Ella

Ella stared at the girl slumped in the nearby cylinder. She, herself hated cylinders, but they were preferable to the creches. In the creches, you knew that you were a product being refined. Ella hadn't quite figured out the purpose of putting her in a cylinder so far. Perhaps, she mused, she was going to be used as bait of some sort.

Of course, she could also be wrong. She only had a vague memory of what happened after the lab had been invaded. The soft, radiating pain in her throat signaled that she hadn't escaped it unscathed. Ella still wished that either her or Sphinxie had any knowledge of what had happened. Both of them had been hiding in Sphinxie's space, so their body had been nonresponsive to outward stimuli.

The girl moved just a bit, stirring Ella's interest. She was dressed so strangely. There were tight leather clothes on her legs and arms while a leather shirt covered her torso. It didn't cover her shoulders at all. The weird leather sleeves on her arms only extended from mid-forearm to mid-bicep. She was also wearing a leather skirt made of leaves of leather as well. A simple headband of twisted leather held her hair back.

She reminded Ella of Aarti for some reason. Ella leaned against the glass of her cylinder and studied her.

Since waking up, guards and researchers had invaded the girl's cylinder three times. She'd fought hard the first two times to no avail, and they'd simply gassed her the last time. Every time, they would take blood and feed her some weird pills. The pills were probably to promote blood creation. Otherwise, with all that blood they took, she'd be dead by now.

"Who are you?" The girl slowly sat up, the heel of one hand pressing above one eye. Even confused and possibly drugged, her movements had a fluidity to them that spoke of hard work and practice.

"My name's Ella. What's yours?" Ella replied. She sat back, Indian-style on her cylinder's comfy floor. The fact that the cylinder had a comfortable, padded floor disturbed her in ways she didn't want to think about. "Why are you here?"

"Why? I don't know. One moment, I was fighting that lazy little idiot and then the next—" The girl's words broke off as she winced in pain.

"I was in a lab. Then they broke in and stole everyone with a glowy door," Ella said, going for a childish approach. She'd found over the years that people tended to believe their eyes over their ears.

"That's reprehensible!" The other girl shot to her feet, nearly vibrating in outrage. Then she paused. "A glowing door? That feels so familiar…"

Ella glanced over at the door to the lab as it slowly opened. Overlord Pleja strolled in, guards at the ready. He looked relatively smug as an underling scurried up to him and handed over a tablet. Ella was fairly sure it contained a lot of notes but wasn't sure which of them he was interested in.

"Ah, the two glories of my current research," he said as he came to a stop before Ella's cylinder.

Ella felt her heart almost stop. That hadn't been in the preferred alien tongue. That had been English, pure and simple. She swallowed hard, ignoring the rush of pain that caused.

"Don't you want to let your other self out to play, little Ella? Surely, she's been so bored all this time," he said with a playful grin.

"My other self, sir?" Ella managed.

"Perhaps you need some stimulation to help?" Overlord Pleja lowered the tablet to his side and looked at one of his guards.

"The device," the guard said, handing over a small remote to Overlord Pleja. It looked so small in his hand.

"Are you going to continue being difficult, Ella?" Overlord Pleja asked, one finger caressing the remote, causing a button to slightly depress.

Overwhelming agony danced across every nerve ending, starting at her throat and continuing to the very tips of her fingers. A second, and the pain was gone as if it had never existed. Ella panted, tears in her eyes. She could feel Sphinxie rousing, willing to come out to defend them, and she firmly shut the door on her. Something was telling her that it would be multitudes worse if Sphinxie showed up even for a second.

"Scoundrels! Treating a poor, weak girl like that," came the furious voice of the other prisoner.

Ella blinked away tears as Overlord Pleja turned towards the leather clad girl. He lowered the remote as he took the few steps towards the other occupied cylinder.

"Ah, yes, our other little guest has awoken. How fortuitous." Overlord Pleja held out the remote, and a guard immediately stepped forward to take it.

"I'm no guest of yours," the girl snarled. Ella held in the sigh that wanted to escape; clearly the girl had no concept of self-control or perception.

"How delusional to not recognize your own state," Overlord Pleja said, his voice still pleasant and jovial. "Perhaps now you can answer some of our questions concerning the portal?"

"Portal? What portal?" The girl pounded on the cylinder's glass walls. "Let me out of here, monster!"

"And we're back to this yet again," Overlord Pleja slowly smiled. He turned to his favorite underling who was lurking in his shadow. "Bring the tools. Perhaps we missed something when we took the last samples. Since she's awake, we can be more," and his smile turned cruel, "thorough."

Ella backed away until her back hit the other side of her cylinder. Her brain was frantically working as a new set of guards wheeled in equipment.

"We cannot traumatize you, my pet," Overlord Pleja said, turning to look at Ella. "Gas her."

"As you wish, my lord." The underling prowled forward, his fingers dancing over the controls to her cylinder.

"No! No!" Ella cried as misty blue gas filled her cylinder.

"Open it up," she heard as everything went black.