I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real; the needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting
Hurt: Nine Inch Nails
When Violet awoke she realised that she was still in the torture room, and chained quite firmly to something. The weight of the metal on her wrists was enough to tell her this.
Without opening her eyes, Violet surveyed her internal damage: Bumps, bruises, and one infallibly cracked rib. That was really going to hurt later. She opened her eyes and blinked twice.
"About time," said someone. Violet sighed in annoyance, and sat up. This was immediately accompanied by a rusty scream of defiance from her ribcage. Violet made to ignore it.
Rubbing her forehead tiredly, she noted that she had about a two feet of slack on each wrist. She glared at Syndrome, who was stood a little way from the 'table' she was sitting on. She took the opportunity to glance quickly around the room. Two guards stood on the door, and one behind a control panel. Violet didn't like it. It smacked of an interrogation - or torture - session. She turned back to Syndrome.
"Yes?"
This appeared to momentarily throw him off track, but his flicker of uncertainty was gone almost as soon as it was there. Violet smirked. (The part of her that would have had her gibbering in the corner of the room had been gaffer-taped by her common sense. The fight/flight instinct would not help here.)
Syndrome sensed her mirth and was instantly angry. He approached the table where she was sitting, face pale and serious with rage. His eyes darkened maliciously.
"Have no illusions. I am in charge. Do not forget it." His voice was a deadly, dangerous whisper that slithered down Violet's spine and pressed an ancient button marked 'Primal Terror'. The result was a hot lava bloom of fear in the pit of her stomach, but she willed it not to show on her face. Panic curled through her intestines and the hair on the nape of her neck stood up, but Violet concentrated instead on that milky blue stare.
She allowed her gaze to slip rather pointedly to the scar on his neck, and back to his eyes. She raised an eyebrow, and Syndrome grinned rather mirthlessly.
"I suppose you're wondering how I survived."
Violet said nothing. Her silence was as good as an answer. Syndrome turned so his back was to her and paced a little bit.
"Your father threw a car at my plane, and the result knocked me into the jet engine. It grabbed my cape and had almost pulled me into it when the plane exploded." He appeared to be unconsciously tracing the scar with one finger. "I was thrown away from it amidst the shrapnel, and when you are surrounded by flying pieces of razor-sharp metal it is bound to leave a mark somewhere."
Violet hoped it had hurt like hell.
"Then there were some other things, like undiscovered bases and unseized international accounts. The rest, I believe, is history. But, now for my question: what are you doing, hitchhiking through the Caribbean?"
Violet's silence deepened. Syndrome growled a command to his henchman, and a snake of pain wound up through Violet's left wrist. She immediately flinched, pulling taught the chain on her hand, and promptly antagonising her chest. Its purpose was obviously more than restraint.
"I will ask once more," said Syndrome quietly. "What are you doing in the middle of the Caribbean... all on your own. Or are you?"
Violet stayed mutinously mum. Syndrome's fingers twitched. Another bolt of pain, up her left arm again, and this was more than an uncomfortable twinge.
"That was level two," said Syndrome dangerously, face dark. "There are four hundred and thirty-two levels in total. Would you like to try them out?"
"I was hitchhiking."
"Why?"
"Gap year."
"Before what? College?"
"I've finished college. I'm twenty, you idiot."
A jolt of lightning consumed her entire arm, and this was real pain, with real bite; Violet had to stifle a gasp between her teeth. She had a sudden mental image of that electricity reaching her heart.
This time, Syndrome hadn't even bothered with a verbal warning. Violet decided that she would be best refraining from any more insults, even though the 'idiot' comment had just slipped out.
"Twenty, huh? You look kinda young for that. Are you telling me the truth?"
Violet did not want more of that electrical discharge, so she pleaded her case. "Five years ago, when I first fought you, I was fifteen. Now I'm twenty. I'm on my gap year before I get a job, or study for a degree. I'm hitchhiking on my own, under my own power." That seemed to cover all of the essential points.
"Why were you on this island? Were you looking for me?"
"Don't flatter yourself. I was going to Barbados, and the cheapest flight out meant catching a boat from this island. I just wanted to complete my trek."
Violet hadn't broken that foggy-blue stare. She would not be the one to terminate the eye contact, to display that sign of weakness. Her arm still throbbed with memories of pain but she ignored it, even when the pins and needles started.
There was a slight pause, and Violet saw that Syndrome was regarding her with a slightly sinister expression.
