trans_9 | Part 3: Myself Despised, Forsaken [closed]

For now, some of them were in what looked like some sort of containment area, under guard of robots. Escape wasn't impossible, however.

Especially if they had a helping hand.

[ooc: Going to go with posting order this time, same order as in the subject.]

The main problem, as Zuko saw it, was he would only get one chance to succeed at escape by fire, if it was possible. And knowing Brainy's intelligence, the robots had to be at least fireproof.

"Who's got a good idea?"

Because Zuko had a lot of bad ones.

Red Robin didn't answer right away.

For one, he was trying to clear his head of the thoughts of what those who had been left behind were going to be going through-- he didn't want to leave them in that position, that was a priority. But getting clouded by that was not going to help him.

He'd been left without any of his tools, which put him in a position to only use himself. Which was not the ideal tool for escape. But he knew he could figure something out...

He grunted, more to himself than anything else, a noise that might have indicated 'I'm thinking.'

Rapidly, his eyes scanned the area around them. There had to be something they could use.

No Driver, no Memories, no gadgets... No problem.

Hopefully no problem, anyway. He'd even settle for only a small problem at this juncture.

"Depends," he answers, turning toward Zuko. "Does 'beat up the robots' count as a good idea?" Granted, one would need to get loose before they could beat up the robots...

One by one, the robots suddenly sparked and deactivated. The restraints holding the trio prisoner unlocked, and before them, phasing into existence, was Danny Phantom.

"You people are the WORST rescue team I have ever seen." He said, the snarky comment belying his haggard, grimy, slightly emaciated appearance.

"Danny?"

Kid with ghost powers, Brainy's captive? Had to be him.

Zuko stood up, dusting himself off where he'd been restrained.

"Glad to see you too," he growled, his pride stung at having been rescued from his own rescue mission, but knowing this wasn't the time to be contrary.

"Just a bump in the road," Red Robin said lowly, mostly to himself.

He recovered without any real hitch, mind still rushing. At least that took care of the first few steps of any escape plan, right off the bat.

"Getting caught was part of the plan. After all, we've had no luck on getting any leads as to where this place was, so the only option was to get in the belly of the beat when granted an opportunity," Shoutarou comments, smoothing his shirt out and then rubbing his wrists. He's bluffing to a degree, but one can't argue with results.

Granted, the results are less than stellar, but better than anything they've gotten so far.

"...now then, let's find our gear and see if we can't shut this operation down, shall we?"

"Already taken care of." Danny passed over said equipment.

"And get ready quick. Those weren't the only bots down here. There'll be a bunch headed this way now that those are down."

Zuko took his swords, glad to have them in case the bots were, in fact, fireproof.

"And let me guess. The others are past them?"

Red Robin took his belts and tools in (admittedly grateful) silence, and clipped them back onto his uniform, listening to the others in the meantime.

At least they were now prepared for any bots. He kept one hand ready for the EM pulse in his belt, while the other retrieved a retractable staff and extended it.

"Units being in the way of our path to the others is irrelevant," he says. "Either we find a way around them or we go through them. We can't waste time, regardless."

"Good work, kiddo," Shou answers - his tone is quite genuine. He takes his things, shuffling them off to pockets here and there, and then dons his hat. (The hat is very important, you see. It sets the mood.)

"Robin's right. I say we go get Punchy and Sensor, then we take care of 'mommy dearest'."

"We'll have to go through them. If I was at full strength I could've made all of us invisible and gotten around 'em, but even turning myself invisible hasn't exactly been easy for me."

Around the door, there were three robots in between them and the labs now and the way through the labs was the only way out of their holding area. They were nasty things with eyes that could act as laser cutters. Much like the probe that had snatched them earlier, they had a design like a skull with mechanical tentacles dangling down. Those were prehensile, very sharp, and capable of stabbing or strangling them and could be charged with a deadly electrical current.

[ALERT ALERT. GUARD UNITS DOWN IN CONTAINMENT AREA. PRISONERS HAVE ESCAPED. INTERCEPT IMMEDIATELY.]

"And they're here." Danny said, firing a ectoplasmic blast.

"Well, that was a little sooner than expected," Shoutarou comments as he presses a driver to his waist. It's followed with a purple memorystick being shoved in, and a small pose being struck.

