AIM had forced her into an orange jumpsuit, then dragged her into one of their hexagonal transport cells. It had a sink, a nutrient slurry dispenser, and a toilet, and nothing else. She spent a day in a minor AIM base in the Amazon rainforest before a pair of Exos began loading her up like cargo onto one of those huge flying vehicles they called Warships. She spent, from what she could judge, a day in the air, while her captors took her to someplace called Scandinavian Research Base 354. She spent another few hours being processed and more specialized restraints being prepared, because apparently, she was a “Level 9 Containment Priority,” which meant that she would be stuck in the second-to-highest security area, unless she was being studied or a combat test was being conducted.
Right now Kali was stuffed into a cell, barren except for a spartan bathroom and from what she could tell, underground. Every time they wanted to study her, the cell would move around for a bit and then raise itself from the ground into some kind of lab, though it wasn't always the same one. Her best guess was that she was in some sort of tunnel network, and anytime she was wanted, an automated antigravity tram system would pull her towards the AIM base proper.
While she was being studied, her manacles would activate, pulling her limbs to the side and hoisting Kali above the floor. Sometimes AIM would use her to test out their newest toys, and when that happened, she would be feeling it for what felt like days. Not like there was any way for Kali to actually tell how long they had held her. Sometimes, when the damage was too extensive, they'd stick her in some sort of tank filled with liquid that itched as it healed her. And when they wished to feed her, she would get a nutrient-paste goop or if they were feeling generous, some actual food.
“Huh…” The cell was beginning to shake itself, in that way that it always did before it started moving. An automated voice began to speak. “Subject 843715. Please prepare for restraintment.”
Kali sighed, and held her hands out to her sides. A thin line of energy stretched out from the corners of the walls to each of her restraints, a cuff on her arms, legs, and a steel collar on her neck, and connected. They then pulled until she was lifted in midair, leaned just slightly forward, and totally helpless even if someone did get into her cell. Not that they ever did. After she was immobilized Kali’s 8 by 5 cell came up to a place she had never been before, a sort of transfer station, where a keeper came into her cell, typed in a command onto a small command terminal, disabled the energy barriers separating herself from the outside world that were used in place of actual steel shutters when the scientists wanted to observe with their own eyes what was going on. He then proceeded to shoot some kind of paralysis dart into Kali that kept her fully conscious, yet unable to command her body to move. A passenger in her own body. The keeper then picked her up, sealed her into one of those hexagonal transport cells, and then called for a car-sized drone that picked up the cell, and took her to a trolley, filled with guards. Kali spent what felt like a few minutes in the trolley as the poison began to wear off. Then, finally, she was dragged by her guards to a truly massive containment cell, seemingly designed to accommodate something much, much larger than the average human, outside of which was a filly large lab, one far more spacious and seeming more like a demonstration hall than a purely laboratory space. One of the guards sniggered as they held the baton that could send 29,000 volts coursing through her body, as she learned the hard way. “This is it, filth. That prison was designed to imprison the Hulk, before it was converted to cage you. You should feel flattered; the bosses have gone to all these measures just to make sure their precious experiment doesn't get away.” she gave him a withering glare, and halfheartedly raised a hand. Unfortunately, the guard interpreted it as an attack, and struck Kali with the stun baton, leaving her twitching and spasming. “Heh. Learn your place, you little shit.” The guards dragged her to the front bit of the cell, opened the barriers and threw her in, before retiring, as a small trickle of scientists began coming in. A black haired, green-eyed woman walked up to the cell and began to play with the terminal.
In response, the cell started to manifest dozens of tiny little threads of glowing energy that wrapped around Kali’s power restrainers, lifting her up into the air in a fashion similar to the ropes that had bound her in the last prison.
