Night fell swiftly over the tiny village. Farming husbands returned home from the vast fields that surrounded the little clump of buildings, and animals crowded into stalls for evening feeding. Silently as a shadow, fog crept in from the forest, though this was no ordinary fog. It roiled and swirled with black magic, sounding like fine silk sliding across the crops.

The Hate watched hungrily as children were bundled off to bed and shutters were thrown closed against the icy mist. Beside her, Courir whimpered again and tugged on the black chain that bound him to a small tree. "Stop your complaining...be glad you're not dead yet." The Hate hissed as it neared the edge of the woods. "W-why haven't y-you k-k-killed me yet, a-anyways?" the rukel stammered. Sneering, The Hate turned toward him, eyes glowing a bloody red. "Because, you are going to help us prove to those fools that we are not to be messed with..."

Looking around frantically for escape, Courir continued. "Oh, you don't need me for that, I'm just a simple creature..I-I don't know much about the humans here..." The Hate held up a hand and hissed. "Shut up, you'll give us away..." Still struggling, Courir raised his voice in a balatant attempt to do just that. Oh, I'd just hate to do thatSOMEONEHELPMEEE!!! Growling, she whirled on him and grabbed him buy the throat and snarled, "Eisd!" A black cord wound itself tightly around the rukel's muzzle and throat, tightening as The Hate whispered fiercely to him. "Cooperate - or - die. Those are your only options. Do not mistake our reluctance to kill you here an now as mercy, for if you weren't useful we would have blown you into oblivion the moment you attacked us. The Hate knows no mercy. Now, understand?" The creature just barely managed a whimper and a nod, his eyes bulging as he struggled to breathe. "Good. I'm going to remove the spell now, and are you going to scream, shout, or make any kind of noise without a very good reason?" He nodded furiously, the skin under his fur turning blue. "I'm glad we understand each other, Courir." Releasing the rukel, The Hate smiled with relish as he squirmed and looked imploringly up at her. "Sgar..." she murmured with a wave of her hand, after a few more moments of the animal's terrified writhing.

Turing back to watch the village, The Hate didn't see Courir struggling to back as far away as he could. It was entranced by a small group of people coming up from the river. It was a mother and her two young children, a boy and a girl. Behind them ran a canine which delighted the children, their high-pitched laughter grated on The Hate's ears. Hissing, it backed into the thick shadows. Still trembling but somewhat bolder because he knew he wasn't going to die right away, Courir asked, "What are you waiting for? They're all there, just get it over with." Narrowing it's eyes at the family returning to the village, The Hate didn't know how to respond. "I'm still here, and I won't let us kill anymore." "Kiah? I should have known, even in your lust for revenge, you still cling to your little conscience. Why did you give me control then refuse to let me do anything?" A few moments pause, then, "I've changed my mind, I will not let us hurt anyone anymore. I'm going to cut you off, all of you."

A sharp pain shot through Hate's shoulder, causing it to cry out in alarm and drop it's guard long enough for Kiah to force it back under and regain control of her body. Falling to her knees, Kiah winced and pressed a hand against the pain and felt something warm and sticky. "Blood?" Removing her hand, she saw dark red blood, her blood coating her fingertips. Courir let out a strangled cry of joy just as Kiah sensed their presence and turned around to see what she had wanted most not to. "Oh, I knew it I knew it! They've come back for us!" Despair wailed. They had indeed come back, those monsters who called themselves men had come to reclaim their pet experiment, and they came prepared.

One of their successful attempts had resulted in a young man completely devoid of independent thought or reasoning and with an astonishing mastery of fire. He could not only spontaneously create flames, he could manipulate and fire them with deadly accuracy. The fact that he could easily be controlled by anyone make him to be more like a gun, without having to get one's hands dirty firing it. Behind him stood a fleet of guardsmen from the Fortress along with its head scientist, a power-hungry man called Telann. The young man was called Experiment Xero, or Xero for short. "Capture her, Xero...with a minimum of damage, if possible." Telann sneered.

The guardsmen were busy jamming metal stakes into the ground, making a circle around Kiah and Xero about 20 feet in diameter. Once finished, the captain pressed a red button atop the largest and a beam of energy shot from it to the one directly opposite, forming a chain reaction that erected a field around the two. Kiah was unable to escape, she had to stay and fight. "No...not now..." Courir was also trapped in the field, though with Hate's suppression was no longer strapped to the tree. Frantically clawing at the faintly blue glowing field, he struggled to free himself. Xero had begin circling the perimeter of the field, sizing Kiah up as she struggled to push herself onto her feet and stem the blood flow from her wounded shoulder. She already had a distinct disadvantage. One, she was tired, hungry and weak; two, she was injured. With a sudden lunge, Xero fired three large fireballs at her head, she barely reacted with enough time to cry "Caomhain!" to protect herself.

