Pain, lots and lots of pain.
Nora's body ached so horribly for hours on end, she faded in and out of consciousness. How long this went on was unknown. Flashes of sharp objects, tools slicing, blood splattering, and that awful glowing blue ore echoed in her feverish nightmares. The maniacal laughter of the toons torturing her would startle her awake, only to pass out again from pain.
The pain faded, replaced with coldness. It still hurt, but not nearly as bad. Eventually, Nora woke up with only a little bit of pain. Once her vision cleared, she saw that she was in a prison cell of some kind. She rested on the cold steel floor. A few meters from her was a bowl of water, half empty, along with what she presumed to be a food bowl.
Nora tried to sit up. Everything still ached. Her vision blurred and she fell forward. Someone caught her before she hit the ground again.
"Don't... Hurt..." A weak male voice spoke.
"I... What is...?" Nora asked, trying to reach out and grab something. She grabbed a hard, crystalline mass and held tight to it.
"They... Hurt... Don't... Worry..."
Nora tried to stand up. She could barely feel her legs, but she managed to balance with the help of whoever was holding her steady.
"Thank you..." She weakly rasped out, "I think I can-" she coughed hard, choking on something and spitting up blue goop. She still remained steady as the man never stopped holding her.
"Have... Gotten... Used... It..." The man's voice continued.
Nora stood again, gaining her composure. She looked up at whoever was holding her up, only to scream in terror and wrench herself from the man's grasp. Before her stood an obese man, part human, part rubber hose toon, with disgusting blue crystals jutting out of his poorly stitched together body. He stood there, nearly two feet taller than her, staring menacingly.
"What are-?! What are y-?!" Nora sputtered, unable to get the words out.
It came rushing back to her. Her walking to her car, driving to the gate, the creature standing in the middle of the road, hitting it head-on... Waking up strapped to a table with psychotic cartoons standing over her and...
She shook, trying to forget the events after that. Her body throbbed with pain from the shiver.
"Just... Helping..." Said the monster.
Nora panicked, sputtering out her words, "Stay, stay! Stay away! Stay far away!! Don't come any closer!" Her body hurt more as she screamed at the creature to get away.
The part-man seemed sad, but did as he was told. He backed away to the opposite corner of the cell and turned around, facing away from Nora. She still didn't feel safe sharing a cell with him, but she guessed she would be here with him for a while.
Those freaks... What did they do to me...? I don't know how long it was but... The tools... That blue stuff...
Nora rubbed her face in her hands. Except...
They weren't her hands.
She pulled them back, blinking a few times to make sure she was seeing correctly. Her hands were large and wearing white gloves. Her arms were thin and rubbery, covered in black fur that smelled lightly of ink. Her immediate thought was that it was a costume of some kind, so she tried to remove the arms. But she couldn't. Feeling higher into her left shoulder, she felt the fur end and her own skin begin. Right where the two met, they were firmly fused together. Panic overtook her as she scrambled to the water bowl in the corner. Dumping out the water, she looked at herself in the shiny reflective surface of the bowl.
Her face was hardly her own anymore. Nearly the entire space of it was overtaken by a horrific, yellowed cartoon face. Only one of her own eyes and part of her forehead and hair remained. The rest of her face was gone, now belonging to a face that wasn't her own. The single dead blue eye stared back at her. A clownish red nose sniffled. A large, expressive mouth betrayed her panic and disbelief. This couldn't be her? This couldn't be her? This couldn't be her!
Nora dropped the bowl. It clattered to the steel floor loudly. She hyperventilated, her lungs aching for her to slow down. Heart pounding... Was it even her own heart anymore?... She fell forward again. The creature in the corner rushed to rescue her, catching her just in time before she hit the floor.
Nora was sobbing. She clung to the man and wailed, "What have they done to me?! What have they done to me?!"
"I... I... Sorry..." Rasped the monstrous man.
Nora continued to sob as the man she was previously terrified of held her and attempted to comfort her. This continued for a while until the sound of rusty steel against rusty steel cause both of them to yelp and cover their ears.
Standing on the other side of the prison cell door was their captors. Three toons, each staring at them with a crazed and curious look on their face.
"Well would you look at that," Yakko said, a teasing smile on his face, "Two little toonified lovebirds!"
"They're so cute together!" Cooed Dot.
"Nora and Ralph sitting in a tree..." Sang Wakko, "K-I-S-S-I-!
"You!!" Snarled Nora, standing up. Tears still soaked her face, but she stomped over to the cell door, grabbing the bars and staring at the Warners with rage, "You! You...! You did this to me!!"
"Your observation skills are... Impeccable." Yakko said, a sleazy smile crossing his face.
Nora was in hysterics as she tried to grab for the toon, though he stepped out of her reach. She roared in fury, "How could you do this to me?! I'll! I'll! I'll have every single lawyer in this studio sue you for every penny! You'll be thrown in prison for the rest of your little toon life! Do you hear me?!"
Dot held her ears, cringing, "If we heard you anymore, we'd be deaf!"
