HP-Gen13: Chapter Four Payback
Things were different now. What was before, would never be again. Understatement of the millennium, Caitlin mused quietly to herself as she silently observed the outside of the Genesis Compound. She'd just awoken moments ago, the sun waking her as it pierced the horizon.
She was now wearing the red Keeper uniform, unfortunately unlike her green and purple outfit which she kept on underneath seeing as she had no other underwear options at the moment, it had not been tailored just for her or her new physique, and the woman that it had belonged to, while tall and well-built, couldn't hold a candle to Fairchild's new body. It pinched around the shoulders and joints, but was horribly stretched so much that it looked more like it had been painted on, and where the sleeves and leggings were supposed to reach the wrist and ankle respectively, barely reached halfway to each. Fortunately the gloves and boots covered the gap.
Stretching in spandex or cotton wasn't a big deal, but in kevlar, or whatever this new type of thin armor was made out of, clearly was not. Caitlin just hoped that the armor kept her from finding out if she was invulnerable as well as super strong for as long as possible. At least the hard pieces, weapons and helmet all fit with a minimal adjustment.
Since getting dressed, she'd taken out the binoculars from the Keeper gear and kept glancing every few seconds at the main gate and other points of interest of the Compound. So far things were calm and quiet. Too calm, considering the plan counted on Harry being free and unleashing a bit of chaos all over the place. Now what, she wanted to ask, but held her tongue, keeping watch for the time being.
Suddenly, a vision flooded her senses, the pain so intense it nearly drove her to her knees. She cried out, "AAAHH! It's Roxy! She's in pain! Some kind of... trap, all along." Tears began to pour from her closed eyes. "That guy... that's Tom! He betrayed them, betrayed all of us!" Her eyes snapped open, full of fury as the strange vision finally passed.
Shaking her head, she gathered her gear and started making her way down to the compound, saying to herself as she went, "Don't know why Roxy and I made that wild connection just now, but I'm glad we did. My friends obviously need some help, and I'm just the lady to give it to them! It's not the signal that Harry and I agreed on, but it'll do. Hang tight gang, I'm on my way!"
Even as she ran from rock to rock, borrowed gun at the ready, she was thinking to herself, 'What happened to Harry in there anyway? He wanted to get all the other students out of there and to safety, but it is morning already and there's been no sign of him causing any sort of disruption other than the base remaining at high alert. What happened, where are you Wizard?' Caitlin asked, thinking of her friend by the nickname Grunge had given him during one of their study sessions.
Meanwhile...
(As In The Night Before, From Harry's POV)
He won't lie, he got a little shock, or six, from running across the *live* floor, but once he was past the point where Bliss and Threshold were standing, he was free and clear and nobody could catch him. Provided he kept running that is, and already he could feel himself tire and whatever was making that cold feeling, like the air itself had stopped moving, flickered on and off with every hard-pressed step. So, adjusting the plan a little, he made his way to the kitchens instead of the dorms. Fortunately it was closer, as he wound up running the last ten yards at 'normal speed', sweat dripping from every pore and gasping with every breath.
He went straight to the food stores and devoured everything he could get his hands on, just like his best friend Ron Weasley would've. After the first bit finally reached his stomach and began digesting, he slowed down, enough at least so he stopped making such a mess. It was after he'd finished his first 'course', which should've been a five-course meal all on its own, downing it all with massive amounts of water and (oddly) milk, that he heard the commotion coming from out in the main dining area. Finishing his glass of milk in one big gulp, he hurried over to the serving area, but kept out of sight.
Keepers were trying to restrain two of the students there. One, a Hispanic boy about his age, but seemed to be manifesting by having some of his muscles grow to insanely huge proportions, while others stayed the same or actually lost some mass. It seemed the angrier he got, the bigger his muscles got and he was using his uncontrolled strength to keep the black-suited Keepers off him for as long as possible. The other was a tall, athletic girl that seemed to have taken hair-styling tips from Roxy, but forewent dying her hair, leaving it its natural dirty blond color. She was jumping, leaping and cavorting about like some kind of flea, always one step ahead of the Keepers that were after her. At a few points, he saw that she'd actually moved before the Keepers did something to capture her, like she knew it was coming.
He wanted to get in there and help them out, but he knew already that he wouldn't be much help. Whatever these new powers of his did, they required his good health at the least, and the last meal he'd had was almost ten hours previous, seeing as he'd skipped dinner to plan his blackmail-collecting mission. So, he snuck back out of sight, grabbed what food he could while chowing down as quickly as possible, and took another gallon of milk to go. Once his stomach had finally stopped complaining about being empty, he felt the power return, and just to see what would happen, he 'sped up', and tried to finish everything he'd just collected all at once. The bite-into-and-chew food was no problem. The milk however...
Harry stopped and stared as the white stream hung there in mid-air from where he'd overturned the milk jug. He could see it falling, but it was like watching syrup drip off a fork. Shaking his head, he caught the jug, 'sucked up' the spilled milk and got to work.
