Doctor Shou had never experienced as much aggravation in her life as she had in the last six months of experimenting on Fifth. The genetically created girl had grown from a child to a stunning young woman. Not only was Fifth a beauty, but she was very intelligent. However, the young woman's stubbornness and defiance were annoying. Shou had to resort to physical discipline to force the girl's obedience.
Even with all the punishments, Fifth continued to refuse to shift. It was maddening. All the test results showed that the dragon's shifting energy was present in the girl's body. How hard could it be to change the shape of one's limbs? This is why she hated human experimentation. Human subjects never did what you wanted them to.
So she had come up with a solution. To different formulas, each designed to get Fifth to do what Shou wanted. The purple compound lowered inhibitions, while the yellow compound would force the draconic energy to rise, forcing a shift.
The experiment was proceeding well until the intruder alarm sounded. She jabbed at the keys, inputting her security code and pulling up the camera feed. The screen changed, and her eyes widened. Who the hell were these men in her installation? They were not the mercs she'd hired. She stared at the screen and hissed her displeasure. Upon closer inspection, she realized the intruders wore the royal draconic family's colors. If memory served her correctly, those colors belonged to the youngest prince. How the hell had they found her hideout?
Damnit! I don't need this complication right now. She glanced over at Fifth and made a decision.
She turned to the male interns. "Go grab the weapons. We have intruders to kill. We can't have our work revealed." She glanced at Betty. "Betty, stay here with Fifth. If something happens to the three of us, kill her. We can't let news of our experiments fall into the wrong hands."
Shou didn't wait for confirmation as she hurried from the room. They needed to get rid of the unwanted visitors. Later, she would demand a refund from the mercenary company. High quality professionals, her ass. They were lazy and inept. Otherwise, she wouldn't be facing an invasion of human traitors.
Her interns grabbed weapons from the locker and handed her a modified handgun. She checked the chamber. It was full of bullets. She grabbed several backup clips.
"Let's go. Split up and take one of the three routes so we can surprise them. Kill them all. We can't let any of them escape with news about our location. Make haste. I need to get back to my experiment," she growled.
The intern brothers nodded before disappearing through the secret passages to surprise attack their visitors. Shou took her time, her mind plotting all possible scenarios for success against this unwelcome disruption to her plans. After they killed the intruders, she would move locations. There was no way the dragons would ignore the loss of so many human slaves.
She crawled into the nearest vent. A woman could easily fit in them. She had designed this bunker for that specific reason. She always had an out. It was necessary in her line of work, where her life was always being threatened.
She froze at the junction between the top floor and the second floor. She could smell them. Shou had a secret that no one in the rebel forces knew. The fools thought she was human. Idiots, she sneered to herself at the ridiculous thought. Who in their right mind wanted to be human and at the bottom of the food chain? No one. She was a proud elf who had a grudge to settle against dragonkind.
She was almost there. She could taste it. All distractions had to be eliminated. Her sensitive hearing caught the almost noiseless tread of the human slaves below her. She let a small tendril of her magic free to act as sonar to get a complete picture of her targets. Only six? Easy enough to handle. She grinned. She gently released the safety. Time to wreak havoc.
Shou took a breath and, with a magical flick, opened a hole beneath her. She landed lightly on her feet and started to shoot. There was a brief moment of confusion before the humans did something unexpected.
They charged toward her, not bothered by the bullets.
"What the hell?" she cursed. Shou caught a glimpse of their eyes. She had only seconds to realize that the men before her were not human.
Damn! She was screwed.
Shou couldn't believe the dragons caught her. She cursed her luck and cursed Fifth. The girl was a bad luck magnet. She had to find a way to take Fifth and escape. She was a patient woman. She would wait until the time was right and make her getaway. She needed to intimidate Fifth into remaining silent about everything. The girl was mute, but she could read and write.
She was beginning to regret treating the lab subject like a human. It might very well come back to bite her in the ass. It didn't appear that the dragons knew what Fifth was. She glared at the dragon holding Fifth in his arms. His behavior was strange. She narrowed her eyes at the sight, her mind racing with possibilities.
One of the men ordered, "Let's move out!"
She watched in awe and envy as the men shifted to their dragon forms in a flash of light. The frightened interns screamed, and she flinched from the annoying sound. The dragons grabbed them with their hind legs and launched into the air.
Shou felt her stomach lurch at the abrupt ascent into the sky. She couldn't see what was happening with Fifth. She closed her eyes and settled in to endure the flight back to their kingdom.
Once she got the lay of the land, she would send one of her familiars to her true superior. They would make sure to get word to the rebels. She had to hold out until they rescued her and Fifth. After that, they could enact the plan of vengeance against the dragons.