Welcome to Gaia! ::

Malodore woke up, eyes blinking blearily behind the lenses as it tried to make the world come into focus. There was a sterile tang in the air, almost familiar and reassuring - or at least it was until it leaned back, slumping for an instant against the surface behind it before its back went rigid with literal shock. A strange, painful energy arced through its metal feathers, and the plague doctor hunched forward, sweeping its wings around it instinctively.

Where... where was it?

Slowly, details swam into place. It was encased in a clear cylinder, its view of the room distorted by the curvature of the containment vessel - and that alone sent a shock of fear through it, because it had been in more than enough labs to know: being inside the test tube was never, ever a good thing. It could see the others beyond, trapped just as it was - Spectrae, Junko, Jericho. Riley-

Riley! Mia cara, can you hear me?! it called out with its mind, desperately; its claws came up and scraped down the glass. The jolt was instant and searing, sparks dancing between its bloodmetal fingers as its claws failed to leave even the smallest mark. With a hiss, it withdrew, head darting this way and that, movements swift, birdlike. This was bad. This was very, very bad...

The hum was barely audible at first, less a sound than a vibration, a tremor in the air that made its feathers shake. Malodore stared helplessly at its companions as the hum increased in volume and intensity, hugging itself with its arms and wings both. Mia cara, listen to me, you have to escape, somehow, I don't care how, you must-

It couldn't hear her. It couldn't hear itself-

A sharp crack, like lightning-

-and then nothing but pain, so pure and complete it would have been fascinating if any of its mind had been left free to analyze it. Unknowing, Malodore threw its head back, beak gaping in an uncontrollable scream; an instant later whatever was happening stripped the feathers from its wings, the blades briefly becoming projectiles before being drawn back into the center.

Its mask followed a moment later, as its senses failed.

The Void had never been so complete, so overwhelming; even when it had lacked sight and speech it had always had touch, always had sound; now there was nothing, nothing but agony and a bubbling keen that was quickly swallowed up.

MIA CARA!!

Something snapped - something distant, something dreamlike. Something that was probably important, and yet it couldn't help but be grateful for it. Its consciousness was failing perhaps; good. Its body was gone, twisting, reforming itself into a new shape, falling into a perfect matrix, nothing like the rotting form it had worn before, all the mess and foulness of organics burning off. This was... this was good, was it not; had it not always been part metal, grafted together from childhood, transformation continuing piecemeal throughout its unlife? Was it not right that it should become metal entire, replaced feet legs abdomen torso neck head heart?

Perfect, streamlined, a tool as it had always been a tool, at heart, it had been a fool to escape - a tool for the elders, once, and now a tool of another kind. It sighed with the enormity of this knowledge, even through the pain; the enormity of the release. All that folly, all ill-logic - it was gone, erased entirely in the purity of change.

The scythe clattered against the tube that contained it, a tall shape of great delicacy - this was no heavy blade, but a light, swift weapon. Its primary blade arched beaklike, featherlight smaller blades bursting from the metal shaft - metal, all metal, except for one small shard of crystal.

Oh.

The thought resounded against metal walls and returned to it as all pain vanished, all fear. It had a faint glimpse of the world as runes inscribed its blade in red fire - there they were, those... those beings it had once... it had known, they were... it couldn't focus...

Vision failed again, but this did not trouble it; it was here, waiting. It had always been here. Always, surely. It had always been thus; it simply was, waiting, waiting to be picked up, to be used. It had no purpose other than to be used. Until then, it was waiting.

Waiting. Waiting.

Waiting-

The Nergal had, without exception, lived something akin to a sheltered life. Her host family had always done as their kind did generations and generations before, like simple farmers, simple mules on an one-way track. They spoke of humans as fodder, they spoke of the world in simple colours, and they spoke of a simple path, and a promising equally sheltered life. When Spectrae grew up, she would follow their path, she would find her own path, and everything would be okay.

