Double-Mutated Mikey
Chapter 35: Monster
Continued from the short story written by @boots-with-the-fur-club
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Leo readies his twin katanas. Raph raises his sai. Donatello points the end of his bō staff in Chaplin's direction.
"You," Donnie growls. "What. Have you done. With our brother."
Chaplin smiles.
"What haven't I done is a better question," he jokes. "I've improved him. Though, let's be honest... with your kind, improvement isn't enough."
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?!" Leo spits at him.
"It means that the Yokai and the mutants are... how shall I put this..."
"What, a disease? A cancer? A deformity? I've seen the movies with the evil villains who want to eradicate a species, I know this bullcrap speech!" Leo snarks at him.
"No no, you misunderstand. Your people are quite talented and impressive!" Chaplin says with a grin. "I've studied your cultures, your biology, your abilities. I've travelled the world and seen many Yokai cities. But you are a threat. And I won't allow any threats to humanity. Alien or otherwise."
"So, then why the mutations?" Raph asks. "Why do so many cruel experiments?? If you hate mutants so much, why make more?"
"Quite simple, really," Chaplin explains, lifting his legs and recrossing them the other way around. "We've been trying to fight fire with fire. To destroy the mutants and the Yokai, we had to make some of our own. Though, our experiments continuously failed us. We were missing some crucial element, the secret ingredient that allows you to function and survive and have incredible supernatural abilities -- until we found your Mikey."
Leo hears Raph growl from behind him.
"He is quite resilient, your brother. So much stronger than we expected! And that was even before we mutated him! His potential is practically unlimited."
"Why would you subject him to this?!" Donnie hisses. "What was the purpose of this room?! Why make him fight?!"
"Three reasons," Chaplin explains calmly. "One: we needed to see his abilities in action, and the extent of those abilities. Two: it was a way to train his problem-solving skills. We knew he was strong and powerful, but we also needed to confirm he had intelligence. None of our other experiments were advanced in the mind. Far from it, they seemed to deteriorate rapidly."
"...What was the third reason?" Donnie asks with hesitance.
"Oh, yes. Waste management."
Leo glares at the scientist.
"What."
"Well, we'd been doing quite a number of experiments, and they were piling up. We were running out of space, supplies, food, etc. And they were all disappointments. True, they had interesting new abilities and enhanced strength, but they were disgusting failures in the end, and we had to free up some space to try again with new vermin. So we had to eradicate the excess mutants, and Mikey was a big help with that."
Raph stomps forward.
"You're... you're a sick, twisted, sadistic MONSTER!"
"I'm a man who is working towards a goal," Dr. Chaplin corrects.
"What does Mikey have to do with it? How does he accomplish your goal?!" Leo shouts. "How does kidnapping my baby brother help you?!"
"Mikey is a weapon," he explains, leaning back nonchalantly. "MY weapon. He is indestructible, powerful, his instincts are impeccable, and he can take orders. He's the perfect living weapon, and he will help me eradicate every threat to humanity."
"You can't turn our brother into a weapon!" Leo shouts.
"Yeah, that was my idea!" Donnie chimes in, though Raph smacks him upside the head in frustration. "Ow! Right, right, not the time..."
Leo saunters up to the mad scientist and presses a katana against his neck.
"Now. WHERE. IS. MIKEY?! What have you done with him?!"
"Oh, of course!" Dr. Chaplin laughs. "Don't worry, he's right here..."
Dr. Chaplin taps a button on the side of the chair, and a panel in the wall opens.
From the darkness, two glowing yellow and red eyes can be seen peering at them. Slowly, Mikey steps out, staring blankly at his brothers.
"Mikey!" Leo gasps, releasing Dr. Chaplin and rushing over to his baby brother. "You're okay! Come on, we're getting out of here and--"
Leo takes Mikey's hand and pulls, but Mikey refuses to move.
".......Mikey...?"
"I'm afraid he can't hear you," Chaplin huffs.
Leo turns to glare at Dr. Chaplin. He suddenly notices the headband crowning him, the bright pink lights that adorn the sides. How had he not seen it before?!
