Aah, dear friends, ready for more? My operating table awaits you! Let's see, what can I do next? Maybe...graft on an elephant's trunk! Yes, yes... As for Rini, I believe when last we checked, she was at the "mercy" of the good doctor and friends. Has she any hope left of escaping this island asylum! Disclaimers first!
Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, Toei, DiC, Pioneer, and Cloverway, in that order, none of whom are me.
The Island Of Dr. Moreau belongs to H.G. Wells and his descendants(if any), also not me.
This is emphasis, and this is thought. And ((this)) is auditory/visual flashback.
And now, the terror continues...
The Island Of Dr. Tomoe
by Scorpinac
Chapter 6: Learning More Of Turning Beast Into Man
I spent the next several days under close watch, my fellows taking it in turns to escort me everywhere, my only private time being when I was asleep or bathing. Even the trained Beast Folk were issued turns to watch me, and in time I found myself trusting them as much as I did Mimete, Tomoe and Kaolinite having lost any trust I ever had for them at all. As for the other girls present in my own age set, Melanie's attitude did a complete turn around. She now believed me to be the bravest person in the world for having had the courage to walk among the untrained Beast Folk undressed.
As for Hotaru, she still remained heavily under her father's wing, but after what had happened, she did finally begin to warm to me a bit, every now and then wondering aloud what it was that had possessed me to walk into the Beast Folk's so-called town unclothed, unprotected, and unarmed, and every once in a while, when the two of us were alone, incessantly questioning me on what it had been like to pull the trigger on Fiore.
Frankly, it worried me that she was, and thinking on it now and on what was to come to pass later, unhealthily fascinated with death. If only things could have been just a little different between us...
The only person who didn't ever take a turn following me around like a dark shadow was Tomoe himself, who was too occupied with his research and experiments. Five days after my final attempt at escape, he and Kaolinite brought the Cougar out of the laboratory, which was now fully transformed into a man, or at least close to one, its hands only four fingered, its face still retaining fresh scars and elements of the feline it once was. Tomoe told us its, or more precisely, his, name was now Motoki.
Tomoe then spent the next few days teaching and training Motoki, trying to make him even more human, or at least, more than he was. As I observed these sessions, I saw pride blossom in the cat-man whenever he grasped a new concept or understood a new idea, and shame when he fell short. It was almost touching, in its own, unusual way.
I also took the time now to observe the other trained servants of the compound, having little else to do with my time. I eventually saw that Nephrite, whom the other trained Beast Folk saw as a leader, third only to the Sayer of the Law and Tomoe himself, to be born most likely from a lion, his hair actually his mane, or what was left of it. Unazuki, whose seemingly sole duty around the compound was to mind the door, I believe was once a jackal.
As I have previously stated, Kyusuke was carved from a rottweiler, Greg from a chimp, and Jadeite from a mountain goat. Catzi, who drove the launch from the Nemesis to the island, and also aided in the kitchen, I decided was originally a panther, her movements catlike and graceful. And until this point, I had not really thought to get the names of the other trained creatures.
The creature in primary charge of the kitchen was Zoicite, who I initially thought to be a girl, but was in fact male. He was born from a jaguar, and was both a bit vain about his appearance, and very finicky about what was and was not brought through his kitchen. Another of the compound assistants was Umino, born of a kangaroo, and still bearing his original ears. He was very smart, and tried to help me understand the scientific books in the library when I finally decided to try and read them, to no avail.
The other two who had been on the Nemesis with Mimete, Jadeite, and Kyusuke were Haruka and Joe. Joe was made from a zebra, I believe, and Haruka a Cheetah, though much finer work than Kakeru. Joe generally kept to himself, and seemed content with performing his assigned chores and tasks. Haruka had more pride to her, and she tended to do things speedily, yet both throughly and correctly. She also felt it a waste of her time and skills to be watching over a "slow poke" like me, which she repeated to me every chance she got.