"When did you start this... trek?"
Alarm bells began shrieking their warning. If I tell him when, he can check all incoming flights to see where I flew from. Violet had taken a flight that was literally next door from her hometown.
"I forget."
And this time it felt like her muscles were trying to rip her bones apart, like they had betrayed her and were screaming out their protests. Violet gasped through her teeth, jaw clenched, eyes shut tight. A bead of perspiration made its way past her eye.
"You have a wonderfully selective memory."
"Listen: I've had a rock to the head and a gun butt to the kidneys. I am dealing with a lump on my skull the size of Missouri and, probably, mild concussion. I've been unconscious twice in fewer days. I've had no food and little sleep. Tell me: what state should my memory be in?"
And now both her arms felt like slivers of red hot glass, millions of them, were probing her muscles, melting into the tissue and forming cables of sheer, unadulterated agony that pulled taught and twanged; like tendrils of white-hot pain were sliding their dancing fingers up through her neck and across her shoulders. Violet gritted her teeth hard (I will not scream I will not scream) and clenched her eyes, momentarily blotting out her view of Syndrome through this exquisite swirl of red/black agony behind her eyelids. Her back pressed up hard against the wall and her head bowed forward as every muscle in her body was pulled taught. Her heart beat madly for a moment. And then it was over.
Violet slumped a little, and found herself (to some mild surprise) to be panting slightly. Her heart was still thumping a little too fast for her liking, but at least her muscles weren't trying to tie themselves in knots, and her bones retained the approximate shape they were supposed to have.
"Want some more?" asked Syndrome softly.
Violet considered saying something like 'Bring it on' but she knew that it would probably end in her fainting, and she would not give Syndrome that pleasure. The lump on the back of her skull was throbbing again, and her headache was pouring back into her frontal lobes like some sort of gleeful, heavy liquid... possibly mercury.
Violet was surprised at the anger she had conjured from Syndrome; he had been cool and calm up to this point. What had she said to affect him?
Maybe it's not what I said... maybe it's the way I said it. He doesn't stand for anyone being rude to him, not any more.
She had no time to wonder about the situation she was in; no time to be shocked by anything (in both the literal and figurative sense.). She could panic later. Right now, she was in serious, serious danger/pain and she didn't have the energy to stand up for herself. Any kind of plan she had been formulating was caught amidst this swirling, cloudy headache, decimating her concentration. She was dimly aware that she was shaking slightly. The electricity seemed to have done something to her nervous system. Slowly, it began to subside.
She had been silent for too long. Syndrome approached her, slowly, maliciously, taking his time, enjoying her pain.
"Where are they, little girl?"
Silence.
"Tell me, and maybe I won't kill you, come the end."
Violet said the first thing that came to mind; a phrase, dating back to her mid-teens. A favourite of hers when it came to difficult homework.
"Why bother, we're all going to die anyway."
She fused that old note of boredom-come-despondancy into it perfectly. Syndrome seemed to have stopped short, staring at her with an incredulous expression on his once-childish, now-hardened face.
He began to laugh.
This was not what Violet had been expecting, and it was her turn to look bewildered now.
And, just like that, the Syndrome she remembered from all those years ago was back, and laughing like mad - his attitude boyish, his body language immature, his words of youthful naivety.
"Oh, boy! Right when I'm not expecting it! Man, you crack me up! How random can you get?" His laughter tapered off, and Violet saw with unease how he seemed to be... well, young again.
Disappointment unfurled in her chest. She thought that maybe this new Syndrome would be more mature; that maybe, under the fear, she could respect him as a truly powerful villain who'd earned the prefix 'super' through his hard efforts. That maybe he was the supervillain he'd aspired to be. But perhaps the reason she felt so embittered was that because she'd been caught again by this pompous little asshole, and her disappointment in herself was overriding her common-sense circuit. However, it didn't make her point any less valid...
Discontent laced her eyes, and when she spoke, it was bitter.
"So that's it? I'm funny?"
Syndrome stopped laughing altogether, and gave her a lightly puzzled look. Again, this was old Syndrome to the core; the new person had seemed so much more emotionally controlled.
"You know what? I kind of respected the new you. You were more serious. I was calling you supervillain in my head. Now look at you. A kid again."
Ouch - she saw that one go home. The 'super' comment must have still been a sore spot (as sore as my ribs?) because now his eyes were literally darkening with the kind of suppressed anger you saw in a reasonably calm person, right up to the point where they hauled off and smashed someone in the face with a spanner.