Leo steps away from Mikey, staring in fear as he realizes what's about to happen.
"Mikey... no..."
"Wonderful little gadget, this!" Dr. Chaplin brags. "Can work up to a three mile radius in all directions. It's based on Krang technologies and biologies."
"B-biology...?" Raph whimpers, hand going to his eye once again.
"Oh yes. We learned a lot from the infected zombies. This machine combines a severed part of the brain from that one alien we captured. I'm assuming I have you four to thank for that..."
"Her... brain?" Leo gawks. "You took her brain?"
"Oh, don't act like that is some terrible and horrific thing after all they tried to do!" Dr. Chaplin groans. "You honestly can't say that you're not relieved that 'she' is dead now. And besides, the real person you have to thank for this machine is actually your own brother!"
Leo, Donnie, and Raph simultaneously turn to look at Mikey.
"You see, he showed us something we never expected -- Mikey could control the zombies. That was when we realized, there was a hierarchy to the Krang -- the zombies were the omegas, and Mikey was the beta, hence why they followed his commands. The Krang were the alphas, and as such could control all of them easily. That was what we needed with Mikey. During of our evaluations, some of our staff psychiatrists discovered that Mikey had an alternate persona that activated during moments of intense emotion or physical distress. It was strong, forceful, and wasn't afraid to go for the kill. But he was also stubborn and dangerous, and refused to comply willingly. We needed a way to have Mikey be the monster while also listening to instructions. And so I created a way to mimic the Krang brain waves so as to control him."
"You... you beat him," Donnie heaves. "I saw the video, you tortured him..."
"That was for a reason," Dr. Chaplin insists. "I needed to see if he would follow orders to a tee, even if it meant physical harm."
Donnie heaves again.
"And he did superbly; his compliance was wonderful. A perfect living weapon that will follow orders unto death! Speaking of which --"
"D-don't do it, don't listen to him --" Leo tries, reaching for his baby brother.
"Mikey," Dr. Chaplin orders, "If you would be so kind as to dispatch these intruders for me."
Mikey glares at his brothers. His mouth curls into a snarl, his irises slit into thin lines. He places himself in a ready stance, claws elongated and ready to fight. His tail whips around him, the tip spiking like a mace.
"Mikey, please, I-I don't wanna fight you!" Leo begs. He doesn't want to go through this again... not again...
Mikey rushes forwards.
Raph pulls Leo away and shields him, holding his arms up and activating his ninpo. Large holographic arms cover over him, protecting him from Mikey's onslaught. Mikey lunges and starts biting the hologram, tearing it apart piece by piece with his sharp claws and talons. He sinks his fangs into them; they go so deep they nearly puncture Raph's actual arm.
Donnie's robot arms protrude from his battle-shell, grab Mikey from behind, and yank him off of Raph. Mikey shrieks angrily and turns back to attack Donnie.
"Mikey, snap out of it!" Donnie yells.
Mikey screeches and slashes his claws at him. Donnie reels back, dropping his brother as he guards himself. Mikey slashes his tail and several projectile spines fly at him. Donnie twirls his staff and hastily creates a shield, deflecting them at the last second. Raph wraps his ninpo arms around Mikey, who struggles against him. He howls and yowls. The cries sound desperate, scared --
"M-Mikey?" Raph gasps. "Wait, did I hurt you--"
"Raph, no, don't--!"
Raphael drops Mikey, afraid that he may have held him too tight. Mikey instantly turns on him and attacks, his tail slashing at the ankles and knocking him down. Raph yells in pain as he falls, clutching the wound and trying to stop the bleeding.
"Mikey!" Leo scolds. "Snap out of it!!"
The double-mutant turns and glares at Leo. He's next.
"Dee, keep him distracted, I'm going to take out the controller!" Leo hisses.
Donnie nods, and creates a series of mini missiles to fire at (and purposefully miss) Mikey, as Leo creates a portal and slips through.
