Through the Looking Glass: Chapter One

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This wasn't Vestia.

It definitely was not the Vestia they knew.

In the observatory where the dimensional travelers were sent to, they could easily see from the outside how twisted and mangled this Vestia was. The collar on her painted hull digging into her swollen sides. No doubt their presence would soon be known, but the stench of blood and sweat drifted into the room, as well as echoing howls of sobbing, maybe pain if the time of day was right.

This was Vestia, the Slaver Ship. And Vanessa was currently freaking out about the fact the theory of the Mirrorverse was just proven true -- in the worst of ways.

Asher winced. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. Please, can we reach some sort of agreement? There must be some way we can convince you to not hurt us."

One of the soldiers came over. "Permission to cuff your new friend, Quinn Ma'am?"

~~
Meanwhile Tala had collapsed, unconscious.

~~
----In Kaylr's lab----

Mirror Asher finished doing what little cleaning Kaylr generally required, and sorted out Kaylr's favorite tools, ready for his use. He washed his hands fastidiously--this lab, and Kaylr, had left him feeling dirty in a way that never seemed to wash off--before heading over to the cages.
He lounged against the cage, watching Dr. Heinz. "So, Doctor, think we'll get lucky this time? Maybe these intruders will finally kill our master for us?"  He knew the intruders would fail; that was why his programming wasn't forcing him to go check on Kaylr right now. Still, it made a good conversation topic.

Starr flinched at the machine as it turned on but at least it ended the water deprivation from Mattias. She looked to the tiny girl in her paw then shook her head a little "I don't eat living things." She said quietly and forced her hand to open so the girl could get out. Her only point to grabbing her had been to stop her from turning the machine on in the first place.

Mirror Shane called his troops together, getting everyone cuffed that they could without the ability to return to their humanoid forms. They were fairly used to this, but they were not skilled enough to do anything about the black hole out in the hallway.

Kay was a fairly large target with those wings, he was hit by multiple tranqs and collapsed in an awkward heap on the floor.

Mattias gasped for air as oxygen returned, slumping forward into his scratched up but not overly injured arm. He was shaking, but laughing as he scrambled over to Kaylr and slapped him across the face a few times to rouse him.

Kaylr opened one eye, then the other, and roughly shoved Mattias away. "Get off me." He growled, getting to his feet.

Kaylr peered out into the hallway. "Get the princess" He told Vestia. "seems we have a wee road block she needs to clear."

Mattias would help cuff people as best he could with only one arm.

"Let me look at that." Kaylr smirked.

Mattias clutched his arm closer to himself and shook his head. "You stay away from me you lunatic."

"Fine, let it go septic... then I can amputate it!" Kaylr giggled gleefully.

"Fuck you." Mattias glared.

"So thankless. Maybe I won't let you see Stellan after all." Kaylr smiled nastily and picked his way over the fallen to his own duplicate, kicking him onto his back to get a better look at him.
"Hmm... "

Esk had passed out and would be fairly easily cuffed. His power didn't seem to work if he wasn't conscious.

---

Meanwhile: in the lab:

The Doctor glared at Asher. "You'd like that wouldn't you robot? No master telling you what to do. " He shuddered, he dreaded to think what this android would do without instruction. Oh sure Kaylr made him do absolutely horrible things, but Dr Heinz always got the impression there was no real displeasure from the machine about those atrocities. He shook his head. "She said they looked like the people here... " He mused quietly.

"d... do you think we have doubles?" A weak voice from the next cage asked. Stellan couldn't help but listen in, what else was he meant to do? He dragged himself weakly as close as he could against a bars and rested his head against them.

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough." Dr Heinz sighed. "Just what we need, two Kaylr's... two robots.. " He glared at Asher.

"I wonder what they're like... " Stellan mused.

"I don't think I want to know." Dr Heinz muttered.

