[[This Champions Online story is purely a work of fan fiction, I do not own any rights to the Champions Online universe or any of the organizations, characters, or locations portrayed within. Please don't sue me. I'm broke anyway.]]
Sasha was strapped down to the table, arms and legs spread apart spread-eagle and held motionless by metal clamps locked over each limb. He could see the shadowy form of his tormentor looming over him. His features were obscured by the bright lights behind him. Only his outline and the glimmer of his large spectacles were clearly visible. The faceless villain chuckled menacingly and drew away out of view. Sasha's vision was soon replaced by several large, robotic arms. Each metal hand was tipped with a hideous array of blades, needles, and other unidentifiable metal implements which glimmered in the near-blinding light above. There was a brief pause, and then the machines whirred into action. Blades spun and metal clamps clicked and clutched as the robotic arms descended upon Sasha's prone form. A heavy, repetitive pounding sound echoed throughout the room.
"Nyet!"
Sasha woke with a shout. One arm flailed in front of him to shield him from the horrible machines coming down on him. The lamp on the small table next to Sasha's bed had been crushed as Sasha's metal fist passed through it effortlessly and into the wall. The sound of crumbling ceramic bits broke Sasha from his trance. He looked around, panting heavily, still a bit dazed. The pounding sound from his dream remained, further adding to the large man's confusion. A moment later the door to Sasha's bedroom flew open, nearly taken off its hinges by the determined kicks from the figure beyond. Light from the hallway beyond flooded the room, and a vaguely humanoid form filled the doorway. They were clutching a large handgun in a ready, defensive posture.
"Christ! Sasha! Are you alright?"
The concerned tone in Pack Rat's voice helped Sasha fully regain his senses. The large Russian forced his breathing down to a slower pace and nodded to the figure in the doorway.
"Dah. I am alright comrade."
Pack Rat relaxed, lowered his revolver and eased into the room. The ears perched atop his rodent-like head were flattened back in a display of concern, and his pink hairless tail swayed behind him, twitching through the air erratically. Pack was wearing only his boxers, and looked somewhat comical clad only in those and carrying his huge revolver. The brown-furred humanoid rodent sat on the edge of the bed and patted Sasha on the shoulder reassuringly.
"Another nightmare," Pack asked.
Sasha nodded but didn't immediately reply. He was still trying to shake the horrific images from his mind.
"The machines again," Pack leaned in, peering at his upset roommate.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry pal. I can't imagine…"
"It is alright. I'll be okay."
Pack Rat leaned around to look at Sasha's left arm.
"Um. You're left hand is still stuck in the wall."
Sasha turned his head to the left, craning his neck to look around the bulky metallic casing that housed the mechanical workings within his shoulder. Sure enough, there was his fist, buried about nine inches into the wall, having effortlessly driven past the wall panel and sheet rock. Sasha grumbled in frustration and moved to carefully extract his massive metal fist from the wall.
"Sorry Pack. I will go to hardware store after work and get materials to repair wall."
"Don't sweat it, man. Hell I nearly blew a hole in the wall of the main room when I was working on a new type of core for my revolver rounds. " Pack Rat smiled, revealing a row of sharp-looking white teeth.
Sasha was forced to chuckle despite himself as he shook the sheet rock dust from his hand. "
You gonna try and go back to sleep?" Pack Rat asked.
"Nyet," Sasha shook his head, "It is close enough to work time anyway. Might as well stay up."
"Groovy. I'll start some coffee."
Pack Rose and moved to exit the room. He paused and looked back over his shoulder.
"It's over Sasha. You're safe here. That psycho is a world away."
"I wish it were that simple comrade."
"Yeah. I know. Wait… did you call me com-rat?" Pack giggled as he left the room.
Sasha carefully eased up out of bed and headed for the bathroom sink. His mechanical arms clanked and clattered in a most un-subtle fashion as he moved. The chains and gears which powered his massive limbs afforded the Russian cyborg tremendous strength, but were unbelievably bulky. Sasha eased through the bathroom door sideways and splashed some water on his face. He had to be careful not to strike the sink, lest he leave huge gouges in the porcelain.