The portal reopens and appears right behind Dr. Chaplin. Leo reaches for the headset before being swatted away by the mad scientist. He says nothing, but the string of pink glowing lights around his head indicate he's given another order. Mikey is by his side in an instant, pouncing on Leo and crashing him to the floor. Mikey bares his teeth and tries to bite him, but Leo narrowly blocks with his katana hilt. Mikey chomps down on it, growling as he tries to pull it away.
A mini missile strikes him in the back, and he turns to roar at Donnie.
"Mikey, you have to ignore whatever he's telling you to do! Wake up! It's US!!" Donnie shouts.
Mikey has had enough of their antics. His eyes burn bright, a series of scales on his neck lift up, revealing what almost looks like gills. They vibrate, charging up with a pink and orange glow. Mikey roars loudly, deafening the entire room. Visible sound waves pulse like giant ripples, throwing everyone off balance.
Donatello is knocked back, slamming into Raphael with a thud and a groan as the mystic shockwaves dissolve his hologram weapons, and disintegrate Raph's armour.
Leo watches as the portal he made evaporates, the markings on his arms and legs flicker out before dimming.
N-no... no, not again --!
Mikey jumps to Donnie and starts to attack. Raph shields him again, but Mikey snaps his teeth and bites down hard on his forearm. Raphael screams, shaking and waving his arm as he tries to get his baby brother to release. Donnie grabs Mikey and pulls. Mikey turns to snarl at him before wrapping his tail around his neck, placing him in a chokehold. Mikey grabs his two hands and clasps them together between his talon grip, essentially cuffing him. Donnie gags and gasps, sputtering as he slowly turns blue.
"Mikey!" Raph screams. "L-let him go--"
Mikey whirls around, maneuvering in such a way that he throws Donnie's body at Raph's head. The two crash to the floor. Mikey regains his stranglehold on Donnie as Raph tries to get back up. Mikey doesn't give him the chance, and punches him between the eyes, knocking him unconscious. Donnie slowly goes limp as well, his eyes rolling back in his head as he chokes-out. Mikey releases him once he's certain he also has succumbed.
He turns to face his last adversary.
"Mikey," Leo whimpers. "I-I know you don't want to hurt me. And I don't want to hurt you..."
"Oh, don't worry about that," Dr. Chaplin laughs. "He won't give you the chance."
Mikey rushes him, gaining speed before leaping and kicking Leo in the chest, crashing him into the wall behind him. The tiles and panels leading to hidden rooms crack from the impact, leaving a gaping crater. Leo coughs and holds his side, looking up just in time to see Mikey do a spin kick before the side of his foot collides with his head.
.
.
.
Mikey slips into the vents easily. The EPF should really work on their security, any nutcase could break in!
He crawls around, going deeper and deeper into the ventilation systems, floor after floor after floor. Every once in a while he can hear some animals crying and growling and barking loudly. He shudders at the thought of what they could be doing to these poor guys...
He pushes on.
Mikey hears a snarling sound, eerily familiar. It's animalistic, but not like any animal on Earth. It's alien.
He peeks through the vents to see the EPF men taking the krangified dude he saw from earlier into a lift. It's perfect luck that the angle of the vents lets him see the elevator room, a mirror glass on the back wall reflecting everything. He can see their reflections, he can see the button they pressed -- The very bottom floor.
Mikey goes in pursuit of them. He has to know what they're going to do with that poor man...
Mikey's almost there when his phone buzzes again. Probably Leo or Donnie, they've been calling him a lot. He picks it up and checks the lockscreen. Oh, it's Raph! Mikey guesses he wants to know where he is... He should have left a note or something. He answers.
"Shello?" He whispers.
"Mikey? Where are ya?!" Raph hisses at him. "I thought we said no inside stuff!"
"I saw a weird van pull up," he explains. "They took a krangified person in through the back."
"They what?" Raph sounds terrified. Mikey can't blame him, not after everything that has happened.
"Yeah, I know. I wanted to see what they were gonna do with him."
Because that's what heroes do! Mikey thinks to himself. That's what Raph always says, and that's what he expects him to say. Instead he's met with a panicked and desperate command.
"Mikey, I think you should get outta there."
That's not like Raph, why is he so scared? Sure, the place is creepy, but no creepier than when they broke into Draxum's lab that first time...
