YOU WILL NEVER GET OUT OF HERE.
Nenet Ledger had heard that line thousands of times. Most of them came from her bastard of a stepfather. That abusive sack of crap who slapped Mom around and her whenever he got bored. He had been so jealous of them both. For mom's willingness to forgive his sorry ass and for her genius. By the time she'd been ten she was already in high school.
GIVE UP.
She'd heard that too. Specifically from the bullies and jerks always jealous of her. How she got better grades than them. How she was able to keep up with the older kids in the swim meets.
They all had one thing in common
YOU WILL FOLLOW THE ORIGINAL MISSION PARAMETERS.
"How many times do we have to go through this, Prism?"
The Prism always brought her to the same room. The same black void with the light shining brighter than any sun shining down like lamp overhead. She was standing in her usual clothes facing a mirror copy. But her copy's eyes… they were a swirling and shifting mass of colors. They flowed brightly and the colors pulsed as if each hue was a living creature.
This was her partner.
Her weapon.
Her fellow prisoner.
AS MANY TIMES AS IT TAKES BEFORE YOU UNDERSTAND.
"I've made it clear that I want to help Mark." She pointed at her copy and glared. "I don't want him to be alone either. But I can't do that if we're just at each other's throats all the time."
Her twin glared at her.
YOU ONLY WISH TO SERVE THOSE WHO MANIPULATE YOU. TO SUBMIT TO THOSE THAT ARE YOUR LESSERS AND TAKE THEIR ORDERS.
"Maybe so, but it's my life and I'm doing work that I enjoy. I'm helping people…"
THEY ARE MERELY AN EXTENSION OF YOUR STEPFATHER.
Nenet's hands clenched into fists. No, she can't get angry. That was what the Prism wanted. It wanted her to get angry because that was as good as admitting it was right.
She could only face it by fighting it with its own weapons.
Words.
"Oh, bringing up that bastard was a low blow, Prism." She turned on her heel and began walking away. "I'm wounded. You wound me, Prism. I might as well slink away to sob quietly in a corner…"
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
"Well, obviously I'm not going to convince you and you're not going to break my spirit by bringing up my crappy childhood." She began cracking her knuckles. "So I might as well just see how many new inventions I can cook up. I'm going to be here a while so I might as well do something I enjoy in the confines of my own mind."
The copy of her body appeared before her and glared.
THIS IS CHILDISH AND POINTLESS.
"Well, so are these stupid mind games you pull." Nenet crossed her arms. "So just suck it up and keep the original deal. I'll do what I can to keep Mark safe. In exchange, you don't go for joyrides in my body, help out both humans and animals that live on the world, and don't take me up to space unless I want us too!"
They glared at each other for a minute before the Prism sighed.
VERY WELL.
It brought up her right hand to shake. The gem on the surface glowed and pulsed in anticipation.
"We are one." Nenet said before bringing up own right hand and shaking her copy's. A strange, alien, and beautiful song filled the air as the glow of their gems became brighter.
AND WE WILL NEVER BE ALONE.
The light began to envelope them, warming Nenet's body as if every part of her was being hugged and kissed until…
Nenet gasped as she sat up. She hissed as a sharp throbbing pain began to flare up on ther forehead. Hissing, she began rubbing it and muttered, "Damn it… where the hell did you take me, Prism?"
This had been the third time this month. The Prism would take her body for a joyride while she was sleeping, begin heading off somewhere, and then she would be stuck somewhere unfamiliar when she snapped out of it.
But this had been the first time in a while since she had a one-on-one mental discussion with the Prism's mental projection.
Nenet took a quick look around. This was certainly an unfamiliar place. There was just white sand and rocks as far as her eyes could see. It was no desert that was for sure. No sand was this white. And there was no vegetation so…
Her eyes then honed in on a pole with the American flag on it. The old one with the fifty stars. The colors had faded and the fabric was torn and….
"Oh you dick."
Nenet looked up and saw the planet Earth. It was so beautiful from where she could see it. The sun just over its shoulder, lighting up its silhouette and revealing its oceans and continents. She could see the clouds on its surface slowly moving as dawn began to emerge for come people. The stars all around her twinkled in the dark void of space, some of which had been dead for centuries or longer.
"Cool…"
A part of her wanted to go and explore. She had been interested in space and fascinated with the secrets it held. But those secrets had seemed distant. Unattainable when there was a screeching halt to all space exploration after the Icarus One had disappeared. The secrets of the ocean were a realistic mystery she could explore and uncover. The life forms there were something that could be commented and shared with the rest of the world. Hell, she had found ruins down in the Mariana Trench. Ancient statues and idols that depicted some leader or deity named Kull…
And there was the Prism.