Sasha looked in the mirror as he wiped his face with a small towel. Even before the horrific events that bestowed him with his tremendous strength the Russian was an imposing figure of a man. He stood tall and solidly built from years working alongside his father as a construction worker. Bright green eyes gazed out from beneath the bangs of his dark brown hair which was shoulder length, straight, and usually unkempt from long days with a hard hat crammed down on top of it. While his chiseled face was typically kept clean-shaven, his body, especially his chest, fell on the hirsute side of things. This served to only partially conceal the long pale surgical scars which ran the length of his torso, spine, and legs.
His most striking features, of course, were the huge machines clamped to his body where his flesh and blood arms once resided. Sasha's arms and hands ironically resembled construction equipment more than actual arms. They were literally bolted in place, with a faint patina of mostly dried blood always rimming the border of man and machine. Their silvery-colored casing protected the internal workings, but the occasional gap still revealed the pistons, chains, and gears which provided the motive power behind the huge contraptions. Sasha had later learned that his metal parts were mostly comprised of a nearly indestructible alloy of steel and the rare element Questionite. At least the psychopath who had done this to him wasn't a cheapskate.
The shadowy figure from his nightmare had removed Sasha's original limbs and a most gruesome manner. Over the course of several days the automated arms remade Sasha into the powerful blending of man and machine he was today. Besides the obvious changes other more subtle modifications had been made to the unfortunate man's body. His spine hips and legs had been reinforced with metals similar to the arms themselves to support the force that his new arms could put forth, as well as some lesser mechanisms to aid in movement. Strange machines had been implanted within his torso and integrated with his internal organs. These bizarre devices somehow filtered and converted Sasha's natural fluids into the lubricants, hydraulic liquids, and coolants that kept the arms moving smoothly. If one were to listen closely they could be heard clicking, whirring, and humming within his chest. All through those first days of torment not one ounce of anesthesia had been used.
Sasha lived with his unusual roommate in Millennium City, formerly known as Detroit. Millennium City was an epicenter for superhuman activity, and boasted the largest population of so-called super heroes of any city in the United States, and likely the world. After having left Russia following the traumatic events that resulted in his phenomenal strength, coming to Detroit seemed to be the logical choice for the cyborg.
Sasha finished freshening up and got dressed for work. His arms made wardrobe choice a tricky affair. Sleeves were simply out of the question. In the months since he arrived in Millennium City Sasha had invested heavily in tank tops in various primary colors. Pants were much easier to deal with thankfully. Sasha favored heavily made jeans, or anything that could stand up to the rigors of his rugged lifestyle. Sasha slipped on a tank top and a clean pair of jeans and headed out of his room. In the main room of the basement apartment Sasha's ratling roommate was finishing up a pot of coffee and getting a couple of cups poured. Not long after fleeing Russia for the United States Sasha has been placed with Pack Rat on a temporary basis by UNTIL (the United Nations Tribunal on International Law). Temporary had turned into semi-permanent as the cyborg had found few others willing to rent to him out of fear of the property damage he might inflict.
"Sugar?" Pack asked Sasha. He rubbed his solid green eyes blearily, being still not fully awake.
"Nyet. Black as usual." Sasha replied.
The rat and the Russian had gotten along surprisingly well, despite the fact that UNTIL hadn't really asked Pack's permission when placing Sasha with him. Both of them fell on the unusual side of things as far as appearances went, and a sort of sympathetic camaraderie had developed between the mechanical man and the rodent in the months since Sasha had arrived.
After slamming down a steaming cup of black coffee Sasha gathered up his tool belt, yellow hard hat, safety goggles, and bright orange vest and began to get ready for work. His tools consisted mostly of large, solidly built pry bars and wrenches along with other assorted essentials for construction work. The vest, hat, and goggles were of the usual sort of standard issue safety gear for hazardous construction work.
"That orange vest makes you look like one of those trustee workers from the jail downtown. I think I left a cup lying on the floor over there. Why doncha go pick that up?"
Pack Rat chuckled at Sasha without looking up from the table he was hunched over. The rodent was always fiddling with one firearm or another. Sasha had never had any use for guns either before coming to America or since. Growing up in Russia near the border with Ukraine he had seen enough of the damage guns caused and so never had any desire to touch them.