"I will in just a sec," Mikey responds, having finally made it to the bottom floor vents. "I think I found the room where..."
Mikey's voice trails off as he sees the entirety of the basement. It's a little dim, but there are a few lights here and there. Mikey flips the vent flaps open just a bit more for a better view. It looks like some kind of secret lab. Why is this lab separate from the rest upstairs? What's different about this one, apart from the colour scheme?
The krangified victim is strapped to a chair, several scientists standing beside him and a few guards with special futuristic-looking weapons pointed at him.
"Huh..."
"Mikey? Mikey, what is it?" Raph's voice hisses nervously through the phone's tinny speakers.
"I'm not sure... hold on a sec, 'kay?" Mikey whispers as he watches. He puts Raph on mute, just to be safe.
The scientists are talking about something as they operate on the guy, pulling pieces of krang flesh off bit by bit. Mikey can't hear much, just the occasional "Hold him still," "Be careful," "Not too much," etc. They're... curing him?
Mikey watches as a doctor takes a vial of the bright blue liquid April found. Guess these guys found it, too. Donnie made sure to release the formula publicly so the police could help save the infected people. The scientist fills a syringe with mixture, then inject it into a part of the krang on the guy's face. The krang screeches in agony, the flesh flailing and wriggling.
"Now!" he hears one of the doctors yell.
The scientists pull the flesh away, ripping it off of his face.
The guy yells, his eyes roll in the back of his head, and he flops over in his chair. One of the guards checks his pulse.
"He's alive."
Mikey sighs with relief.
"Good, now get him out of here before he wakes up," one of the doctors orders.
The man is slowly unbuckled from the chair and carried away by two of the guards, the other two remaining.
"Now, let's get this thing into storage for the next batch of test subjects," the head scientist says, taking the still-alive-but-barely krang parasite away and placing it in a jar.
Mikey crawls a bit more through the vents, trying to follow the scientists to wherever they store the parasite. How many more do they have??
Mikey gasps when he sees the centerpiece of the labs -- a giant cylinder tube housing the Krang Sister, her eye still melted from where April attacked her. She looks thin, wrinkly and emaciated. Her left eye is still intact and open, but unfocused. He can almost see her breathing if he watches hard enough. But there are parts of her missing, torn off, cut off, melted off, take your pick.
There's a cryogenic freezer cabinet or something housing her organs and severed limbs, along with so many other krang parasites. Bits of pink and pale purple flesh, teeth and fangs, claws and talons and nails... He sees a jar of just eyeballs, krang eyeballs... he recognizes a few from the traincar that attacked him and Donnie!
"Ohmigosh," he whimpers, unmuting Raphael. "Okay, that's enough for me, I'm coming out now!"
"Mikey?! What did you see, what's going on?" Raph asks, his voice high and shaking.
Mikey doesn't respond at first, he's trying to crawl away as fast as possible. He lifts up his phone to try and tell Raph what he saw, but his fingers slip and it falls. Mikey's heart stops as the device clangs and clatters against the metal with a hideous echo. He can hear the scientists start yelling.
"What was that?!"
"Something's in the vents!"
"Call security, we have a breach!"
Mikey quickly scrambles to get his phone, he starts crawling with lightning speed, not trying to be quiet anymore as his kneepads smack loudly against the panels. He knows Raph heard what just happened.
"I dropped my phone," Mikey whimpers into the device. "I think they heard me."
"GET OUT NOW!" Raph yells at him.
"I am! I AM!" Mikey whines, terrified.
He should never have come in here, what was he thinking?! If they find him --
There's a clicking sound from his phone as another voice joins the call.
"Raph? What's going --"
"Mikey's been made," Raph says in a hurry.
"Get out of there, now!" the voice shouts.
"Leo?" Mikey whispers nervously. "Is that you?"
"Mikey, we're on our way now," Leo informs him. His voice is stern, but smooth, feigning frenzied calmness as he tells Mikey what to do. "Just get out as fast as you can! Don't worry about whether or not you're seen, just get out!"