As the days went by, I also noticed some of the untrained Beast Folk being brought in from the jungle, usually begging for forgiveness and not to be taken back to the "House of Pain." When I saw that they were always taken straight to the laboratory, well, it didn't take me long to figure out exactly what they referred to when they mentioned this "House."
I eventually asked Mimete about it, and she told me that, as Tomoe had informed me the night he "explained all," the serum she had created to halt the Beast Folk's regression was only temporary, and thus the Beast Folk had to be given regular injections to keep them "human".
"We usually go out and give them their injections once a week," Mimete told me. "But unfortunately, various of the creatures invariably slip away come injection time, and eventually have to be sought out and 'dragged' back to the compound, not only for another injection, but for a quick follow up on the original creation 'procedures'."
"A follow up?" I asked her.
"Yeah, Dr. Tomoe basically checks it over, makes an additional augmentation or two, that kind of thing," Mimete replied. She glanced at my utterly confused stare, and giggled mirthfully. "That is to say, he does a little more surgery to make them a little more like people and less like animals, Rini."
"Ah, right, I knew that!" I stated. She then turned to take in the newest arrival, a man carved from a boar or wart hog, still retaining the remnants of his tusks, which I think I heard someone call Ken...
Before long, the days started turning into weeks, and roughly four weeks or so after my two aborted escape attempts, I was finally allowed to wander on my own again. My first stop, as I'd been barred from it since the day I'd killed Fiore, was Greg's tower. When I got to the top, he looked surprised to see me.
"Little Mistress?" he blinked.
"Hi, Greg," I greeted him. "I don't suppose there's been any word on a boat to take me home since we last spoke up here?" I did my best to keep myself calm, detached, like it didn't really matter to me either way.
Greg just looked at me, then pointedly turned his eyes away, clearly nervous and unsure of what to tell me. I waited patiently, not planning on leaving until I had an answer. Finally I started tapping my foot, to let him know I was still there. He began shifting uneasily, clearly wanting me to go, or at least change the subject.
"Greg!" I finally growled. "Is there something I should know?" Greg's shoulders finally slumped, and he turned to me with sympathy in his eyes.
"Don't you like island?" he asked. "Is to live here really so bad?"
"I don't want to live here!" I snapped. "I want to go home! I want to see my mom and dad again! I wanna see my nan and my friends and be in familiar places without monsters and loonies trying to defy mother nature!" Greg seemed to shrink a little bit, clearly afraid of me, and I forced myself to calm down a little bit. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just a little stressed out..."
"Is okay," Greg answered. "Can you not...learn...to like island? To see it as...home?" just before I let loose another tirade, my brain decided to actually put things together for me, pointing out the overly obvious.
"He's had you retract the request, hasn't he?" I asked, feeling my last hope slipping away. "Dr. Tomoe's never gonna let me leave..."
"Those are...orders...from doctor," Greg confirmed. I felt like screaming, crying, and spewing forth every bad word I'd learned since leaving the Millennium all at once. I remember clenching my fists tightly, as I tried to hold back my anger, and then I departed the tower, and went straight to Tomoe, who was working with Motoki in the den.
"...and then you move the "R" over here, see?" he was telling his latest "man". Motoki glanced at me as I came in the door.
"R..r...rittle istress," he grunted out, his vocal skills still touch and go at that moment. But it was more than enough to get Tomoe to turn and see who it was that had come in. He seemed uninterested in seeing it was me.
"Yes, Rini?' he asked.
"Why!" I snapped out, not really thinking about what I was doing.
"Why...what?" he arched an eyebrow.
"Why did you tell Greg to cancel the boat!" I snapped again.
"It's not needed anymore," he said simply, and started to turn back to Motoki. But I wasn't quite finished.
"Not needed!" I yelled. "But you said you would get me transport home! You promised! Remember!"