"Henshin!"

Part of the driver is thrown to the side, and a swirling wind kicks up in the immediate area around the detective while black and purple armor envelops his body. Large red compound eyes flash for a moment after they materialize, and the wind dissipates.

"Let's thank these 'bots for their hospitality," he adds before charging to meet them.

Zuko follows Shoutarou in, slicing one bot free of tentacles with his sword blades. Two others hedged him in on both sides, and parrying them both took all his skill.

While he was looking for an opening, another bot came up behind him and wrapped him in its tentacles. In the split second the bot took to electrify its arms, Zuko dropped his swords.

The bot had left his forearms with just enough mobility to start the form that allowed him to channel lightning, and as electricity surged through the bots arms, it flowed through Zuko's open chi path and out the tip of his outstretched finger - straight at the right bot. As it fell to the ground, overloaded, he aimed the remainder of the blast at the second. It too fell to the ground as the electric charge finally ran out.

Unfortuantely for Zuko, though the bot gripping him had lost its charge, it hadn't lost its strength. The mobile metal tentacles began constricting him, and Zuko yelled in pain as it tried to pull his limbs apart.

That robot will rip Zuko apart if it has to. Just like the one diving towards Shoutarou will laser him apart if it can, and the one launching itself towards Danny will burst his eardrums with the head-splitting sonics it's firing at him if it can get away with it.

Bring the lasers, robot. Now that they've gotten this far, Shoutarou's got exactly zero interest in being stopped here. The lasers will bring a shower of sparks once they impact the Rider's armor, and stagger him for just a moment, but he'll keep going, and give the 'bot a fist right in the face.

Danny clapped his hands over his ears, and, given that he couldn't fire ectoblasts AND do that, switched to firing ice-beams out his eyes at the oncoming robot.

Red Robin was lucky enough to be free of immediate danger, at least-- but it seemed one of his team mates was not, and that took priority. He broke away from the bots nearest him as fast as possible, flicking low powered explosive charges onto them. Even if it didn't stop them, he just needed to buy time enough for a moment.

He jammed the staff into the 'bot on Zuko-- not further away but upwards, into it, the retractable blade on the end of the staff extending to give it a little more weight and damage. Hopefully enough to throw it off.

His other hand was fast-- retrieving a localized EM Pulse and attaching it to the machine. Hopefully not ranged enough to effect Shoutarou, hopefully enough to force the 'bot to let go.

Time for the experimentation to begin.

[ooc: Posting order is what's in the subject.

"Omnicom on. Pull up Experimentation Notes 3345.3. New entry. Scans indicate that the subject is a healthy human male, aged approximately 18 Earth years. Baseline in terms of powers, however he appears to have some sort of...puppet that allows him to damage objects with considerable kinetic force. I would like to ascertain how exactly this accessory works and the exact manner it works in tandem with organic beings. First step in this process is vivisection and a full workup of his physiology to determine the scans are correct."

Edited 2012-04-24 03:54 (UTC)

Punchy does not understand what any of those words mean. That said, he can generally get the gist of what's about to happen, given the being strapped down bit and the way people Brainiac's floating around him. And he's...

...actually not that scared, because once again, the part of Punchy's brain that processes fear is being tamped down by the inner voice of his, which is monologuing something to the effect of "this is so cool you're going to get tortured and I bet you come out the other side like Batman or something and oh my god maybe you'll have to dye your hair black and get piercings oh my god oh my god".

Given that his body, at least, isn't as deeply clueless as his brain, he can't help but break a bit of a sweat just waiting there for the pain to start. He's breathing a bit fast too. He keeps stretching his his hands and clenching them into fists, as if trying to dry away the clamminess with motion. He wishes he at least had his Puppet, that familiar bludgeon for one hand, but Brainy's taken that.

"Yo, greenie, ándele ándale, a'ight? I ain't gonna sit here all day for you to put the hurt on. I got places to be, your mom to mack on."

Trying to shut herself out from the situation wasn't working. She knew, logically, that it was smarter to assume that the super genius aliens were going to outsmart murder and dispose of the fresh blood in the lab without incident. But that stubborn flicker of hope under the layered grime of conditioning and disappointment was burning hot and painful at the center of her chest, reminding her insistently of how he had failed repeatedly to harm her. Of the single unlatched cuff on Danny's restraints...