Unfortunately, by the time he'd finished his 'snack', both of the students he'd seen had been captured and taken away. He blamed himself for that, but there was still plenty he could do to make up for it. Grocery bag in hand, he 'quickly' made his way back to the dorms and began his work.
Thirty Minutes Later
Genesis Compound Control Center
"You wanted to see me, Ivana?" Threshold asked as he strolled in, now dressed in his typical attire of a three-piece suit, red eye-patch mask once again in place, having thoroughly dropped the disguise he'd used to test the GenActives. "I was just about to start the applied testing to see if I can still get Chang and Spaulding to manifest, so this had better be important."
"Does losing every single one of our other subjects count?" she snarled, not taking her eyes off the monitors before her.
"What?" he shouted, stepping up next to her.
"Keep watching," she growled, taking a drag from her long cigarette holder.
As they both watched the monitors, it became self-evident what was happening, but the technicians continued to play it back, slowing the footage down every time. There was a distortion in front of a subject's room, and then the unconscious subject inside disappeared! No special effect or tell-tale signature was identified by the camera. Between one frame and the next, the subject just simple vanished without a trace. Bit by bit, (literally since these were digital cameras), as the techs slowed the footage to over ten thousandth of its original speed, the 'distortion' began to take shape. It was still blurry and didn't look altogether there, but that mostly came from the fact the object was moving too fast for the camera to capture in the first place!
Finally, they stopped it on one frame and enhanced the image as much as the computers could account for. The 'image' actually looked like one of those comic pages where the hero is actually going through moves really fast, they just show 'afterimages' of each action taken. Looking on, Threshold and Ivana identified Harry Potter, or rather afterimages of him as he 'ran' down the hall, 'stopped' at the door, 'appeared' on the other side, 'picked up' the unconscious subject, 'disappeared' with the subject, 'reappeared' without the subject, and then 'ran out' the door and down the hall to the next pod.
"How is this possible, Mathew?" Ivana growled, her cigarette hold shaking in her grip.
"He can phase his molecules through solid matter," Threshold chuckled. "He's more powerful than I could've expected!"
(AN: No, he actually just Apparated into the rooms, but the bad guys won't get to know that)
"You think this is funny!" Ivana screamed at him.
"Hilarious," he said, no longer laughing, his tone dead flat. "You do realize that he could be here, now, and we wouldn't even know it until twenty minutes from now when the analysis was complete. Don't you?"
"I want a head count! How many subjects do we still have? Don't look at the reports, I want somebody actually looking at them and counting bodies!" Ivana shouted at the nearest soldier. "Fix this, Threshold!"
"I've still got mine," he teased her with a playboy smile, before getting serious again. "I would be able to sense it the moment he approached me, or them. I'm in each of their minds now."
"Then why aren't you in his?!" she snapped.
"It was in the briefing, wasn't it? About Potter's unique psychic abilities that could overpower even a GenActive's powers? Nicole tested him when she brought him in. Right before he disappeared, he even managed to push me out. I haven't been able to find him to get back in yet."
"Then what good are you!" she threw up her hands in outrage.
Threshold frowned, but said nothing else.
"Get back to work!" she snapped. "Start the evacuation, we're moving to the secondary base. Pack up the subjects we still have! Including yours, Mathew."
"Of course," he nodded and then walked away, leaving Ivana Baiul to stew.
Twenty Minutes Earlier
At first Harry thought he might be too late, as by the time that he'd finished his snack and got his, well his energy back, the fighting in the cafeteria was over and the other students were knocked out and being loaded into tubes that froze them the moment they were in place. Well, obviously not there in the cafeteria, but when he 'tracked' them down, the last of a half dozen students were already hooked up to the machines, in tubes, already part way through the freezing process.
That, and probably a few other things as well, but that was definitely one of those things that they had not taught him about. Well, they taught and explained what the term cryogenics meant, but nothing about how to reverse or stop the process in the middle. So, seeing that he was too late to do anything for those six for now, he turned his attention to getting the others out, starting with those on their way to the same cryogenic freezing chamber. Those were easy, they were still in the hallways, knocked out from the gas, on gurneys. Stunning spells and a liberal dose of Obliviates took care of the guards and doctors(?) that were wheeling them in.
The first hurdle he came across was actually deciding where to take them all. He could take them to one or two magic safe houses he knew about... back in England... Yeah, no. Out in the desert where he left Caitlin... where they would still be knocked out, and sitting ducks with only one girl with barely controlled powers with unknown limits and no knowledge of how to use them properly. No. If only he could ask them where they'd like to go.
. . . He... could... actually do that!
Opening the eyes of the unconscious girl, he looked into the dilated dark orbs and used his Legilimency to try and find the last place she'd truly been happy. To his immense surprise, the memory came instantly to her mind, even though he was still moving at super speed, but he had the imagery nevertheless. He Disapparated with her in his arms and reappeared a few thousand miles away in some dark house with a dust covered bed in front of him. A quick dusting spell cleared that up, and then he laid her down. Spotting a notebook and pen on the nearby desk, he wrote a simple note, basically saying that she had two choices; trust the government, or run. Either way, she'd most likely be developing super powers in a matter of hours to days and IO would be hunting her down once they found out where she was. He also put at the end that this was a one time rescue and couldn't count on it happening again if she were captured.
