— Watch out, Rosalba! — Angela exclaimed upon noticing her presence. With an instant tiger leap, she closed the distance to stop it. Not for nothing was she their captain, unrivaled in the entire hybrid gymnastics circuit. — Phew! Almost —, she said, catching the box and securing her partner, before resuming her run. —Sorry, but I'm in a hurry.

— Don't worry. It's just a moment —, the girl stopped her, offering her the wrapper she'd saved. — I just wanted to give you these muffins. My mom made them. They're—they're made with stevia.

— Wow, thanks. But I didn't do anything. You're the talented one —, he smiled at her, giving her a thumbs-up, an inspiring gesture he always gave to all the rookies on his team.

— No, no. Without you, they would have already taken away my right to get certified. And I wouldn't be able to see my mom. You always have a few minutes to help us. Thank you —, she said, looking down, revealing a patch of cracked, brown skin on her left cheek, peeking out from behind her curly hair.

— They smell delicious! — Angela added, taking the decorated pink box, so as not to make the insecure little armadillo feel worse. — You're very talented, Albita. We need you on the team.

Before continuing, both managed to see two figures heading towards the offices the captain was looking for: a disheveled, long-haired crow pushing a small snake wearing a gown and glasses.

— Look, they're those weirdos! — The little armadillo pointed out —. The firebug and the traitor, together. Why would they go there?

— Oh, no —, Angela stopped her, putting her index finger to her mouth. — Don't let that toxic Katrina influence you —, she urged, referring to her deputy captain. — I don't know about that 'traitor', but Nazz isn't a firebug. He's a good guy! — She backed him up, tired of being seen as a freak for defending him.

Leaving her wayward fan behind, the athlete quickened her pace again to catch up with them, curious about her friend's presence in the headmaster's offices at the same time as their big meeting.

— Nazz! — She called him as he entered the building. — Hello! — She greeted as she entered the building herself. Emptiness was all that greeted her: emptiness and silence.

It was the first time she'd walked through that corridor alone, without light or an escort bothering her. Only a few managed to get in, like Nazz's new friend, the "traitor." A young man with snake-like features, perfectly suited for the vermin who administered the gruesome entrance tests to newly recruited students.

— How can you hang around with someone like that? — Angela whispered to herself, staring straight at the lab door. It was the sterile area where the traitor worked. Reading a plaque with the names V. Tritesta and S. Sainz, she remembered the day she herself had suffered his humiliating welcome, two years before the attempted kidnapping, long before that reptile had entered the Shelter.

Everyone in Aztlán swallowed the abuse of that admission in order to obtain the "Bondell certificate," the promise of freedom that required them to endure that and many other violations during the infamous two-phase program. From day one, they were constantly reminded of this, blackmailing them into "exemplary" behavior throughout their reeducation. The reward was great, no doubt, but she didn't know if she would survive the trauma of that first inspection. Unlike the shelters for disturbed children in her native Hispania, her home country, from the moment they dumped her there, they had made it clear to her that she was no longer a child. She was a guinea pig, a commodity to be evaluated. Nothing more than another contained Chimera.

— Ohaiyo*. Are we back yet? —. She heard an excited voice, along with an annoying white glow across his face. When she regained consciousness after her second "Despertar". She remembered her tantrum, at the Iberian embassy, that had left a dozen police officers out of action.

— Stop, please —, she asked, covering herself in pain as she tried to sit down, finding herself dressed only in a hospital gown. During her capture, she'd been heavily sedated, and now her world was spinning. Her vision burned and her arms itched. — What did they do to us? — She tried to understand inside that laboratory, a sterile white room. Latex hands were shaking her head to analyze it, as if it were a melon, very closely, very anxiously.

— Sparks, you're an Alpha! — Someone exclaimed, shining that cursed lamp on her aching eyelids. — ¡Waah! Your sclerae, your pupils, and those irises... they're like little jewels, how pretty! — They told her in a kind of flattering way, when her vision returned. They introduced her to an invasive medic in a yellow protective suit, fascinated by the evolution of the hybridization that Angela carried. — I see. All the parts of your eyes fused together, like spider eyes. I have to run some tests on you, Angelita —. On her suit she saw her name: "Tritesta," the young lady in charge of the medical area, boss of Nazz's friend. Bringing a syringe to her face, that activated her mutation's new gift, Angela's metallic gaze that drew a golden amber aura over the intruder.

— What, what are you doing to me? Where am I? — Angela stopped the hypodermic's hand in panic, knowing she was locked away without her sister. With that aura about the attendant, her contours mutating into those of a three-headed beast with an electric amber gaze. — Let me go! — She pushed her, feeling a sharp pain in her right wrist, something cutting off her circulation.

In terror, Angela automatically raised her forearms, menacing red spikes sprouting and quivering, ready to fire. Her clumsy reaction caused the medic, already on the ground, to press a button on her suit. That activated a bracelet on Angela's wrist, unleashing an electric shock that knocked her out again. 

Trapped like an unstable phenomenon, she could only watch as Tritesta's three-headed aura drew closer, as she lost consciousness.

