theory off a dream. That alone sounded crazy, and, with this hybrid already broken by Seven's death, it wouldn't make it any better. So he growled out instead: "I just know. Trust me. the past isn't going to die by blood. If we're really going to have a chance, we need to give fate a little push. We just have to be there."
Blink's eyes narrowed. This didn't sound so promising.
"We can't let him make another hybrid," Ripper hissed, whirling toward the doorway where Blink stood. "And I think we deserve to know what happened to Seven and what they did to us."
"But we don't have a scent," Blink sniveled. "W-We can't-"
"Not Seven's, no," Ripper looked about the abandoned cabin. "But there has to be a scent here that we can follow. Nothing's untrackable."
Blink exhaled weakly, pushing to all fours and following after the indoraptor. Still, he didn't quite agree to his last statement; his scent tracking earlier didn't turn up anything resourceful. But he looked around anyway, though not as enthusiastic as his first rodeo, but enough to 'seem' helpful. For the most part, he watched Ripper try his hardest to sniff out Seven's remaining stench, tracking it around and right back to where her blood stain remained. Snorting in annoyance, he tried to look for other odors; the liquor spilled on the wooden tiles, the metallic bullet-like odor on the walls, even the splattered glass. Nothing.
But then, just as Ripper was about to cease, his talon caught onto a sharpened piece of fragment, something that looked human made, but smelled of something more. He drew it from the shadows and flared his nostrils, eyes dilating with interest and surprise from the new pheromones he sampled.
"Blink."
The Scorpios Rex's head peeked around a corner, also intrigued to find a knife, of all things, sitting in front of Ripper. He swore it wasn't there before, then again all he was looking for was Seven, and only Seven.
"The knife," Ripper sniffed at it a second time. "Blood of another human."
"Seven's human's scent is on it, too," Blink muttered, taking a deep whiff, then tasting the air. "At the handle. But I can't track him, it also ends at the doorway."
"The scent is new."
"Hm..." Blink tried a second take at the blood-stained weapon, then sniffed above it. To his surprise, the odor remained attached to his nostrils, drawing a fresh trail into the midsts of this mess. And it didn't just stop there. Ripper tilted his head to the perplexed hybrid.
"And?"
"It leads outside..." Blink hobbled out the house, the smell still stained to his stubby snout. He rounded around a tree and back across the lawn, stopping dead at a group of tire tracks cut into the mud. Blink took another breath.
"It keeps going," Blink exhaled. "Which means the human stained the car as he was driving off."
"Which means we can track it," Ripper rumbled with a smile. "See? Not all is lost!"
Blink rumbled appreciatively, finally allowing the worry to fade from his eyes. "I hope so. Where does it lead?"
"North..." Ripper motioned in their direction of travel. "Really far north."
"Can we make it?"
"We can try if we run..." the indoraptor's focus suddenly turned to Blink's neck, and a huff of realization slipped past his maw. "But first-"
Blink took an uneasy step away. "What's wrong?"
"You don't feel it?"
"Feel what?" Blink noticed the raptor stepping toward him and froze on the spot. "What are you-"
CRUNCH!
"Agh!"
Blink gasped as Ripper's jaws clamped around his neck, squeezing the ridge of his scuff until he drew blood. It hurt bad, enough to force a guttural cry from Blink's maw. Stars threatened to put him down until a metallic CRACK echoed the night, followed by the splutter of a dying machine. Forcing back breaths, the rex turned to meet his friend, surprised to see a piece of blood-stained metal latched to his tongue, and a broken green LED light.
"Oh."
"There," Ripper spat out the machine with a dissatisfied snort. "I wouldn't like it if you turned on me out of the blue."
"T-That was in my neck?" Blink tilted his head to the wound on his spine, and growled. "Hrrr... You sure I can't kill them?"
"We'll figure it out on the way there," said the indoraptor with a grin, stepping out onto the middle of the road, tail flickering from behind. He turned to look behind his shoulder at Blink and motioned his head. "Ready?"
Blink swallowed. "No. Not really. I..."
Ripper tilted his head, watching the Scorpios peer back at the house, then aim to the ground. A deep, pained groan left his jaws, mournful and heavy with doubt. He already felt the fears rising from within, turning that promise of redemption inside out.
"I'm worried," he croaked. Ripper shook his head.
"I'm scared, too."
"Mrrr," Blink looked behind him and sighed. "We can't just leave, can we?"
"..." Ripper gazed out toward the forest; the thought did cross his mind for a second. "After eight years of INGEN on our tails, I think it's about time we get an ending we deserve," He finally growled. "Because they're just going to keep going if we don't."
The Scorpios Rex's muscles relaxed, a defiant snarl rippling up his throat. He turned back toward Ripper, hunger locked in the eyes, and nodded.
"Lead the way."