"I don't quite think you learned your last lesson," he said quietly, dangerously ...seriously. Violet tensed, but nothing could have prepared her for it anyway.
Molten white shot through her arms, her bones, her muscles. It wound a little up the curves of her neck but positively raced down her shoulders and embedded itself into her spine. The pain was a living, breathing creature, pulsing waves of agony through her, obliterating all of her other senses. It spread its wings through her ribcage and pulled her muscles taught -
It stopped instantly. Violet slumped properly, glaring at Syndrome steadfastly as he checked a reading over one of his soldier's shoulders. His eyebrows went up.
"Level five already... that's about one percent of total power, give or take. No one's survived beyond four percent before... It'll be interesting to see how long you last."
Syndrome made eye contact, once. The he nodded at a guard.
"Take her back to her cell. If she struggles, shoot her in the... oh, I don't know. In the elbow, perhaps?"
The shackles around Violet's wrists were released. Violet had just enough time to note angry red electrical burns braceletting her hands before she was dragged up and pushed in the general direction of the door. Violet went.
llllllllll
Violet sat in the corner of the cell, in pain.
Occasionally, her ribs sent out a brief spasm of misery to let her know that yes, they were there, and no, they weren't happy about it.
You and me both, she thought grimly. Her headache wasn't helping any, either. Gingerly, she touched the red stain on her vest top; it was dry and tacky with blood.
Well, at least it was dark in the cell; her headache had that much to thank her for. There didn't appear to be any readily apparent light sources, although there had to be one somewhere.
Violet was drifting through a thin gauze of exhaustion and hunger. A faintly nauseated sensation snored in the pit of her stomach but Violet knew it was just low blood sugar.
Slowly, quietly, with no fuss and wondering if she would live to see the next day, she lay down, shut her eyes and drifted away into a black, cloudy void.
llllllllll
She awoke, because it is hard to sleep when someone is kicking you in the back.
Violet hissed in pain and curled into a tight ball around her chest. Her ribs smarted uniformly. A sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead as her breath came in hitching gasps. But she did not scream, or worse, cry.
"Something broken?" asked Syndrome's voice. It didn't sound like he cared, in particular.
Violet brought her hand away from where it had been very, very gently cradling her chest. She looked at the raw red liquid staining her fingers and her palm, and put it back again with a grimace. The wound had been disturbed; the crust had broken. Ew.
Violet tried to smile at her own inner childish immaturity, but the pain in her chest would not allow it. A thin white mist passed in front of her vision and she swore she could feel it filling her lungs, like mercury. She willed it away fiercely; it would not do to faint.
Her hearing began to flicker and lightheadedness engulfed her. Violet knew that consciousness wouldn't stay home for long; in fact, it felt as if it were planning to go on an all-night bender.
Her muscles became looser as her vision darkened slightly, and Violet caught snatches of conversation.
"... kill her?"
"Most likely, so..."
"... medical attention..."
"...yes. Now."
Footsteps sounded near to her, and Violet raised her head slightly, trying to see who it was. It was Syndrome, and he was glaring at her rather smugly.
A sudden coughing spasm racked Violet, aggravating her ribs. She raised the back of her free hand to her mouth, and brought it away to see blood.
Oh. Great.
She felt like she was drifting, falling lightly. A black airless void was coming towards her and Violet didn't fight it. If this was death, then she really didn't care any more.
llllllllll
Violet's return to the land of the awake and breathing was a slow one.
She was vaguely aware of herself. She felt like there was a great, heavy weight on her chest, crushing her, suffocating her. She tried to fight it but she could not move. She was dead, she was asleep, she was paralysed.
There was nothing but a black void around her and her mind floated through it, lost. There was time, not so long ago, when great gusts of air invaded her body, forcing her chest up and down, and she had disliked it so much she had started to do it on her own, just to avoid that breath raping her lungs.
She heard voices... dim, almost silent, whispery... like the secrets of ghosts. She tried to listen to them but they were there and then they weren't... like voices behind her. They were always behind her.
She became dimly aware of the pain, of the way it ebbed and flowed. She couldn't quite identify it, or where it came from, but she was vaguely aware of it, all the same. It grew slowly more acute.
She felt like she was rising, slowly through a great ocean of liquid, like a corpse in a pond. There was light. She drifted towards it.