He quickly copied out the note a few dozen times, enough to ensure there would be at least one for everybody that he rescued, and then Apparated back to the Genesis Compound. After getting all those that were in the hallways and on the gurneys, he tried his luck at the still locked pods. He realized in his first attempt, standing there for the super speed equivalent of ten seconds, but was probably like one half of a picosecond or whatever, that even if he had or could figure out the code for opening each door, to him it would be like an hours wait just for them to open up enough for him to squeeze inside. So he just Apparated to the other side of the door. Unfortunately, the gas hung in the air and would remain until cleared, most likely when the soldiers came to ice them, or whatever. First room he tried, he nearly passed out from breathing inside just once, making his efforts slow and sluggish just to reach the person and then Disapparate back out into the hallway with them.
Harry raced back to the kitchen, drank down nearly a gallon of water from busting open water bottles, then raced back and finally took the time to figure out where the kid felt safest and took him there, leaving behind a note. After that, Harry spent a little bit of time searching for a gas mask he could wear, and then was a lot more careful Apparating into rooms from that point on. In real time, it took him about two minutes to clear out all of the other students that hadn't already been iced, from start to finish. To him, it was the work of a couple of hours, at least!
After that, he started looking for other things to do, IE sabotage, as well as see if he could find out what had happened to the rest of his teammates. He might have gone after them first, if he hadn't seen the fight in the cafeteria first and realized he needed to move quickly to save the other students. Having no luck after nearly fifteen 'real' minutes of searching the base from top to bottom, he decided to work intelligently, and instead started looking for the actual control center to this place.
He found it just as Threshold arrived to Ivana's summons, hiding in the duct work below them, the same kind of access/maintenance tunnel that they'd used to escape the base in the first place. He was getting tired again, so decided to rest while munching on the snack food he'd pilfered from the kitchens and listened to their whole conversation. Once Threshold left, Harry decided he'd rested enough and quickly made his way out to the main corridors and followed his one-eyed nemesis through the open hallways, making sure to stay far enough away that his powers wouldn't trigger at his proximity, but also still was fast enough that the cameras wouldn't catch anything. When Threshold got into the lift, however, he had to risk it to see what button the man was pressing, and was out of there before anything more than a soft breeze could've possibly registered, taking the stairs to the appropriate level and wait for his arrival.
He waited in 'real time', resting himself, and staying under his Invisibility Cloak, which he'd kept with him thankfully. After that, it was a bit of a game of hopscotch, waiting for Threshold to pass him by while under his cloak, and then just before he was out of sight, racing ahead at super speed to hide further down his path, until ultimately he lead him right to where the others were being held. One of the heavily fortified places in the 'torture' section of the base, which he'd discovered during previous excursions about.
The doors were those big bank-safe-like deals, and an airlock to boot. Which meant that he had to be within a few feet of Threshold for an extended period of time as the doors closed and then opened. It was a risk, but this was his friends, his team. They were worth it. Nevertheless, the whole time he crouched down under his Invisibility Cloak in the corner of the airlock, he kept both wands trained on the psychotic psychic, spells to drop him already lighting the tips, just needing the slightest inkling from him to either stun, maim, cripple, paralyze, or kill the man. He really wasn't sure which, he wasn't picky at the moment.
Thankfully, the wait inside the airlock was uneventful, and he was through the inner door before Threshold had even thought to start moving. Inside, he found exactly what he was afraid he'd find. And didn't find the one thing he'd been counting on, which made him even more afraid.
"Surprised to see my sister missing, Potter?" Threshold whispered from right behind him, which should have been impossible, being invisible and all. "She played you like she plays everybody. Don't feel bad, she does it to all the guys, has since we were kids."
He rounded, willing himself to move as fast as he could now possibly move. It wasn't fast enough.
Threshold's psi-blast caught him full on, tearing away his Cloak and knocking him to the grounds, holding his head as pain equal to that caused by Voldemort ripped through his entire head! He still had enough of his senses left to look up and see Bliss approach with a flute of champagne for both her and her brother. Before the eyes of the teens, they laughed, shared a sip of each others bubbly, and then turned their attention back to their captives as the torture began.
Next Day
(Fairchild's POV)
Caitlin had just finished adjusting the last of the armor and was now walking toward the main entrance, helmet firmly in place and both hands on the emptied rifle. Truth be told, she really didn't like guns at all, loaded guns that could be fired and kill people even less. But it sold her cover, at least long enough for her to get inside the base and hopefully find out what happened to her friends. Since that brief psychic flash she'd gotten from Roxy, there had been... phantom pains, but nothing as intense or clear, just an overwhelming sense of unease.
"Hey!" one of the perimeter guards called upon spotting her. "Hey you! Hold it!"
