The Greedy Hunger of a Burning Desire

by Redwolf15


Chapter I

Hello New World
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I leap the fence, clearing it perfectly. Some made it fine, but others are having a more difficult time. I run down the street and took a turn into the alleys. Some may say that heading into enemy territory is a bad move, but that all depends on what the terrain is like. The alleys are slim and narrow only allowing two or three of my pursuers to lead at a time, not to mention their mazelike qualities.

One turn after another I eventually shake them off me, hearing their shouts and cries grow fainter.

“There he is!” I hear one yell behind me. Looks like they caught up to me. They really are determined to catch me, aren’t they?

“Damn,” I curse myself after taking a wrong turn, like I said, their territory. Two brick walls are stationed on either side of me, and a chain linked fence in front. Before I can correct my mistake, the jerks block the exit.

“Got you now, Trevor.” The tall one in front says, Jack, the leader of this motley crew of wanna-be thugs. “Probably not your brightest move, eh?”

“I disagree, now step back, you know that you’re no match for me in a fight.” I warn him.

“You’re right about that, but what about all of us?” The other members of his gang fan out, enclosing me in a semi-circle. They hold blunt instruments and knives in their hands, with Jack at the center and me in the middle. “Now, shall we begin?”

“Jack, Jack, Jack;” I scoff at him. I snap my fingers and five of his eight guys turn on the others, disabling them by going for lethal or non-lethal blows, their choice. The surprise was so fast that none of them, not even Jack, had any time to react and fight back. They were all on the ground in pain in no time at all.

“Guys, what the hell is this?” Jack yells at the traitors. “We’re friends. We’re practically family. You don’t turn on your family!”

“We’re sorry Jack, but he’s got dirt on us, on all of us.” The guy holding him down answers.

“Yup, took some time, but I finally got enough blackmail to force these guys to do as I say.” I pick Jack up off the ground and throw a left hook in his face. “You think this was a random act of revenge? This was planned out idiot! This is punishment for what you did to my little brother!” I punch him again, and again, and again, and so on so forth until his face becomes discolored with blood. “I warned you Jack, I warned you that you’d live to regret this!”

“I’m sorry,” he weeps through a bloody face. “I’m sorry. Mike was my friend, I didn’t mean for it to happen. He found out, yeah, but I didn’t want that to happen to him. I swear.” I know he’s telling the truth, I know that he didn’t mean for that accident to happen. But that doesn’t mean I’m any less pissed. Because of him my little brother’s dream was crushed. Because I couldn’t protect him.

My anger builds up more, and I continue beating him over and over again. I don’t kill him, that would just be taking it too far, but I make sure he knows his place.

“Okay, you got what you wanted, now keep your end of the bargain.” One of the guys who I'm blackmailing says trying not to sound desperate.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ll return them. But I’ll be keeping the copies I made.”

“What? You bastard! That wasn’t apart of the agreement!” A second yells, sounding rather pissed.

“Say what you will, I may have use of you guys again.”

“Yeah? Well how are you going to do that when you’re dead?!” One of them swings his bat at me, sad fool. I step backwards, dodging the swing with ease. He swings more violently the next couple of times, each completely missing its target. I spot an opening after he swings wide again, and rapidly punch him in the ribs, making him cringe and abandon his attack. I grant him no time to recover, I bring my leg up and kick him in the gut. He drops his bat as oxygen races out of him in an audible “whoof” and folds over, holding his stomach.

I twist so my body comes next to the side of his face. Pulling back a quick jerk of my right arm, I elbow him in the face. I hear a satisfying cracking sound as blood pours out of his nose. With the short time I have, I twist around again and grab his face, slamming his head into the dirt. His other friends have enough of the horror show and think they can help him by joining in.

“Hold it!” I warn them. They wisely listen and stop dead in their tracks. “Now before any of you take one more step, use your brains for once. What I’ve been able to do so far is blackmail the five of you and force you to turn on your own friends, beat Jack half dead, and took this guy down without breaking a sweat. Now tell me, how do your chances look? Even four on one? Remember, I have a bat now too.”

An eerie silence passes by. I let them make the first move, and theirs was the right one. Each one picks up their friends, including Jack and the poor sob who tried cracking my head open, and drag them away.

Fear, possibly the greatest power a person can possess. Greater than physical strength or intelligence. Life is controlled by fear, fear of being too fat, fear of having no friends, fear of not succeeding at something. Which also makes it the most dangerous thing a person can have, it can make them unstoppable if they can master its use.

“Very nice,” I look up to see a woman applauding on top of the fence behind me. I never heard or saw her climb up there. She jumps down - almost glided actually - and lands with almost unnatural grace. “That was quite the show you put on.”

