They held a small funeral for Millian. Eamon stood beside Cole as they all shed tears for Millian, the second irangel that died, Nate being the first.

Justin left Tori unconscious in her bedroom as he stood with the irangels mourning Millian's death. He was so young, he thought as he looked at Millian for the last time. Barely finished college. Never got married nor never started to really live a life.

Cole's vacant eyes reached Justin's quiet ones. He stared bleakly at the man who loved the monster that needlessly tortured one of his irangel brothers. He hated the way Justin defended her and could not understand how someone could love such a horrible person. Though Cole wanted nothing more than to kill Tori, Justin stood in the way. Cole didn't want to kill Justin, seeing him as another irangel brother. So the frustration was left unchecked, the violator allowed to live after the victim died. Cole couldn't wait for the day Justin would finally allow him to kill Tori, maybe even join him in killing her. Wonder if Tori will finally come to her senses, Justin thought in mild optimism, but he thought wrong.

Soon as Tori woke up, she knocked the irangels out with the knock-out spray and locked them all in the bed room, using a strong irangel version of the knock-out spray designed to keep them unconscious for a few hours rather than the version that kept humans unconscious for a little over a day.

She stood alone at Millian's grave, quietly reflecting on the second irangel death. When she returned to the glass building, she took all the guns and hid them somewhere in the forest.

Cole was so fed up that he didn't care anymore. Ignoring Justin's warnings and all rational sense, soon as Tori allowed them to leave the confinement of their bed room, Cole lunged himself at Tori. She electroshocked him, but this time even Cole was stunned when his body absorbed the electricity coming out of the Taser-like weapon. Before he could do something once he was out of his surprised state, Tori pulled out the small perfume-sized canister of knock-out spray she started to carry with her at all times and spritzed it at Cole, instantly knocking him out. The others stared, floored.

"Did you see that?!" Camdren said in wide-eyed amazement. "He absorbed electricity! Like a battery."

His body is changing somehow, Tori thought, curious and startled at the same time. Her eyes met Justin's, his eyes sharing the same look. But instead of taking him back to the bed room, Tori carried Cole to the experimentation room. She set Cole on a cot, propping his head up with a simple utilitarian-looking pillow, and used metal cuffs to secure him to the cot so he wouldn't get up and escape.

Disappointed in her, Justin said warily, "Tori, just what are you – "

To his own shock, Tori turned and wordlessly silenced Justin with her electroshock device before he could say further. When he came to, Justin found himself chained to a wall beside Eamon. The wall was cold and uncomfortable. Cole's screams echoed down the hallway, making Justin and Eamon flinch. They both attempted to break out and help him, but this time the chains were secured extra tightly.

"One thing is for sure," Eamon said through gritted teeth. "The next dead body will be Tori's. What she is doing is unforgiveable. It's something I would never do to another."

"Tori has gone beyond reason," Justin said in realization. Tears started running down his face, heartbroken having to watch the woman he loved lose herself.

With each volt, Cole felt his body altering from prolonged exposure to electricity and shock waves. It was a strange electrifying feeling, one nobody was able to feel.

But I feel it.

Cole laid his head back, whimpering as each volt coursed through his entire body like slow electric currents. At times it seemed like his body was welcoming the electricity, but shortly after, it seemed like the electricity was too much for him and became very painful. It hurt like a blade running through, the agony restrained by strange euphoric sensations. It was pain and pleasure at the same time, a concept very foreign to Cole. Sometimes the pain was greater, sometimes the pleasure was greater.

But hate was what flowed through him the most. He hated lying prone and cuffed to the cot, completely at Tori's mercy. He hated feeling vulnerable, especially in the presence of the woman who stole his life and turned it into hell. He couldn't wait to get out of those restraints and choke the living daylights out of her for doing this to him, for putting him and the irangels through this horrible pain, for putting Millian through horrible agony and torture, for putting all the irangels through experimentation for her stupid search for immortality. Sure as hell will never let her find it, Cole vowed in fury. While he was unsure whether such a thing existed, all he cared about was killing Tori and putting an end to her secret irangel experimentation.

Tori subjected the irangels to various genetic and electrical experiments. Justin and Eamon were kept chained to the wall. Whenever they pleaded for her to stop what she was doing to the others, Tori started beating them with a black whip to make them shut up. Blood poured down the walls as she beat Eamon the most, the one who spoke out more often than Justin did. Justin just stood there, stunned that she would hurt them this way. He barely felt the welts, more shocked than anything.

Eamon kept telling Tori to stop, exclaiming, "Tori, stop it! He's in pain!"

Tori just looked at him coldly and said, "Sometimes pain is necessary to achieve – "

"Stop! No! You can't do this!" Eamon shouted, moving furiously against the chains, struggling hard to break out of them.

But the irangels were unable to stop her. Tori headed back to the lab room, her heels loud on the hard floor. Justin sighed, deeply saddened that he was witness to a woman who, with such high potential for much good in life, was becoming ruined by her obsession with ambition.