Coming to a halt just inside the fenced area of the base, she stopped and turned to face him, struggling to keep her breathing even and her knees from shaking.
"Clearance?" he demanded, both he and his partner pointing there, undoubtedly loaded, weapons at her.
She didn't know how he'd done it, and when she'd asked he'd just given her this cocky little grin, but as he'd been showing her how to put on the armor and explaining the plan and everything, Harry had also shared with her a number of clearance codes for a number of different situations for when she attempted her infiltration. For getting past the perimeter and gate guards, he'd told her; "IO Level 2, Lambda Beta 4 Foxtrot Romeo Echo Echo Ditto. Returning from failed retrieval of GenActives. Was thrown clear by the explosions, woke up a couple hours ago, been walking ever since. Got any water?"
Word for word, that is what he told her to say, thankfully she only had to repeat it twice to memorize it, same with the others he'd coached her through.
"What the hell happened out there Lambda?" the other guard asked, lowering his weapon.
She ignored him and then tried to make her voice sound a bit more scratchy saying again, "Water?"
"Right," the first guard nodded, "Get her inside. I'll radio the infirmary. You're cleared."
She'd almost forgotten, but right before the guy could touch her she remembered, only because Harry had kept reminding her over and over that if she gets asked for clearance, she's supposed to ask for it back and pay close attention to the words, because if any of them are 'omega' or 'alpha' she was in trouble. She jumped back and leveled her empty rifle at the first guard, absently pushing the other one away, and shouted, "Clearance! Don't make me ask twice!"
The suspicious one finally lowered his weapon, while the other looked like he was about to start shooting her on principle. "IO Level 2, Charlie Whiskey 7 Niner Niner Papa Papa Sierra Ditto. Report to the infirmary, you're cleared."
"Don't play games next time," she growled at him as she went past. "I had a bad night. And I know the way to the infirmary!" She breathed a sigh of relief when she was not confronted any further and made it into the base with no other problems.
Until she actually stepped inside and found the base on high alert and everybody running around with something to do. Her standing there looking lost and confused just made her stand out, she knew it, but she couldn't help it. Somehow she managed to break herself out of her stupor and decided to stick with the story she'd told the guard outside and made her way to the infirmary. At least then maybe she would get an excuse to get out of this constricting armor. It was starting to chafe.
Before she could get that far, however, she was conscripted to 'help out' in 'fortifying defenses' against the GenActives that were running around, and instead of going to the infirmary was put in an elevator with a whole squad of red uniformed Keepers, which kept going down and down and down, her fear rising with each floor they passed. Fortunately, Keepers weren't much for small talk, at least not while in elevators, so she merely hand to stand there with the rest of them, holding onto her 'weapon' with both hands, and wait for the doors to open. Thankfully for Caitlin's nerves, that happened sooner than later and she marched out with the other Keepers, quickly recognizing that she was now in a part of the base she'd never been in before.
At each turn, the larger group of Keepers broke off into smaller teams, some to search rooms or long corridors, others to merely stand at designated posts. When the turn came up for an area marked 'Detention Center', Caitlin decided to take her chance while she could and stepped out from the main group as others had before. Nobody stopped her or called out as she kept going and didn't dare to look back. However, she quickly came across a whole new set of problems shortly down the path she'd taken. Namely, lots of big, locked, sealed, and heavily reinforced doors with sophisticated code locks on par with anything the government could possibly have on everything they considered 'Classified'!
It certainly didn't help that there were mirrored observation windows next to each 'door' (Honestly, calling it a door was like calling the CIA in Langley, VA a 'normal' office building) that showed what was inside these Detention Cells. For some, they held monsters, deformed and hardly human, some raging in their imprisonment, some weeping in the corners, some just standing there not moving at all. What was worse were the ones that did not hold monsters, but instead ordinary humans, most all of them children younger than her!
She wanted to help them, especially this one boy who was sitting on his bed, crying, huddled up into a ball. It broke her heart to see him there like that, but she remembered the rest of the plan she and Harry had come up with. He already knew about these prisoners, somehow, and he fully intended to rescue them as well as the other students. So, she was asking herself, why hadn't he?
The base being on full alert like it was clearly said that Harry had been busy and indeed freed the other students, but why not these people? What had happened to Harry? The one person out of all of them that actually had an idea of what was going on here, a plan on how to get out, not to mention the means to successfully evacuate all these people and take them to safety, and he'd disappeared on her! With that in mind, though it broke her heart to do so, Caitlin turned away from the crying young blond boy and resumed her search for her friends.
Threshold's Torture Chamber
Same Time
"AAAHHHHH!"
Grunge had been screaming off and on as Threshold off and on used different types of energy from the tools at his disposal and sent it coursing through the naked tattooed man's spread eagle body. He'd even started rotating him as the energy (electricity, plasma, radiation, gamma, x-rays, ultraviolet, infrasonics, and more) was pumped through the machines and through Grunge's prone muscular form. Of course between the different types of energy, he always submitted him to the 'default' of Threshold's own pain-inducing psionic energy. Other than getting him to sweat and screaming every time, nothing much had happened.
