The man did end up doing some tests on me, but not as severe as I was expecting. Not at first at least. It was a lot like the tests that Steven first did on me, meaning he took a lot of blood samples, fluid from my eyes, and samples of scar tissue. It started out small, and virtually painless, but it escalated when the man didn't have the information he needed, or something like that. So, the testing got more invasive, painful, and borderlining on torture. The man did in autopsy on me, or at least as much of one as he could do without killing me. 

The man was merciful enough to put me under during the procedure, but I woke up while he was stiching me back together, and found myself tied down and gagged. I cried out in pain, feeling everything that was being done to me. I felt the needle stab into me, felt the pull of the thread as it ran through me, and felt some other person burning the parts of me that were still wide open, to keep my blood from pooling out and getting in the man's way. I screamed into the gag, pulling at me restraints and finding that it was no use, because I couldn't get free. 

When it was finally over, I was dragged back to the cell Steven and I were in, and dropped onto the floor. Steven immediately rushed over to me, and was asking me what was wrong, looking me over hurriedly, but not willing to touch me in case he hurt me further. 

"What did he do?" Steven asked. I groaned in pain as I weekly lifted my shirt up to show Steven what happened. 

"He dissected you. Did he as least put you under?" Steven asked. 

"Yeah, but I woke up while he was giving me the stitches. I felt all of it." I responded, pulling my shirt back down and resting against the ground. 

"Jesus Christ." 

"I'll be ok. They wouldn't let me die. I'm valuable to them."

"It's messed up, but you're right."

As it turned out, Steven, Warren, Jess, and I weren't all there simply for the sake of torture and having us there. We were being kept there until the day of what could be considered a messed up court trial. A man in a nice suit was taken to mine and Steven's cell one day, and escorted me out with him. He took me all the way out of the building we were in, and put me in the passenger seat of his car. 

"Where are we going?" I asked, not even trying to sound friendly. 

"You have a meeting. It's something in between a trial and a press conference, and it's going to determine what happens to you. You'll have a chance to state your side of things, and hopefully win people over. I'm supposed to help you with that by telling you what to say and what not to say, things like that. I'm pretty much our lawyer." The man responded. 

"Who are you?"

"My name is Michael. I promise I won't hurt you Gillian."

"What's going to happen to my friends?"

"They'll be used as witnesses. They're going to help you. I have a few other people lined up that are going to help you too."

"Will we be let go after this?"

"Your friends will, yes, but you'll only be let go if we can convince certain people that you're not a threat." 

"Oh boy."

***

Walking into the room where the meeting was being held was an adventure in and of itself. The room was full of people who were sitting in rows and rows of seats, including a balcony full of people that stretched along all by the very end wall of the room. At the very end of the room, was a long table with a bunch of people with pens and notebooks. I guessed they were the people I was supposed to convince I wasn't a threat to. 

A little bit in front of the long table was a shorter table with two chairs at it, and another one just like it a few feet away. In between the two tables, was a smaller table with one chair at it. Hanging on the wall above the long table was a camera that was recording everything. The whole thing really was set up like a courtroom, and I couldn't help but feel like I was about to be sentenced to death as Michael and I walked up to one of the tables with two seats. We sat on the one on the left, and on the right was the man who cut me open and stuff, and another man in a suit. 

Sitting in the front row directly behind me were Steven, Warren, and Jess, along with two people I didn't know, and Mike and Bell. I turned around in my seat and looked directly at Mike and Bell who looked really confused, and rather frightened.

"Gill! What the hell is going on?" Bell asked me, seemingly trying to keep her voice down.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure. Apparently I'm supposed to try to convince a bunch of people that I'm not a threat to them." I responded. 

"Why are we here then?" Mike asked me. 

"I think you guys are witnesses." I looked around at everyone in the room, and at the lawyers, and everything going on before looked back at my friends. "Look, I'm pretty sure you guys are about to hear a lot of messed up shit, and there's something that I want you guys to hear from me first." 

"What is it?" Mike asked, he and Bell both leaning a bit closer. 

"Warren and Steven aren't my dads. They're not in a relationship either. I only know them because they helped my old friend Ty with his superheroing, and now they're helping me. My real parents are abusive shits, who don't even care that I haven't been to there apartment for months. I'm sorry I lied to you guys, I really am. I just didn't want you guys to know the truth. It's not something I like to talk about, and I saw an opportunity to keep it from you guys completely, and I took it. I really am sorry." Mike and Bell were both silent for a little while. They stared at me for a moment, looked to each other, then looked back to me as they both leaned forward to capture me into a crowded, but loving and comforting hug. 

"We understand." Bell told me, her voice muffled by my shoulder.

"Thank you guys. I'm sure this situation is stressful for you." I said. 

"Honestly, we're more concerned about you." Bell told me as her and Mike pulled out of the hug and sat back in their seats. 

"What do you mean?"

"You've been missing for weeks. We were just about to ask our parents to call the cops when some random guys came bursting into our house and took us."

"You guys get to go home after this right?" If I found out that Mike and Bell were being held captive like Steven, Warren, Jess, and I were, there would be hell to pay.