Her eyes flickered open once, twice. There was a medium-strength lamp right above her.
Violet breathed in deeply, and let it out again. Memories began to trickle in again, and Violet was pleasantly aware of the fact that there was very little pain.
Suddenly, a face leaned over, blocking the light out. The part of Violet that was still distantly mulling things over recognised it immediately as Syndrome, and she made the appropriate response.
"I died and went to hell."
The corner of Syndrome's mouth quirked up in a momentary grin.
"Awake?"
"Demonstrably."
Violet sat up, expecting grief from her headache, but none came. Violet immediately made the connection with the light-headed feeling.
"What painkillers did you give me?"
"Pethidin. Intravenously. It was either that, or have you wake up and die of delayed shock, and I'm not letting you kill yourself. That's my job. I nearly managed it, too... you went into respiratory depression a little while ago. The medics had to jump-start you, in a manner of speaking... CPR and all that."
Violet looked at Syndrome, mouth a bitter line. Unbidden, the words rose to her mouth.
"What more can you do to me?"
Syndrome grinned, and examined the tips of his fingers.
"You know what? You would be very, very surprised."
Violet glanced around the room she was in. It was large, square, white, and now completely empty - ah, yes, except for two guards on the door. Violet eyed their automatic weapons with a sigh, and tuned her attention back to Syndrome.
She touched a hand to her ribs, and waited for a flash of pain. All she got was a twinge of complaint.
"Oh, we had to put a metal bolt through the bone, to hold them together," said Syndrome carelessly, gesturing with his hands. "It should be a bit painful once the pethidin wears off."
Violet sat up a little more, swinging her legs over the edge of the tabley thing she was sitting on. Pushing herself forwards with the palms of her hands, she gingerly stood up.
She took a few steps forward, deliberately making sure she was just close enough to Syndrome to make him uncomfortable. Now she was barely six inches from her nemesis. He was somewhat taller than she, and Violet looked him square in the eye.
She forced a quick grin. His expression was classic as she punched him, hard.
It was sweet. It was textbook. Syndrome flew backwards and crashed onto his back. Violet glared at him, trying to shake some feeling back into her fingers.
An automatic rifle suddenly occupied most of her attention. The small black hole at the tip was centered firmly at her forehead. Amidst this brand new event, Syndrome had picked himself up off the floor. Violet's punch hadn't appeared to have left much in the way of a bruise, which Violet felt somewhat annoyed about.
"Take her to the interrogation unit," said Syndrome very clearly. He turned, and had almost exited the room when he paused, and said: "Make sure she suffers." With that, he was gone.
llllllllll
It had been a while, and pain had happened.
Violet lay, curled into the foetal position, in the corner of a cell. She shivered incessantly, but not because it was cold. Her nerves had been wound so tight they were on the breaking point, and they wouldn't rest. So Violet lay, shaking and in pain.
Syndrome had indeed become more adept at torture, although he now entrusted it to his minions. Some of his inventions were really quite... inventive, to say the least. They all hurt more than she thought possible, and none left a mark.
She was thirsty; oh, she was thirsty. Her throat was raw from all the suppressed screams. Her body felt too light, and too cold.
Their question, echoes through her skull: Where is you father? Where is Mr. Incredible?
And it was so, so terrible, because she knew that she held the key to stop this pain, whether for rest or death. And she had to clench her jaws to stop screaming out a random city because she knew that it was in Syndrome's best interests to storm that city ands kill lots of people, to bring her family-who-didn't-actually-live-there out of hiding. And they would not come, and people would die, and the cycle would start all over again.
The door to her cell hissed open, and shut again. Slow, languorous footsteps approached her. She knew it was Syndrome.
Barely moving, and yet fighting to draw breath, she unfolded one hand and gave him the finger.
He laughed for a moment. "Still fighting? I thought my workers could have taken that out from you, at least for a while. I will have to have a word with them... it seems they're not working hard enough."
Violet made no reply. Instead, she brought her hand back to her body and curled up tighter. Her heart was hammering disconcertingly fast from the backwash of adrenaline and someone was playing Mozart on her nerves.
She brought herself to a sitting position with a show of reasonable steadiness. She was immediately confronted by Syndrome's smug grin. She considered standing up but her legs sent a telegraph to her brain with a crisp clear 'NO'. The shivering had not died down, and it made her angry.
Violet broke the silence with a frank statement, using as much of the air in her lungs as her body would provide.
"I see you trashed the old costume."
