Chapter 4: What they'll do…

Madison's POV:

It was beginning to physically hurt.

I had been without touching another being for two or three weeks. I mean who can really remember. There was no telling time in here. With no one to feed off of I became so hungry, mentally and my actual stomach. If a brain could spoil, mine was. My body needed the energy I took from others. I could hardly take it and I swear I started to hallucinate. There was this woman and she kept telling me to keep something safe, but soon after that my body went completely against me and nothing made sense. My head pounded and my stomach lurched with every movement. The room smelled from being in there so long and they refused to clean it out when I upchucked. Each thought was painful and laborious. Somehow the room kept getting smaller on me, taunting me. Saying that there was no way I was going to get out of here because the Reach enjoyed my pain.

"Please," I said banging on where I thought the door was. Who could be sure though? I had seen the room spin too many times to be positive. "Let me out. Just let me go." I continued hitting the door, but no one came.

My fists became numb as the pounding became weaker. Was I even the one hitting the door anymore? Or was it my imagination? I just needed someone anyone to come in, to touch them. It could be Roy for all I cared. I was desperate and detoxing just wasn't an option for me. It hurt too much.

A halo of gas surrounded my head. It poured out of the vents like a noxious waterfall and into my lungs. Pounding on the door one last time my strength left me and I slid to the floor hugging my knees to my chest. "I'll do anything." Silently as if in a dream I slipped away. Consumed by the knockout gas.

~0~

"We offer you our gratitude, Meat." Above me stood the Reach Ambassador, looking into my eyes with pure delight. "You are the key."

Why me?

The Reach Scientist had me strapped down like a lab rat with needles up and down my arms. Whatever they were doing to me felt like they were sucking out the little bit of power I had left. And they had been careful not to touch me when they'd moved me from my prison. Somehow they knew what I was capable of. "I'm not your toy." I spat at him. The effort made me want to heave again.

"Indeed. But you are a Symbiote. Perhaps the last surviving and you are the key."

"The key to what, Bug-face?" I had never heard of a Symbiote. Who was he to call me one?

"Your powers, Meat, they are perfect for breeding more…Metas." The scientist clicked over in the corner as she mixed together vials of, no doubt, toxic chemicals.

"Breeding?" I gulped. The only breeding I was going to do would be with Roy, if I ever got back to him.

"Yes, eventually. If we are unable to—mimic your abilities." The Ambassador grinned. "But so far the process is working perfectly."

"Is it? I'm so glad to hear that."

"Do not talk back, Meat. Or I shall make your kind truly extinct. We do not need you alive to copy your powers."

"We do not?" The Scientist turned.

"We do not," he affirmed.

"Look, I don't even know what a Symbiote is. So teasing me with killing my so called race isn't going to work out well."

"You do not know your own lineage, disappointment."

"I am human or as you call us Meat not Symbiote."

He stared at me grinning, "No, you are not."

~0~

Arsenal's POV:

"We found her…"

"You did? About time."

"Yes, I told you we would."

"Um… thanks, Nightwing."

"She is my sister."

"Yeah—so where is she?"

"Sector 2, the Reach's home planet."