Two VERY heavy, hard-to-get-through chapters have just been completed, sorry for the delay.
Hairy Gregory (in response to your chapter 1 review): Ah, but the timelines don't arrange themselves like that my friend: Johnny's fate is veering differently to its original course. More will be revealed in the next chapter.
PinkPuff514: I won't lie, we're about to descend into the darkets part of the story, but rest assured that not all is lost.
Zoe Rose: Another appearance from Buttercup will have to wait, but we'll definitely hear from her "ingenius" plan. ;)
The quarters Johnny had been assigned were a luscious, well-stocked refuge in the overwhelming greatness of the fortress. Having been designed by his own future self they had everything the boy could desire- in fact, for many hours a day he would simply peruse the shelves of science journals supplied to him. The technological advances of the future were astounding enough, but his interest was particularly piqued by Alecto's own bizarre contributions.
Currently, he was absorbed in a book filled with large, detailed plates of neurological weaponry- designed to attack not the physical form, but the brainwaves of its victim- when his concentration was broken by the prowling padding of footsteps. He looked up, but strangely enough it seemed no-one else was in the room.
He twisted in his place to stretch out his stiff neck, and almost fell out of his armchair in shock when he saw a pair of slitted jade eyes glinting at him from behind.
"Good afternoon, young Master," purred Him, "we meet again."
Johnny tensely tried to edge away from the demon.
"Oh, no need to be scared of me anymore," Him assured, "I haven't been ordered to pursue you."
The creature grinned. "Still, you never know... and I never say no to succulent prey." He laughed foxily. Johnny tried not to notice the vicious fangs protruding below the plump dark lips.
"So..." he waveringly tried to assert, "You're going to be my servant one day?"
Him raised an incredulous, superior eyebrow. "Not for a while yet, young Master."
"I assume my Lord is keeping you here to protect you from the enemy," he added, slinking down onto Johnny's armrest. "You'll be heading back home soon, no doubt. It's your job to grow up all big and strong in the past to supplement my Lord's power today."
Johnny froze as he felt a monstrous claw meet the bottom of his chin. Him shamelessly drew him in closer. Pouting his lips, making them seem all the more voluptuous, he simpered in a sickly sweet tone:
"No need to worry that pretty little head about our big scary mission, baby-"
"-HIM!"
It was Him's turn to freeze in terror now. Alecto stood by the doorway, frowning with almost tyrannical sternness. He gestured silently for the demon to get out. For all Him's expression was worth, he may as well have had a goldfish tail sticking out of his mouth.
"Yes my Lord," he bumbled silently as he exited, tail between legs.
The awkwardness of the moment dissolved when Alecto summoned Johnny to follow him. They made their way down the spotless corridor in silence, before Johnny dared to speak up.
"Forgive me for being frank, but I think your Captain's under the impression that you care about him just as much as the mission. Maybe more."
Alecto nodded. "Let him think that. His power has proved to be invaluable under my thumb. And the extent of his loyalty is truly remarkable. To think of how he swore to protect you back in the past, even when..."
Alecto seemed to trail off, and Johnny started. Had he heard that right?
"Wait..." The boy's voice rose. "You didn't order your men to attack me, did you?"
A brief pause, followed by a snappish "Of course not. You don't really think I'd have such little regard for my well-being as to harm my younger self?"
"Oh." Johnny mumbled. He decided to be satisfied with this response.
They had reached Alecto's vaulted office. Johnny felt compelled to ask: "So what did you want to show me?"
The older man began to prowl up and down the width of the room, his head cocked at an angle as he looked towards the doorway of his private laboratory.
"For about the past year, I have had a recurring dream. A strange vision with images too powerful to ignore."
Johnny was sitting on a step of the room's dais. He now leant foward with interest. "What kind of images?" He asked.
Alecto's deep, incontestable voice echoed hauntingly up to him amgonst the panels of dark granite.
"There is the faint outline of a city. Extended and perfected, it's the centre of something greater. And hovering in the sky above, a bold young form watching over the people with its blue eyes. Watching their every move."
Alecto turned to look at Johnny.
"Any idea who it is?" The boy asked.
"I can never see it properly, but I believe it to be an angel. It polices the karma of what it observes, it assures that justice is done. And it's strong. Invincible, even."
Johnny really wasn't sure what to make of this. He looked down at the floor.
Alecto stopped pacing. "Come with me," he called, and the boy hopped up from the steps.
Together they entered the double doors of the laboratory. Inside was a holding room, one wall dominated by another door: huge, metal and electronic.
Alecto entered a series of entrance codes and it shuddered open. Suddenly the temperature dropped, and they proceeded to a large metal chamber lit from the sides by blue fluroescent lights.
Shining grey tabletops lined the lab. As Alecto and Johnny passed along the aisles of specimens and equipment they cast ghostly shadows upon the tiled floor. Guards stood watch as a choice batch of lab assistants monitored various workstations, maintaining activities that Alecto himself had started.
It was only now that Johnny's eyes rested on the cylindrical glass chamber in the centre of the room. A soft low gurgling sound emanated from its interior, it was filled with murky, greyish-green water. He approached it, watching small streams of bubbles rise from the bottom to the top of the tank.
Like a curious toddler watching the soothing rhythms of an aquarium, he pressed his nose up to the glass.
And was met face to face by a huge pair of drooping eyes.
He leapt back in shock, letting out a small scream. What he now saw was the body of a child suspended in the liquid, limp and motionless. The eyes stared out at him vacantly like those on a corpse (was there a conciousness behind them?). He now noticed the matted blonde hair floating about in the water, the spider's web of wires connected to her small body... and the gaping gory gashes on her torso, in the process of an eerie artificial healing.
"Ah, there's my baby girl!" Alecto cooed, falling upon the tank like the gushing mother of a newborn. "How are we today?"
He stroked the glass lovingly, and Johnny flinched in shock when the girl's pale eyes blinked back at their admirer.
"Johnny," Alecto announced, "meet your third future daughter, Bubbles."
His eyes widened. "You... you mean the one who..." The boy could not finish his sentence for the reaction from Alecto.
"Yes," the man replied curtly, "she was attacked by an old opponent of the girls'. But I have obtained the material that managed to do this to her. It will never fall into the wrong hands again."
Johnny nodded. "So she'll be safe when she's..."
"...Resurrected, of course." Alecto finished. "But I don't plan to bring her back with only her old powers."
The man indicated the various projects laid out in front of them. Cell samples under chemical tests, genetically modified chunks of tissue, glass tubes full of bubbling draughts and potions forming kaleidoscopes of multicoloured reactions...
"See these? All an evaluation of what went wrong. I wish to improve upon my child's defenses. Once this project is complete, she should be at least a thousand times stronger and smarter."
In the already freezing air, a chill went down Johnny's spine. "Invincible, even." He added softly.
Alecto smiled.
T. B. C.