"It didn't pay to advertise."
"Thank God. You looked a pretentious little twerp in it, you know."
Syndrome raised an eyebrow. "A precarious statement from one in your position."
Violet moved strand of hair out her eyes with a shaking hand and glared at him darkly.
"Or you'll do what? Torture me?" She paused and added, "Again?"
"Of course."
"Whereas I can be as nice as you want me to be and get tortured anyway."
"Your perspective never ceases to amaze me. However. I'll get straight to the point."
Syndrome strolled backwards and forwards, hands clasped behind his back. "You know, it would be so much simpler if you, I don't know, just told me what I wanted to know."
"Yes."
"Where is your father currently residing?"
"Jupiter."
"Not the answer I was looking for. AAAnyway..." Syndrome swiveled on his feet to face her, his serious expression layered over with a thin, somewhat nasty, smile. Something in Violet shriveled up at the sight. She knew that what would come next would not be nice. Adrenaline spiked her bloodstream. Again.
"You appear very... resilient to my methods of interrogation."
He was walking backwards and forwards again. Slowly, leisurely. Violet's shaking had calmed but every muscle tensed, making her limbs ache. A swift flick of her fingers moved a few strands of hair from her face.
"... and so, I thought to myself, what is the best way to get information from an unwilling victim?"
Syndrome was leaning over her now, smirking. The thought that Syndrome had not actually gone all-out to retrieve the information he wanted caused her pulse to quicken. What methods does he have left?
Syndrome appeared to sense her fear, because his grin widened a little.
"It's a tried-and-tested method of breaking someone, and I haven't seen it fail yet."
Violet was breathing shallowly, but not quite panting. Syndrome tapped something on one of his wrist controls, and two guards entered the room. They leveled their weapons at her, and, getting the message, Violet rose unsteadily to her feet.
"Interrogation unit."
Violet tried a few steps forwards, and when her legs failed to collapse under her, she moved more confidently toward the door. Violet knew without being told that the guns of the two guards behind her were trained resolutely upon her back... and that they would not hesitate to shoot. Maybe not to kill, but most definitely to wound. She decided that, this once, she would go quietly.
llllllllll
"It's called the White Room... but I like to refer to it as room 101."
She was back in the torture room, and Violet followed Syndrome's pointing finger to the door she had first seen when brought into this hellhole of a torture chamber. It had not lost any of its portentous quality, and Violet wondered what on earth would be in there. "Very Orwellian," she murmured.
An escort of four guards was stood a little way off. Their guns were pointed at the floor but Violet knew the safety catches would be off. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Syndrome nod almost imperceptibly.
Suddenly, the four guards were a lot closer. Violet heard the whisper of their feet across the floor and knew that, beside the two standing standing guard by her shoulders, the other two were attentively alert by her shoulderblades. Judging by her own sense of personal space, they were close enough for her to feel their breath on the back of her neck - and close enough to make her extremely uncomfortable. She had a sudden feeling of claustrophobia, and fear raced through her limbs. Suddenly, a scary situation had become a hell of a lot more ominous.
Syndrome turned to face her, and as she saw the hypodermic syringe in his hand, her eyes widened.
Involuntarily, Violet took a few steps backwards. It was as if her spine had promptly decided it wanted to be further away from the man with the needle, and had sort of dragged her body back with it. The guards had been expecting this, and all at once hands closed on her arms.
Oh sweet Jesus no anything but needles -
Panic, true panic, began to kick, and so did Violet. She struggled desperately but the grips on her arms tightened. Her attempts at freedom were wild now as sheer animal terror shot through her system, overriding any attempts at logical thought. All she knew was that she wanted to get away from the needle - her one, and only, pet phobia.
One wild wrench and she had shaken off two of the guards, but suddenly there were more guards grabbing at her, pulling her down to the floor. There were probably about six guards fighting to keep her still now, gripping her arms, her wrists, her waist, her legs. But Violet would not give up.
She lay, crushed on her side, as the guards tried desperately to still her fierce struggling. Slowly, her fighting slowed a little, knowing full well she was trapped and damn near useless.
There was also a hand over her mouth now, although she hadn't been screaming. Her chest rose and fell, trying to get enough air to feed her hungry muscles.
A guard shifted to one side to make room for someone, whilst maintaining the force of his weight thrown across her waist, crushing the side of her pelvis into the floor. Violet was completely immobile.
