#41 Relentless

The sound of lights clicking on pierced the mutated Orso Knox's sensitive hearing, waking him up and instinctively making him growl as he knew who had come to see him. The poor man turned monster currently resided in a sleek containment cell with high-level security door and walls so strong even he couldn't break out. He didn't know how long he had been there, but it was certainly several weeks if not months as this point; Knox didn't need to guess where he was however as he knew the perpetrator of his transformation was Liv Amara, meaning he had to be at Sycorax.

At even thinking her name, the rich man could feel his anger rising with his emotional and mental states still being in a fragile place, his impulses and bodily needs overriding most of his logical thinking. During his imprisonment though, the long hours of solitude left him little to do but work on focusing his mind again by trying to untangle his thoughts and remind himself he was human. It fortunately seemed to be working as although Orso's senses could still overload when there were bright lights or sounds, he at least was able to keep himself calm at lower levels and have more deliberate control of his actions. The only thing that constantly tormented the mutated being though was his ravenous appetite. Orso could only conclude that his transformation amped his body's metabolism beyond that of most creatures, requiring him to eat the disgusting slop they served him like an animal five times a day; he was powerless to refuse too, lest the pain in his stomach or else fatigue would overtake him.

Now here he laid on the cold, hard floor of his cell, lifting his larger head to see who had come to see him, but they were still in the elevator. Orso then lifted himself onto all fours, slinking back some as he prepped his body into a pouncing position. The green and silver doors of the lift opened up a few seconds later to reveal a tall blonde woman in a red dress and high heels followed by a tall dark-blonde man in a mint-green shirt and jeans, who currently was carrying a coffee and a lemon blueberry muffin.

Liv and Chris were people he was very well acquainted with by now, which is why as soon as they got within 15ft of his cell, he leaped at them with such amazing strength; sadly, like every attempt, he wound up hitting against the orange security doors and falling to the floor in pain. He did this almost every time either of them came by, but they were smart enough to know what he was doing and never opened his cell without fully sedating him first. The mutated man huffed as he slowly got back on his feet, glaring at his captors as Liv and Chris both smirked in response.

"Aren't you getting tired of that old trick Orso?" Liv snidely remarked as she logged into her giant computer.

Chris proceeded to chime in with, "Maybe he hasn't heard about the definition of insanity," earning him a vicious growl from the monster he just insulted. "Sensitive, isn't he?" the young man quickly said before he smugly added, "I bet I could take him if we had to duke it out."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm the one in charge and I say no fighting. I'm not having you damage our valuable test subject," Liv replied with an air of irritability.

"Any more so than him hitting the door several times a day?" Chris sassily inquired, only to receive a death stare from his employer, which shut him up.

The four-legged mutant scowled as he tried with considerable effort to speak, resulting in a lot of gruff, almost coughing-like noises as he choked out, "Freee…meee!"

Turning her head away from her monitor, the young woman in a faux sweet tone told the other, "That's what we're trying to do Orso. We'll have to get you cured first before any of that happens though. Lucky for you, we have another new sample to try on you." She then casually walked over to the cell as she unsettlingly said, "Of course that means we'll have to sedate you, restrain you and take a fresh blood and tissue sample from you, so I'm afraid you're going to lose another day to sleep and feel some pain, but it takes sacrifice to make progress." The mutant admittedly lowered his head some as the dreadful situation played out in his mind, leading Liv to flash a wicked grin. "So that means you better behave today when Chris gives you your meal because it's likely the only one you'll get until this evening," she warned menacingly. She proceeded to snap her fingers, prompting her assistant to set the food down as he went toward the large fridge kept along the far-off wall. Inside it contained giant blocks of a sludge-like meat mixture meant to give Orso a good high calorie diet that sadly was not made with taste being a factor. Chris got two packages out instead of one this time and thanks to his enhanced strength, carried them with ease back to the containment cell.

The tailed-mutant let out a primal growl on instinct, only to be met with a "Tsk" sound from Liv, making him stop as he slowly backed away from the security door, never taking his eyes off of his captors.

"Good boy," the young CEO darkly said, stepping out of the way so Chris could open the door just enough to slide the disgusting meal through. As soon as it was shut again, Orso lashed out as he rapidly ate the meat and made loud chomping and chewing sounds as he went. He had gotten used to the salty taste and slimy texture at this point, but what he truly hated was the degradingness of it all, especially as Liv and Chris watched like people do the elephants at the zoo. The duo eventually turned and went back to the computer console, where Liv took a bite of her muffin and a sip of her coffee before she began typing again.