"So I did," Tomoe turned fully toward me. "But that was before you broke the rules we laid out for you. That was before you stuck your nose where we expressly forbid you to. That was before you learned our deepest secrets! That was before you tried to run away!"
"YOU CAN'T KEEP ME HERE!" I roared.
"Can't I?" Tomoe smiled, almost wickedly. "Greg's picked up radio news reports stating quite equivocally that all searches for remaining unaccounted-for-personnel from the H.M.S. Millennium have ceased. Anyone not yet located has been declared legally dead. As far as the world is concerned, Rini, you've been in Heaven for the last two months!"
"What..." I felt all my anger and rage seep out of me. "But I'm not..."
"As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you are," Tomoe calmly stated. "Your parents have given up on ever seeing you again, Rini. They've probably already had a funeral for you, put up a gravestone for you over an empty plot, and before long they may even start working on replacing you."
"No!" I screamed. "They wouldn't! They'd never replace me! I'm their dearest, most precious little girl! They've told me!"
"But to them, you're dead," Tomoe grinned nastily. "They've nothing else to give their love to."
"Then help me get home!" I felt ready to beg. I practically was.
"Mmm...nope," he replied. "If you'd kept your nose to yourself, I might have considered it. But now, well I can't have you blabbing my secrets to the world, can I?"
"But I won't!" Now I knew I was begging. "I promise! I swear to you I won't say anything about your work, honest! Besides, who'd believe me!" I was hoping that Mimete's logic on the situation would persuade him. I was wrong.
"I recall you promising not to look in the lab, and not to go off into the jungle by yourself," he said. "And then you went and broke those promises, didn't you?"
"But..."
"No, Rini, you have brought this on yourself," he declared, beginning to turn back to the waiting Motoki. "You shall not leave. But if you're especially good and well behaved, maybe I'll, eventually, allow you to journey out with Mimete to collect fresh animals and supplies from the world. Maybe..."
I felt my heart shatter. I had no reason to disbelieve him, no reason to think he would lie to me, not at this point, anyway. So I ran, right to my room, and threw myself upon my bed and buried my face in my arms upon the pillow.
And cried...
More time passed, a couple of weeks, I think, and then I made my next stupid choice. I was quietly strolling around the compound, considering asking Mimete if she thought I'd be allowed to go down to the beach to go for a swim or not, when she, Hotaru, and Jadeite came back from their latest trip to the untrained Beast Folks' town to administer injections with three of the Folk in a wagon; Malachite the ape, a young tiger-woman I hadn't met formally yet, and Kit. I stared at the cat-girl, the dress I had given her now rather dirty and a bit ragged. Her eyes stared up at me pleadingly.
"Please!" she cried to me. "No House of Pain! Am true Five Man now! Not need punishment! Please, little Mistress!"
"What did she do?" I asked Mimete calmly, "Other than not take her medicine?"
"She bounded away from us," Hotaru answered before Mimete could. "On all fours! As you are now well aware, that is not allowed to them. They are human! Not animals!"
"I don't think they're either, Hotaru," I glanced at her crossly. "I don't know what to think they are."
"Suit yourself," Hotaru waved it off.
"We need to take them in now," Mimete tried to smile, but I could tell she was starting to question the "good doctor", I having told her how I was now a prisoner here after I'd cried myself out the day I learned the boat had been canceled and the world believed I was dead. I took a deep breath to keep my focus clear before I spoke again.
"I don't suppose I'd be allowed to go down to the beach to have a swim?" I asked my original question. I heard a hiss from Kit, and glanced down to see her staring at me madly. "I can't help you, Kit, even if I wanted to. The doctor wouldn't let me, and I wouldn't know how, anyway."
"But...am Five Man..." Kit wailed in despair.
"Only in mind, Kit," Malachite growled. "You were never true Five Man! Only thought you were so..." I turned away, not wanting to listen.
"Um...well, I suppose it would be alright..." Mimete answered my question then. "We should probably run it past Dr. Tomoe, though..."
