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.

"What?" Third suddenly sounded confused, turning to Quinn. "So, you really do have a Third?" Quinn morphed out of the wall, obviously roughed up. She tried to gently land on the ground but buckled, helping in pain. Mirror Third gasped and caught the vixen with his own shadowy tendrils, "Easy. You've been through a lot. Let's not make it any more."

Mirror Third morphed out of the wall, looking at everyone and bowing slightly as he allowed Quinn to lean on him. "Greetings, everyone. I am called One Born of Hope, but you may call me Third."

"Hope?" Quinn's eyes suddenly flashed green as Prime Third commented, "Hope? You are One Born of Hope?"

"Yes." Mirror Third turned to look at him, tilting his head. "You are not?"

Prime Third hesitated. "No... It is close, but that is not my name."

"Okay, so maybe you guys aren't the psychotic ones?" Ellie looked at the foxes suspiciously.
"In that case, no, we DON'T need to get off the ship. What we DO need to do is TAKE OVER the ship, and wreck the faces of the jerks who caught us. And then we need to go on a quest to cure lycanthropy, and return to our own universe." She nodded. She liked her plan.

Kay looked worried and approached Quinn, medic instincts taking over despite his own pain.
Quinn, are you alright? He asked, looking at her with concern.
He glanced to Starr and the others We need to get out of here sooner rather than later, it's only a matter of time before the crew realize what's happened and try to stop us. I for one, have no intentions of dying in this place.

"Hey I wanna wreck faces too Ellie, but there's how many of them? I mean, I have access to my mirror self's pocket space and he seems to have been stockpiling weapons for something, but I don't think it's enough. These people are crazy and violent, and most of these prisoners are sick or too weak to fight. " Matt looked up at third's mirror self, frowning a little. "How do we know we can trust you?"

---

Kaylr cackled. "I think he wants to play some more Asher! My, what stamina he has. What do you think?" He smirked. "Shall we oblige or play hard to get?"

"Stop it, just stop it." Gier protested.

"Aww Gierhart my beloved." Kaylr smiled sweetly. "Jealous? It's alright, you'll get your turn."

Gier flinched.

The cyborg tilted his head, looking a bit confused. "not... violent?" He seemed to mull that over. "Kidnapped technicians, held them hostage... " He looked James up and down.

Will scrambled over to Steven, away from the robots.

"You aren't armed." The cyborg nodded at last. "You will allow yourself to be cuffed and come with me."

"He also seems very fond of the robot," mirror Asher suggested. "Maybe he'll like watching someone else get hurt for a bit?"

~~
"I will totally do that," James agreed, holding out his hands so they could be cuffed. "I'm a good robot."

The cyborg looked dubious, but cuffed him and nodded. "Technicians, return to your duties " He barely even looked their way. "You must be reprogrammed android."

"Why ARE you so fond of the robot?" Kaylr asked. "It's just a robot. " He glanced to Asher disdainfully. "you can always get a new one."

"Oh yes, please reprogram me," James said, nodding enthusiastically. "That sounds amazing."

"You can't." Both Thirds replied in unison. They looked at each other and prime Third scoffed, "Well, at least he's honest." Prime Quinn flicked back into existence, and she nodded weakly, silent. Mirror Third winces and looked away guiltily. "There's no way to know if you may trust me, however I will do my best to keep my Quinn at bay nonetheless. The less magic resistance you have, the easier."

~~~~~~

Merith glowered, "Good on you for noticing. My stamina can outlast your will to break me; it won't happen, bastard."

"Well, we do have one thing over them, we can kill them while they want to keep us alive for study" Starr said after a minute and listening to them.

Kaylr giggled. "Oh I like a challenge. I wonder how many times I can kill you before the novelty wears off." He looked through his tools. "Mmm, I have so many options. So many things I can't do with regular patients, they're too sensitive you see, have a really inconvenient habit of dying and NOT coming back to life. It's so inconsiderate. " He came over to the cage again. "But you? Oh let's see... we could dunk your head in liquid nitrogen, that could be fun... we could get out the chemicals, let's thing...we have hydrochloric acid... sulphuric acid... oh there's some bleach in one of the cupboards too i'm sure. How FUN will that be to force down your throat?" He cackled.

---

Kay frowned. I'm not entirely convinced we can count on that with some of them. My own duplicate doesn't strike me as overly in control of his impulses. But we can work together, something they seem to find difficult. He looked up at mirror Third How long do you think you can keep her at bay? then to Starr We should try to liberate the others, find James and locate Sara. We need to get out of here, together.

"As fun as impaling you from the inside out... slowly." Merith growled, his eyes having a newfound murderous glint in his eye. "I haven't felt that need in many years, too..."

He shot Mirror Asher a warning glance, signaling for him to shit it as he motioned to Sara's former cell as well.