She hummed to herself as she searched through the Orso Knox file, opening the "Trials" folder and scrolled all the way down to the bottom entry that was labeled "Test #36." The blonde woman double clicked the file and briefly read through to verify its current location in freezer #3. "Chris," Liv simply said, to which her loyal assistant gazed at the screen, nodded and went to the appropriate destination.

The transmogrified man could still be heard munching away as the cold-storage container came into view, prompting Chris to put on a pair of gloves and begin rifling through the various vials. Eventually, he found the #36 labeled one and pulled it out before closing the freezer and heading back. Once he made it to his boss, Liv smiled wickedly in satisfaction as Chris placed the experimental drug safely in a vial port to keep it from being knocked over.

"Time to incapacitate out patient," the young blonde then ordered with a smirk. Although she had said it in a low voice, Orso's sensitive hearing managed to pick up what she said despite his loud chewing. He stopped eating as he backed away from the door, releasing a threatening growl as Chris came to the cell.

"Don't worry. This will be quick and easy," the genetically-perfect assistant told him in an eerily calm voice before he typed a few buttons on the control console.

A small hiss from above alerted Orso to the other's actions, making him look up at the tiny vents he'd never be able to escape through as ether gas seeped in to try and knock him out. The mutant roared as best as he could, but that soon turned into a half-hearted snarl as his body began to feel heavy and he fought to keep his eyes open; if he were a normal human, such a chemical would have been easy to overdose on, but fortunately his current form required a greater saturation to achieve that. After about 30seconds, he slumped on the floor in a haphazard pile with his last view before he lost consciousness being of Chris and Liv watching him in anticipation.

Once Orso was half snoring/half growling in his sleep, the cell was purged of the noxious fumes, followed by the woman in red telling the other, "Get the muzzle on him quick and give him a few sedative patches for good measure, then load him up for surgery."

"I live to serve," the handsome man chirped as he went to the secured storage room 20ft away and opened it. Inside it contained all manner of items pertaining to Knox from the requested muzzle and transdermal patched to a heavy-piercing dart gun and even a large gurney. While Chris was doing this task, the young CEO went to put on a pair of her own gloves as she retrieved the test vial and made her way to a larger secondary elevator, one that went exclusively up to their operating room that was fitted for Orso.

"I'll be back," was all she said as she pressed the up arrow and stepped inside once the silver doors parted for her, allowing her to bring the second to last thing the scientists needed for this procedure.

Chris on the other hand had circled back to the cell with the desired items on the gurney and released the lock on the security door, where he then went ahead and placed four patches on their prisoner as instructed. Orso's back leg twitched a tiny bit when the indigo disks were placed on him, but gave no other signs of waking up. Next swiftly came putting the muzzle over the mutant's massive, powerful jaws, of which Chris had no issues being so dangerously close to. He managed to fasten it with ease and tugged it for good measure to check it wasn't going to slip off.

The inhumanely strong man then got to work on his last task of loading the mutant onto the available rolling bed, which he was able to do once he activated his own enhancements. With a sickening, cracking noise, the young man's form went from well-toned to beyond body-builder levels of bulk as all his muscles grew significantly. Chris soon held the sleeping being in his arms as he hefted the other off the ground and placed him on the gurney, making Orso land with a dull thud on the mattress. The assistant proceeded to return to normal with another round of painful sounds echoing in the lab as he did so, followed shortly by him going for the high-strength straps along the bed. He then fastened all three of them before giving a smirk of satisfaction as he began wheeling Orso to the very elevator his boss had used a few minutes prior.

"Don't worry Mr. Knox. With any luck, this will all be over soon," Chris told the other with an off-putting cheery tone and a big smile. With an audible whoosh, the metal panels opened and the two beings entered the elevator before they were inevitably lifted to another foreboding part of Sycorax.

Everything was dark and numb in Orso's mind until a slice of white stretched across his vision as he attempted to open his eyes when he heard people talking.

"How are his vials?"

"Currently holding steady Miss Amara."

"Any change in his samples?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but we've tried #36 on his blood and tissue samples already at five different dosages and everything is still the same."

A disgruntled huff came before the familiar female voice growled, "This project is draining us. We need either results or more donors because finding a cure is currently more trouble than it's worth."

There was a brief awkward silence before a male voice piped up with, "But we will keep trying, right Miss Amara?"

"Of course we will. It'd be cruel to give up on a fellow human being with a terrible affliction," Liv kindly answered, not missing a beat.

At that last remark, Orso managed to finally open his eyes, only to shut them again from the blinding white lights above him. The mutant was still strapped to the gurney, which didn't matter much since he couldn't feel his body, but he was able to gaze some once his vision became a little clearer. The walls seemed to be shades of green along with what he thought were silver cabinets and a few medical instruments positioned near him. He then could make out a distinctive beeping of a heart monitor as well as feet walking along the linoleum floor. Orso squinted in his groggy state and could make out five figures along the edge of the room with two of them sitting at a table and all of them had white lab coats on.

