Ella

"Ella? Ella!"

The sound of her name had her raising her head wearily. She'd been periodically gassed for the past few days and separating fact from fiction was getting harder and harder. Everything was starting to merge into a giant blur where she was beginning to have a hard time differentiating between herself and Sphinxie, much to both of their horror.

Her eyes met those of Morris a few feet away. He was currently inhabiting one of the previously empty cylinders. Like hers, the only things in it were him and a mostly flat pillow. None of the cylinders had blankets, and the Amazon's didn't even have a pillow. She'd used it as a makeshift weapon at one point and gotten it taken away.

At that thought her head turned towards the Amazon's cylinder. She noticed that more of the cylinders were filled. The Amazon was leaning against the glass, facing away from her. Ella could tell that her arms were crossed and that she was muttering in some weird Greek dialect.

"Why are you here, Morris? Weren't you somewhere safe?" Ella asked slowly. Her throat was burning more than usual and hated the new exercise.

"Paul said we had to come," Morris replied. He looked over and Ella followed the gaze to see Paul slumped against the glass of his cylinder, unconscious. "He put himself under, so he's okay for the moment. Let's talk about you, bright star."

"Don't feel so bright," Ella mumbled. She both did and didn't want to swallow.

"You've been gassed at least three times since we got here, and this is the first time you've woken up." Morris paused, looking as if he was counting in his head. "That makes it nearly a week with no consciousness from you."

"They want to see Sphinxie," Ella admitted. She hated that her voice sounded so faint and worn. Just what was she doing while unconscious?

"At least you woke up before they came for you," Morris said. He slammed a fist into the cylinder's glass, causing it to shake slightly.

"It's okay. I'm strong," Ella soothed. She winced as she subconsciously tried to clear her throat.

"Paul said to just hang on. He said we had to come because that's the only way that THEY'LL get mad enough to do something." Morris blew out a hard breath before sinking to his knees. "Ella, you have to be strong. If they get their hands on Sphinxie…"

"I know," Ella said. Sphinxie was stronger than her, so much more stronger than her, and she had told her that she was sealing off Ella's powers until Ella was strong enough to use them properly. "Sphinxie's sleeping, I think."

Morris opened his mouth to say something else and paused. His eyes looked upwards. Ella didn't need him to say anything as she felt the first cold particles of the sleeping gas descending from the ceiling of her cylinder.

*****

Sphinxie chewed on the corner of her thumb. It was a new habit she'd developed at some point in the past few days. Ella had vanished out of her space, saying that she was going to buy them some time.

That had been shortly after the raid on the lab. She hadn't seen Ella since, though she'd been harshly tempted to surface a few times. Each time, Ella had held the door to the space firmly shut. It had been the accompanying panic that had stopped Sphinxie from insisting.

Sphinxie sat on the bed that Ella had installed. She stared at the murky walls of the mental space, watching the faint shimmer of force shiver across it.

She knew that it was too early for her to come out, no matter how much she really wanted to. She was waiting patiently for the onset of puberty before she loosened the reins on the metamorphosis that Ella's body needed to withstand the pressure of their power.

Sphinxie had thought about it a lot since she'd come to being a few years earlier. Unlike Ella, she understood a lot of the science and pseudo-science of the labs they'd previously inhabited, a relic of being Court and Jebediah's favorite 'little sister.' Jebediah had liked to absently explain things while he conducted experiments, and Court, being raised by strange parents, never thought that age was a factor in learning anything.

Sphinxie understood that she was a facet of Ella's personality, created by the initial stress of Ella using her power. Recognizing the destruction being wrought by it, Sphinxie had shut it down as hard as possible, rendering Ella a 'normal.'

She'd hoped that that would be her designation until they were old enough to protect themselves.

Even now, bits of the power were leaking from Sphinxie's control. Ella could hear things whispered from far away if she concentrated and radio waves were starting to sound like conversations being held a few feet away.

Ella was starting to learn to control the strength of these little bits, but there was so much more to their power than those little trinkets.

The wall that Sphinxie was looking at started to shake instead of shimmer. It became so bad that a sliver of the real world peeked through, showing a small glimpse of a lab with bright lights and bright-eyed researchers, both human and alien, staring at Sphinxie with avid expressions.

Sphinxie snorted. With a wave of her hand, the glimpse disappeared and the wall returned to normal. This was the worst it had been.

She sent out a tendril of consciousness towards Ella and met with quiet. It seemed that Ella was in a deep sleep.

"So, that's the current plan, eh?" Sphinxie muttered to herself.

She stood up and started pacing around the bed.

After a few revolutions, she stopped. Sphinxie shook her head.

"I have no idea what to do about this, but…" Sphinxie allowed her voice to trail off as she turned decisively towards a corner.

A small door marked 'Memories' stood there.

"She did like watching those weird shows. Maybe one of them would have a temporary solution?" Sphinxie murmured as she opened the door and disappeared through it.