"Hey, so long as she isn't planning to try and swim away, I don't see a problem," Hotaru grinned. "Hell, I might even join you. Been hot lately."
"Will Melanie be joining us, too?" I asked. Hotaru just gave me the strangest look right then, which, frankly, should have told me something. I just didn't want to "hear" it.
"She doesn't do water," Hotaru quipped, and she and Mimete finished moving the cart into the courtyard, and with some of the trained Beast Folk's help, moved the three inside. As they were taken inside the laboratory, Dr. Tomoe appeared, his hair wet, which told me he'd probably just taken a bath of his own, and began to follow them in when a new spur of curiosity hit me full in the butt.
"Doctor..." I spoke up, feeling very timid. He turned to glance at me. "Um...could I... watch?"
"Watch?" he asked me, staring at me pointedly. "Watch what?"
"Your work..." I replied timidly. "I...I wanna see what you do...how you do it...make them more human, and less animal..." I stopped then, losing my nerve, but he just stared a moment longer, then his lips stretched into a large smile.
"Of course you can!" he said. "Come on in!" And with that, he opened the door and let me in, walking in just behind me. Within, the laboratory looked pretty much the same as the last time I'd gone inside it. The items in the sink previously had since been cleansed, and put away in their proper places around the room, a fresh set had been prepared by the waiting Kaolinite, and the tiger-woman was now strapped to the table.
Tomoe instructed me to stand to one side of the table, and watch only, handing me a small surgical robe, gloves, a cap, and a mask to wear, in case of splatter should they have to cut inward, he told me. The mask really only covered the bottom of my face, my mouth, chin, and nose, leaving my eyes clear and un-blocked. The cap, he instructed me, went on top of my head and had to have all of my hair placed up inside of it tightly, so as to keep it from dropping into any open incisions on the unfortunate patient. He, Mimete, and Kaolinite all donned similar outfits, and went to work.
I watched carefully as Tomoe and Kaolinite examined and perused the creature, talking about her as though she were nothing more than a broken toy. Mimete administered an injection of something, presumably the serum she invented to keep the Beasts "human", and then I got a real shock.
Hotaru, who had stepped aside to do I do I know not what, stepped back over to the table, dressed in a similar gown and mask to the rest of us present. She moved the fresh surgical tools over a bit, and when Tomoe asked for a scalpel, she immediately picked up the surgical knife and handed it to him.
I felt mesmerized. As Tomoe and Kaolinite performed what looked like a simplistic enough procedure - it looked like they were adjusting the hip bone, or something in that area - whenever they required a tool, they would call the name - scalpel, forceps, tongue(whatever that tool was), tweezers, splint, etc. - and Hotaru would instantly hand it over.
"Hotaru?" I asked quietly, not wanting to break the three doctors' concentration, lest I get in even bigger trouble than I already was. "Do you always help?"
"Of course I do," Hotaru replied. "I enjoy assisting father with the experiments, sometimes he let's me perform the incisions, and has even walked me through a transplant and graft. He's even allowed me to go solo once, but I got the suturing wrong a bit, but I've been practicing during these follow ups. Father thinks I should be ready to solo on a full conversion again with the next beast. We're gonna do a wolverine!" The last comment was with a zeal in her voice that made me decidedly uncomfortable.
And then the tiger-woman screamed in obvious pain, and I suddenly realized it was still awake! I felt horrified, and couldn't hold my tongue. I grabbed Tomoe's sleeve, gaining his attention.
"Shouldn't she be asleep right now?" I asked. "Or full of pain killer drugs, like what my dentist uses when he has to drill a cavity?"
"The procedure is more informative when they are conscious," Tomoe explained to me simply. Mimete looked like she was trying not give any input on this, though her face told me she had her own feelings about this.
"Besides, the pain will give them motivation not to miss another injection," Kaolinite stated. "One of our most basic tenants. Motivation plus incentive equals compliance and obedience. A very simple equation, really." Just then the tiger woman screamed again, and Hotaru grinned through her mask.
