Her eyes focused solely on the cold steel floor as it moved beneath her, the light padding of two bare feet against it being the only sound emanating from the facility now. Almost everyone was gone, Alpha and Beta alike. The Alphas were either dead, or were approaching that...thing that rested below. The Betas...

Out of the thousands that had been there, only two remained. She was certain of that. Maybe some had managed to escape the ignoble end brought upon them, but she doubted it. No, she was certain of it: She was one of only two still alive, now. And, clutching her arms tightly around her carrier's collarbone, she was certain of one more thing: That two was about to become one.

Her brother was dying.

She could feel it with every heavy step he took now, as he carried her injured body for what she knew would be the last time. He had given her far too many piggyback rides over the course of her childhood for her not to notice his condition, and she found herself burying her eyes into her arm to wipe away the tears as they began to well. His steps were heavy and plodding. His breathing was labored, desperate. He was barely speaking, and when he did...

"It's okay, Abby," he gasped out, as if on cue. "Everything's going to be okay..." His voice was quiet, wheezy; lacking in strength. Nothing like it usually was. "I'm going to get you to Kayla...I'm going to get you out of here."

Abigail choked down a whimper. She couldn't let him know how horrified she was, how little she believed those words, no matter how badly she wanted it to happen. She did want to be back with Kayla, to be cradled once more in her strong, protective hands. The hands she may as well have grown up in. She wanted to be back, safe and sound in Kayla's breast pocket, the best home she had known over the years.

She wanted to be back with one of the two Alphas that had ever treated her as a person, who placed any value whatsoever on her life, on her happiness. Back with Kayla, and out of this awful place. Just her, Graham, and Kayla, back together again.

But that wasn't going to happen. Lifting her eyes off the floor and looking beyond her brother's head, the oppressive metal corridor that greeted her seemed to go on forever. Graham didn't have forever. She would be surprised if he had more than a couple of hours. He may have killed Katherine Schwarz's pet monster, but he hadn't come out of that confrontation unscathed. That creature would ultimately achieve its goal, and Graham would collapse underneath her eventually as his life came to an end. She would be left here alone, unable to move on her own due to her injured legs. Alone and helpless, likely to die at the hands of the first person that found her. Likely to die of starvation or dehydration if left alone.

Graham came to a stop suddenly, seemingly frozen in place, his head still facing forward. Abigail gulped, a feeling of overwhelming dread coalescing in the pit of her stomach. This was it, she thought, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. He wasn't even going to make it another hour.

"Graham?" she asked with a sniffle, her voice searching for a response. To her increasing dread, silence was her only answer as he continued to stare forward. He was still breathing, she could feel it, but...

"Graham?" she asked again to no response. "Big brother?" she pleaded through grit teeth, receiving not even the barest hint of recognition. Abigail had started trembling now. This was it. Any moment now, he was going to fall, and then he would be gone.

"I will," he stated suddenly, and Abigail was shocked by the sudden strength behind that voice. How healthy it had become in just a few moments as it spoke, seemingly to nothing.

"Graham? What are you-?" she began to ask before her voice went inaudible. Before the world around her started to blur.

Before everything was consumed in a deafening roar. She had watched plenty of nature documentaries with Kayla, and this unearthly sound put any lion or tiger to shame. It was constant, unrelenting. It seemed to be shaking the world itself.

And then the world shattered, as if her surrounding had been made of nothing but glass. A million pieces, all reflecting a piece of the world as it had been falling around Abigail and her brother. A sense of wonder overcame her in that moment, as her eyes followed the falling shards. It was beautiful, in a way. Alien and horrifying, as that roar continued to echo around her, but beautiful.

Then it all stopped, seemingly frozen in place, and all was quiet. Abigail continued to look around at the pieces of shattered scenery that hung around her, transfixed in her amazement. It was then that she noticed that the scenery each shard depicted was...changing. The gray metal of the corridor was becoming different, alien. Gray was becoming cyan, the material...a sort of finely smoothed stone.

Suddenly, the pieces began to move back into place, as if solving a puzzle. A new environment began to take form, and to Abigail's continued amazement, they seemed to have been transported to a large cave composed of nothing but that smooth stone. Stalagmites and stalactites littered the area, while horizontal, spiky protrusions as long as any Alpha jutted out from the walls at random intervals. White, plant-like glowing bulbs were attached intermittently along the ceiling and stalactites, giving light to the area. As the pieces settled in and the cracks began to vanish she could make out what appeared to be an entryway to their far left.

Then her gaze wandered to the room's center, and her heart sunk. Standing there, a vicious smile splayed across his wicked face as his gray eyes locked onto the two newcomers was the only thing here that scared Abigail more than that monster had.

