I woke up painful, foggy. I felt the world as though through a haze. My eyes felt dry and uncooperative in letting me take in the surroundings, showing me only colored spots, and either my inner ears were similarly disrupted, or I was reclined backwards on a forty-five degree angle surface.

I moved my hands to rub my eyes and could not. They were bound to each other with something heavy and leather-feeling, and they had collided with something smooth only inches in front of me.

Were my brain in better condition, I might immediately realize I was bound and confined, and the deleterious effects on my body were the aftereffects of narcotic sedation. Instead, I stood/laid there, blinking very slowly and sorting those thoughts out over long minutes, with small bursts of panic at each realization.

At some point, it was as though a light switch was flicked in my brain and suddenly I could see the world again, though hazily. I did not see what was right in front of me, however, because it was transparent and invisible to my struggling eyesight. To my sides, above, and below were wooden panels, darkly stained, and the angled inclined surface at my back was thickly-padded, velvet, and richly dyed with a deep purple. It was comfortable, given the circumstances.

In my inspection, I noticed there was a circular hole directly behind my neck, and wondered if it existed to continue administering drugs. How long had I been here? My mobile was gone, and with it, any chance of knowing the day or time.

I tried to think, to remember, and to fight back the urge to panic welling within me. Was there any hint how I had come to be here? The last thing I remembered was arguing with AEGIS. Surely she would not have disposed of me in this fashion...yet even the argument I had with her was fuzzy in my mind. Had something occurred after? I could not remember.

I took stock of what I knew concretely. I was in a wooden, padded box with a transparent plastic lid. I had been here an unknown amount of time. I had probably been drugged to be brought here, indicating they desired me unharmed, but also not struggling. My body did not hurt as much as my mind did, but my bare arms and legs were slightly cold.

Wait. I looked down and found myself in a white mini-dress that, indecently, barely reached halfway to my knees, If that. My shoulders were fully bare. I owned no outfits that revealed this amount of skin which were not swimwear. The fact that I had been helpless and undressed abruptly threw my capture into new, horrifying light.

I pressed against the plastic but it was so heavy it did not even flex. Neither did the wooden walls, and I considered throwing myself against them but for the fear of whom I might attract with the noise.

I could see outside better now and what I saw did not clarify my situation. Display cases, mostly, though none like the one in which I was lain. Like museum pieces, glass cubes and rectangles on podiums with bizarre contents within. Some appeared random articles of clothing, others were framed pieces of paper, while most were indiscernible. It was a collection of some kind, but to what end or theme, I could not fathom.

Mostly, I was just relieved to not find other women in similar states of indecency. Though I knew not the nature of who had collected me, if there were other women, I would have a guess.

Although, in a way, that was also a disappointment. I needed another person for my powers to be of any use. If there were two of us in this case, I could throw my specter against it without self-preservation and beat my ghost of a body broken and raw, only to leave it and re-enter it fresh anew. I did not relish the prospect of breaking myself repeatedly against a wall, but it would be better to have that option than not.

A man appeared through the doorway before me, and glancing up from the tablet in his hands, smiled broadly at seeing me.

"Kaori! You're awake my love."

I blanched at being addressed as such. I did not know this man. I certainly did not love him.

He was a fairly unpleasant man to look upon. He looked just under a hundred-ninety centimeters, and broad-shouldered. Yet as though neither of those dimensions were large enough for him, was somewhat repugnantly fat as well. He had shortly-cropped blonde hair, matching pasty skin, and dark, hungry eyes, like two chocolate chips on an underbaked cookie. His jowel was prominent and moved independently of its owner.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty? Oh, you must be confused, you must."

"I admit to being fairly disoriented. Is it within your power to release me from this cell?"

He nodded at me and then moved to the side of my case, reaching behind it as though grasping for something. It gave me a too-close view of him panting and struggling as he leaned against the side. Finally, I felt his fingertips touch the back of my neck, and realized the purpose of the hole placed there in the moments before I blacked out.

"There, is that better, my love?" he asked from below me.

"I asked to be released, not manhandled," I clarified, but something else had caught my attention. Beside and behind my case, blocked by the wooden walls were more artifacts. Notably, on the wall directly behind my case was a large framed picture of the P-Force standing in a loose formation on a wet Chicago street. Athan's signature stood prominent in the middle.

"Would you like to sign it as well?" he asked.

"Do not trespass in my thoughts," I hissed at him with all the menace I possessed.

"Oh Kaori, my love, I'm not. We're just so beautifully connected. I can feel everything you feel, I can."

"Then feel my fear and anger and release me. What is the purpose of this incarceration? I have done nothing to you. I do not even know you."

As much as I was not looking in his mind, I still felt his pain as I informed him of this, but he stiffened up and continued regardless.