“Listen sweetheart, I don’t know how much of it you saw, but I suggest you keep quiet about it.” Looking at her appearance, reminds me of Misty from Pokemon. Wearing short jeans cut off even shorter to reveal more skin, a loose orange shirt that showed her stomach, and a pair of suspenders over top of that shirt. She even had red hair, and I mean that it was red. The slight other differences was that she had amber eyes, giving her a rather fiery complexion. And to top it all off she did not look ten in the slightest, possibly mid-twenties, a little bit behind me.

“No no no, you have me all wrong pal, it was rather enjoyable to watch.” Okay, odd thing to say. “Listen, a couple of... friends are having a game. And lately, more and more people have been joining in this game. And I thought to myself, ‘hey, why not join in the fun?’”

“And this has what to do with me?” I ask getting slightly annoyed, yet strangely intrigued.

“Well, the thing is, it’s a representative sort of game. So I need someone to represent me. Which would be where you come in.” She can tell by my expression that if she doesn’t make things exciting soon, I’m leaving. “Look it’s a simple game, you’ll pick up the rules and what to do instantly, and trust me, you’ll have more fun playing this game than doing anything else in your entire life.”

“Well, things are sounding rather interesting. But there’s a catch, isn’t there?”

“And you could tell that how exactly?” She asks looking so impressed that I was able to catch on so quickly that she mirrors me by crossing her own arms.

“Well, you just saw everything that happened here, and you know diddly squat as to why I did it. For all you know I could be a thug; someone who beats up people for no reason and kicks puppies for the hell of it.” I would never harm a dog, they’re man’s best friend.

“Well I was going to tell you anyways, no sense signing up a participant against their will. If you agree, you’ll be leaving your entire life behind and starting a new one in a new place. You can change your identity if you like, hell, some have even changed their entire personality. Just about every person has gained more than they have lost agreeing to this, can’t tell you if all of them have, too many to keep track of.”

If I said that I thought long and hard on this, that would be a complete lie. “No dice, pussy cat. I have other plans for my life than throwing it all away.” I tell her turning my back and walking away. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind starting a new life, it’s not like I have any more ties to this town anyway. But that would also mean that I’d have to start at rock bottom again and work my way up the food chain. I’ve established territory in this town, I’ve established what dominance I have and what I intend to gain.

“You want power, don’t you?” I stop mid-stride, that most certainly caught my interest. “I can give you that power. I can give you a lot of power if you agree to this.” I spin 180-degrees and face her again.

“Ma’am, you had my interest. Now you have my attention.” A sly grin spreads across her face as I walk back to her, the kind of smile you get when your prey takes the bait. “You didn’t even try begging or bribing me. You went straight to the temptation, straight to what I want. You know how to play your cards. So, where am I going, and what kind of power are you implying?”

She pulls my head in to her’s and kisses me, I was too surprised to process what was happening. That, and her rose red lips tasted of strawberry. She breaks the kiss and leans in to whisper into my ear, “let it be a surprise.”

After that, my stomach crumples and all air races out of my lungs as my solar plexus was nailed. I know that feeling, the feeling of getting sucker punched in the gut.

The first thing I feel as I regain consciousness is my throbbing head. The second is the fact that I can’t move my arms or legs. Don’t ask, but I know when I’m being bound by leather straps. The best I can tell as to my current surroundings is that I'm in a dark room, with a lot of test tubes, burners, and a bunch of other sciencey crap. My heart pounds faster as fear sets in, what did that red haired bitch do? Where did she take me?

“Good morning! Or afternoon. Or possibly evening. Sorry, haven’t checked on the time since Tuesday, I think it’s Saturday now. Anywho, glad to see you’re awake!” A freakish face pops in front of me. I may have said that the room was dark, but it wasn’t pitch black, just dimly lit by candles and creepy science machines. From what I can tell, it was some flamboyant, cartoonish, horse... thing.

“Where am I? What am I doing here? What is all this stuff?” I demand, wrestling to try and get away. But it was futile, the straps held me down nice and tight.

“Boy, you do ask a lot of questions, don’t you? Oh, and there I go asking questions myself. But isn’t that what science is, one great big question?” He begins laughing like a crazy senile scientist, which I’m very convinced he is! “Now, you don’t mind just lying there while I continue my experiment, do you? It’s quite rare to see something like yourself around, and you look like an anomaly at best!”

“Up yours and untie me!” I shout at him. He merely ignores my threat and runs around his laboratory. I hear fire heat up, bubbles quickly pop in chemicals, machines start up. Everything is a scene out of Frankenstien. I struggle harder to free myself from the straps, but of course I can’t break these things, they’re too thick.

“Now, just stay still while I get everything ready.” He says putting a machine above me, it resembled black box with a lense looking down at me. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a scene from James Bond, but instead of the laser slowly slicing him in two from crotch up, it’s going to drill me a third eye!? I thrash around even harder, the thought of me dying forces my brain to panic and my body to fight harder with a rush of adrenaline. “Hey, hey, hey! I said stay still!” He nags putting something in my mouth and on my head. He then proceeds to put one arm around my neck and pushes his face next to mine, his other arm over a lever. “Now, say cheese!”