Conrad Steiner stood there, towering as every Alpha did, his heart clearly aflutter at this new prey. The man was a terror even to his own, though, and Abigail had watched the man carry out Dr. Schwarz's will with ruthless efficiency. He delighted in violence, in cruelty, and he made no effort to hide that fact. He didn't need to. The only person he answered to in that facility had been Katherine Schwarz, and she had been consistently permissive of his desires. Desires that he had frequently taken out on the caged Betas, with no one besides Kayla and Marcus even attempting to put a stop to it.

Abigail felt herself lowering suddenly, and she noticed that Graham was gingerly kneeling down. She found herself being gently placed on the warm stone floor as her brother carefully released her legs from his hands and onto the floor as well. Abigail wanted to ask what he was doing, why he wasn't trying to run away, but her mouth seemed sealed shut. He turned around then, still allowing Abigail's arms to wrap around his neck, and her eyes widened as she took in his face.

There was no sign of fear there. No sign of pain, of despair. His blue eyes were focused, determined. Her brother, who had seemed to be on the verge of death just moments before, now radiated with the same strength he always had. Without even noticing it, Abigail found herself wrapped in a comforting embrace as Graham's strong arms encircled her for the last time.

"I'm getting you out of here, Abby," he repeated from earlier, but this time with strength behind it. No doubt from Abigail, either. "I'm not going to let anyone else hurt you. I'm going to take care of this, and Kayla will handle the rest. I promise."

"I love you, Abby," Graham continued, not allowing her to speak, to ask what he was going to do, to try to talk him down, "and I want you to always remember that."

And then he stood, breaking away from her arms and turning to face the sadistic Alpha who continued to study them with amusement. As her brother began to walk away from her and toward death itself, she finally found her voice.

"You can't!" she choked out, her body trembling. She wanted to throw up. "I don't know...what you t-t-think you can do but...he...h-h-h-he's..."

"He's nothing," her brother replied solemnly as he continued to walk away from her. "In this place, Abby, he's nothing. I can see it."

And things seemed to flash forward then, as they often did when Abigail realized what was going on. When she was waking up. Her mind would never let her miss what was coming. It would never allow her to awake before witnessing Conrad Steiner's body impaled upon one of the many protrusions along the cave wall, blood seeping from his torso, through his mouth. His face contorted into one of terror and rage, of horrid realization at what had just happened as her brother turned to face her.

It would not allow her to awake before that dying Alpha reached one arm out in one last act of spiteful violence, before he began to squeeze.

Before she watched her brother have the life crushed out of him, the widest of smiles on his face before his killer went limp and allowed his corpse to fall to the stone floor.

*****

Abigail Everett-Lindon awoke then, her eyes blurry and wet as she regained her bearings. That dream never got any easier, even under better circumstances. Not after decades of having it, of repeating that hated moment in her life over and over again. She doubted it ever would, no matter how many decades continued to pass her by as she remained stagnant and unchanging as the world developed around her.

Her brother would still be dead, her husband would eventually pass away, and her son would inevitably follow. Yet she would remain, looking no older than the day she had turned 20, just her and her daughter left, along with whatever memories they had made together.

The side of Abigail's face was firmly planted into the surface of her desk, giving her a wonderful view of the empty liquor bottles that sat near the edge. Nonplussed by the sight, her gaze began to shift until it rested upon the most cherished possession she kept here with her: her digital picture frame, currently displaying a picture of her precious son taken on the day he moved to the college dorms. Of course, zooming the photo out would reveal that he was not alone: He had been sitting on the the tip of Claire's nose for that one, a goofy grin on her face as her eyes crossed to keep an eye on her big brother.

Normally, that picture brought nothing but warm thoughts to Abigail's mind. She was truly happy with how her two children had bonded over the years. Corey had been everything she could have wanted him to be as an older brother to Claire, without her having to say a word. Claire had been briefly worrying at 13, but her decision to support her vulnerable sibling instead of following her baser desires had been the correct one, and the first real test of her character. Abigail was proud of the choice she had made, that she had put her brother before herself. Even if, she would usually recall with a grin, it had lead to a little fight between the two siblings. One that Abigail herself had technically caused, sure, but she had felt the need to give her daughter a little follow-up test...and her son certainly couldn't have been allowed to get away with drinking while underage.

There was no warmth this time, though, as Abigail simply glared at the photo. It had almost happened again. She had almost lost another loved one to the base cruelty of the Alphas. Her daughter had almost had to go through the same heartache of losing her older brother to that cruelty, and even then she had not been totally spared. Claire had been bawling when she had called to let her know what had happened, a hideously uncommon sight, and rage began to build within her as she recalled that. As she thought about the years of further memories the two might build, and how that limited time had almost been cut even shorter. It disgusted her.