"I am your absolute biggest fan, I am," he explained, walking to the side of the door and leisurely strolling past the cases. "I've always been captivated by Exhumans. They're simply incredible. For the longest time, I'd dreamed of meeting one, or becoming one, I did. I tried everything on the 'net that people said could make one change over. I try to flex my powers every morning, but they never come."

"You are stupid and delusional, I understand."

"So imagine my surprise when I saw you standing there. The one Exhuman in the world who would make me Exhuman too, in a way. And alone...on the street...looking so lost...I couldn't just leave you out there."

"No, please, I insist. Return me to the street at once, I will survive."

He shook his head at tutted at me. "That's not good enough for you, Kaori my love, it isn't. I want you to more than survive, I want you to thrive. You and the others, you should rule this world, not be victim of the short-sighted idiots who run it now."

"I will reiterate that you are stupid and delusional. Please let me go."

He ignored me and began walking again. "This room is my collection, it is. Mother had a few houses that never got used so I asked for one of them, and I've turned it into something beautiful. Do you know what this is?"

He indicated towards a scrap of fabric held up by an intricate golden sort of abstract claw. It may have once been a light yellow, but that was before someone had utterly soaked it in blood.

"I do not. May I go now please?"

"That," he said with obvious glee, "is a scrap of the shirt worn by Ultraman, regarded as the most prolifically destructive Exhuman of all time. They used weapon after weapon against him for weeks, and just when all hope seemed lost and his powers unstoppable, boom, a sonic bomb, brand-new weapon tech it was, and ruptured him from the inside. He blew apart with such force that it shredded his clothes, it did. This is one of the very few scraps that made it into the hands of collectors. It is--was--the pride of my collection, it was."

Stolen story; please report.

"Because now it's me?"

"Very good, my love!" he bubbled and beamed at me. I would not have minded if both of us died on the spot. "This here is a piece of the exosuit used by Gashrick during his rampage through Rio, very heavy, very sharp edges. And this is an original press copy of the fated document that doomed humanity, the executive order declaring Exhumans enemies of the state. Many more laws would follow, they would." He shook his head and spoke bitterly. "Government is always short-sighted. Everyone I talk to agrees, it's only a matter of time before Exhumans become the norm, and they'll pass laws to treat humans as they were treated, they will."

"Who on Earth would agree with that?" I asked. "Nobody thinks Exhumanity is on the rise."

"Everyone on the forums I visit. And there are a lot of them out there, there are, trust me."

"Ah, an echo chamber of willful ignorance. Ignorance you are continuing to demonstrate by ignoring my pleas to be released. Please?"

"You might recognize this...though perhaps not. It is the knife once wielded by your teammate Jack before it was lost during an encounter in DC against the Exhuman Soran. He has since upgraded to something with superior je ne sais quoi. The guy who found this didn't even know what it was, so it was a major steal for me, it was. And this is shattered smart glass from the Raven's Nest, from the debris of Temperance destroying the top floor."

He sighed wistfully. "I thought that might be the day. Exhumans loose in the heart of the XPCA, but instead you guys did something even more incredible, showing off not just how powerful but also how merciful Exhumans are. Forming a team to protect humanity? God, I lost my voice for a week screaming over that one, I did."

"We are not all anything. Exhumans are no different from humans in uniqueness, you realize."

"Yeah, but it's like how they say stereotypes exist for a reason. You really are all the same."

Truly the man's ignorance knew no bounds, but this did little to deter him as he finished his tour of the room.

"And this," he crooned, of a roughly-spherical object with handles on a plinth of its own, "my second-newest addition, after you. This is something no human could or should ever get their hands on. Do you know what it is?"

"Have I known what anything in this room is? Have I done anything to express interest in this mad fascination?"

"No...you could stand to be a little more compassionate, you could. I thought as an Exhuman you might be interested. Or take an interest for me, this is my life's work, after all."

"What are you, nineteen? Is this not your parents' money's work?"

"You are only nineteen," he said, turning and pointing at my face floating above him. "Do you think I would dismiss everything you are and have done just because your father is famous and successful?"

"Yes. I discount very nearly everything I am and do, on those grounds."

He frowned bitterly and I felt him roiling within as anger flashed to the surface. "I have decided I will teach you to love yourself as I do, Kaori. You are too beautiful and powerful and smart not to. I'm only human, and even I'm not just defined by my family's wealth, I'm not. You're Exhuman. And one of the P-Force, the strongest, kindest, greatest Exhumans ever to live. You need to accept this, you do."

"No thank you. I would prefer an escort to the exit."

"You're not leaving. Not until you can accept how great you are."

I nodded. "In that case, I accept this. My release, please."

I was completely unprepared for what happened next. I shuddered as his thoughts barreled into my own. His mind was as his words, straightforward, delusional, and relentless. Blindly, he lashed out into my thoughts with delusions of love and desire, obsessive fascination and dark dreams. I felt...felt nothing but a sensation like drowning. I felt like he was holding me down in a stream of his mind wrenching my breath out so that I could only gasp down his thought. His mind surged into me, abruptly, insistently, confident that once I was full of his thoughts, once I saw the world as he did, I would understand and love and accept him. That I would feel the same pleasure in this merger as he.