"Yeah we do." Bell responded, and I let out a sigh of relief. "Do you get to go home after this?"

"Depends on how well this goes." Soon after that, the meeting started. 

I watched as a man at the end of the long table stood up, and started reading off of a paper. He was talking about how the meeting, or whatever it was, was being held to discuss whether or not I, a superhuman mutant, as they called me, was a danger to society. It was established that both sides of the argument would present their cases and call upon witnesses to do so, much like in a trial, then both sides would be able to give a statement at the end in an effort to convince the people at the long table to take their side. 

I was needless to say, very nervous. I knew that I wasn't an actual threat to society, but the fact still remained that I had killed fifteen people total since getting my powers, I was very powerful, we didn't know the extent of my powers, and I did spend a lot of my nights beating people up. What I did wasn't exactly legal, whether it was to help people or not, and I knew that all of that would work against me. I was scared that if I lost, I would have to go back to wherever I was before that day, and be left to be experimented on more. 

And that's when it hit me. 

Despite all of the claim that I was a danger to everyone, I never once broke into anyone's house, and started attacking the people that lived there. I also never electrocuted anyone in an effort to get them to submit to me, or chained anyone to the floor of a cold stone room. It was everyone on the other side of the argument that did things like hold a gun to Steven's head to make me go with them, and performs an autopsy on me, and continued putting me back together even after I woke up. 

The man and his lawyer were the first ones to talk. The man went on about how they didn't know what I was capable of, but they knew that it took nine members of a squad team to finally subdue me, and that I killed all of them. He showed pictures of the soot stains and stuff that were all over Steven's lab, and videos that he pulled from the internet and security cameras of me beating up groups of criminals. All of this was to prove that I could hurt plenty of people if I wanted to, and that it was hard for any normal man to stop me. 

"No one should be aloud to have as much power as Gillian has." The man's lawyer said. "He's virtually unstoppable, and could do pretty much whatever he wants without consequence. We endanger ourselves, and our children by letting him run around, beating people up as he pleases, and using his powers to kill members of our police force when they try to stop him. Not to mention, it has been admitted by everyone of Gillian's helpers that none of them know how powerful Gillian can get, or if they've even discovered all of Gillian's powers. I believe that if he gets determined enough, Gillian could easily wipe out half the country with a single blast, and then just walk free. He's dangerous."

After that, it was Michael's turn to speak. He gave some opening statements about how I'm only as dangerous as I choose to be, and only as dangerous as people make me. Then he started calling up witnesses. Steven, Warren, and Jess were all asked questions about who I was as a person, and things like that, which wasn't all that surprising, and none of that really changed anything. What did change something, was when Michael asked Steven about the cell he and I were being held in. It was obvious that the man and his lawyer were trying to keep the dungeon like prison cells, but it was foolish of them to think that none of us would have said anything about it. 

"So, no one has been in your house for the past few weeks. Why is that?" Michael asked Steven, who was sitting in the chair in between the two tables. 

"Some people from the government came to our house and started to ransack my lab. Some people from the swat team came in and started attacking us. After that, we were taken to some building somewhere, where Gill was changed to the floor, and we were thrown into what looked like a dungeon. We've been kept there this whole time." Steven responded. 

"Against your will?"

"Yes. We tried to get out, but Gill and I just got thrown into a different cell, and I don't know what happened to Warren and Jess." Steven and I both had a hard time with being separated from Warren and Jess, because we were both afraid that they were in trouble. 

"What was it like for you in the cells?" 

"It was bad. Some people would randomly come and get Gill, and if he refused to go with them, they would hold a gun to my head and threaten to shoot me. When Gill would come back, he was usually tired, sad, and sometimes hurt."

"Were all of your needs being met?"

"We were fed every meal if that's what you mean. But besides that, we were treated worse than prisoners."

"Thank you for your answers." 

The next people to be called up to the seat were Mike and Bell. I was worried about what they would say, or what they must have been thinking about me at the time. They had heard, and seen, a lot of things about me, and I was sure that their opinions of me had been shifted from what they originally were. I wouldn't have been surprised if after all of this, Mike broke up with me, and neither one of them wanted to be my friend anymore. 

Mike was the first one to be talked to. He was asked questions about how I was as a friend, and how I was as a student. Bell was asked the same questions too, and they both answered honestly, talking about how I always treated them very well, and was a quiet student. They talked about how me being superhuman hadn't ever really made my relationship with them any different that their relationships with regular people. I really appreciated them saying nice things about me, even after everything they had heard.

"Mike, have you ever been afraid of Gillian?" Michael asked Mike when he was at the chair. Mike looked almost offended by the question. 

"No. Never. He's never, ever, given me any reason to be afraid of him. He's never even so much as snapped at me, much less try to kill me or something." Mike responded. 

"Are you afraid of him now? After everything you've heard?"

"No. Look, Gill is a good person. I don't care how many people he's beat up, because I've known about him being Sunshine for a while now, and I know that he only beats up, never kills, people who deserve it. And it doesn't change anything to me that Gill accidently killed people who were hurting him and his family. Gill is a good person." I felt like I was about to cry. Mike was so nice to me. 

"That's what we're trying to prove."