"Hah. You are funny rat. Might want to hide though. I hear health inspector is coming to apartment complex today."
Sasha and Pack traded laughs and a couple of less than polite gestures as the robotic Russian stomped up the stairs leading to the door of their shared basement apartment. After locking the heavy metal door behind him Sasha stepped from the dim light of the basement and into the early morning light of Millennium City. The sun had only just peeked over the horizon, and the tall structures of the city still kept most of the streets shrouded in long shadows. In spite of the early hour the streets were already humming with the activity of citizens on their morning commutes. The city rarely truly slept anyway.
Sasha squinted a bit and stepped from the shadows and into the sunlight that bathed the east to west thoroughfare that would take him close to the site his employers were currently working at. He lowered his safety goggles over his eyes and positioned himself near the edge of the sidewalk. A small group of people stopped to look at the imposing man. Super humans were not an unusual sight on the streets and skies of Millennium City by any means. Also, recent advancements in technology made cyborgs common enough to not illicit stares, but Sasha's modifications were unusual when compared to the sleek, high tech looking prosthetics that other bionically enhanced people tended to sport. Thus, he tended to draw a lot of curious looks.
The burly cyborg paid the onlookers no mind as a lull in the traffic gave him the opening he was looking for. Sasha kicked off the curb, launching himself into the flow of cars. His crude industrial bionic enhancements whirred into action with and audible metallic grinding sounds. With his robotic parts fully engaged Sasha could easily keep pace with the cars around him. Each stride propelled the mechanical man along at a dizzying pace. His arms clanked and rattled loudly as they pumped rhythmically.
Then came the pain.
Sasha's metallic parts had been crammed in and attached to his body with all the surgical precision of a chain saw. When doctors in the United States first examined him they had been shocked and appalled at the cruel manner in which the Russian had been modified, and similarly impressed at how well he coped with the persistent discomfort. Pack Rat would later jokingly chalk it up to good old fashioned Russian stubbornness. Regardless, any medical attempts at mitigating the pain of Sasha's crude-but-efficient modifications had been stymied by the internal systems that had been installed and linked to his vital organs. While they quickly filtered toxins and other contaminants from his system, making him very resistant to poisons and diseases, they also made any sort of pain medications completely ineffective. Also, being so directly hardwired to his liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs made any sort of corrective measures extremely hazardous. Sasha had thus far declined to risk tampering with them.
Sasha set his jaw, grit his teeth a bit, and pushed the aching in his body into the back of his mind. His morning commute/run was one of the few simple pleasures he truly enjoyed and so he was unwilling to allow a silly little thing like a set a screaming pain receptors get in the way of that. The bionic Russian obeyed all the relevant traffic laws as he cruised along, with the minor exception of having to vault over a small blue compact car as it's driver slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a dog, which in fact turned out to be just a blowing bit of newspaper. A few turns and stop lights later, and Sasha arrived at the construction site that had been his workplace for the last several weeks.
"Hey, early today, aren't ya comrade?" The voice called from the small portable office structure set off to the side. Sasha's immediate supervisor and site foreman, Daniel Ramirez, was adjusting his hard hat and orange vest as he emerged from the tiny administrative structure. Daniel was a bit rough around the edges when it came to his people skills, but he had fought hard to help Sasha get hired when the company first hesitated to hire an augmented human for fear of union complications.
"Dah, was, how do you say, rough night." Sasha sauntered up to Ramirez as the foreman finished buckling on his tool belt.
"Well go ahead and get clocked in, you if you can move those girders to the west side of the building while the others trickle in that will help us get a head start on today's list." Ramirez gestured to the stack of huge metal beams.
"Right. I am on it."
With that, Sasha set himself to work. His job title was technically "Operations Specialist." What this really meant was "Human Forklift." Sasha's massive metal limbs and other bodily reinforcements allowed him to lift phenomenal loads with no difficulty. He had been tested when he arrive in the states, and was rated at being able to lift about 100 tons without damaging himself. Impressive by even superhero standards. As he moved the heavy metal beams one by one Sasha hummed a tune from his homeland. Despite the persistent aching the labor provoked in his body, he enjoyed the sense of accomplishment the work gave him. He felt that by building things in a world where so many forces were bent on destruction he was, in his way, making a difference.