I knew from the beginning that my relationship with Abbadon would be... difficult. It started out as a rivalry, and grew into something more. Our escape from the facility gave us nothing but a ruined world. Our plan to take over the nearest human settlement went smoothly enough. There was resistance at first, however an external source aided in our initial takeover. Humanity had created so many movies relating to the supernatural, the minority being the most likely; zombie apocalypse.
That was the world that had awaited us beyond the confines of the Facility. It took us months to piece together what we could. What with the humans vying for protection from their zombified counterparts, and the travels to and from the facility in search of information on our Projects. We learned that we were augmented to be a counter-offensive against the apocalypse. The Mutagen was derived from the same virus that struck the human populace several years prior to our capture. Facility databases informed us that we were all placed in cryogenic stasis for a period of ten years. I was the last of the untainted subjects they received before the virus spread like wildfire. We were forgotten for a time before the General and the Doctor discovered the facility the year before we were awakened.
Ten of each animal were placed in the project. Only Two wolves, one arachnid, one goat, three horses and a black panther survived. The eight of us were the only successful subjects. The variety of animal was to help determine which augmented species would best serve to quell the undead forces. Turns out none of us were fit to do so. We turned on our so-called masters and became free to do as we pleased.
In regards to the settlement, we eliminated the authority figures first, then worked our way down the ranks until we arrived at the civilians. For a time we were at a crossroads; we could either kill all humans within the settlement, but that would make us no better than the zombies out for their flesh and blood. Alternatively, we could protect the humans and fulfill the wishes those at the facility had for us. Abbadon, Sombra, Discord and Chrysalis wanted to destroy them for what humanity had done to us and the world they once ruled. Celestia, Luna and Shaiya thought differently. They believed that every species deserved a second chance.
I knew better than to give them such a lenient judgement. Humanity knew they were bringing the world to its knees, yet they pursued their own goals regardless, pretending not to have heard the obvious signs. Even as a pup, I learned from my peers that the world wasn't right anymore. The seasons were sometimes backwards. Snow in the Summer, heatwaves during the winter.
With that in mind, I gave out another option; let the strong thrive, and the weak perish. We would neither aid, nor attack them. Let destiny decide their fates. Some found the idea to be sinister; others thought the same but in a good way. And so we watched humanity slowly dwindle under the might of the zombie horde, like mice searching for the cheese that was their shelter while being chased by proverbial cats. We were the spectators, like the General and the Doctor before us.
It was interesting watching humans fight to survive. Their baser instincts often kicked in. Generally it would be a man, no family, no-one to love him, he would grow insane with fear and snap at the smallest of things, whether it be a faithful man praying or an infant crying. Sometimes, they wielded a weapon. Those around him would watch until at least one person was killed by him before retaliating. It wasn't until blood was shed by these insane men that the rest of the herd would consider him or her no better than the zombies hunting them.
We made no moves to stay out of sight from either the humans, nor the zombies. Some of either race would attack us, but we evolved beyond their attempts, thanks to the Alpha Gene. Instant regeneration was a useful tool in our dominance over the land. A human would shoot us with their feeble weapons, or a zombie would take a chunk out of our flesh. By the time either the bullet went through, or the chunk was removed, the missing parts of our bodies would be replaced before the human could fire again or the zombie could swallow.
Over time, the humans learned to ignore us and the zombies learned not to eat us. We were poisonous to them. What little sense they had left went into that knowledge. So we remained spectators. The settlement had only a small handful of human survivors left. Paranoid and starving, cannibalism was inbound within a matter of weeks. The humans would become the zombies one way or the other.
Their contingency plan was one of both shock and to some extent, respect. They proved my prediction wrong when they were on their last legs. Four humans; a man, a woman and two girls, one a teenager, the other just short of thirteen. They'd huddled together around something I never thought I'd see. The man held the code for the detonator to a tactical nuke. They took the entire compound with them. I thought we were going to die then and there.
Fortune favored us as we realized that not only could we shrug off bullets, but we could also absorb the radiation from nuclear warheads to further our own evolution. Physical changes began to manifest in all of us. The horses' manes were replaced by what looked like an aurora for Celestia and a rip in space and time for Luna. Sombra had become more masculine. Discord's face became warped, the iris on his left eye enlarging while the left one shrank. He then began to grow a snaggletooth. Abbadon began to look less like black panther and more like a black saber-toothed tiger. Chrysalis had turned from a plate-sized arachnid into a horse with an abdomen. Coral green hairs covered her body and indentations formed all over her legs. Shaiya's fur began to grow strange markings, almost like she were a wind spirit, the intricate details under her eyes, over her shoulder, along her flanks... And I... And I... I became the true Shiroyami!
Shaiya once said that although I was all white, I had a little bit of darkness in me. How right she was. Two black lines starting from my nose reached out, grew over my eyes and ended in a converging point at the back of my neck. On top of that, my fur felt rougher, harder even. That wasn't all that had happened to me. I never told the others, but I felt a piece of me die afterward. A piece of me that cared about the difference between right and wrong.
It took close to a century for what remained of Humanity to turn on us. With each radioactive hotspot, our being would alter in some way, shape or form. By the time the last war of Humanity broke out, Celestia and Luna were Pegasi, Sombra had become the first Unicorn. Discord was... Discord, Abbadon had turned into a cross between a dragon and a cat. We liked to call him a Hellcat. Chrysalis had become the Changeling she was today, only her leg's weren't completely hollow. The indentations were just short of connecting. Shaiya had grown larger, enough to match Celestia. I myself had grown larger still. Coming just above the Pegasus' head. Not only that, but my hard fur had grown even harder. They were like scales.
Throughout the war, we thought we might die countless times, but we never did. We gained a little insight into our strengths, but more importantly, our weaknesses. The Pegasi and Unicorn were good at combination attacks. Sombra's use of Telekinisis worked as an effective shield against ranged weapons while the girls' aerial attacks worked well to distract the enemy and have them waste their ammunition.
Discord was the first one to warp reality beyond telekinesis. He'd learned to teleport random objects, which he used to crush our enemies from above. Abbadon's speed was beyond what the naked eye could follow, yet we could follow it. Though Shaiya and I were of the same species, our evolutionary progresses were so dissimilar. Like the others, Shaiya's abilities were more physical, while mine were mental. She'd learned to fuse herself into the ground, and the trees, and the rocks, virtually any natural substance. I myself had learned how to put the fear of their god into them, through my icy gaze. I would come to call it Spiritual Pressure.