"Turn her over, please," asked Syndrome pleasantly, and she was turned onto her back (somewhat difficult for the guards) as he moved into Violet's line of sight.
He came a little closer, and Violet saw he had a bottle of clear liquid with him. Her eyes refused to look away as Syndrome casually unscrewed the top, inserted the tip of the needle and drew the whole lot into the syringe with what appeared to be deliberate slowness.
He slipped the bottle into a pocket and tapped the top of the plastic tube a few times, to get rid of any air bubbles. He had the air of a professional at work.
He turned to her, and his eyebrows went up.
"I didn't think your reaction would be this violent," he said mildly, and suddenly his mouth turned up at a corner. "Oh dear, oh dear... I haven't discovered a little phobia of yours, have I?" Syndrome smirked, and moved around her so that he was standing next to her head.
He got down on one knee which, in different circumstances, might have been funny. Violet was in no laughing mood. Because he was directly above her, albeit ninety degrees to her left, she got a front-row seat to see the needle getting closer. She immediately tried to pull away from it, but she was held down too tightly. Someone had their arm around her shoulders and across her collarbones (and their other hand over her mouth), and their grip tightened. There was one guard for each of her arms, one for each of her legs, and some enterprising soldier had thrown his weight across her waist, making it impossible for her to move.
"Delivery to the neck," stated Syndrome coolly, and the person in charge of her shoulders moved over to make room for Syndrome. He moved over slightly, so that he was sitting just to the left of Violet's head.
The grip on Violet's neck loosened for a second, just a second; then it was replaced by what felt like a steel bar. Violet's eyes, darting to side, noted that it was the pressure of Syndrome's hand on her collarbone. He had tipped her head to the left, and she could literally feel his gaze as he leaned over, scanning her neck, looking for the ideal artery. Violet risked a glance up; he seemed preoccupied and utterly, utterly professional.
He, however, also appeared to feel her gaze, and his eyes flashed down for a second to meet hers. She knew instantly that he was quietly enjoying this absolute control.
His gloved hand moved a little further up her neck to rest on that stretch of muscle below her ear, and his thumb indented her flesh slightly. He brought the needle nearer.
"Last chance, Incredigirl," he said, mockingly. "Do you have anything you want to tell me?"
Violet took in one deep, shuddery breath, and kept her silence. This was it. This was the point of no return. She shut her eyes, and knew that what was coming was unstoppable. She twisted her head and buried it in the ribs of her worst enemy, and waited for the proverbial axe to fall.
If Syndrome's surprise was there, it was momentary, because she felt the sting of the needle as it penetrated her exposed skin and stole deeper, deeper, under her collarbone -
Her body's response was exactly the same as the time she received her tuberculosis immunisation in her elbow, at the age of fourteen. But this pain was deeper, the delivery dignified but intimate, and the situation much more terrifying.
Every muscle in her body pulled taught. Her fists clenched and her windpipe blocked up, locking off her lungs and stopping her breathing. Her eyes screwed shut. She tried to breathe and found she couldn't get past the ring of muscle in her throat.
She was intensely aware of the volume of Syndrome's heart (who'd guess he'd have it in him), of his steady breathing. She didn't have much choice in the matter. She was currently hiding her face in his ribs. It provided some comfort. She temporarily put her trust in him to do the job he had come to do, to do it well, and not to leave her on her own.
The needle was a spike in her chest that breathed cold information down into the core of her system. She could feel it, the liquid trickling through her muscles and blood, spreading out like a flower through her body. Already her fingertips tingled.
The injection lasted about ten seconds; there was a lot of liquid to be delivered. Violet felt it, like cool oxygen moving into her body. Some of her muscles relaxed, but her neck remained as taught as ever. She focused on Syndrome's heartbeat, its measured pace, and it helped to distract from the pain a little. She was glad.
And then, ten seconds after it had started and a million years after it had begun, it was over. Violet felt the needle withdraw from her flesh like a splinter being removed, and with it came with an enormous sense of relief. The worst was over. Had to be.
She felt a tingling sense of complaint when Syndrome drew away from her and stood up. She needed the proximity of another human being, even if it was her most hated foe. She needed that knowledge that she wasn't dead yet.
Eyes open now, she saw all the guards pull themselves to their feet. She lay there, unmoving for a moment, unexpectedly reveling in the relaxed feeling the drug had bestowed upon her. Then someone grabbed her roughly and hauled her up; she stumbled, unwillingly, to be vertical.