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The black haired woman, her first task complete, proceeded to make a speech. She was pretty sure it was a good one, from all the clapping and general looks of approval she was getting, but alas the cell prevented her from hearing anything outside her isolated containment, but she tried to lip-read. Something about cultivation? The woman was about finished though, and she pressed her hand to a terminal. Gas began to pump into her cell, but this stuff wasn’t the regular knockout gas. It was dark blue, and as it touched her, it felt like she was on fire as it tried to force something to grow inside her. No, not grow, Kali realized: Cultivate. She knew what the woman was talking about now: AIM wasn’t curing Inhumans, they were cultivating them! The pain Kali felt wherever the gas touched her skin was so great, she felt light-headed, and everything went black for a moment.
Once she had regained consciousness, Kali blinked away the spots in her eyes, trying to regain her senses. She looked around, seeing that she was still bound in the air, and the eggheads were swarming around her containment cell.
The woman smirked, checking something on her tablet, and pressed her hand to the terminal that had triggered the dark gas. Kali began hyperventilating as the gas was pumped in again, and it felt just as horrible as the first time, but she managed to keep consciousness a bit more before she was knocked out.This cycle of her waking up, the gas being pumped in, and her fainting continued for a few more rounds. Each cycle, she felt just a bit better. On the fourth cycle, she noticed a strange thing: She could feel her abilities just barely through the passive interference of the restraints, but as Kali attempted to manifest her gold-colored fires, nothing happened except a splitting headache.
The seventh time the woman approached the terminal, instead of activating the gas, she mad a few swipes and taps, and something new happened.
The AI voice sounded out once more: “Subject 843715. Prepare for insertion of Substance-61C.” A strange restraining set appeared: shaped like a dentist’s chair, it rose from the ground of her cell, and clamped onto her suspended form. The cuffs and collar magnetized to it, the energy lines shifting from being tethered in the walls and floor in the air to going over her wrists, her feet, and then neck, and then, as the woman, whom she had by now begun calling Sadist in her head, typed into her terminal, the chair began initiating making a sort of second layer of restraint. Thick metallic straps locked themselves around the parts formerly sealed only by energy threads, as well as her elbows, waist, and knees, preventing any sort of movement at all, and then shifting from a standard dentist’s sitting position, to a T-pose, her head lowered towards the ground and feet lifted up. Sadist left her there for a minute to give a speech to her fellow eggheads, as Kali was seemingly forgotten. All too soon though, she wished she was actually forgotten, as Sadist switched around, swiveling around to play around with the terminal again. Another apparatus appeared from the top of the cell, a sort of long, needle thing with attachments, that clamped itself onto her shoulders and injected Substance-61C, whatever that was, directly into the crown of her forehead. Kali only had one more second of lucid thought before the pain hit. It was like nothing she’d felt before, like something vital in her was ripping apart, being set ablaze, and growing explosively, shredding and tearing the vital parts of her being apart. Through this hazy pain, she was only vaguely aware of the chair shifting around to point her face downwards, and the machine preparing to insert a second dose directly into the nape of her neck. This time, the pain very nearly made her black out, before the chair whirred and administered an electrical shock to keep her awake. Then, for the third time, the syringe plunged itself into Kali’s body, forcing a final dose of Substance-61C into the lowest part of her spine, where her tail sprung from when she was using her powers. This final injection opened up a sort of link, a mental connection with another, and she shoved all the pain and agony she could down that link in an instinctive desire to protect herself.
…
(Other Side Of the Link P.O.V)
*Yawning Noises*-Hmm? I can sense a new sort of divinity being born… from Father's essence? Stran-Euch!? Okay, I know I have a sympathetic link with those born of my creator's essence, but I never imagined I would live to regret that! Ye-ow IT HURTS! I HAVE GOT TO GET IT TO STOP BEFORE I GO UTTERLY AND IRREVERSIBLY MAD!
…
Hah…hah… it stopped… but the link is still there, just weakened…feels like the new divinity is unconscious… I should investigate, just to find out what was going on there and why Father is creating a new divinity in such a primitive manner or, if he’s not behind it, who dares to use my father’s power for their own purposes… But first, I should take some booze, just in case the pain hits again and I need to numb myself to it…