Quinn snarled as they ventured closer to her to apprehend her, lowering. She hadn't moved from her one spot the entire time. The reason was made pretty clear as a terrified Sara peeked out from underneath her belly in horror. Both of them began taking steps back, pressing against the wall.

Mirror Quinn giggled and allowed Asher to be cuffed.

James, Asher, unconscious Tala and unconscious Ellie were all handcuffed and given to various guards to drag away oncethe black hole was gone.

~~
----In Kaylr's lab----

Mirror Asher smiled slowly. "Wouldn't you like it, too? No more Kaylr to order you about? I'd think that would be a dream come true for both of you."
He looked at Stellan, "Maybe they are our perfect doubles. Just imagine, a second Asher to hold you down while Kaylr has you heal someone. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Mirror Starr looked up as she was contacted. She grumbled about being pulled away from her experiment and vanished, appearing in the hallway outside the field of the generator and growled at it's presence "How do you expect me to get rid of the black hole with that machine on?" She yelled at the door.

"S-Sorry! Sorry!..." Saraphine quickly rushed in, her small hands turning the dial the best she could to turn the machine off. Once everything she could do seemed to be done, she began to push the machine away again.

---In the lab---

Stellan shuddered, looking down at the floor.

Dr Heinz shook his head. "Just what we need." He muttered. "Besides, you know as well as I do how bloody tough that little bastard is. " He sighed. "He'll be back to gloat over the new prisoners soon i'm sure. Where the hell did they come from though? mm. "

---

Kaylr had the guards cuff Kay, and Matt and anyone else who wasn't already cuffed. "I want this one" He pointed at the unconscious half-shifter. "Bring his robot too."
He stepped over a dead guard and walked over to Esk, ignoring the extremely irritated Captain as he crouched to get a better look at the guy. "Interesting... Bring him to the lab as well." He stood up.

"Princess, sweetheart, the sooner you get that blockage in the hall sorted the sooner you can come have a look at the haul." Mattias called, looking over the prisoners. "There's one here I think you'll really want to get a look at." He grinned awfully at Starr.

"blood!" Kaylr suddenly declared

"What?" Mattias frowned at him.

"Blood, I want to know how much like us they are." Kaylr cackled. "I want blood, from all of them."

Mattias sighed. "of course you do... " He muttered.

"Shhh shhh Mr Ackermann, you'll get to have your fun too." Kaylr smirked. "After we fix your arm. " He looked up at the camera. "Have Asher get ready for processing, Heinz can help. We have a lot of new toys to play with.. " He leaned close to Esk, grinning viciously. "oh this will be fun."

Mattias looked wary. "Psychotic bastard, who bites someone?" He kicked Matt again just for good measure. "He better not have any gross diseases. "

Kaylr snickered and peered out into the hallway again to see how mirror Starr was doing with removing that black hole.

Mirror Starr quickly got rid of the black hole then came to the room, looking at the new slaves "Where did these come from?" She asked then frowned, going to her double and looking at her curiously

Starr growled at Kylar then looked to her double as she came up, staring at her in confusion as well.

"not a clue!" Kaylr cackled and looked to Mattias. "Get to the medical room, get Heinz to look at you."

Mattias looked relieved and hurried off to do just that.

Another security team marched in to help drag the passengers away to be "processed."
They were lead by a tall felid cyborg.

"Bring them, bring them all!" Kaylr grinned. "Let's see what we have here!" He looked extremely excited.

The cyborg grunted and hefted the unconcious Kay up.

"Come on come on, quick quick!" Kaylr danced around the security staff, urging them on eagerly.

He ignored Starr, hey, the Princess could deal with her duplicate right?

Mirror Starr looked over to the security then let them carry her duplicate along with the others. She looked to Kylar "Do not kill any of them, I will be there for the experiments" She said, standing again to follow the others. She wouldn't take no for an answer.

Mirror Shane had his people take the rest of the prime people along with them to the cages.

----in the lab----

"We can pray that he'll die miserably and painfully," Mirror Asher said.

