Alex stared at the matte silver of his prison cell, no thoughts ran through his head, just the desire for all of this to end. He didn't truly care how that happened, whether he died on that blasphemous dissection table or something went wrong and caused this entire place to go up in a fiery explosion.

 

He didn't even know how long he had been held here for, but if they experimented on him once a day, then he had defiantly been here for over a year, but he had stopped counting after the 431st time, it was just too mentally draining to keep count. Alex raised his hand to the ceiling and spread his fingers wide, and slowly took in the sight of all the scars across his arm. This was the most he could do these days, most of his muscles atrophied by lack of use during his stay.

 

He remembered his first months here, where after the experiments he would complete a physical workout routine, to keep himself healthy and pass the time. That hadn't lasted long though, as his captors didn't supply him enough nutrients and food to keep up with his body's demand. It was slow, but the physical exhaustion eventually caught up and made it impossible to do the routine.

 

A low-pitched whine, that lasted only a second, dragged Alex out of his memories and sped up his heart for the briefest of moments. They had Pavlov's dog-ed him to what came next. He couldn't stand or walk anymore, his leg muscles deteriorated as they were, so he stayed lying down on the metal gurney that served as his bed as several robotic arms descended from the ceiling to move him to The Chamber.

 

Alex didn't have a clue as to what they actually did to him in The Chamber, what he did know what that whatever it was caused him tremendous pain. As the arms moved him down the hall another descended, except it had a syringe attached to a chamber filled with a transparent blue liquid. The arm proceeded to inject the serum into his thighs, biceps, abdomen, pectorals and the base of his skull.

 

The arms came to a stop as the wall to the left of him gave way and seemed to vanish into the floor before the arms proceeded to drop him in the middle of the room. The arms were pulled back up into the roof and the wall that had vanished was back, leaving him in a room that had no discernible exit.

 

The room was almost identical to his cell; the floor, walls and ceiling were made of the same matte silver alloy. The only exception is the large black horizontal rectangle that covered the majority of one of the walls. If he had to guess, Alex would say that is where they watched the experiments from. He had tried on many occasions to try to break the glass, he wasn't even sure it was glass, but had no success.

 

He stared at the black rectangle waiting for the experiment to start. It took longer this time, he would say he waited about 10 minutes, compared to the usual minute wait. Maybe this time would be the last, it was certainly the longest time he was left to wait.It was false hope as he felt the tingling in the back of his neck. The tingling slowly increased from goosebumps inducing to slight itch, it didn't stop there and Alex didn't expect it to. As time passed the itch grew in intensity and spread down his spine before branching off and moving down limbs.

 

The power of the itch increased from a slight tingle to something that might have been caused by concentrated itching powder. Alex didn't mind the itch, after having experienced it a couple hundred times on a regular basis, it was something that he had mentally adapted to. The first couple of months he had ripped open his flesh several times to scratch it, but now it barely bothered him.

 

The itch slowly transformed into direct pain, it was a small amount of pain, like an overworked and bruised muscle, but he knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. The pain grew slowly like the itch had, becoming concentrated and pure. Alex was struggling to keep his breathing even at this point, it was only a matter of time before he started screaming, or at least attempting to scream. He had slowly destroyed his voice box, he could use it, but his voice was low and gravely and it hurt when he spoke, he failed to produce any sound above a certain pitch, making screaming impossible and the attempts only added to the pain.

 

Alex couldn't keep the attempt to scream back, the pain had grown bad enough to feel like someone was hacking bis body apart with a rusty saw-blade, every inch, all at once. What little of his atrophied muscles were left, all seemed to cramp, rapidly pulling in all his limbs until he looked like a ball of skin and bones. His muscles would then do the opposite, occasionally sending one of his limbs flying in a random direction. His spine curved back as far as it could as his back muscles cramped. It was similar to having several volts run through his body.

 

Even through all of this they didn't stop the experiment, continuously turning up the intensity of whatever it was that was being used. The worst part though, was that Alex couldn't pass out, no matter how bad the pain got. There were times where he mentally collapsed and wouldn't respond to anything for weeks after due to how high the pain got. Alex wasn't even sure if he was the same person that was taken, but he usually avoided such philosophical questions about self. It was much easier just to fantasise about ending it all, not that he could no matter how much he wanted it.

 

---

 

Naroth went over the information one last time before the operation. A research ship belonging to a group of Xin't-Ther scientist, they needed 50 grams of a rare metal so they attempted to buy it from a nearby merchant and things went south. The scientist attempted to steal the metal, got caught but managed to run away without leaving any evidence besides a single witness, the merchant.

 

A single witness can't stand in court so the merchant put a bounty on their heads, a kill order. It seemed simple enough but it just didn't quite add up. Why would a bunch of scientists need 50 grams of Arsonium? Something about this operation seemed to set Norath's instincts off, something that wasn't taken lightly considering his species, the Misteloth, were known for their almost prophetic instincts.

 

Naroth left his cabin of the ship for the main helm, no doubt where he would find the rest of his team. Entering the main helm he found his group sitting on the couches, each holding a drink of their own, discussing the upcoming operation. He stopped by the mini fridge they had installed next to the main entrance and grabbed a cold glass of juice.