When Malodore had disappeared, when Riley had absolutely crumbled, somewhere between Junko screaming furiously, the Nergal lost all semblance of understanding. It wasn't that she didn't understand, it was that she simply couldn't. She could not understand why these others were doing this, she could not understand why her friends were unhappy, and she, ultimately-

- Could not understand why she could not fix the problem. Everything was solved with bandages.

Right?

The sound of Jericho screaming seemed so far away. Riley had curled into herself, both physically and mentally, but even then she could still hear it, when they opened her glass cage. Every roar and yell felt like a struggle, a fight that she'd already given up on, and the humiliation of her defeat bore down heavily on her conscience. She had once been the proudest of warriors. She had convinced an entire tribe to risk their lives for her, on nothing but words. She had wielded that power effortlessly, to the chagrin of her Illithid rivals. And nothing, not the face of death, nor the agonizing loneliness, or even the deadly whims of hunters had managed to break her.

No, she gave them no such credit, because they had no power over her. Only one person ever had.

And it was gone.

Someone was trying to tell her to stand, but after a while, even they gave up and called over a team to carry her to the table. She was laid flat on the cold, hard surface, and every appendage was strapped down tight. Someone was questioning whether she was even alive, but when the cascade of blonde hair filled her vision as a woman bent over her and tried to check her dilation (of which she found no pupils to do so with), she flickered her gaze up at her. She was pretty, and familiar. Riley had seen that face before, somewhere. She couldn't recall when, nor could she even be sure it was her memory she was recalling, but it didn't matter.

The light returned, blaring at her eyes until she closed them for relief. Someone checked her pulse, and then carefully cut through the thick fabric of her turtleneck. Her eyes opened briefly as the cold air touched her bare skin, and she turned her head. A tray filled with fantastically horrible metal tools lay in wait for her there.

So. It was to be vivisection, then. They would not turn her into a weapon like they had M- Riley's entire body tensed as a shock of pain went through her merely by almost thinking it's name. They hadn't even touched her yet, and the technicians paused when they saw her tense up, holding their collective breath as they waited for her to fight back. They were almost disappointed when the body started to relax again, and lay slack once more.

Her anatomy was too new, too unseen. They'd never captured an Illithid before, and she should have known they would want to use her in this way. Find out everything they could about her kind. How they ticked. Their insatiable curiosity.. just like..

She felt a scalpel against her skin, cutting into her chest. It broke through but remained still once it had, as if testing for a reaction. What they got, was unnerving.

Riley closed her eyes, and her facial features lifted in lieu of a smile.

"You have," Malodore said, firmly, leaning forward to put one finger under her chin and push it upwards, the claw on the end denting but not piercing her skin. "It is hardly your fault that some bastardi are... what they are... and I will be damned if I permit them to be present here and now. Put them out of your mind, mia cara..."

Riley's leg fell back down to the bed when Malodore commanded her attention with it's claw, and the demand, and ferocity, in it's voice made her sigh. There was no problem in her life that Malodore couldn't make her forget about.

The technician immediately pulled away, and through the fog and muck of her barely functioning brain, she could hear him arguing with the blonde concerning the procedure. He didn't want to do it, he'd said. Something about chestbursters.. had her smile been taken as some kind of warning? Was he scared that her body had a defense mechanism they were unaware of? She inhaled deep, and felt his Fear in the air - her body shuddered in delight. Oh yes, he was scared all right. She took delight in this, her last meal.

And she wished she really did have such a defense-mechanism.

But eventually someone was convinced, and the scalpel returned to her chest, cutting through skin and bone to expose her from her clavicle to the hole. They'd already removed the device Christof had implanted in her, and now they were settling one of their own design - a remarkable device, really. It would have loved such a thing, if it could have seen it. A giant clamp, settled right between her ribs, that pulled her apart at the core. She was exposed, every functioning organ now at their mercy. The pain was meticulously excruciating, but Riley had shut off her nervous system long before they'd entered her. She couldn't feel a thing - she hoped that disappointed them.