Even though Tori was set in her ways, Justin still tried to talk her out of it. Despite his fears, Justin was the only one she never experimented on. As Tori approached him one day, Justin looked at her, a pallor of fear all over his face.

"Tori, please don't do this," he begged, fearing it was his turn now. "This isn't necessary!"

She walked up to him and studied him for a moment, then said, "I won't harm you, Justin. I need an original."

A tremor of uneasiness and dread ran through Justin. "An 'original'?" he repeated.

"Yes," Tori answered, placing a hand on his cheek. For a moment, Justin thought she was going to free him. But Tori simply kissed him once, then she left him alone, her heels sounding ominous as they came closer to the experimentation room.

Each irangel was experimented on differently, each one receiving their own form of torture and agony. Cole was kept forced down on the cot as different levels of electricity ran through his body, mutating his n-r elements through electroshock torture. Keith had temperature endurance tests that exposed him to extremes. Eamon and Elisa were strictly put under genetic testing and DNA modification, subjected to biohacking as well. Camdren underwent torture through bright lights constantly flashing and noises that drove him insane, at the same time being heavily infused with elements. Velo was given different vials and was forced to undergo various treatments involving water. And Justin was kept chained to the wall, emotionally tortured by the screams and cries of the irangels being experimented on.

It was nothing short of horrible. Screams ran through Justin's head as Tori experimented on the irangels, getting deep in genetic modification and biohacking, desperately trying to find immortality. She believed a person's natural deadline was a hindrance to becoming the masters of breaking physics and science. She wanted to become immortal so she could create a legacy forever and be able to research for much longer periods of time. "I could even travel to Iredescent and live as one of their own," she said, revealing another of her hidden dreams.

Eamon called her the hot nurse gone wrong. Cole called her a monster. Elisa called her a terrible woman. Camdren told her she was heartless. Keith said "not cool" whenever he spoke to her. Velo called her despicable. Justin tried to get her to return to the way she was before, but Tori ignored all his attempts to lure her back, too immersed in her own darkness that was so far from Justin's light.

Sheer agony pervaded the experimentation room and the surrounding hallway. DNA modifications, infusion of elements, biohacking bodies and minds, and horrible experiments were conducted in secret, deep in the glass building. The results were totally unexpected.

Eamon was so brutally tortured he lost every memory of compassion andgood nature. His mind felt broken, his body spent. Escape and freedom felt more out of reach than ever. He wondered how much longer the pain and agony would last, if this was an ironic forever in leu of the immortality Tori desperately sought to find.

Cole started attracting electricity, absorbing it into his body. It wasn't static buildup, but more like electrons and atoms that molded into his body's n-r element and slowly refined it into something big and powerful. It was like bread rising in an oven, waiting to be fully baked and ready.

Keith's skin became two-toned. Splotches of golden amber, sparkly yellow, gleaming rust orange, and maple leaf red appeared in various areas of his face and body. Elisa joked that Keith had "really turned over a new leaf."

Keith became super sensitive to cold and hot temperatures. He seemed to thrive in mild temperatures. His body tolerated higher and lower temperatures to a certain degree; beyond that certain degree of extreme cold or extreme heat, his skin shimmer faded drastically and his skin took on a dry, lifeless look. His wings became deformed and highly sensitive to any kind of temperature that wasn't room temperature. They stopped dematerializing, able to only stay materialized.

Camdren started exhibiting more signs of being able to melt metals. It was still a surprise ability everyone oohed and aahed about. He became stronger, eventually being able to melt through the metal cuffs and restraints. Tori had to keep knocking him out in order to keep him from trying to escape.

Elisa gained strong resilience to aging. Tori came close to developing a longevity serum that could potentially be the start of immortality, using elements from plants and animals that lived long. Tori carefully studied the creatures that defied senescence, which is the state of gradual deterioration that all humans and lifeforms faced as they came closer to old age.

The serum kept cells from dying and greatly enhanced cellular processes in the irangel body. Creatures such as lobsters were found to never experience senescence due to an enzyme called telomerase that maintains youthful DNA. Levels of telomerase decline in other lifeforms, including humans, after they reach a certain life stage, but it remains never-ending for lobsters. Tori found a way to extract the enzyme, but the Iredescent n-r element kept rejecting it, overriding it with its own element.

Tori kept trying to perfect it. It wasn't immortality, but it prevented aging and dying. Tori combined 'bulletproof elements' to try to create something so that the person would not only live forever, but also withstand death. The serum she subjected Elisa to would prevent aging, a step towards maintaining youthful beauty, but she was still vulnerable to death. Tori searched hard for certain things that protected one from death. Regenerative study and research took a lot of her time.

Time she didn't know she was running out of.

________________

Music:

"alt_Human (3FORCE Remix) [Instrumental]"
by Circle of Dust
<<Tori's theme>>

"Drum Machines of Our Disgrace (Instrumental)"
by Circle of Dust

"Embracing Entropy (feat.Celldweller)"
by Circle of Dust

"Neurachem"
by Circle of Dust

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