"I'm trying!" Mikey yells back, desperate not to let the sound of his tears come through the speaker. He turns a corner in the ducts, coming to a small fork in the road. Wait, which way did he come from? Which way gets him out of here?!
"I'm stuck in the vents!!" he realizes out loud, hoping somehow his brothers will help him -- maybe Donnie can look up the building plans and use that subdermal tracker to guide him, or Leo can make a portal, or --
Something pushes against Mikey's chest, slamming him into the top of the vent. One of the guards shoved the barrel of their weird gun thing into him and is trying to knock him down! The panels underneath him start to shake, the duct comes loose from Mikey's weight and the jabbing of the guards.
Mikey screams as the section he's trapped in falls to the floor. His phone hits the ground and bounces just out of his reach.
He looks up in terror and sees that he is surrounded by six or so people.
"There he is!"
"Get him!"
"Come'ere, kid!"
Mikey shrieks, trying to scramble away. His legs are grabbed by a scientist on the end as the guards rush and nearly tackle him, trying to secure his arms.
"Let me go! Stop! Leave me alone!" he begs, trying to wrench himself free.
Mikey kicks, shoving the scientist back and forcing himself up, lifting the security guards who have practically dogpiled him.
Mikey struggles under their weight, and reaches for his nunchucks. He's kneed in the gut by one of the guards, knocking the wind out of him and he falls, face mashing into the floor.
He can hear the cell phone, he can hear Raph and Leo shouting for him, yelling instructions or pleas for him to get to safety.
"Raph! Leo!" He screams, reaching frantically for his phone.
He just catches them shouting back to him before one of the scientists can smash his heel into the device, breaking it into pieces.
"NO!" Mikey yells, struggling against the men who hold him down.
"Keep it still," one of the lab coats say, grabbing a syringe with clear liquid in it.
Mikey growls as he pries an arm out from under their weight, shoving and pushing as best he can. His hand is grabbed by one of the scientists, the one who broke his phone.
"Let me go!" he yells. "Let me go! I wanna go home!"
"You should have thought of that before you trespassed on government property," says the scientist.
"What?! Who are you people?! What is this place?!" Mikey demands.
"A better question is, what are you?"
The doctor with the needle kneels down beside Mikey's head.
"Hold him still," he orders the others.
A hand is pressed against Mikey's head, shoving him down into the linoleum floor as hard as he can. Mikey shouts and screams in protest as the needle is stabbed into his neck.
It stings, the sharp pain masking over the feeling of the instant anesthetic being injected into his veins. He leans his head as far away as he can, trying to keep away... k-keep away fr-from... the... ttthhhhhe.......
Mikey is flooded with the oddest sensation of panicked anxiety meddled with forced calm as the anesthetic takes effect. It ends up giving him the biggest feeling of butterflies in his stomach, fluttering up into his head and through his limbs, making them light as a feather yet heavier than lead. His thoughts swirl messily, trying to stay tethered to reality...
A countdown starts in him. Mikey's limbs slow, relax, fall limp against the cold linoleum tiles. The tears in his eyes slip loose and drip down his cheeks. His breathing is deep and sluggish, he clicks his tongue and whimpers as he tries to make some kind of last attempt or argument to save himself. Mikey's eyes flutter closed... he vaguely registers the men climbing off of him and lifting him up, a doctor giving orders to carry him somewhere... Mikey mumbles a sleepy protest before his tongue and vocal chords seem to disappear... Everything disappears... Everything goes dark...
Where did Mikey go...?
Where are his brothers...?
Where is the world now... where... where are his dreams...?
It's all inky black void. It's all deep and mindless sleep.
Mikey has vanished.
Mikey's head rolls groggily as he comes back to reality.
Feeling seeps back into him, though his head is numb and still exhausted from the drug.
He can't move. His limbs are tired. And there's something cold and heavy against his wrists and ankles. Leathery straps tie him down by the waist and thighs and across the shoulders.
He slowly starts to register sight and sound, as a painfully blinding light is shined in his face.
"Ah, it's awake," a voice says. Mikey recognizes it as one of the doctors from the secret basement...