They were all arrayed so they could watch helplessly as he tortured each of them. Grunge, at the moment, was at the center of the room and latched to some technical machinery by his fists and feet. Bobby, aka Burnout, was in a thin tube of greenish colored fluid, wearing only a breathing mask as his hands and feet were latched to the top and bottom of the tube respectively, and a good thing too as the tube wasn't very wide and if his arms had been down he wouldn't have fit inside it. Harry, on the other hand, was lashed to the wall with cold iron chains crisscrossing his body, while his hands were held above and behind him with power-dampening manacles. The girls were kept next to each other, across from Harry, both stripped naked, their hands kept in the same power-dampening manacles as Harry and in the same position, forcing them on their knees, arms stretched above their heads, leaving their breasts to hang free while giving them zero leverage to even try and pull against their restraints. If he wasn't being tortured at the time, Grunge might have snuck a few more looks than he already had, but it was tough to enjoy the view with a prick like Threshold to ruin it. As for the girls, well they just wished they'd been left at least one arm free, to help cover their nudity if nothing else.
Trying to keep her head down as much as possible while she did it, Roxy leaned over and whispered to Sarah, "We've got to do something, Sarah! Grunge can't take much more of that torture."
Keeping her voice low, Sarah whispered back, "Do what? These Neuro-Bands are dampening our powers, and I've got zero leverage to struggle, let alone break free. I'm not Kat here!" They both clamped their mouths shut as the screaming came to a stop and Threshold stepped out from behind the control console.
"I really am disappointed with you, Grunge," Threshold said, hands on his hips as he looked over his inverted prisoner. "I was positive that you were going to be GenActive, and yet you've still failed to manifest your powers! Why is that? I'm never wrong about these things."
"You know..." Grunge said rather weakly, "my teachers always said... I was an underachiever..."
"Still the comedian, eh?" the blond smirked, getting right up to the punk's face. "You surprise me, Chang. You must think you're pretty tough."
"I'm just full of surprises, Threshold," Grunge replied woozily. "And I'm tough enough to stand up to a government dweeb like you!"
"For your sake, Chang," Threshold said, a gleam of anticipation in his eye, "I hope that's true." He then raised his hand, and everyone gasped, recognizing the sign for what came next. "Your see, if you can't live up to my expectations..." Threshold activated his powers and began to pour psionic energy into Grunge's weakened body with a horrible sound of an electric field going into high voltage, "...then you'll simply have to die!"
"No—YEEEAARRGH!" Grunge screamed, cutting off his own protest as his muscles twitched and jumped uncontrollably and pain like he'd never know before tonight flooded his system.
Harry couldn't watch this for much more. Unfortunately it was looking like he didn't have much choice, as the cold iron holding him down seemed to be quite effective. He'd tried Disapparating three times already, each time left him feeling drained and near-paralyzed, and still wrapped in chains. He'd tried using his remote casting skills, maybe light up a Lumos spell, or a blasting curse, or something from where his wand was being kept, but no matter how long or how hard he tried, nothing happened. In fact, he could feel his magic going into the cold iron as opposed to either of his wands.
He'd never encountered something like this before, but given that the material was basically anti-magic and he'd lived half his life thus far in the Wizarding World, it really wasn't that much of a shock. No wizard or witch alive, even the dark ones would allow something like this anywhere near them! What was such a shock, however, was how Threshold knew he was a wizard and to apply such precautions in the first place! His sister, Nicole—Bliss—had never so much as hinted at being aware of the magical world, let along that she knew he was a wizard. And though Threshold seemed to have been able to enter his mind where Bliss could not—for very long at any rate—Harry could count on one hand the number of times either of them had actually succeeded in breaching his mental defenses, and preparations like these required longer than the time they'd had since they'd last penetrated his Occlumency shields.
Which meant that Nicole, all of them, had been lying from the start. They knew he was a wizard, knew his true history, and made the mistake of underestimating him allowing him to keep his wands and other magical devices for all this time. Obviously, they'd learned their lesson and were prepared this time.
Magic no longer an option, he turned his focus to his new-found GenActive powers that Threshold was going on about. Unfortunately, Sarah was right, the Neuro-Bands on his wrists kept him from being able to trigger the cold sensation—his super speed—as he had before. This did not leave him with a lot of options.
Almost none, in fact. But then, almost none is not absolutely none...
Unfortunately, what he could try would take some time and if Threshold caught him at it, then it may as well be no options period. So, he'd been waiting for moments when the blond bastard was distracted, such as now as he was torturing Grunge.
He was trying to use a combination of his new powers with his magic powers. Yes, the Neuro-Bands kept a full manifestation of GenActive powers from happening, and yes, the cold iron chains drained his magic faster than he could use it. The key was in the way they worked really.