"Remarkably similar organ systems, despite being a little backwards in some parts." Someone was speaking into a recording device as they poked and prodded through Riley's body, reaching in to find her esophagus resting behind her spine, instead of where it should be. "Nothing out of the ordinary, and no chest-bursters, you moron." Riley could have laughed at the sound of her annoyance, but there was little left of her conscience at this point, not nearly enough to form any kind of laughter. Eventually, they had catalogued everything inside of her chest, and the clamp had been removed, but they didn't bother with anything else. They simply covered her body in a sheet, which slowly started to turn red with blood.

And then it was time for her head.

Riley was grateful that they'd chosen to remove her eyes first. If she could have, she would have removed them long before this, so she didn't have to watch as they cut her open and tore her to pieces. The white orbs were cleaned and set in a jar, for further study later on. Someone mentioned breakthroughs in night vision technology, but she couldn't focus on much. They had removed the scalp, which was a blessing as well - even without her nervous system, Riley knew that she would feel a vivisection of her tentacles. Her sanity wouldn't have survived that.

There was a loud, grating sound. A chainsaw, perhaps? They were trying to cut through her skull to get into her mind.

They failed.

"Then get something STRONGER, for crying out loud!" A man yelled, frustrated at their inability to penetrate the Illithid skull. Riley did laugh, then - though no sound left her broken body, and it was just a thought that filled the minds of the technicians and surgeons. A perfectly formed thought, devoid of any sounds of distress or agony. Riley sounded perfectly calm, if a bit insane. And she was, because Riley was just the entity protected by the skull, and the body they were fiddling with was merely a dying shell.

And they couldn't get to her. She was safe. Safe, and protected, and-

One hunter had to be brilliant. Even if it was just one, there had to be that one, truly brilliant mind, who would always come up with a solution when one was no longer available. And that one, lone surgeon offered up her solution, as hesitant as it may have come.

"Well.. what if you just cut through her face?"

Riley's laughter stopped. And twenty minutes later, after an enormous amount of blood and bone was cut away, Clarice was holding a wiggling, tentacled brain in her hands. It reacted like it was it's own entity, struggling desperately to free itself, but once it was placed in it's very own glass cage, filled with solution meant to preserve it, the wiggling slowed, and eventually stopped. Those tiny, messy tentacles slid down against the glass, just as she had when she'd watched it die, and still, even as she died, she considered her own fate less torturous than the endless life she knew it would live.

I'm sorry, mia cara. Her final thought bubbled out of her mind, and a single bubble left the brain, floating to the surface of the glass jar.

Junko's eyes narrowed when a new blonde arrived. Pre-war? What the hell did that mean? Did they sleep through it or something? What the hell was going on?! There was no way this was the trial anymore! No jacking way! She rolled her eyes at the mention of missing a date for this. Seriously? "I bet humans have lame dates anyway. My boilfriend takes me on the best dates." She pouted. She missed Seiji now. Where was he? Was he okay? And Tomoko? Lizzy? Were they okay? Xiu? Where were her friends..would she get to see them again? She hoped they were okay. She wanted to see them again. She wanted to snuggle up to Seiji in his warm bed with all of their minipets and just..she wanted to go home.

..Home...like the fogged figure wanted to go home. Oh Jack no. Had they too..?

Someone moved to the door of her tank and she made a break for it until it suddenly felt like she was being hit with a freight train of exhaustion. Junko hit the ground like a rock, the world going black around her.

When she awoke it was to a bright blinding light above her, though it wasn't shining in her face. She was sitting up in a very uncomfortable chair, her arms strapped and legs strapped tightly against it. She tried to look down but there was even a strap around her neck keeping her head tightly in place. The chair's back stopped just under her head, her long hair cascading down the back of it wild and free. "Hello..?" She called out, eyes squinting against the bright light. There was movement around her, she could see the figures and hear them walking.

"Oh look. She's awake." A woman's voice, though not the same woman. Junko frowned and finally opened her eyes, only to find the face of a dark-skinned woman very close. "And what pretty eyes she has. Look how they glow. I wonder if they glow even when not in her skull." She crooned, making a sweet little kissy face at Junko. "Good morning, Rapunzel. Did you sleep well? What pretty, long hair you have." She grinned. "Maybe if you're lucky we'll let you keep it." Junko's eyes widened.