~~~~~~

"As long as I have the resolve to do so, I believe I can do it." Third said quietly.

Mirror Asher noticed Merith's warning, and glared at him. What a jerk. He shot a glare at prime Asher, who feigned a look of obliviousness.

Argh.

Esk started to snicker, thinking very loudly Don't look at the box, don't look at the box, don't look at the box.

Kaylr frowned, staring at his brother's double and narrowing his eyes.
"What ARE you playing at?" He growled.

Esk straightened up. "Me? Nothing, nothing at all." He spoke flatly. "Why?" Don't look at the box, don't look at the box

Stellan looked worried, glancing between the two and keeping as far from the bars as he could.

Merith gave prime Asher a look of Oops as Esk started a bit of a ruckus.

Mirror Asher frowned, watching Esk. What was he doing? This couldn't be good. Was he thinking at Kaylr? What was he thinking about?
He tried to not look nervous.

"Yeah, that one may try to kill. We will need to take him out anyway to get the others free" Starr said and shook her head "Matt, do you have some guns left?"

Matt nodded. "I think so, let me check." He rummaged through his pockets, made a face as he touched.. something... and pulled out two handguns.

Kay looked to Starr and Matt and "spoke" only to them Do you have a medical scanner up here? If Third's duplicate loses control, it may be their only hope of stopping Quinn's. He remembered the medical notes mentioning it hurt, he just hoped it worked the same on the mirror versions.

Matt nodded. "I'll hold the fort.. with these guys. Be careful you guys okay? "

"The box?" Kaylr spoke slowly, eying Esk suspiciously.

"What box? oOOOH that box?" Esk asked, pointing at the box Sara had escaped from. "ooh yeah.. didn't you have some tiny girl in there earlier?" He smirked.

Kaylr looked, frowning. "Asher..." His tone was dangerous.

Of course, she had to keep her patients alive and study how their bodies reacted Starr answered as she went over to get the handguns and checked them over quickly "Thank you, Matt"

"Your Asher was so focused on making our Asher miserable, he got duped. She's long gone now." Merith said coolly. "I suppose that's what happens when you focus on picking your favorites."

Mirror Asher looked at Kaylr nervously. "The tiny girl may have escaped," he muttered. "I don't know how it could have happened."

"You had one job Asher. " Kaylr growled. "You're lucky i'm in a good mood." Yeah he didn't look it. "Come here." He beckoned.

"One job? I have hundreds of..." Mirror Asher decided abruptly to shut up, and went over to Kaylr.

Kaylr glared at him, the attitude was not helping Asher's case right now.
He picked up a heavy paperweight off the desk, tilted his head at Asher, and then without any hesitation smashed it against the side of mirror Asher's head with as much force as he could muster.

---

Matt took note of where the scanner was just in case they needed it and nodded to Kay.

"May the weaver be with you." Armin told them. "our one... not this universes'." Yeah, he feared this universe, being all reversed as it was wouldn't have a benevolent god.

Kay smiled softly, nodding back.

Let's get this over with then. He told Starr.

"Wow, what a temper tantrum." Merith snickered, "Need someone to wipe for you, too?"

"May the Weaver keep you safe" Starr said, turning to Aramin and bowing her head. Yeah, she had been reading their book a lot. She looked back to Matt again and nodded "The next floor down is nothing but slave cells, the one below that the guards, all of them half dragons." She informed then looked to Kay again "Alright, lets get our friends."