Neuro-Bands send an electrical impulse through the nervous system targeted on the part of the brain where control and access of powers was found to originate, even in the ones that just happened to have bigger muscles or a different bone structure, disrupting that part of the brain turned off the powers. Mostly. As with anything having to do with the mind, it is possible to push past a disruptive influence, like pain or tingly electric sensations, and focus on what you want to do anyway. Eventually the pain or distraction or whatever will break your concentration again, but if the goal is short bursts of intense focus, that's doable.
With cold iron, however, that's more like putting a really hot sponge next to where your shooting a jet of water. Whatever the sponge doesn't absorb, the heat it gives off will evaporate. But that, he figured, is only when you use the same amount of water as from a squirt gun or a garden hose. If you were to use a fire hose's or geyser's worth however...
Also, he wasn't exactly trying for any particular spell or power, rather he was pumping as much raw magic through his hands and wrists where the Neuro-Bands were, hoping that he overwhelmed the effects of the cold iron enough to cause a bit of accidental magic. Cause if there was one thing he knew, it was highly advanced technological equipment and accidental magic really didn't mix well. Although, it really wasn't 'accidental' if he was trying to force it, was it?
The end result he found himself working with was that for instances at a time, he felt the cold sensation of his super speed power kicking in, but only for a couple of seconds at a time, and threatening a very real case of magical exhaustion. However, he did manage to get a spark from the Neuro-Bands after building up and then unleashing a magic burst, which without the chains probably would have blown up half the base, at the least. Realizing what he could do with that, he did his best to time it so he unleashed the next magic burst at the same time he was focusing and triggering his super speed. This helped him twice over, the first because if he was successful, then the spark happened in less than an instant of real time and Threshold wouldn't notice it amidst the energy being poured into Grunge at that moment. And two, when sparking, the Neuro-Bands were essentially overloaded, which meant shut down, albeit for only 'seconds' at a time, but it gave him more time at super speeding his way out of the things. Vibrating his molecules seemed to be outside his scope, for the time being anyway, but pulling and tugging and slamming them against everything hard within reach should be enough to take them out of commission permanently. Er, eventually.
It was the best he had for the time being. He just hoped that his magic, and Grunge, could hold out long enough for him to actually get free. Otherwise they were really in trouble.
Detention Center
Nicole Callahan was making her way back to help her brother with the 'latent talents', but there was the matter of the base evacuation underway, and much as she liked her Chippendale boytoys, she wouldn't trust them to pack a toothbrush, let alone all her precious items, such as clothes, make-up, and most importantly her shoes. That now taken care of, she was making her way back to the torture chamber, looking forward to seeing what else she could get from Potter.
She wasn't about to touch the one called Grunge, for one his name was very accurate and even she had standards. The Spaulding girl hadn't manifested either last she checked. Might be fun, breaking in an 'innocent' girl like that, especially one who thought she had already seen it all and considered herself jaded because of having a less than ideal childhood. Might even get her to manifest before she went insane from the experience.
Idly, Bliss wondered if Potter was still under the very false impression that she was working with him to free everybody and take down the IO from the inside. It had been a fun little tale she'd spun him back in London, how she was undercover with some nameless oversight committee and how she needed his help to get proof of the crimes being committed by Ivana and her ilk, how she just needed him to do the legwork and stay undercover while she contacted the authorities and got them to come arrest all the bad guys while he would then be free to go do the super hero thing he was on the path for already. She laughed herself to sleep some nights, reaching out to his mind and sensing his thoughts of how to 'help' her and her bosses.
That he'd then gone and actually collected incriminating evidence and succeeded in rescuing over seventy-five percent of the subjects, well that had her laughing for whole other reasons.
On her way past one of the caged mutated freaks they kept down here, she caught sight of a Field Unit Keeper running across the hall just out of the corner of her eye. It caught her eye for a number of reasons, the primary of which being that Field Keepers didn't come to this part of the base, and if they did, they had the decency to change uniforms. The other thing was that this particular female Keeper was taller than her, and her uniform fit like a plastic bag that was stretched to the ripping point. No woman on this base was taller or wore tighter clothing than her, not even Ivana!
Turning, she reached out with her telepathy and was quickly rewarded with the mysterious imposter's true identity! "It's Fairchild!" she screamed to her attendants, she never went anywhere without them. "It seems my dear brother underestimated her resolve!"
Turning the full might of her psionic abilities on the unprepared girl, she said as she blasted the stolen uniform right off her body, "You may have eluded Threshold, Fairchild, but you won't escape me!"
"AAARGH!" Caitlin screamed, getting knocked back by the force Bliss was unleashing upon her, the only sign an ethereal blue glow from around her head and eyes. The Keeper uniform tore off with a distinctive ripping sound that coincided with the energy discharge from Bliss's powers.
"The name's Bliss," Nicole introduced herself after the girl was on the ground, "though that's not what you'll be feeling!" She cut the blast short once she saw Fairchild was on the ground, partly because unlike her brother, it was a strain for her to use her psychokinetic talents, but mostly because she no longer saw her as a threat seeing as she was on the ground and disoriented. Of course she was also completely ignoring the fact that if anyone else, even one of the fabled Gen12, had been hit with a psychic blast of that magnitude and focused strength, they'd be bleeding from every hole in their head, if not no longer have a head at all. Caitlin, though groggy, was already coming around and looking as though she had nothing more than a headache, a bad one, but just a headache.