"Kaylr wants you to prepare for processing," Vestia said, her tone inscrutable yet somehow smug.

Mirror Asher gestured rudely at her camera with one finger and opened Heinz's cage. "Come on, we're on duty."

Kaylr giggled. "Nooo, they're too interesting to kill. For now anyway."
"Work time!" He hurried off back toward the lab to grab things and drag Asher and Heinz along if they were dawdling.

---

Meanwhile:

"Every damn night I pray this whole ship just blows up. Kill the lot of us." Heinz muttered, scrambling to his feet as Asher opened the door. He was a tall guy, a good 6'6", he had to stoop to get out of the cage.

Mattias headed to the Lab. He didn't bother to knock, why should he? Just just walked on in demanding "Doctor, help, NOW."

"What's happened? What's going on?" Heinz asked.

Mattias glared. "I got bitten okay? I don't want to talk, just fix it."

Heinz frowned and came over to look, unwrapping the wound and tutting. "What the hell bit you? A tiger?"

"I said no talking." Mattias snapped.

Heinz sighed. "Right, no talking." He looked to Asher. "I need antiseptic, this is deep... I need to clean it out"

Mirror Asher narrowed his eyes at Dr Heinz. He really hated being told what to do, but since it was Mattias who was injured, he had no choice. He got what Heinz required, handing it over silently.

"Stay still, this is going to hurt." Heinz didn't even try to hide the glee in his voice at that, oh yes, this WAS going to be satisfying.
He took the antiseptic without a thank you and gripped Mattias' wrist tightly, pouring the stuff in.

Mattias howled.

"Oh shush you big baby." Heinz scolded.

"Fuck you doc." Mattias hissed.

"Just remember who's the one making sure you don't lose your damn arm." Heinz set about cleaning the wound, ignoring every one of Mattias' growls and protests of pain.

At this point Kaylr came in, panting a little and grinning ear to ear.
"SO many new passengers!" He declared gleefully, then paused. "Why are you bothering with that Doctor? " He grabbed Mattias by his other arm and dragged him toward Stellan's cage. "This is FAR more efficient."

Heinz winced. "He was bitten, it had to be cleaned." He protested. Honestly he just didn't want to use the poor kid. He felt sorry for him.

Stellan cringed.

"Get up." Kaylr instructed.

Stellan did as he was told, meekly averting his gaze from his older brother.

"We have work to do, have fun boys!" Kaylr shoved Mattias toward the cage and indicated the other two follow him out, grabbing his "kit" as he left.

Mattias reached his good hand through the bars and grabbed Stellan's slender wrist tightly. Stellan whimpered and instinctively closed his fingers around the other man's wrist as well. His eyes rolled back and he let out a faint gasp as his power activated.

Mattias smirked as he felt energy flood into him, he watched in satisfaction as his wounds began to heal.
After a few minutes Stellan sank to the floor, his legs no longer strong enough to hold him upright.
Mattias scoffed. "pathetic." He let go and pulled his hand away, examining his injury critically. It wasn't completely healed, it had scabbed over nicely though and was well on the way. He helped himself to a bandage from the supplies, wrapped his wrist and tugged his sleeve down to cover it up.

Stellan curled up on the floor, shuddering.

Mattias snorted, and left the lab.

Mirror Asher looked at Kaylr coldly. "You came back, Master. What a shame." He didn't even glance at poor Stellan, just continued his work, looking a bit more tense than before.

"isn't it just?" Kaylr smirked back at Asher. He found the robot's contempt funny. "You look tense. Let's work on relieving that later shall we?" He cackled and headed off to Processing.

Dr Heinz looked slightly nauseated but remained silent as he trudged after them sullenly.

The security guards would have been told to take everyone to processing, as was protocol. It was a fairly large sterile looking room lined with holding pens, there was a table and chairs in the centre of the room but that was about it.