"Do you HAVE to vivisect him right now?" she asked, fingers squeezing around the edge of the tray of surgical tools, eyes flicking between the scalpels and the teen on the table. "Wouldn't it be more thorough to do comparative whole body scans first. It'll be harder to map physiological changes if you slice him into chunks and THEN try to compare don't you think?"

She doubted she was going to be able to spare Punchy entirely but she had to at think of something, had to at least stall for time to let someoene else think of something.

"Brainy, please, don't do this." Jeka yanked at the restraints with all of the strength still left to her; but whatever had been done to keep her weak hadn't yet abated. "Your mother's not here right now. She's not invincible, Brainy. Let me go and I can stop her, I can help you!"

She twisted and jerked, trying to get the power dampener into a position where she could crack it against the table. Brainy was a good person, he was a Legionnaire. He couldn't be capable of doing something like this.

Brainy considered Brenda's proposition, completely ignoring Jeka's plaintive cries. There was such coldness there, he was entirely unfeeling, making it clear that this wasn't some sort of mind control. A part of his mind had been switched off entirely.

"Yes, I suppose that would be a more prudent course of action. I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself in my eagerness to work on a living subject again."

He set up the scanners.

"This will still be invasive and somewhat painful. Try to stay still," he said to Punchy, turning on the scanners.

It wouldn't be as bad as being vivisected, but Punchy would find a deep, aching, vibrating pain settle into his bones, radiating out into the rest of his body. Even though there wouldn't be any damage to his body, it would feel like there was something burning at the core of him, radiating out in waves of heat.

Punchy very much wants to tell Jeka that she's not helping and possibly reminding him to be scared. And then the pain starts.

It's not awful. That's not to say it doesn't hurt, but really, Punchy expected whatever torture he was in for to be a little more dramatic. Instead it just feels like his skeleton has been replaced with hot metal, which isn't a pleasant feeling, but not the sort of shrieking (Batman-creating) agony Punchy was, honestly, anticipating.

It does still pull a groan up out of him, almost as if Punchy's a human toothpaste tube and the sound is just being squeezed out of him through his clenched teeth. He takes a deep breath and glares at Brainiac.

"Take your time, motherfucker. I can do this all day." And the more time Punchy spends on this table, the more time between now and whenever Brainy loads the next person up for vivisection.

Whatever that is.

Brenda flinches at the sound, partly because she remembers exactly what it feels like to have that same groan pressed from her struggling lungs. Her hand comes up to her mouth as Brainy changes the settings for the second pass.

She turns her head to catch Jeka's gaze, glancing between her and Brainy, her wincing expression it's own comment on the coldness in their mutual friends demeanor. Jeka seemed to be hoping for a level of empathy that Querl was long past being capable of producing. Still, he WAS under there, somewhere and Brenda would get no better backup than one of his fellow Legionnaires. B4 was gone, she and Jeka there, Punchy willingly taking the heat of his scientific attention.

She'd never have a better shot.

Pushing herself off the edge of the counter, she turns to him again.

"Do you have a plan for Jeka yet?" He probably did, and hopefully she can twist the converasion the way she wants...

Edited 2012-04-25 15:39 (UTC)

Jeka nodded when Brenda caught her gaze and kept working at her power dampener. Unfortunately, that was all she really had at the moment -- a few other half-formed ideas, but most of them relied on her being able to break the sprocking power-dampener.

Punchy's groan draws a hissed prayer for strength and preservation in Orandian from her; and she redoubled her efforts on the power dampener, prepared to freeze if it seemed like Brainy was turning her way.

"I was going to--"

He could--

He could--

"I--"

Every time he tried to figure out something interesting he could pick apart, such as the part of her brain responsible for her illusion powers, it was as if something in his mind shut the very idea down at the source. For a moment, just a moment, this part of his mind kicked out a memory of seeing her in her snake form, dissected on a lab table, with he and Lyle watching helplessly from the Anywhere Machine unable to stop it.

Why had he just remembered that? He vaguely recalled his horror and sadness and helplessness; even if he could no longer feel those emotions now, the echoes of them stirred in his mind.