"Get a Keeper Team down here to restrain her until my brother can pick her up for containment," she ordered her Keeper escort, while her boy toy stood dutifully off to the side.
"Yes ma'am," the Keeper acknowledged, already radioing for backup.
"Unnngh!" Caitlin groaned, pushing herself up off the floor. "My head! Feel as though... I just got hit... by a train!"
"Mistress," her boy toy said, "She is getting back up."
"What?!" Bliss turned and saw that Fairchild was already on her knees and standing back to her full height "Impossible! After a blast like that, she should be down for more than an hour!"
"That," Caitlin said, anger rising within her, "Really. Hurt. I guess we wouldn't be the only ones transformed by a program like this, and it only makes sense to hire SPBs," she charged and shouted, "TO CONTROL SPBS!"
"Eep!" Bliss squeaked, and made a run for the containment doors at the end of the hallway. A brief touch to the Keeper had him moving to block the angry redhead and ensure that he would do whatever it took to delay her for as long as possible.
"Hold it right there—urk!" the Keeper pointed his weapon at Caitlin, only to have her forcefully yank it out of his hands and then hit him in the face with the but of it, shattering his helmet and sending him flying through the doors just as they began to shut.
"Heh, look, I was just kidding, Fairchild," Bliss said nervously from the other side of the doors, finger already pressing the button to close them. "I was just going to take you to your friends." The doors began to close, faster than even Caitlin could get through them. "NOT! There's no way you'll ever break out of these containment doors, sucker." By then the doors closed with a resounding slam and then hydraulic hissing as they sealed shut. Caitlin frowned and turned her back on the sealed door.
"She irritates me," the redhead said to herself as she tried to fix the torn sleeve of her outfit, forgoing stealth in favor of just getting to her friends as quickly as possible by this point.
Threshold's Torture Chamber
"I...I'm getting kinda... bored, Blondie... Don't you... know... any other... games... we... can... play?" Grunge warbled, his voice—not to mention the rest of him—exhausted from the sound of it.
"Very good, Chang! Defiant to the end. Well, the game's over, my friend." Threshold said, holding Grunge by the scalp with one hand, and holding the other up, a blue-white electric glow coming from it. "It's time to put all our cards on the table." He began to move the glowing hand closer to Grunge's head.
"Hey?! What are you...doing to me—!" Grunge warbled, but Threshold interrupted him.
"It's time for you to manifest..." He then actually plunged his electric-glowing fingertips INTO the front of Grunge's skull, unleashing a scream the likes of which none in the room had ever heard before, and far louder than anything Grunge had screamed before. "... or die!"
Roxy couldn't stand anymore. Tears running down her face, she screamed at their torturer, somehow still able to make herself heard over Grunge's screams. "Stop it! Stop it, you creep! Stop hurting him! Leave him alone, or so help me... I'll kill you myself!"
Whatever it was, her anger, her words, her tears, it worked. Threshold let go of Grunge, who hung there limply, barely even conscious by this point, and turned to look at the naked young girl. He then put on a look of mocking surprise and put one of the fingers he'd been using to cause immeasurable pain to Grunge close to his mouth in a parody of dismay. He then, with the same mocking attitude, said, "Ooooh! I'm so afraid!"
Switching moods faster than a light switch, Threshold lashed out with his powers, disabling and removing her restraints, before wrapping his power, the visual aspect looking like lightning-like blue energy, around her throat like a noose and lifting her up by it. Roxy tried to thrash her naked body against the unseen force, but it was more than just unseen, it wasn't physical at all, so there was nothing to struggle against.
"AIEEE!" Roxy screamed, terrified and panicking.
"ROXY!" Rainmaker shouted, foregoing any attempts at modesty and started struggling against her restraints like a she-wolf in a trap.
"If you feel that strongly about it, why don't you come over here and join him?" Threshold said, floating Roxy above all their heads. Her hands were still at her throat, trying to pull whatever was choking her away from it so she could breathe, but it was having no effect.
"But ask yourself, girl—Is he worth it?" he asked, his tone dark and foreboding. Her legs were kicking out, trying to find some purchase, but there was none in the open air, and as her energy waned they began to slow and before long could only shake and hang there.
"EEERRGH!" she choked, but she wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction, and so using everything she had, between choking gasps as she hung there in the air, nude, held up only by her tormentor's power, she gasped out her answer, "Ye... yes... gak!"
"Roxy?" Opening his eyes, Grunge saw what was happening, literally right in front of him. "ROXY!" He couldn't hold back anymore. Energy surged through him as his rage was unleashed upon the world for the first time in years. Starting at his right wrist and then spreading to cover the whole rest of him, his body transformed into the same material as his restraints, and given how much stronger the metallic alloy was than human flesh, it was easy enough for him to rip himself free.