Mikey grumbles softly, squinting his eyes shut tightly and turning away from the light.
"Mmnngh... too bright," he mumbles in discomfort.
"Since you can speak, that means you can answer a few questions for me," the voice says.
Mikey can't see anything apart from the blinding light being shined in his face. He peeks one eye open and immediately regrets it; the light burns his retina and leaves spots in his vision.
"First off, what are you?" the scientist demands.
Mikey groans again.
"C-could you maybe turn the light off? I can't think straight with the full force of the sun in my eyes," Mikey half-jokes. Somebody has to fill in for Leo.
There is a huff of a dry laugh, followed by the dimming of the light. Mikey opens his eyes slowly, adjusting to the new level of brightness. There are a group of scientists in the room, each one staring and glaring at Mikey.
"Uh, hi, guys," he chuckles nervously. "What's the happs?"
"The 'happs' is that you broke into a government sanctioned facility for genetic studies," says an elderly doctor with frazzled white hair. "That's... well, that's illegal."
"And kidnapping isn't?" Mikey challenges. "I saw that guy you took. I saw what you did to him."
"We saved him," one of the doctors growls. "We were able to take the alien infection away from him --"
"You stabbed him with a needle and harvested the krang parasite!" Mikey argues. "And then you just took his body away!"
"He's alive," the elderly doctor says. "He's alive and well and back in his right mind!"
"Professor Honeycutt, if you wouldn't mind?" one of the other doctors grumbles. "We're in the middle of an interrogation..."
"O-oh, yes, right..." the elderly professor says meekly, cowering away.
"Now, how do you know about the -- what did you call it? Kang?"
"The Krang?" Mikey answers, confused. "That's... that's what they are. Didn't you know that? You've got the Krang Sister downstairs in your creepy cellar dungeon thing!"
"So, you DID see it," the younger doctor says. "Well then. That means you can't leave."
"What?!" Mikey gasps. "W-wait a sec --"
"Dr. Chaplin will be arriving soon, and what will we tell him when he discovers that there was a breach in security?! There have been setbacks after setbacks, and we have yet to provide a successful mutation --"
The doctor turns to contemplate Mikey. Mikey swallows nervously.
Uh oh.
"...I say we try it out on this one," the young doctor snickers before turning to the rest. "Prep him."
"Prep?" Mikey echoes. "P-prep for what...?"
"Do you realize what you're saying?!" the man called Honeycutt asks, pulling the younger man's arm away. "No, that's -- that's a horrid suggestion, Timothy! We can't just operate on -- he's a kid!"
"He's a freak of nature, look at him!" 'Timothy' shouts at the frail old man. "He's probably one of those mutant monsters that's been running feral on the streets these past two years. I don't see why we shouldn't."
"He's a sentient being! He has a higher intelligence than one of the rats or rabbits -- it would be inhumane!"
"Does he look human to you?" Timothy asks.
Mikey's heart is pounding in his chest.
"W-wait, please, I-I -- please, don't do this," Mikey begs. "I'm not a monster!"
"Maybe not now," Timothy says with a wicked smile. "But you will be."
The doctors place masks on their faces and gloves on their hands as they get ready. Mikey's head is strapped down and the light turned back on to its fullest extent, blinding him again.
"Wait!" Mikey screams. "Wait! I-I've got lots of other interesting things to talk about! I can tell you where the Krang came from, how we defeated them -- Please! You can't do this! Don't do this!!"
"I wash my hands of this," the older doctor says. "I won't have any part of this ridiculous madness.... I'm staying out of it."
"If you don't like it, then you can go back to working on your little robot pet 'Sal' of yours, or that android 'Ms. Campbell'," Dr. Timothy replies drably.
Mikey sobs in terror as the chair he's strapped to is lowered even further so the doctors can operate on him. Odd circular metallic suctions are pressed against his temples and cranium.
"Please! No! No!"
"You know, most of the mutations don't take very well, but considering you're already a mutie, that may mean you could survive this," Dr. Timothy teases. "I'm excited to see how your biology will react..."
"NO!!!" Mikey shrieks.