"Miss Amara, I think he's waking up," came a female scientist and as if to prove it, the beeping noise got a little louder as the mutated man realized they were talking about him and panic started to seep in.

"Then put him under before he becomes a problem," the young CEO firmly ordered, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps coming towards him. A high-pitched whirring sound came and before Orso had a chance to even try and wriggle free, he found himself succumbing to the tranquilizer, slipping into unconsciousness once again as his world went black.

It was several hours later by the time all the drugs wore off, leaving the rich man fatigued and famished from the whole ordeal. When he finally opened his eyes, he huffed in realization at where he was again, another wave of anger and sadness washing over him in the process. The transformed rich man gritted his jaw as he forced himself to stand again, which took a few times due to the weakness in his limbs and lingering effects from the transdermal patches. By the time he rose on shaky legs, his nostrils flared as he smelled a fresh chunk of meat slop that had been left by the security door.

Orso plodded over and started to ravenously bite into it. It was now that he started to register a dull pain from his right arm, but he didn't need to look to know that's where they must have gotten their sample for his DNA. The yellow-eyed monster continued to eat until he finally noticed he wasn't alone in the lab. Once again, his captors stood at the main computer with Liv typing while Chris stood at her side reading over all that she was doing; this sight had unfortunately become part of Orso Knox's cycle of treatment at Sycorax.

After a couple minutes of ignoring him, the CEO eventually stopped her work and walked over to the containment cell, her heels clicking loudly on the floor. "Sorry Orso, but it seems this new serum didn't work as we'd hoped. Maybe we can try again next week," Liv casually said, earning her a growl from the aforementioned mutant. She then scowled at him as she put her face right next to the orange panel and coldly added, "You have no idea how much I've sunk into curing you. Try to show a little gratitude." Orso snarled at her remark as he forced himself onto two legs and slammed his fists onto the security door.

The young woman remained unfazed despite the scary display and merely uttered, "That's clearly not appreciation." Chris promptly came up beside her as the dark brown mutant glared down at them.

"Leeeet…Lee…L…" Orso tried to articulate, only to lower himself onto all fours as he coughed and growled for a few seconds. "Lee…L…" He strained his throat as he concentrated to speak, only to be met with frustration and failure as what came out were more roars and growls.

A thoughtful hum came from the other side of the cell, making the struggling monster snap his head in their direction to gauge what Liv was thinking. "It seems these experimental failings are detrimental not just financially, but are costing you your once human attributes as well. Guess this means you really are getting worse Orso," the biotech specialist informed him with a hint of pity. She then switched to petty before she snidely said, "Looks like we're both in trouble if a cure can't be found, although you definitely got the short end of the straw on this one."

The mutated rich man snarled again, but his intimidation efforts weren't able to have any effect as the CEO and her assistant simply walked away. "Sleep well Orso. We'll be back in the morning," Liv nonchalantly called out to him with an unseen smirk, obviously not concerned enough about the other's fate to show genuine care. They made it to the main elevator, where it opened with a ding and they entered inside, both flashing a look of repugnance at their problem still being unresolved after all this time.

As the doors closed and Orso was left on his own once more, he slowly stopped seething in anger as realization washed over him and allowed an icy grip of fear to flow through him. He laid himself back on the cold, hard floor, both in despair and because he was still weak from today's experiment. The eerie, dark atmosphere of the secret lab only continued to increase his dread at never being normal again and he couldn't help but let out a small whimper at this notion. Orso proceeded to take a few deep breaths in and out to try and calm himself so he could rest; it was when he did this though that it came to him that while he may have just lost the ability to speak, he could still do this simple act of thinking and focusing. So long as he had his mind, he wasn't fully foregone and that he could still say he was human.

Must endure, he kept silently telling himself as he tried to keep a spark of hope lit within him as he fell into an uneasy sleep, which unfortunately were more common than not.

NOTES

Poor Orso Knox to say the least. ;_; ;_; ;_; Based on what we saw in "Prey Date," it seemed as though despite not being able to talk and being even more sensitive to lights, sounds and smells, Orso at least had his mind/humanity since he was able to save Hiro and realize he needed to get out of Sycorax ASAP. Obviously you know anytime I said "Liv" I meant Diane, but Orso doesn't know that as far as we can tell and I wanted to keep it that way, so hopefully that was okay. I seriously just feel so bad for Orso for everything he had to endure because there is no way it was a pleasant time. ;_;

The next "Cutscenes" will be about Wasabi making a new friend. ^_^