Helplessness, what a strange word. What a strange feeling. One that was rooted in the desire to help others or yourself, to assert one's individual will in a hostile universe or let others do the same rather than having their choices taken away by those that would walk over them if they were allowed.

Brainy turned up the power on the scanner, which would likely make it even more painful for Punchy, but after he did, he was frozen there, a pale green hand on the scanner for a moment, and then drew his hand away, unconsciously fiddling with his flight ring--which he still wore. Practical, for the flight applications. Practical, that was--that was all.

How his hands sometimes unconsciously went to it wasn't practicality, just like it hadn't been practical for him to have left Daniel's restraint unlatched, just like it wasn't really all that practical to leave Brenda alive.

Edited 2012-04-29 22:09 (UTC)

Well, that was the sort of pain Punchy was honestly expecting. It's almost satisfying to feel, except instead of satisfying, substitute 'incredibly agonizing and deliriously hellish'.

He doesn't scream. That's probably the only thing he can brag about later, because in every other regard he reacts like someone under extreme pain, including tears. He tries to sputter out a plea for it to stop, but the words can't make it past the bubbles of saliva and bile in his mouth. His back arches in some futile attempt to find a comfortable position (as in, one that didn't feel like he was being eaten alive from the inside by an army of fire ants, possibly armed with drills).

~~He just wanted to be Batman. ;_;~~

When he passes out, it's sweet, sweet oblivion. He'll beat himself up later, but it'll be nothing on the pain he was just in.

Brenda can't watch, flinching away from the sight of Punchy's arching choking body in the scanner and grasping Brainy's arm as he fusses with the flight ring, just staring into space. He's on that razor's edge again, lost in his own head, brain tripping over her simple question about Jeka...

"Querl." She tries his name first, hoping to jarr the man beneath the mask with the familiarity. She struggles to keep her voice low and even, horror for Punchy putting a begging edge on the words despite her best efforts otherwise. "Stop it, you're killing him! He'll be no good for anything else. Shut it off!"

Whatever victorious thrill she felt at Brainy's inability to answer Brenda's question was lost in the horror when he increased the power of the scanner.

"Brainy, stop!" Jeka cried out, thrashing sympathetically against her restraints. Part of her wanted to look away, but she was a Legionnaire -- this had to be witnessed, and she would not shame Punchy's pain and bravery by looking away. After a moment she stilled and drew herself straight as best she could. She was a princess raised to be queen; and while she preferred not to, she knew how to give orders.

"Brainiac 5, Querl Dox," she began, imbuing her voice with as much authority as she could without her mentalism, "you and I are both members of the Legion of Superheroes, and you will let me help you fulfill our duty to preserve and restore the order and law of the United Planets!"

There was a visible twitch of one of his eyelids. Then spasmodic jerking of a muscle in his face.

As if he didn't even notice it, as if it was moving entirely on its own, his hand turned off the scanner. Fortunately, Punchy was still alive and relatively undamaged, even if he was now unconscious.

The twitching continued, the blinking of his eyes becoming more frequent. He was sweating now, his breathing coming more harshly.

As he looked over at Brenda and Jeka, there was something strange that happened to his face, a very subtle twitch of expression that periodically came over it.

One track of consciousness had kept him in check and it was hard at work now, trying to get him to care enough to actually care without being overwhelmed by the pain caused by the still-active device stimulating the pain centers of his brain.

"I thought I was beyond empathy for others. It seems the subconscious blocks I have against harming you are getting stronger and more broadly encompassing," he said to Brenda. "No matter. If I really must, I can lobotomize myself and destroy the part of my brain responsible for emotional processing and empathy altogether. Actual organic damage would ensure the removal of emotions permanently."

Rummaging through his supplies and tools, he looked for what he needed to kill what was left of the original Querl Dox forever.

"NO!"

Brenda has never been the best at keeping herself from resorting to violence and in the heat of panic that is exactly where she goes to first, sending Brainy reeling with a punch before toppling the tray with the surgical tools off it's table.

Before Brainy can really recover from being decked she's pushed forward and snagged him by the front of his jumpsuit, backing him up against the counter. She's perhaps more frail now than she's ever been after months of captivity and misery but fury and desperation outstrip her physical weakness. Combined with his inability to harm her it's enough for her to overpower him.