"Try not to upset her too much." That was the blonde's voice. Junko turned her head as quickly as she could to glare at the blonde, who was opening a kit filled with..lots of sharp objects. Some of them were things she never thought she'd be looking upon with fear. A strangled cry escaped her as she shifted her body as much as she could away from the blonde despite the straps. "I've never seen a futakuchi-onna with such spirit. Usually by the time we find them they've been broken by their second mou--stop staring at her breasts she's got to be like sixteen."

"Iwannagohooooome.." She whimpered, struggling against the binding. "I just want to go home please just let me go home I won't hurt anyone I promise I just want to go home please just let me gooooo!"

"She looks so sad.." Said another woman, one with long black hair almost as lovely as Junko's. Tears streamed down Junko's face as she looked upon her, whimpering and nodding. Yes! Win the heart of the hunters and get out of here! Yes, please! "She doesn't look like she could hurt anyone. Do we have to do this?" Both the girl and Junko turned a desperate, pleading look to the blonde. Yes, Miss. Did you have to? The blonde frowned.

"We can't pass this up. She has so much fight in her, and she's...somehow different from the others. We need to find out how." She held a scalpel in her hand that glinted in the light. Junko's heart raced as she whimpered and pushed back against her chair again, squirming and wriggling and pulling against the straps. No, no! No! Let go! Get out! Freedom please! No! Please! Stop this! The blonde came up closer, sighing and looking past Junko now. "Subdue her, please." She stared...and stared..waiting. "Hey. Guy."

"Sorry! Just..there's a ********' mouth in the back of her head!" The boil from earlier who had been scolded for staring at her. Suddenly there was a needle stuck in a tube that was coming out of her arm, and she watched in horror. What was he doing? What was going on? Subdue her? What? How much more subdued could...could she..get...she felt funny. This kind of felt like when...when she'd been given a pain killer by Professor Malcolm, only stronger. Her eyes were dazed, her head drooping forward slightly.

"Good." Her chair was tipped back until she was staring blearily at the ceiling, the light blocked out by the silhouettes of several hunters leaning over her to get a good look at..the scalpel coming down on her chest. She couldn't feel it, she couldn't even lift her head to see what was going on. She couldn't even feel the blood dripping down her sides as she was cut open in a y-shape like a body on an autopsy table. There were murmurs above her, words she couldn't make out in her cloudy haze of delirious bliss. Whatever they had given her was messing with her head.

It felt like hours before they grabbed a needle and thread. They were...sewing her. Junko giggled a little at the irony of it all. The seamstress was being sewn up..

The chair was sat up again. "Now for the pièce de résistance." The blonde's voice again. What were they doing? "Be careful not to cut off any of her hair." What? What were they...she was beginning to feel things again. She could feel her hair being shifted, the Mistress' mouth being opened and inspected. Why wasn't She fighting back? She always bit anyone who came too close to Her...why wasn't She biting them? This didn't make any sense. Why was this happening? Why her? She didn't do anything to deserve this..

Humans were evil.

"Weereween.." Junko mumbled, feeling feverish.

"Excuse me?"

"What the ******** is she trying to say?"

"We...'allow.." Junko struggled to get the words out. She was tired. The pain..o..oh Jack. She could feel it. They'd cut her open those bastards oh Jack it hurt so much! She whimpered, tears falling down her cheeks again. "we..cannot..." Say it. Just. Words. Just. Say. It. "Die." Bring it on.

There was silence. The hunters all looked at one another. "..What?" One of them shrugged.

"...We should preserve her head." The blonde murmured, walking around Junko with a marker. She cut an even line across the ghoul's throat, pausing only when Junko's glowing green eyes glared dangerously at her through her hair against her face. "Keep it clean. Don't damage her hair. And stay on the ******** line."

Junko's chair was tipped back again, her hair was gently handled so it was out of the way of her neck. She watched as a hunter raised a glowing blade, her heart racing as it descended upon her..

THWACK!