Mirror Asher followed, flexing his fingers as he imagined wrapping them around Kaylr's throat. Oh yes, someday Kaylr was going to regret everything.

Heinz watched Asher warily, how he hated that damn robot.

Kaylr bounded into the Processing room with a manic grin on his face.
"Wakey wakey sleepy heads!" He yelled.

James looked up at Kaylr warily. "Dude, there's no reason to yell."

Prime Asher tried to indicate without hands or words that James should shut up.

Ellie was still out cold.

Tala was sniffing the air with increasing interest; she ignored Kaylr entirely.

Mirror Asher looked at his double with interest. "Ooh, maybe you can take out your issues on him for a change, Master." He smirked.

Starr looked over and glared at Kylar as he came in. She wanted to hurt him and keep her friends safe.

Shane growled and looked to the voice then back at Ellie where she was. Both Star dragons were stuck in their dragon forms for now.

Dawn groaned and blinked, trying to push back the effects of the tranquilizers.

Rigel was still out, having been hit by quite a few of the darts.

Skye was there, awake and staring at the people around her as her friends were brought in.

Kaylr laughed. "Oh i'm sure we'll find a use for another one of you."

Heinz stood in the doorway, looking around at all these people, so many eerily familiar faces. He looked disturbed.

Kay was still in his true form. He stirred, opening his eyes and looking around, scrambling to his feet and looking around in horror. Not another cage, damnit.
Then he noticed his duplicate, and Asher's double. He gulped. Oh this wasn't good at all.

Matt was huddled in a corner, clinging to Thalia protectively. She looked about ready to rip someone's throat out.
Everything hurt, Matt had woken up with sore ribs and blood all over his face, and remembered with some satisfaction he'd given far worse to his evil twin.

Mourn was watching everything, tail twitching. His ears flattened against his skull, he looked pretty pissed off.
He growled low at Kaylr and Mirror Asher.

Luka was still out cold.

So was Esk.

Armin was huddled in a awkward heap, eyes closed, mumbling to himself and trying to pretend he was somewhere else. He was having some pretty major ptsd flashbacks.

Tala forced her attention away from that glorious smell, and looked at her friends. "Companions," she declared, "we have been defeated, and are now prisoners. It is our duty to face our new masters with the dignity of obedience!"

Matt glared at her.

Kaylr smirked. "Ahh, a minotaur. Looks like we have our first volunteer!" He set his kit heavily on the table and started to pull out needles and vials.

"You certain it can be restrained?" Dr Heinz asked warily, watching the minotaur carefully.

"Mmm, good point. " Kaylr dug out a small taser from the kit. "If she gives us too much trouble, you can break her neck. How about that?"

Kay tensed, that voice... he stared at Dr Heinz in horror.

Dr Heinz remained obvious.

"Oh come now Doctor Heinz, you're not scared of one Minotaur are you? " Kaylr snickered. "The quicker we get through our new guests, the quicker you can go back to moping in your cage." His tone turned icy. "Or do you need to be reminded of your position here again?"

Dr Heinz shook his head and trudged into the center of the room, setting his own kit down.

"Good." Kaylr's voice brightened again. "Quick as you can now Asher. "

Dr Heinz looked at the rows of worried, scared and defiant faces.
He indicated to two security officers to bring out another patient. They would work in a pair, each one taking blood and dna samples from each prisoner, giving them a quick physical to assess their suitability and then hand them over to the guards to take to the relivent holding cells.

Skye tried to back away from the security people as they came over to grab her and bring her over to Dr. Heinz. She was scared and still feeling a little sick from being brought over to this universe.

Mirror Asher let Tala out of her holding cell and led her over, looking as if he expected her to trample him at any moment. She didn't. She followed him obediently, and let Dr Heinz do whatever tests he needed without complaint.

"Traitor!" Yelled James.

"We have been defeated. We are unworthy to own ourselves," Tala tools him.

Prime Asher winced.