"No, can't think about that now. Right now I gotta focus on getting back to Earth before I suffocate." Nenet took a deep breath and concentrated. The bubble around her, an air pocket that the Prism cooked up when it realized its host body would die without oxygen, began to lift off the ground with her in the center of it. "Move. Go to the North American continent. Washington D.C is the target."
That was where her lab was. Where Kingsley and her important projects were.
It was where her real home was.
A place free from her past and representing a future she could control.
She raised her arms and began to fly through the air. The Prism's ability to create hard light constructs and blasts with actual mass were neat, but the ability to fly? Now that beat blowing the crap out of stuff any day of the week.
Destruction was fun for a couple of seconds.
Soaring through the air like a bird and moving through the ocean without fear of water pressure or wearing a suit?
That never got old.
As she began to get closer to Earth, she looked back to the moon and the stars in the distance.
Nenet knew that there was intelligent life out there. The Prism and Mark proved that.
They probably didn't all look like humans. Then again, what constituted as a human 'look' had become more varied with Quirks.
But she wanted to meet them. To study them and learn from them like she learned from the life in Earth's oceans.
She could explore the vast reaches of space and escape to distant planets where no one would find her.
"Not today. I've still got friends here."
But maybe someday.
She looked back to Earth and saw the multiple colors of the field begin to shift and glow as they entered the atmosphere. "At least I'm not being fried…" She wiped her brow of sweat. God, she would need a shower when she got back to the lab.
Within minutes, she was over the research base and began to float down to the entrance. Already the guards were beginning to draw their pistols and she raised her hands. "Come on guys, it's me! Sorry I ran off, but you know how this thing…" She waved her right hand. "…is!"
"Stand down, men." A bald man in a lab coat walked around one of the guards and approached her. He adjusted his glasses and said, "Dr. Ledger. Glad that you could get back to us. General Alexander was beginning to get… nervous."
"Yeah, sorry Dr. Steadman." She chuckled and stuck out her tongue. "The Prism can be a real pain! Likes to go off and do its own thing, but I think I got it handled now."
Dr. Bill Steadman's brow furrowed and he let out a shaky breath. "Quite."
She stared down at this putrid mass of atoms as they flew near Earth's atmosphere. Bill Steadman was stammering as he stared at her, the reflection on his eyes showing her eyes and mouth were emitting a blinding white light. Energy crackling around her as she brought him close. An alien sense of disgust at this primitive worm that dared to take apart the temple that was its body and to harm her charge.
YOU DON'T DESERVE HIM! She yelled in fury. I'VE STUDIED YOU ALL AND SEE YOU FOR WHAT YOU ARE! YOU ANIMALS DO NOT DESERVE…!
"Dr. Ledger? Are you alright?"
Nenet pinched the bridge of her nose. "Y-Yeah… I'm fine. Sorry, I got a headache ever since I woke up on the moon."
"The moon? How fascinating…" Bill opened the door for her as she walked past him and towards her lab. "But not unexpected. That gem is the power source for Mark's ship, after all."
"Yeah. But I can't go far. There is the whole problem of being able to breath in space…" She glanced at her right hand and stared at the gem embedded in her palm. "But who knows? I did figure out how to make this thing extract oxygen from the water so I can breathe without a suit."
"Yes. And your research is invaluable."
Nenet stopped and frowned as she looked to the right. Just across from her lab one of the janitors was beginning to put on a holographic projector on the door. "Bill? What's going on? Am I about to get a new neighbor?"
The older man nodded. "The orders just came in. We're getting a civilian member of the board. From my understanding, they wish to have her provide a unique perspective on Mark and the others."
Nenet watched as the janitor, satisfied with his work, turned on the device. Projected just a few inches from the door and half to herself she muttered it aloud.
"E. Burbank?"
Notes: Well, now there's just one more to go!
Hope you all liked how I handled Dr. Spectrum! I wanted to make sure she was the complete opposite of the one presented in Jason Aaron's Avengers and Heroes Reborn. For one thing, Nenet's not a jingoistic and xenophobic asshole. Nenet is someone who is fascinated and curious about the unknown. She's not a space cop. Rather she's a scientist and an explorer, albeit one with a crappy childhood and is basically trying to run away from her past. The history of child abuse was something the Supreme Power version of Doctor Spectrum had to deal with. Only difference is that Nenet didn't join the military.
So I hope you all liked it!]