It wasn't just rage, either. An old hatred was beginning to stir, one Abigail thought she had buried for good when she had given up her role as an Enforcer in favor of her current position as Regional Liaison. It was with a disappointed sigh that she realized that this particular hatred would likely always be a part of her, at least for the foreseeable future. Especially with an incident such as this further reinforcing it.

That hatred of Alphas. Of all the cruelty they had treated her kind with. Of how utterly disposable they had been treated as, with no protections whatsoever aside from what any random Alpha chose to provide in a world that, by and large, had encouraged the majority to simply do whatever they wished with Betas without restraint. Because they hadn't been "people", not then. Dogs and cats had had more rights, and it was a sick case of irony that one of their largest allies after Kayla's ascension was a family that had spent years trying to have Betas legally classified as pets.

Hatred of the fact that her beloved little husband wasn't even academically recognized as a doctor, because he had been forced to hitch a ride with his now ex-wife as she went through med school. Never mind the brilliance he had shown in applying what he had seen; no, because he had been unable to formally attend university, he had nothing to show for it aside from the people he helped. And while that was certainly enough for him, Abigail still found the matter degrading.

Hatred of the fact that as her son came within arm's reach of attaining the recognition that his father would never have, and despite 24 more years of advancement, he had still been utterly helpless to stop the impulsive cruelty of three girls that were simply bigger than him.

A helplessness that would only continue.

The final test of the Compressor had been an utter failure, leaving behind only a crater of melted rock the size of a football stadium where the testing facility had once stood. A remnant of an explosion of cosmic energies that burned hotter and brighter than any sun, all caused by a device meant to be carried in the pockets of people less than three inches tall.

There had been no casualties or injuries, thankfully - Kayla had immediately taken control of the explosion, containing its growth and radiation as Abigail and her companions evacuated the building. Her friend had eventually been forced to allow it to consume the facility as she stabilized it, eventually simply absorbing the energy into herself so it could be put to later use. An action carried out by compressing the thing one last time, until it was like a small candy between the woman's fingers. A candy that had promptly disappeared beyond her lips. Most likely, it would turn into a fresh batch of Detonators to be distributed amongst the Omegas, and Abigail allowed herself a smile as she considered requesting one for her own use for the next time she saw her husband.

The project itself, however, was immediately scrapped. Their technology had ultimately hit a road block, it seemed. A tiny little machine simply could not match up against a woman who could impose her will upon reality itself, among numerous other benefits that came from the role that she had assumed so many years ago. Sure, it could initiate the correct particle responses to replicate Kayla's energy, but it couldn't properly manipulate or control it, and Kayla had apparently gleaned enough from that failed attempt to know that it wasn't worth pursuing further.

So ultimately, they had wasted their time and resources on a bunch of nothing. Betas were no safer, and were still utterly dependent on the Omegas to insure what safety they did have. They would continue to have no means to protect themselves, and opportunistic Alphas would likely continue to take advantage of that fact.

On a more personal level, Abigail was disappointed that her own time had also been wasted. She could have been home already, supporting her son in his recovery. She should be there, and a part of her resented Kayla for keeping her here for a failed project. But sitting up and stretching for a moment before rubbing at her temple, she had to admit that the resentment was unfair. If she had pressed her, Kayla would have allowed her to go.

No, she had wanted to stay, to see the project to completion. She had wanted to be here when it succeeded, with every fiber of her being. Because if the previous night's testing had been a success, just one more month of adjustments would have been needed. Because then she could have personally taken the first Compressor home with her, a product of years of study, research, and work on her part. She would have been able to give it to her son, give him a personal assurance that he would never be helpless against an Alpha ever again. And it had promptly blown up in her face.

So she had forsaken her duty as a parent, and been punished for it.

"You've done nothing worth being punished for, Abby" a soft voice comforted from behind her, tinged ever so slightly with just enough drawl to let you know where the owner of it had grown up. The voice was accompanied by two arms encircling her from behind her chair, squeezing her in a tight, comforting embrace as they pulled her against the back of her chair.

She had tried to resist momentarily, content to wallow in her bitterness, but there was little point. She may be over a hundred feet taller than when she was as an adolescent, but one thing had remained the same: Compared to Kayla Everett, she was just as helpless as she had always been. The only true difference was that now, the woman that had protected her for so many years truly was a god.

"Now, now," Kayla chastised, and Abigail felt the woman's chin come to rest on her left shoulder. A certain playfulness accompanied those two words, but as Kayla began to speak once more, Abigail felt as if a crushing weight was pressing down upon her. "You know how I feel about that term, Abigail."

Abigail knew that weight well. It was a weight that had come to accompany almost every word her dearest friend spoke as the years passed by. The weight of absolute authority. The authority of a woman who had come to hold the power of evolution within the palm of her hand.

The woman who was the living embodiment of evolution itself, that supreme force of will that guided all progress. All life. The woman who had set the course for humanity for millennia to come.