"Let her go, you stinking Pus-Wad!" Grunge cried out, charging full steam ahead, warning be damned.
"Ha ha ha!" Threshold laughed, not bothering to look behind him as he said, "Give me one good reason why I should—NO!"
The older Gen Active's instincts warned him at the last second, but it was far too late as a robo-metal-Grunge slammed into him with a solid left punch, sending him flying into the far wall, knocked out instantly.
"Manifest that asswipe!" he called out. A beat later, her looked down at himself and remarked, "Hey! I did manifest! Friggin' A! Hey guys, check me out! Guys?"
Of course with Threshold unconscious, his powers were no longer active, and Roxy started to drop from over fifteen feet in the air. "Hey! What's going on—?" was all she had time to ask once gravity took hold.
Harry, of course, had been witness to all of this and while he knew the younger girl probably couldn't be killed by such a short fall, at this stage of the game they couldn't afford even a small injury like a sprained ankle or broken leg. Also, with Threshold down and out, he didn't have to hold back for fear of discovery anymore and unleashed everything he had in one go, magic and GenActive powers together! The Neuro-Bands practically exploded from around his glowing fists, and then he was moving as Roxy was only a couple feet from the floor while he started halfway across the room.
He was under her and caught her half a foot from her cute nude butt hitting the cold metal floor, and then stood with her in his arms, slowing back down to 'normal' speed. He did his best to not look, mostly by staring straight ahead and remembering where they were and how they needed to get out of there, preferably as soon as possible, if not sooner.
"—Whoa!" Roxy gasped as she found herself cradled in Harry's arms. "Where'd you come from, studmuffin?" she asked as he allowed her to stand to her feet.
Harry wisely kept his mouth shut and turned to start looking for their clothes, while Grunge came up next to her, saying, "Roxy! Speak to me! You all right?"
Smirking to herself and out of his view, the teenage girl decided to take advantage while she could. Ducking her head, she turned and leaned her full, naked, unclothed, fully developed body against his, equally naked, (not to mention transformed) and well-muscled body, giving a soft moan like she'd fallen against him instead. "Ohhhh..."
He held onto her for a couple seconds, which turned longer when she suddenly jumped up and hugged him tight around the neck, taking the opportunity to rub as much of herself as she could against his still steel-clad chest. "Grunge! That was so romantically cool! You manifested your powers just in time to save my life!"
"Uh, well, you're welcome Roxy. It was nuthin', no sweat," he said, blushing a bit as he scratched the back of his metal scalp in embarrassment.
"You're my Dude In Shining Armor, Grunge," she whispered, holding him close. "If there's anything I can do for you..." she trailed off suggestively.
"Yeah, before that," Harry gladly interrupted by throwing their clothes at them, "how about we focus on getting out of here, alive and preferably with no more torture to go through. And for Merlin's sake, put some clothes on you two! Roxy, help Sarah out of her binds, Grunge, help me with draining Burnout's tube here."
"Whoa, dude!" Grunge recoiled.
"Don't even go there!" Harry growled. "Bad enough you've seen all the girls without their clothes now, you'll be lucky if Kat doesn't literally rip your balls off while Sarah fries them with her lightning!"
"Uh..." he gulped and quickly put his pants on while moving over to help get Bobby out of the life tube filled with flame retardant fluid.
Ten minutes later, they were all out of their restraints and dressed in their clothing they'd had on before, which thankfully had just been removed and tossed in a box in the corner, and not cut off or thrown into an incinerator somewhere. They'd also put Threshold in his own set of Neuro-Bands and left naked in a compromising position or two. Point is, even if he could use his powers upon regaining consciousness, he wouldn't be going after them too soon.
A few minutes after that, they'd finally gotten the door open and were walking out into the hallway, where the alarms were apparently already going off. Though, judging from the lack of Keepers waiting for them right outside the door, it was clear that it wasn't for them.
"Sounds like trouble," Rainmaker said, putting her leather jacket on over the red and green suit that somehow enhanced aspects of her powers while protecting her physically, and it breathed like Egyptian Cotton! "So what's our next move, people?"
"I'd be happy finding the quickest way out of this place," Bobby replied, looking up and down the hallway, back in his plasma-proof red and yellow costume.
"Just what I was thinking, Burnout!" Grunge agreed. "If we're lucky, maybe we can still catch up with Caitlin on the outside. I just hope she's doing OK."
"Yeah," Harry said after a loud clank sound, followed by a vibration cut in between the klaxon alarms, "I'm thinking she's going to need our help more than we need hers right now."
"Why do you say that?" Roxy asked, suspicious and already chugging away at some cigarettes she'd swiped from Threshold.
"Because the plan was if she didn't hear from me by morning, to come in after us and make as big a distraction as possible once she was deep enough into the base—" There was another, louder sound of metal tearing and an accompanying vibration felt throughout the whole base no doubt. "—and that is probably her right now. Let's go guys! I've got a plan and it is going to need every one of us to pull it off!"
END (4 of 5)