‘I can’t believe what I’ve been dragged into! That crazy bitch gave me to a psychopath! I’m going to die!’

I wait for a laser or something to shoot out of the lense, closing my eye so as not to see my death coming at me.

“DAD!” I hear a woman’s voice shout from across the room. I can see that brighter lights were flipped on from behind my eyelids. “I turn my back for a second and you two are gone after I specifically told you, ‘keep away from him’!” The woman’s voice flares again.

I open one eye to see that the room did indeed, get lighter as hanging light bulbs were turned on.

“Yes, well you see dear, when colts go mad, they tend to lie a great deal to make others think that they’re still sane.” The crazy horse-thing tries rationalizing. I feel my bonds come off. I spit whatever's in my mouth out and spring from the table and onto my feet, knocking the box out of the way. “Hey, I was using that!”

“Stay the hell away from me!” I warn them. I warn the two flamboyant cartoonish horse-things. So there’s two of them, and they are most definitely drawings. In fact, everything looks to be a cartoon drawing.

“See? This is why I didn’t want you near him until he wakes up, you’ll scare him.” The female horse scolds, acting like this is an everyday occurrence. “I’m sorry for my father’s actions. He can be rather... unreasonable at times.”

“Are you saying that getting party photos of a giant phoenix while it’s passed out is unreasonable? Because I don’t see where this conversation is going.” The girl sigh and rolls her eye as though she expected no other answer. The male horse lifts the black box off the ground without even touching it. It was wrapped in a green mist, the same mist that covers a horn on his head. The mist is only a shade lighter than his fur, with a white frizzled mane that looks the same as Doc Brown's. The girl has a horn on her head too with yellow fur and a short-cut aqua blue mane.

I notice that the black box he’s levitating is actually a large camera. I grab for the thing that he put on my head and pull it off. Turns out to be a party hat, the very same kind that little kids wear at a birthday party. As many may guess, I was having a very difficult time processing any of this. Talking horses -- scratch that -- taking unicorns that are also colorful are talking to me. And one seems to be a crazy nut-job.

“Hey, you alright?” My attention goes back to the girl. “You seem kind of off. Though I suppose my father did give you quite a scare, one I am incredibly sorry for.”

“Who are you and where am I?” I demand once more, more confused and dumbfounded than angry this time.

“Don’t you know where?” I reply with a simple shake of my head. “Mm, well you were unconscious when we found you. So who knows where you came from, it’s rare to see a phoenix.”

“Phoenix? You mean the mythic bird of fire? I’m not a phoenix!”

“Well you certainly are different than other phoenixes, but yes, you are.” She points a hoof to a nearby mirror hanging on the wall. Cautiously to make sure that I’m not once again tricked and wake up somewhere unfamiliar, I walk over to the mirror she points at. And what I see back when I look into it, was not me. It's not even human.

At first I thought it was a costume, but upon closer inspection - ignoring the rational part of my head screaming at me - I’ve been turned into a bird with orange, red , and yellow feathers. Or at least a bird’s form, I still have my human shape. Two feet to walk on, hands and arms, a chest, the works. To put it plainly, I’m an anthro bird. I brush my hand, or my claw as I should say, down my face.

Red feathers cover my body, they turn to an orange shade closer to the center of my torso. My eyes are a solid yellow, no pupil to be seen. The feathers stop covering my arms halfway up my forearm, letting my black claws show. Same thing with my legs, the feathers cutting off half way down my shins, giving the impression that I wear red tattered pants. Larger orange feathers bunched up and hang from my head looking like hair, it was long and a bit shaggy with two black horns to accompany it. Two large wings hang on my back, the frames are red while the rest is orange then turning a shade of yellow at the outer edge. What’s more, I now possess a tail. It looks to be covered in fur, but if you look closer it’s actually small smooth feathers surrounding it with larger feathers on the sides at the tip of the tail looking like a fin. My body is less muscular than how it used to be, but I never relied too much on my physical strength.

“So what’s your name anyway? Mine is Seam Stitch, and this is my father, Professor-”

“Mr. Professor.” The mad horse corrects his daughter.

Mr. Professor Crank. Pleased to meet you.” I don’t answer her, still in shock and awe as to my new form. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think I am.” I answer with a shudder of glee. ‘She asked my name. Should I keep it, or make a new one for myself? The red haired woman did say that others changed their names, now I suppose why.’ I quickly contemplate in my mind which to do, until after the entire one second passes and I decide. I choose a new name, an emotion I’ve rather liked. “I’m Greed, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Well, mister Greed, you must be awfully hungry. Would you like to have dinner with us? Perhaps you can tell us your story.” The professor offers. At the mention of food my stomach growls.

“Aye Professor, food does sound wonderful at a time like this.”