"What is this, what are you... GAH!"

Apparently, they had worse means for coercing her cooperation than she'd first realized. The physical trauma of the LCL over-pressurization had been extremely painful, but that was all it was: pain. After four years in a refugee camp where the older kids would beat her unconscious on a daily basis until she learned how to avoid them and, later, how to fight back and beat them to a bloody mess instead, pain was something she was both all too familiar with and able to shrug off with the ease of experience. But this now... it wasn't just the sensation that her body was being dragged down, it was the mental feeling that she was being dragged down, down, down into some black abyss. It was so different from before. What had changed? Why did she feel like she was drowning within Grendel?

Why? You protected me before, why are you doing this now? Why do I feel so goddamn afraid?

She gritted her teeth against the indescribable sensation, focused only on two things: staying conscious and not throwing up. She didn't want to give any of these bastards the smug satisfaction of her body just giving up and quitting via passing out, and she really, really did not want to have to deal with the unholy mess that would result from vomiting while inside a Entry Plug filled with LCL. And apart from that, she had to stay conscious because she couldn't afford to miss any detail they might reveal as to their identities or what they were so desperate to pry out of her.