"Ooh, I think Beryl really felt that one!" she said, sending a chill up my spine. I stared at the tiger-woman again, trying to decide what to do, if I should do anything. I glanced to Mimete for advice, an opinion, something... She glanced back, and sighed.
"I'd be lying if I said I agreed," she stated. "But the doctor keeps close tabs on the anesthetics and sedatives. I couldn't ease her even if I wanted to. And believe me, I want to!" I found myself sighing, too, then, and shortly thereafter Hotaru and Tomoe sewed Beryl up, proclaimed her done, for now, and Hotaru wheeled her away with Kaolinite, the two returning shortly thereafter with Malachite, but on a different table that was still clean, and basically repeated the same procedures, though a bit differently.
By the time they finished with him, another curiosity entered my mind, and wanting to forestall what I knew was coming next, I voiced my question aloud.
"Hotaru?" I asked. "When did you start helping your father?"
"She was three the first time she toddled into the lab and tried to help her daddy," Tomoe answered while they sutured Malachite's new wounds closed. "We caught her before she could hurt herself, and she told us she was, quote, 'dying of boredom and loneliness', end quote." He finished up, and gave the signal, and Hotaru and Kaolinite took him away. At this point he and Mimete turned and removed their surgical gowns, washed up, and for a moment I though they were done for now, but then they retrieved clean gowns, etc., and slipped into them, ready for the last follow up of the day...Kit.
"After that," Tomoe continued unabated. "I made Hotaru a friend to keep her company, a 'sister', if you will." he seemed to look at me, as though I should have been able to guess who or what he was talking about. Just then Kaolinite and Hotaru, having also switched out their slightly bloody surgical outfits for fresh clean ones, rolled in with Kit, who looked absolutely terrified lying there.
"Please..." she begged. "Little mistress..." I turned myself away, looking at Hotaru who's eyes looked quite eager to begin.
"So, when were you allowed to...to help?" I asked, feeling a little timid, and trying not to scream out against hurting Kit, as it would get me nowhere, or her.
"Father first let me come in and actually watch when I was seven," Hotaru answered. "A few months after that, he allowed me to hand out the tools, and it was about when I was eight that he started teaching me how to do this myself."
"Seven!" I gulped. "Eight!"
"I considered her old enough to handle the work without hurting herself at that point, provided one of us was with her to hold her hands steady," Tomoe commented lightly. They proceeded, and as they adjusted her hips a little to try and make her more solidly two-legged, she began to buck slightly, and Tomoe grabbed my hand and placed it against the suture.
"Hold this while I tie it off!" he ordered. A glance told me Mimete and Kaolinite were using most of their strength just to hold her down, and Hotaru was rabidly using an instrument to keep the area clear of blood and other fluids. I felt sick, sicker than ever. Here I was, actually helping these people hurt Kit! And I wasn't even trying to pull away.
Not that I really had the time, Tomoe completed the suture in no time, and then finished up, completing Kit's augmentation. Shortly thereafter Kit was rolled away with the other two, and we all washed up, Tomoe intending to spend more time working with Motoki.
As we left the laboratory, Tomoe placed a hand on my shoulder.
"And now, Rini," he said with a sinister grin, "You are truly one of us. Welcome to your new home." I felt a shudder of hate, rage, and sickness wash through me, and dashed away. As fast as I could, I went right for the bathroom down the hall from my room, went inside, stripped off my clothes, and hopped in the bathtub. I scrubbed myself furiously, making myself bleed in a few places, but I didn't really care.
I had never felt so dirty before in my life. I now felt I couldn't go home. I had helped them! I was part of their madness, their "team". How could I possibly face my parents, my friends, anyone now?
And thus, it ends. Nah, just fooling. Next time, the "good" doctor gets a big surprise. And he won't be alone in that, either. Don't miss it now!
R&R!