She regretted it immediately. Her sense of balance betrayed her; the land around her wavered sickeningly. Everything was off-kilter.
It cleared after a couple of seconds, and Violet was able to stand without the guards holding on to each shoulder. She turned to address Syndrome, and noted the peculiar way her body moved, as if not quite in sync with reality.
"What the hell was that?"
Her speech was okay, though. Syndrome turned from where he'd deposited the needle.
"That? Oh, a little cocktail of chemicals. A very, very, mild sedative -" Violet relaxed slightly, "- and a very, very potent hallucinogen."
Any relief Violet might have had evaporated instantly. She managed a whispered groan. Syndrome smirked.
"Yes, it's proved quite effective. Saps your energy just enough and due to your present situation, should trigger one hell of a bad trip. Now, if you would be so kind..."
Syndrome gestured toward the door set in the wall. Walking on legs that were rapidly beginning to feel like they didn't belong to her, Violet stumbled through the open door.
She heard the clang of it closing behind her, and the low lights flickered on.
It was just a square room with a single bunk. Violet lay down on it. It wasn't the hard table she had been expecting; it had a futon mattress on it. Minimalist, but decent.
Violet waited to see what happened next.
The Star Swordsman: Thanks - I tried to make Violet more mature, so I guess I had to make her older for that. Also, Violet's on a bit of a downward spiral at the moment, and it can only get worse...
auri mynonys: At last! Another villainromance lover! There's just something about the light and the dark assuming neutral territory that is always fascinating - probably because it would be more complex. It's harder to write a Jasmin/Jafar story than it would be to write a Jasmine/Aladdin story, don't you think? Speaking of Jasmine/Jafar, that'd never occurred to me before... I may
have to start browsing again.
I'm flattered you found my fic readable proves I'm doing something right, at least - and your review was a feast for my ego. Yay.
Review again!
PitbullLady: I'm pretty sure I'm not a professional writer, although I'd like to be. I'm struggling a little for original ideas at the moment, but even if I came up with one, there are precious few people out there who would take a fifteen-year-old seriously. That is one of the prices to pay for being young.
I love ending with cliff-hangers. It keeps you reading! Sorry about that.
Nny11: Violet didn't kick enough butt in the movie, know what I mean? So I'm compensating for that in this fic.
Gremblin: I end it on cliff-hangers to keep you reading... there are worse cliff-hangers to come, believe me.
Da-manta-ray: There's lots more to come.
angela: Vi/Syn stories are so hard to come by, and good ones at that. I haven't found any at all outside of d'Lune: Thanks! I'm trying to upload steadily, about once a week.
Cristy Demonwrath: I am slowly but surely growing to love you and your reviews.
Here's my view on maturity: I figure, hey, I'm fifteen! I have, give or take, four to five years' worth of teenage angst to get through. These four/five years are the one time in my life where I am not expected to be mature, and I can wear/eat/say what I want. Why waste it? I won't be able to do it when I'm, say, thirty. I'll be as immature as humanly possible now (whilst I can get away with it), before the world demands that I am otherwise.
Anyway, back to the real world: I have endeavoured to show that it's not only Violet who's had chance to grow up a bit. Syndrome is less cocky, more focused, more aware of himself at least, I hope that's how I've presented him. However, he is not an entirely different person - he's still Syndrome after all, but he hasn't recognised that Violet isn't the scared, cowed girl she used to be. This will, proverbially speaking, come back to bite him on the arse later on in the story.
The minion-soldier-person I just stuck in there for Violet's incredulous response. I just never understood why he was so angry in the film, so I carried that into my fic.
Don't you think it is incredibly ironic that you should make that point about using Vi to tap into Syndrome's childishness in your last review? I have had the 'why bother, we're all going to die anyway' thing in written from the beginning, and it shows you're on the ball with my story: you're not just reading it, you're actually looking into what make it and the characters run. Well done.
Very few readers can do that.
I have sworn to myself that I would not swap points of view on this story, e.g. one chapter Violet, next chapter Syndrome's POV, etc. I wanted you (the reader) to see Syndrome from Vi's point of view only, so none of us (including me, at some points) would know what was going on in his head - it would make the idea of both of them getting together harder to achieve (I've done it, though, in later chapters). What do you think?
Keep reviewing! Your wonderfully long reviews and shrewd glances into character psyches keep me on my toes, and the last thing I want to do is relax around this fic. I need to keep it sharp.