A/N: Yeah, so you know how these always come on Fridays/Sundays/Tuesdays? Yeah, now this cycle they're coming on Thursdays/Saturdays/Mondays/Wednesdays... :D
"The Benevolent Doctor"
25. The Cavalry
Sometime in New New York
It had been Santana who'd pointed out the one thing that led to their finding a way in. Doctor Benedict may have been some kind of really smart scientist, but if people were supposed to trust him so much there had to be some weak spots through which they could slip and break into his mansion. Before they knew it, they were over the gate and seeking out a door they could use to get inside.
It took a while before they knew where they were supposed to go. If getting in and staying out of the guards' way wasn't enough, they had never set foot in this part of the house. For all they knew, they were completely in the wrong place. But they had to keep searching. They knew without a doubt that somewhere in this house, Agnes and Brittany were trapped.
In the basement, they followed corridors, looking into rooms where they could, straining to hear whatever was happening inside when they didn't dare opening the doors. When they came up to a door and spotted what looked like closely grouped bars through the window, they came closer and looked.
"Cells," Martha frowned when she had her turn at peeking. When Brannigan looked, at first, he saw the people in the cells and tried to make out if any of them were Agnes. He couldn't see her, but it didn't mean he didn't recognize anyone.
"That's Erlin!" he whispered. "You met her husband," he told the girls. "He's the one who brought Alfred." Santana had barely gotten a second to look before she ducked away from the window and turned to the others, holding a finger to her lips. There had been guards, entering through any other door, and until they were gone, none of them could move.
"They're going," Santana whispered as she took a very careful look two minutes later. She waited a minute more once they'd gone through the door, and then she nodded to Brannigan.
"Let's be quiet now, girls," he told her and Martha, and they went through the door.
They were so quiet that none of the prisoners really noticed anyone had come in until one of them sat up, looking like he was trying to find something he couldn't see…
"Hello?" the man called, which stirred the others near him to look around.
"Martha?" a girl's voice was heard.
"Brittany?" Martha blinked, looking for her.
"Brittany?" Santana stepped forward.
"Santana!" Brittany's voice came again.
"Brittany!" Santana followed the sound to one of the cells. And then she froze. She had to clamp her hand to her mouth so she wouldn't shout. But there was a cat girl standing on the other side of the bars, and it wasn't Agnes. One look into those blue eyes and she knew it was her… "Britt… What happened…"
"Dad?" another girl stepped up next to Brittany, and now Brannigan was the one to let out a strangled cry as he reached her in a few quick long strides. By the way he responded to her, one might have thought it was perfectly normal that she looked human. But then he was just so happy to see her there, alive and for the most part well.
"Agnes, my Agnes," he grasped her hand, touched her face. "Are you alright, are you hurt? You look just like your mother," he shook his head in amazement.
"Never mind that, we need to get out of…" Martha started to say. Then she stopped, and Brittany saw her teetering oddly.
"Martha? What's wrong?" she asked, just as she realized Santana and Brannigan were acting the same.
"What's happening?" Agnes gasped.
"Localized resonant field," the nameless man told her. "Confuses them, disorients them, knocks them out if it goes on long enough, and if it goes on too long…"
"Cover your ears!" Brittany pleaded of Santana, who looked like she might drop to the ground at any moment.
"It's no use," the man told them. "It won't stop until whoever initiated it decides to stop it."
"Dad!" Agnes gasped, following her father's descent as he crumpled to his knees. "Dad, please, hold on!" she begged him. He looked like he was trying to nod, to reassure her. But he wasn't doing well, and neither were Santana and Martha, the last of which was futilely trying to keep the younger girl from hearing the shrill tone only the three of them seemed able to hear. And then just as suddenly as it had begun, the tone went away, and with a gasp, the three sat on the ground, hunched over, catching their breaths.
"Dad?" Agnes asked, crying.
"'m all… all…" Brannigan stammered.
"It'll have weakened them," the nameless man volunteered. He knew what it would do; he'd controlled it in the past. "I imagine that was the intention. They must have been seen." No later had he said this that the main door opened and Benedict walked in. He looked on the ground, looked at each of the three so-called rescuers, and he shook his head.
"If you wanted to come for a visit, you might have done better using the actual door," he pointed to where he'd come from. His guards followed into the room, scooping up Brannigan, Martha, and Santana, and locking them into the cells with the other prisoners. "Well you've come just in time, although I imagine your friend back there was trying to give you as much time as possible, yes?"
"F… Friend?" Martha asked, gripping the bars of her cell to try and pull herself up. Benedict gave her a smile she would have done anything to be able to smack off his face before turning back to the door behind him and giving a nod.
Three more guards carried him in, unresponsive and heavy. The back of his coat kept nearly making one of the guards trip and fall. But finally they put him down, dropped unceremoniously might have been more accurate. On the back of his neck, the Doctor had a bandage.
TO BE CONTINUED (SATURDAY)