"Nora, sweetheart, let me let you in on a little secret," Yakko interrupted Nora's hysterical rant, scowling with disapproval, "Your power as a CEO? Yeah, that means nothing to us. You mean nothing to us. You're nothing more than a dirty hack working for this studio. You're ours now. And if you don't keep your voice down, we're going to have problems."
Nora gripped the bars so hard that if she still had human knuckles, they would be bone white. Her grip loosened and her face fell. Instead of backing away, her cellmate gently removed her from the door, earning an approving nod from the Warners.
"You shouldn't get so down anyways." Yakko continued, his scowl changing to a friendly smile on record time, "After all, you've just been subjected to our experimental procedure: toonification! You're now part toon, fully immortal, and highly radioactive to non-toons!"
Nora yelped as she pried herself away from her cellmate in a panic upon hearing he was radioactive, despite her also being radioactive.
Yakko chuckled at the panic and continued on with his spiel, "But unlike your little roommate there, I am almost 75% certain you won't come apart at the seams and start leaking Warnerium! Be proud Nora Norita, you're the first of a new breed: the animatic half-toon!"
Dot squealed, "I just love how cute she looks! She doesn't have all the icky stuff leaking out of her!"
"I dunno, I think the icky stuff looks cool!" Wakko said.
"You think all icky stuff looks cool." Sneered Dot.
"Regardless," Yakko interrupted his siblings, "Even if you did somehow, someway, manage to slip out of our clutches, we'd find you and drag you back anyways." He flashed a cruel smile to the large man sharing his cell with Nora, "Isn't that right, Ralph?"
Ralph growled, but he clearly was too scared to do anything else.
"So you best get used to it." Yakko continued smiling cruelly, "And if you're lucky, maybe we'll let you out one night so you can bring us a new specimen." He grabbed the bars, eyes wide in a crazed, unblinking stare, "Once we've broken your spirit enough, that is."
He cackled maniacally, his siblings joining in with him. He turned and walked away with Wakko and Dot following, their crazed laughs echoing through the rows and rows of prison cells, full of other human captives turned half-toons. When their laughter finally faded, Nora stood up, searching the cell.
"I can't be here," she screeched, "I can't! I can't!! I have to get out!" She turned to Ralph, "Surely you could get us out of here! You're huge! You can break these bars!"
Ralph just sat there, staring at the floor.
"Ugh! Useless!" Nora snarled. She turned and kicked the bars of the cell as hard as she could with her now toonified foot. They didn't even rattle. She turned back to Ralph, "Why aren't you even trying?! You can't possibly be scared of those brats! They're children!"
Ralph sat there, opening his mouth the speak painfully, "Monsters... They... Are... Monsters..."
Painful visions of the procedure flashed through Nora's mind. She desperately tried to push them out of her mind, "Come on! Please! I'm begging you! I can't stay here! I can't keep looking like this! I'm hideous!"
Ralph continued to sit there, though he was clearly saddened by Nora's pleads.
"You coward!" Nora screeched, "You absolute useless, overweight, freakish coward! You'd rather we die here than actually try to get out! You-!"
"Twenty... Two..." Ralph managed to gurgle out.
Nora froze, "Wh-what...?"
"Twenty... Two..." Ralph repeated, "Years..."
Nora stood there, staring at him. Her face changed as she suddenly began to realize how hopeless her situation truly was, "Ye... Years?"
Ralph nodded slowly.
"That's... That's impossible! That can't be!"
"Have tried... Many times... They always... Always... Get me..."
Nora covered her mouth. She sank to her knees as tears welled up in her eyes. Twenty-two years... Twenty-two years this innocent man had been here. And if he couldn't escape in all those year...
What hope did she have?
Nora began to sob, hard enough that her whole body shook. Ralph silently sat across from her, staring sadly at the floor.
The Warners had returned to their laboratory. Yakko cleaned his hacksaw of the recent operation. He observed the sparkling clean blade, and caught the reflection of his brother trying to steal a jar of Warnerium.
"Wakko, I see you back there." Yakko growled, "Don't eat the Warnerium."
Wakko put the jar back and huffed. The ghostly Warner sister soon approached the eldest brother in a puff of pink smoke and static. She watched him clean the blade with a bored look in her eye.
"So now with Ms. CEO toonified," she broke the silence, "You think the studio is going to go absolutely crazy?"
"Oh absolutely." Yakko replied, putting his hacksaw back with his other tools, "It's only a matter of time before the studio falls into absolute chaos. Without a top dog, they can't make decisions." He smiled knowingly, "But I've been in this studio for long enough to know that they'll get another one."
Dot perked up, "You think that-?"
Yakko cut her off, "I know that." He stood up, taking some of the tools off the table and hooking them on to his belt or hiding them in his coat, "This studio and everyone in it will burn. We're just pushing it ever closer to its end, sister sibling!"
Dot clapped and squealed, "I can't wait! I can't wait! The sooner the better!"
Yakko grabbed both of his siblings, pulling them in for a hug, "Oh it will happen, siblings of mine. It will happen."