 

"Alright," He said as he joined them on the couches, the group went silent, "This mission is setting off my instincts." The moment he finished his words the group snapped to attention, preparing to barrage him with questions. He raised his hand to stop them before they even started.

 

"It's nothing dangerous, nothing good either. Just keep your eyes sharp, ears open and stay on your feet." That seemed to calm them down as most of them slipped back into their couches. There have been many instances where his instincts had saved the lives of the group, it was why he got the responsibility of picking jobs.

 

"Alright, our course is set and we're expected to arrive in 15 minutes, make sure that you have everything ready for the drop." On that note, he finished his drink and left his crew to make sure that he had everything he needed. Didn't want to make the mistake of leaving something behind after reminding your crew to pack it, it's an embarrassing situation he would rather not be in again if he could avoid it.

 

---

 

Kathida was merely an assistant to one of the glorious scientists aboard their research ship, furthering the intellect of species everywhere. This was supposed to be a regular research exploration testing the effects of deep space travel and trying to make it more efficient and faster, however they stumbled upon an adamantium mine, striking it rich. When they came out of deep space they had landed near a habitable planet, so they sent down a probe to test the atmosphere and check for life.

 

What they hadn't expected was that the prob would return with a life form, especially not a sapient creature. The creature was unconscious, probably from the teleportation of the probe, it wasn't meant to transport life after all.

 

They moved it to isolation to better record it. As per protocol, when they found an undiscovered sapient species an alert was sent to the council, although it would probably take them 1 cycle, or 3 years of this planet's rotations. However, before that they needed to gain as much information about them as possible. So they decided to experiment on the captured subject.

 

They started with giving him 9 injections of D901-34.2701, a chemical compound that allowed the D-radiation scanners to pick up more useful and specific information about the skeletal and muscular structure, as well as any other systems this creature might have. It did have a side effect of increasing the chances of a genetic mutation, however that risk is minute it's effectively ignored.

 

It was decided that they would start with the ESP chamber to test levels of sensitivity, control and lethality. The specimen reacted with a surprising level of ignorance, it was only once they started to increase the level that they got a reaction. First the skin broke out in what appeared to be tiny raised bumps, then it started to scratch. They had to cut the experiment once it started to rip into its flesh.

 

They decided then that they would operate afterwards to get better scans and practical experience, and they also healed the self-inflicted wounds.

 

As the days passed they were able to raise the level of ESP radiation further without getting any sort of reaction, as if he was growing immune. The scans and monthly lobotomy shows significant growth of the overall organ as well as extreme growth in specific locations.

 

During the dissections they removed several parts of it body and kept them out for a 24 hour period to see how it would cope when it lacked certain body parts, they did however never preform this with what they presumed were vital organs as they only had 1 test subject.

 

As the months passed the subject stopped scratching, that's when the screaming started as well as the convulsions, but still has time passed they needed to increase the levels of ESP radiation ever higher until it started to reach levels that would kill any of the scientists that were on board. That didn't stop them as they continued to test its limits on how much it could handle.

 

The creature's muscles began to deteriorate, either from a lack of use or an improper diet. They weren't certain, they needed a larger sample size. However, by the time 9 months had passed they had dissected it enough to understand how everything worked without doing a full autopsy.

 

Instead, what they did was instead of taking things away, they added things to the creature. They surgically removed the top sitting vertebrae and instead replaced it with a closed circuit nanite core to make sure that all it's organs were functioning properly so that it wouldn't suddenly die.

 

After that was the new Mk.IIX ESP Flight System that fused with the creatures skeletal and skin system. No particular reason, they had it on board for some reason, plus they got to see how the creature would react. It didn't seem to notice besides some back pain. Which Kathida supposed was a good thing, it wouldn't try to use it to escape.

 

They fused an ESP Thrust system down its spine about 2 months later, and just to see if would notice anything they installed Mk.V ESP Weapon Gauntlets, but it didn't seem to notice. She had to admit though, by this point they were just seeing what would happen and when it would notice, not really paying attention to what they fusing to it.

 

It was 14 months in when the screaming slowly stopped, the convulsions and pain didn't. A scan and dissection revealed that the strain to the sound producing organ had become too much, it just stopped producing sound anymore.

 

It was sometime at the 17th month when they got into a scuffle with a merchant. They needed a particular ore that could be combined with a multitude of different substances that would create clouds with specific traits. They were going to use it test trace amounts of poisons and acids in the air and see how they affected it.

 

Today they were going to push the limits of what it could handle in the ESP chamber, she watched as the lead scientist, Max'Drali, fiddle with a few dials and levels. She recorded the reactions of the creature as the flesh bumps broke out at ESP 11.4, a level of radiation high enough to kill her. The creature started to show irregular breathing at ESP 19.7, and the contractions started at 23.3 a level of radiation and power that was enough to kill everyone on the ship in a matter of minutes. Except the creature.

 

She was recording her observations at ESP 26.7 when the ship gave a little shake before the alarm sounded for intruders. All scientists were herded towards the main hall, where there was enough space for all of them and enough for the guards to do their job, limited in number as they may have been.

 

The screaming started a lot sooner than one should have cared about. She watched as a Thilarkian drop from the ceiling with a PSY blade before it turned three of their guards into minced meat. She watched with bated breath as it turned to face them and began to cut down all that were in her way, guard and scientist alike.

 

The last thing she saw was the purple blue glow of a PSY blade.