"We'll loose, I just know it...I don't want to die!"

"If we just rush 'im and overpower 'im, he'll crumble."

"We must think of a plan! Logic can accomplish anything!"

"Stop it! All of you! I know what we can do, but you all must help. If even one of us chickens out or holds back, we're all dead."

Outside of her protective bubble, Xero furiously pounded her with fireball after fireball, not understanding what was going on. Unfortunately, when they took away his independent thought, he also lost the ability to plan and reason. Brute power was all he had.

"I know what you're saying Kiah...we unite." The Hate said, its voice seething because of its unwilling banishment. "Yay! We all get to work together!" Kiah closed her eyes, feeling the power building within. "So, are we all in accord?" A collective murmur of assent was the last thing Kiah heard as she felt the power become almost overwhelming. Seven minds all merged to one, and They became The United, what Kiah was originally ment to have been, if her emotions hadn't decided to start thinking for themselves. Opening her eyes, United rose and removed the shield. Xero's flames diverted around her harmlessly. "Stop now, and I will spare you." When she spoke, all of their voices could be detected; screaming in rage, moaning in fear...all showing the emotion they governed. Staring dumbly at her over the flames, Xero just pushed harder, intensifying the blaze until it seemed all the world was on fire with white, licking tongues. Courir huddled on the farthest side from the two, fur singed and black.

United rose off of the ground a few feet, glaring down at Xero with burning white eyes. "I said stop, or perish." Not paying attention, Xero stepped back and started to blast her again, though the flames were markedly weaker. Nodding, United held out a hand and prepared to do a very powerful spell, one she could only do as United. "As you wish...OINID SAORSA!!" He froze, the flames stopped. Straining with the energy it took to maintain the spell, United dropped back to the ground and leaned toward Xero, pushing every ounce of her strength into the beam connecting the two. Suddenly, Xero screamed and clamped his hands to the side of his head. She pushed back, against the bindings Telann had so carefully built up in his head, cracking them and blurring the edges of his consciousness.

"NO!!!" he howled and tore at his hair, falling to his knees in pain. It was evidently too much for Xero's poor, violated mind to take, however. The spell failed and he fell over, dead. Hissing with remorse, United turned to Courir, still huddled in terror at the foot of the field. She gently scooped him up and placed a hand on the main generator. With a sizzle and a snap, it shorted and crumpled into a ball. Telann was waiting triumphantly outside, no doubt expecting Xero to be exiting with a defeated Kiah in his grasp. "Wha...impossible!" The guardsmen moved to protect Telann, but with a wave of her hand and a murmur of "faigh" they were all sent flying in different directions. His face pale with fear, Telann turned to run. "You'll not escape me that easily, taahan!" It was as if he had run into a pit of quicksand, Telann's feet suddenly became fused with the earth. He was helpless, just as she had been for 14 years.

"You have your penance to pay, my dear Telann. Not just for me, but for Xero and every other wretched soul you've experimented on in that God forsaken Fortress, every spirit you've crushed and annihilated..." Her voice became a deadly whisper as she advanced on him, looming over him with eyes becoming increasingly red. "How could you do what you did to us? How could you go home to your wife and children and look them in the face, knowing what horrors you wrought during the day? HOW DARE YOU!!!"

"No, how did I loose control?" The Hate was in power again, and it reached down and wrapped one fierce hand around the chubby man's throat, lifting him off of the ground effortlessly. "I'll make sure you never do it again..." An instant before it did it, Kiah knew what Hate was going to do...and made no effort to stop it. "Scryssey magh!" At first, nothing seemed to happen, Telann lifted his head, thinking he'd escaped... suddenly, the man let out a great howl of intense pain, and he simply was no more. "Deleted from existence, as if he never was...along with anything he ever created..." Hate sneered, listening to the clank of armor as the previously dispersed guardsmen returned. "But that means, his children..."

"Gone, as if they too had never existed. The obliteration spell is exquisitely thorough, don't you think?" Watching eagerly as the ranks lined up in front of it, Hate smiled and raised its hands. "I am inclined to ask you to cease and desist, but I know you won't...and that's what I love about little knights, they never give up." Waving it's hand, Hate once again sent the guardsmen flying and leapt into the air. "Were are we going?" Kiah asked, deciding not to fight and conserve her strength. "For a little of the sweetest revenge, my dear. I think we should go after who put us here in the first place, our parents..."