"Don't you DARE! Don't you dare try to kill what's left of him!" she snarled, one hand closing hard at his collar, the other wrapping around his neck and jaw, firm, forcing his gaze to meet hers.

"Stop it! This is IT Querl!" she snaps, fingers against his cheek shaking. Her gaze is as intense as her tone, crackling with desperate determination.

"Jeka and the others are in here with us, you've got the keys and codes to everything. We are never going to have a better chance to get out of here and I'm not leaving without you. I need you with me for this. You've got to snap out out of it."

"You can't hurt me, I doubt you can hurt Jeka either. You've kept me alive all this time because you made me off limits back there in your brain somewhere and you know there was a reason, you know that it had to have been a damn good reason if your mental blocks survived everything your mother did to us. Please, tell me you remember why you protected me, I know you do."

Jeka's heart leaped when Brenda shoved Brainy back away from his tools, feeling her pulse throbbing in her throat.

"Feelings aren't a weakness, Brainy," she said urgently. "Friends aren't a weakness! The Legion is strong because we're all different and we all have different strengths and we help each other! That's why this crew has survived! That's why we defeated your mother the first time, because she was alone and she threw everyone away, and we drew together and we beat her, Brainy! We can do it again! Livewire, Spark, and Gates came for you then, and we're here for you now! Remember, Brainy! Remember how it felt to be cared about, because you still are!"

His shields went up, pushing Brenda away.

"I protected you because I loved you," he said, looking at Brenda, his voice just as robotic and wooden. His eyes flicked to Jeka. "I loved you because I was loved, because the Legion undid years of emotional damage that was done to me because of my upbringing and my abandonment by my mother. Knowing the reasons doesn't mitigate how utterly useless the emotions behind them are."

His eyes closed slightly, half-lidded as he looked at the floor.

"Love is just a neurobiological response, a cascade of biochemicals in the body."

With one last look at Brenda, he picked up his omnitool and shielded like this, there was no way either of them could stop him. Holding it up to his head, he activated the device and using his very dexterous hands, he made his...adjustments, wincing slightly only once. Then he brought his hands down to rest at the table, putting the omnitool down.

"I suppose I have to deal with you both now."

There was something strange about his voice now, something almost otherwordly and cold.

Taking out his omnicom and pressing several buttons on it, he seemed ready to kill them both. The restraints around Jeka started to make alarming whirring noises, and so did the restraint collar around Brenda's neck. The alarming noises increased until...

...until the restraints around Jeka were released and the collar fell away from Brenda's neck and landed on the floor with a clatter. Another press of a button led to Punchy's restraints being released, even though he was unconscious.

"I deactivated the nanite array in your body ages ago, Brenda. That was one of the functions of the collar."

His voice still sounded strange, only now it was becoming more apparent why: he was choking back emotion, trying very, very hard to keep it steady.

"I reprogrammed my cortical stimulator. It's currently acting like my personality inhibitors once did, though to a much greater degree. It's necessary, though such an artificial means of emotional regulation will only last so long before I have a complete mental collapse. It's only staving off the inevitable."

That meant the pain was stopped at least, but given how directly that stimulator had been interfering with his brain, given that he needed something so strong to help him function, it was a bad sign.

Still, the fact that he was going to have a mental collapse, a full nervous breakdown, the fact that he needed his emotions regulated, only meant one thing:

He had emotions. That one track of consciousness had won out, held out against the siege against it and now he'd turned his emotions back on.

Looking up at them both, his hand against the table to steady himself, tears started to slowly roll down his face. His shields went down. His eyes, though as calculating as ever, were full of their old warmth, the warmth that was supposed to be there, but they were also full of the deepest sadness.

"I--"

He had tortured Brenda psychologically. He had tortured Daniel and Punchy physically. He had imprisoned Jeka and the others and brought them in under his mother's thumb, as well as helped her with the plan she was undertaking now, one that the whole crew might suffer for if they couldn't stop it in time.

"I am...I am so sorry. I--"

He couldn't find the words, he couldn't find the words and with every word he said, it felt like his heart was going to burst even more. They didn't have time for that. They didn't have time for him to lose control so soon.