I gasped and suffocated beneath his mind's onslaught, unable to find my own thoughts amidst his. I felt outside of myself, but also less than myself. The very concept of who I was became difficult to understand. I was no longer one being who had lived one life and had one stream of consciousness. Instead, I was two, and the two conflicted, violently. Painfully. It filled me with panic and terror like I had never known.

He recoiled almost as quickly as he had begun, and gradually, I began to recognize my mind as my own.

"That wasn't supposed to hurt you," he apologized.

I realized I was still having difficulty breathing, but it was for pained, heaving sobs forcing their way through me. Purple, sparkling specters of tears streamed down my face, dripping from my chin.

"It wasn't!" he repeated, and then seemed to grow red as his face turned furious. "It was because you were resisting me! It's supposed to be a beautiful union, but now you've ruined our first time. I hope you're satisfied."

I did not have the breath to stand, much less reply. Air came to me in ragged gasps, and my lungs trembled within me.

"You have a lot to learn about being an Exhuman, apparently!" he shouted at me. "The P-Force is benevolent and loving towards humankind, if you don't remember that! And I might be a mere human, but I have feelings too. The least you can do is accept them, maybe even try to reciprocate!"

He watched me snivelling for a few more seconds and then heaved an enormous inconvenienced sigh before climbing to the side of my body and putting me back in with a touch on the neck. The moment I was back, new tears began to flood down my cheeks, unstoppable.

"I'll be back," he promised. "We're going to do this again, and again, we will, until you're ready to be more accepting, and you learn to appreciate me more. And you need to learn a lot more than I thought, apparently. I'm so disappointed."

He gave me one final disgusted, angry glance and then stormed out. I collapsed as best I could in the bottom corner of my pen and held myself as I was able, the cuffs biting into my flesh.

I had no idea my powers were capable of such a thing. I was so hurt and so scared and so lost. For so long I had kept my own mind under discipline, disallowing thoughts and feelings which conflicted with my philosophies, it was horrifying to have those thoughts within me, unbidden, unassailable, as present within me as my own beliefs.

I trembled and wailed as quietly as I could make myself. I knew what I thought. I was an Exhuman, and Exhumans were the bad guys. I was a person who should never have been, an existence scraped up and doing the most good I could with the shell of the life I'd been given. Relationships were pain. Happiness was illusory. Duty was paramount.

And then, forced into me, contradictions to everything I'd ever discovered or believed. It was as though a priest had the unignorable thought that God never was slammed into his heart, and it rocked him to his core.

This, but for all of my beliefs. Who and what I was, what my life had been to this point, every decision I had ever made, things settled long ago, all suddenly wrong in a heartbeat and all at once.

I couldn't. I couldn't anything. I could not think, could not breathe, could not move, could not even be.

And perhaps my body agreed, because I blacked out, only to wake some amount of time later to an insistent rapping on my case.

It was him again. But more importantly, I was mostly me again. I swallowed hard as my eyes met his.

"You should not sleep like that, you'll wrinkle the dress," he said. "I'm here with breakfast."

My head pounded and spun, but even through that, my body knew it needed food. Perhaps if I could eat, I could endure.

I looked around and saw nothing with him however. No food anyway. A medical stand on wheels with bags and tubes.

I tried to ask what he planned, but words could not form in my mouth, and then the moment passed as the world flickered. He touched me through the hole and I saw my own body from the outside.

He didn't force his mind into mine, not at once anyway, and compared to that, anything else he had to do to me seemed trivial by comparison. So I watched with quiet fear as he opened the front of the case, and stood my body back upright with gloved hands and gentle touches. He brought his medical stands closer, and then lubricated a narrow tube and threaded it right down my nose with ease, though I inwardly cringed at seeing it done.

"Easy, see?" he asked, clipping the tube behind my ear and attaching the other end to a bag of thin brown fluid. "Everything you need, I will give you, I will."

"Why can't I just eat?" I asked, staring as the fluid flowed down my nose.

"As you just demonstrated, you're not quite ready to leave your case on your own," he said, smiling at my body as he worked over it. "Once you're a little better trained, my love."

"You are sick. Sick and wrong and evil. I hate you."

He tutted at me. "One day, you'll see, you will, my love. How wonderful you are, and just how much I love you. How I'd do anything for you."

"Except let me go. Or eat."

"I will let you do all of that," he said, "but only after you learn to accept yourself more! This is for your own good. Just trust me."

He smiled at me broadly in a way which was all the more frightening for how genuine I knew his feelings were under it.

"Now," he said, digging into the other tubes and bags, and coming up with something that looked like a long syringe. "Do you need to urinate? Defecate? Let's do both, to be sure."