(*)

They used and abused me, battered and bruised me, red wires, green wires! Stuck 'em right through me...As you see, the animals don't really feel pain...they just get use to it!~ Batty Koda

Evil is powerless if the Good are unafraid ~ Ronald Regan

(*)

Prologue:

Why am I here?

Where am I from?

What is my purpose in being here?

These are the ancient questions -the first questions. Old as time itself, yet newer each day. Asked by kings and slaves, warriors and poets. They have spawn the greatest of stories. The kind he and his sister had always loved, back home when they were small and innocent. Daring heroics, beautiful maidens, grand escapes...evil defeated.

What wasn't too love?

Normally...it goes somthing like this...

...In the beginning, since the first beings rose up from primordial dusts of their worlds, sentient life has been enthrall, fascinated by the universe. Entranced by their power and light gleaming softly in their skies. It makes no difference how many moons shine around them, or what type of soil or metal cover their planet's surface, or what war was being fought; for select members of every race and species, their eyes turn up from their lives to gaze at the heavens, each longing for their shared inheritance hidden in the star-speckle skies, pondering with deepest longing the same thing.

And sometimes, through time and study, a few of these mysteries are not explained, but nevertheless reveled in their beauty, marvelous in their secrets. This is the way the stars teach their students –gently leading them by their wonder to the answers they seek, and perhaps ones which they hadn't, but nevertheless needed for themselves.

Such people have many titles across the stars, philosophers, professors, monks, and priests. Astronomers, lecturers, researchers, scientists...

But not all seekers of knowledge are benevolent in their gathering, honest in their intent, or selfless in their desire...

Knowledge without wisdom is nothing but power. And power was a call for the strong to dominant the weak.

This, the innumerable victims of the Psions know, all to well.

(*)

How could they not? It was injected into their veins with harsh needles. Fried into their brains with various wave lengths. Dropped into their terrified eyes with methodical slowness.

He doesn't know, anymore, how long he's been here. Days and nights, months and years lose their meaning in the sterile barrenness of this spacecraft. They call it a research facility. Others called it a prison. Or their people's various forms of hells.

He called it what it was -a tomb. An unmarked grave of tormented lives, stolen from their homes, twisted and broken until they are fragments of themselves. Until the life and vivaciousness are drained from their souls -along with whatever other bodily fluid the monsters want this time. For him and his sister, it always seems to be blood now -so much blood. Nerve samples too. The same goes for their little clan that was taken with them -no, not taken, he reminds himself. Sold. Betrayed.

X'hal...

It hurts just thinking about it. And in this ray shield cell, what was there to do but think about it? It wasn't fair. He was raised to be a warrior. How could he be rendered so helpless? What would his father say?

Suddenly there is light in the distance. But it brings only terror, were light should bring hope. He is just like the rest of beings in the block, scrambling away from red gleaming doors to press their backs against the walls, cowering like vomisk rats.

At the end of the cell block the round door slides open with a mocking elegance, a delicate hiss as the dreaded hover Carts re-enters, with their cargo strapped aboard, as if they were prepared meat for a Hall of Feasting. And he is not so broken that his empathy fails to wince with utter pain. Beyond that round door are the labs, where the Tormentors work their perversions, though they call it progress. He's only been through them many times, when once that is enough for a lifetime. Many lifetime.

He is a warrior, he is no stranger to violence...but this...this is not violence...it is beyond that.

The victims this time are the fresh-meat -the newcomers from the Earthen world. The on rumored to be ruled by clans of heroes. Four of them -one them is former cellmate, Wa'al'i, who was as red haired as himself, rambling nonsense in failed attempts of bravo. Another with dark skin, silent and stoic...well, or comatose. One who roars and struggles even when is becomes apparent it's hopeless.

And the last one -the small, inky haired one with the mask over his eyes. That one is his current cellmate...and...like Wa'al'i...maybe a friend.

The Cart bearing his cellmate stops, the door deactivating so it can slip in, the Tormentors' reptilian fingers undoing the binds and straps that hold the earthen boy in place. He can't help but notice that his friend's wrists and ankles are red and sore-looking, and he winces again. The session was a bad one this time.

With care -don't want to damage the Subject- the Tormentors lift his friend and deposit him in his bunk, that rises from the floor like an alter, like an animal offering to a demon. Throughout all of this, the second boy doesn't move, or stir, he can't even groan.

He wants to go to him, help him somehow, in the way he's powerless to help his sister. But primal fear keeps him against the wall, and experience tells him his blood pressure will not return to normal until the Tormentors -and that damn Cart- are out of here...

When their gone, he can breath. And his friend lets out a muffle curse that turns into a sob. So he grabs the daily ration of water, and scrambles over.

"Cha, Cha, easy my friend," he tells the black haired earthen boy, in the language he is only beginning to understand, due to the experiments with Kori. "Easy. It's over for today. It is over."

But it is a lie, and they both know it. It is not over. Not even close. Not when tomorrow, it starts all over again.

He looks the other boy over, taking in the dark bruises and needle marks and...X'hal, was that burnt skin? And why was he soaked? He doesn't want to know. It's an unspoken rule...do not ask, never know. So he focuses on giving his friend the water.

...earthens are frailer than his people, yet something about them seem just so incredibly strong. Strong in how his friend is cursing the Tormentors, swallowing back dry sobs through sheer will. Strong in how in only a half hour, he will be sitting up, trying to laugh, mocking the Tormentors and their ridiculous manners, playing with their words;hells, he'll even act out his own experimentation.

Strong in how he believes they will not die here. That their story would end in Beatah nostrosma...joyful homecoming.

He use to believe that too...and with his friend...a part of him maybe still does. Or at least dreams of it. Dreams of breaking out of this cell, finding Kori, freeing them both, freeing their cousins, and friends both old and new, and getting them out of here.

Getting revenge...

It's not much...but at this point, dreams are the only things that haven't been taken away.

That was what Rob'in said at least, and he thinks his friend's father chose his name well. It means hope. It all they have. And if that is taken...all is left is the horrible portion of himself...that hopes everytime the Cart comes, that it is coming for somebody else, not for him.

Hope...

Perhaps that was why his friend was here.

Perhaps that was his purpose.

Reviews make me happy so tell me what you thought and I'll update sooner. A always wanted to do a mad scientist story, so here it is! Hopefully you can guess you the pov is.

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