So he simply turned away, leaning against the table, eyes closed, tears streaming down his face, trying to master himself and not let his despair over his own actions overwhelm him.

In the end, he couldn't. In the end, he wound up reaching his hand up to his face, clawing into it, drawing blood just like his mother had done earlier, his self-hatred nearly overwhelming the makeshift inhibitor.

Brenda's fingers closed firmly around his wrist to pull his hand away from his face, tugging just hard enough to turn him toward her. Both arms wound around him, anchoring him tight to her chest. Her fingers settled at the nape of his neck, combing through the ends of his short fine hair.

She pulled his head down to her shoulder, shuddering at the feel of his hard breathing against her exposed throat.

"Shhht, it's okay." She murmured, tilting her head to talk softly next to his ear, squeezing him in a hug much more desperate than she was forcing herself to sound.

"Remember for me what I told you when all this started, Querl. I swore to you whatever happened I wouldn't regret knowing you, I wouldn't blame you when she screwed with your mind and made you not yourself. I meant it, I still mean it."

She laid one urgent kiss on his temple, another on his cheekbone, sucking in a shaky breath. "I love you. We're going to get out of here, and then you can fall apart, and then we'll put you together again, I promise. It's gonna be okay."

Jeka hit the ground heavily -- grife, it's been ages since she's been without her flight ring -- and quickly slithered over to wrap her arms around the two of them, curling her tail in a circle on the floor around them as if it were a flesh and blood version of Brainy's force field.

"We'll finish this, Brainy," she said softly. "We'll finish this and we'll get you help, I promise."

She gave him another reassuring squeeze before disengaging and moving over to Punchy. She hates to do this, but they don't have the time for anything but a mad scramble. Brainiac 4 has a head-start on whatever it is that she's been planning, and they need to foul her up immediately.

"Brenda, I need you to take care of Brainy," she said, sliding into a command role that she purposefully never filled in the Legion. "Do whatever you can do to help him stay together. Brainy, I know you're hurting, but we need to stop your mother and we're going to need your help. First, is it safe to move Punchy? And second, where are the others?"

Brainy took in a deep breath and let it out, his eyes glancing once at Brenda's, as if for reassurance, before pulling away. He rubbed briefly at his eyes, his knuckles digging into his skin, and then got to work.

That always had been his greatest strength, even beyond that of his intellect. In the end, in the clinch, he was always there doing what needed to be done.

"It's safe to move him, but it may be best to leave him there. I can put up a shield around him that can be deactivated by us when we're finished with my mother, or by him when he wakes up if circumstance preclude us from returning. He'll regain consciousness soon enough."

He went over to the platform and started tapping buttons, causing a shield exactly like the one created by his shield belt to spring up around Punchy.

"The others were being kept in holding." Alarms started to blare. "...Were. Past tense. It seems they've already escaped."

Edited 2012-05-15 14:43 (UTC)

Brenda stuck close to Brainy's side as he went to work, keeping her hand at his back then sliding it into his as the alarms struck up a bleating chorus of panic overhead.

"We better get moving and meet up with the others. I'm sure they're going to run into some kind of security."

Jeka knew doing what needed to be done was a strength of Brainy's, but that didn't mean she had to like asking it of him any better.

She didn't bother to ask if his mother could deactivate it -- if it wouldn't keep Punchy safe, she simply trusted that Brainy wouldn't have suggested it. "Leave him a map or something, so that he can go for help when he wakes up," she suggested instead.

The alarms made her start, but she couldn't help but smile when Brainy explained their meaning. Then she sobered and slithered speedily for the door. "Sprock 'security', we need all hands on hand to take Brainiac 4 down before she gets too far along!"

Part 3: Myself Despised, Forsaken [closed]

Zuko, Red Robin, Shoutarou, Danny Phantom

Re: Zuko, Red Robin, Shoutarou, Danny Phantom

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Brainiac 5, Punchy, Brenda, Jeka

Re: Brainiac 5, Punchy, Brenda, Jeka

Re: Brainiac 5, Punchy, Brenda, Jeka

Re: Brainiac 5, Punchy, Brenda, Jeka

Re: Brainiac 5, Punchy, Brenda, Jeka

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