Mikey's ninpo starts to activate, the marks on his arms glowing as he struggles to pull himself free. One hand shatters a cuff.
"Hold him down!!" Dr. Timothy yells.
As Mikey is shouting and shrieking, one of the scientists lunges at him and holds his arm down.
A second doctor takes advantage of the fact that Mikey's mouth is open and starts shoving a tube down his throat. Mikey almost chokes on it as he struggles.
Mystic chains start to fill the room, a golden glow builds.
"Start it!! NOW!" Timothy shouts.
The doctor who shoved the tube down Mikey's throat pulls a lever connected to a big metal container. Pink and green glowing ooze starts flowing through, filtering into Mikey's mouth.
Mikey watches in terror, screaming muffled cries as he waits for the vile slime to pour through his throat and infiltrate his body.
It's cold and slick and slimy. As soon as it enters into him, Mikey's body starts convulsing. He howls, shrill and high and blood-curdling and despairing and pained. His body jerks every which way as it tries to reject the profane concoction.
The glow on his arms flickers out.
The golden chains in the room shatter and crumble away to dust.
Mikey is sobbing, tears streaming down his face as he tries to get free, tries to spit the tube out, tries to vomit up the ooze he's being force-fed. He doesn't notice the doctors preparing injection-devices by his neck, filling several vials and test tubes with different colored liquids and DNA samples. A soft mechanical whirring sounds, and cold metal clamps are pressed against his throat.
"Now!" Dr. Timothy shouts above the noise.
Mikey's world turns into a hurricane of static and unbearable pain as electrical charges course through him via the suctions pressed on his forehead. Needles pierce his skin and fill his veins with sludge and poison.
Mikey screams like he's never screamed before.
His body becomes a living x-ray, glowing bright blue from how much voltage he's taking. His skeleton is showing through the lights against a black silhouette. His body snaps and breaks and reforms. He can feel himself dying and coming back to life over and over again as he is morphed into something horrid, terrible, cruel.
Mikey blacks out. One last mercy his body bestows upon him, thankfully.
Mikey wakes up in agonizing pain. His limbs are a tangled, sloppy mess underneath him.
He can't move yet.
He can barely think.
All he can do is breathe and cry. The tears burn against his cheeks.
The position he's lying in gives his tortured limbs a numb buzz of pins and needles. Mikey tries to sit up, but trips over his arms and legs.
He doesn't know how to move them anymore.
They hurt too much. He can't feel them, but every movement he makes sends a rippling effect of horrid pain throughout his body.
There's something in here with him. A snake... a serpent... it slithers away from him. The slithering hurts... it... is it part of him...?
Mikey's eyes flutter open and closed as he fights to stay awake... and then fights to fall back asleep, be put out of his misery and just be unconscious. He doesn't want to hurt anymore.
His throat feels like it was mangled, burned, crushed.
His eyes sting like acid was poured into the tear ducts.
His hands ache, the palms are cut from where he dug his sharp nails and claws into them.
His feet must be disfigured, as far as he can tell.
His back is broken, the shell is shattered and cracked; he can feel air filtrating inside it.
But his head hurts the most. It is heavy and impossible to lift up. It aches and stings and pounds in a hundred different ways. His ears are stuffed up and ringing loudly. He's dizzy and disoriented. He's... so confused and lost... he doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t know what happened to him, or why he's hurting, or what he did to deserve this...
He doesn't know why he's longing for someone to hold him.
Someone that is blue. Or red. Or purple.
He's... he's unsure what those shadows dancing in his mind are, who those silhouettes belong to. But they mean something. They'll be coming for him, soon.
How he knows this, he isn't sure.
But he's a little scared for when they do find him...
Because, while he doesn’t know much...
...He knows he isn't 'Mikey' anymore.
He tries to sit up again. He somehow manages to do it, for two full seconds, before almost passing out again and falling to the floor of the cage, hitting his head against the metal.
Don't try to get up, Instinct whispers. Don't move yet. Rest. No moving, just rest. I will protect us now.
Mikey doesn't need to be told that twice...
His eyes slip shut.
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