— And now, where am I? — She snapped out of it, bringing her mind back to the present. As an orphan, she'd suffered abuse in other shelters, but never like this. She remembered the shock, adjusting the bracelet embedded in her arm, like all the children in that confinement, and continued walking toward the appointment.

Without warning, an icy claw grabbed her arm, causing her to spin backward to launch a strong kick, straight into the face of whoever dared to touch her.

— My tongue! — Nazz's new friend, "the traitor," lamented, lying on the ground from the greeting.

— Oh, sorry. You scared me —, Angela replied, climbing down from the wall she'd been plastered to in fright. She wiped the blood from the boy in the smock's mouth with her pink handkerchief. — Are you okay?

— You hit pretty hard —, he rubbed himself, already standing. — By the way, do you know where Asim Nasr is?

— I don't know —, she concluded, remembering who she was talking to. She couldn't feel empathy for someone who humiliated others like that. Without thinking, she turned her back on him and continued walking through the empty offices, taking refuge in the silence.

— I'm Santiago. Nice to meet you —, the irritating reptile offered his hand after a few minutes of wandering through the administrative rooms, his unpleasant forked tongue now recovered. — The headmaster also called you, huh? It was obvious you'd be in phase three.

— Phase three? — He paused to correct him. — You're wrong, kiddo. There are only two: "Analysis and Reintegration".

— Nah. That's for the mediocre. Only the best can see what's next. Those of us who, you know, go beyond that —, the traitor boasted, violently seizing her forearm. — Like it or not, you're special... Angelita! — He said, hijacking her presence.

— Leave me alone, you psycho —, she snatched his limb, fully intending to kick him again. — Maybe for a two-faced man like you, that's important. But I just want to see my sister.

She ran toward an elevator, trying to lose the aggressive stranger and get to the floor where they were meeting. She was tired of the praise everyone was throwing at her: the best, the fastest, the prettiest... Special, as the reptile would say. But she didn't want that. All she wanted was to be seen as "normal," so she could return to Amaya.

— I told him you were a jerk —, she confirmed, trying to calm herself. She remembered all the times she'd turned down Nasr, who had been trying tirelessly to introduce her to his new friend for months now.

With the elevator doorbell announcing their arrival, their meeting room appeared at the end of a marble hallway. Suddenly filled with anguished wails that extinguished slowly, desperately calling for help.

The familiarity in the wailing tone made Angela tremble. She hurried her toward her boardroom, which was completely sealed off. Gathering momentum with two acrobatic twists, she kicked the door, unlocking it. This revealed a dimly lit room with a large conference table, twelve chairs, and a spotlight flickering and projecting the rotating hologram of the foundation's logo in the middle of the expensive board.

— Nazz! — She was terrified to see him hurt, purple, and unconscious, in one of the black leather chairs.

Process: https://youtube.com/shorts/6xl-VUOd-4w?is=L4-sRbA3k0TsNAt9

— Oh, Look, he's tired of waiting for you. Poor little tiger! — The snake mocked, slowly slithering out of the shadows, toward the front of the room.

— He's your friend, isn't he... What did you do to him, jerk?!— Oh. You still don't understand —, he replied, pointing to another boy, an identical twin, lying at his feet. — None of you three do. You're the one percent of the one percent —, he explained, while Angela's metallic eyes reacted, drawing another halo around the fake Santiago. A furious amber flame hovering over the scaly phenomenon. — Alphas. So special. Too good, too unpredictable, and above all... Too dangerous!

In the blink of an eye, the traitor's copy crossed the elegant room, like a ghost. He placed the index and middle fingers of his left claw on Angela's forehead, but she couldn't respond.

— What is this? — Angela gave one last sob, feeling a tingling sensation that paralyzed her, trapping her in a dream. Forced to relive the shock of her life, seeing herself, at eleven years old, surrounded by Amaya, trying to fend off those police officers who wanted to separate them.

Her stalker, the reptilian clone, showed her the moment of her evolution. The day the orphans ended up in the Hispania embassy, ​​after their parents' accident. When they tried to separate them, Angela's hair stood on end in response, like a torrent of boiling water.bornfrom the ground. Crimson plasma unraveling from its small head, weaving a complex web to protect them and ward off all the officers, in a new awakening "Despertar".

— Don't touch her! — She cried again, as an emerald flash entangled the officers in the plasma, sending them into a violent epileptic fit from which none of them recovered.

— Subject Zero One, Angela Maria Belmonte Lazaro —. The traitor's mechanical copy projected holograms of her around him. — Capable of secreting neuromalleable plasma from her body. Control: Zero. Danger Level: Extreme. Induction to the "VIGILANTE" program: Immediate.

The metallic gems that were her eyes lit up again to prevent herself from fainting, secreting the same scarlet threads, driven by the fury within her.

— Sayonara*, Angelita —, the clone murmured in electric mockery, as her restraining bracelet violently discharged, leaving her in a rigid spasm.

Defenseless and far from her family, Angela ended up trapped in the web of the Bondel Foundation, trapped like a fly in a nightmare that would last more than three years.

*Hello in japanese

* Bye in japanese

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