Apriltober 2022 13 Captive, pt. 1 (Doug, Ganglion OC)

a/n: Last year, during Apriltober 2021, Doug was captured by Ganglion. Don't worry. He was just fine. (He was not fine.)

Spoilers. Harm. Unnamed Ganglion ocs. Editing? Still no. Feel free to skip, because indulgent and unpleasant au.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.

At the start of of it all, everything had gone according to plan. Doug had repeated this to himself, whenever his head was clear enough. He'd watched a teammate take a shot to the face right before his own capture. That was the plan, he reminded himself. She'd be fine. They'd taken his weapons, his armor, roughed him up a little. More than a little. It was expected. He'd be fine. The Ganglion didn't know that a rescue team was headed his way, following Doug directly to their real target.

He'd expected that the interrogations would be bad. BLADE wasn't worried that he'd give them any important information. They assumed, probably correctly, that anything he knew had been thoroughly compromised by Lao. He'd been kept out of the loop for recent movements and status updates, at least these past few weeks. Whatever they got would merely be confirmation of old news. It could be bad and they'd probably get whatever they asked, but if he survived, everyone would be just fine.

It was worse. The restraints hadn't even warmed to his skin temperature when they'd flipped his mind so he was back on Earth, a decade earlier, staring at Kat. He'd been half in love with his squad leader, but so had everyone else in the team. She was that kind of person. You knew she was ready to give what you needed, a sympathetic ear or a warm hug or the hardest kick in the butt, as well as being able to out-shoot, out-haul, and out-think anyone that came up against her. Didn't hurt that she was gorgeous, with blond hair that shone even when she had it pulled back in a regulation onion.

There was no way he could be looking at her. One second he was in a prison lab, then next he was talking to Kat as she gave him his orders, proud that she was trusting him to do his part right. Then he was staring, absolutely staring, at her as she sat with some refugees, holding an infant while one of the women sorted out her other kid, looking like some camouflage Madonna. And then he was trying to pull something human-shaped but with a wisp of blond hair out of a blackened helicopter. And everything had been his fault. If only he had gotten the call signs right, it wouldn't have happened. He racked his brain to remember the string of letters from ten years ago. If he could get them right, things would be different.

The lab popped back into existence. "A reasonable baseline," buzzed a technician at a panel. The alien hadn't moved, or maybe only flickered. Before Doug could shout or moan, another cycle began.

That was the first day. They'd run him through scenario after scenario, and by the end of each one, he'd been only too eager to remember whatever they were after. It was mostly about New Los Angeles, but there was enough from Earth to keep him off-balance. They stopped only when he couldn't stay awake long enough to make it through a cycle. Then they'd dumped him in a holding room and let him rest for a few hours. Later on he tried to figure out how much of it had been real. Some of it had to be wrong: the stuff about his family, and the long mission in Oblivia where Lin died. It had to be, but as the days passed he started to forget what had been real.

The rescue party should have arrived by then. He figured he'd have to hang on a little longer.

The second day was about pain. They asked a few questions, but mostly it was new ways for him to be hurt. Once, when he was fairly sure only his skin was intact, a bag holding melted pain, he'd wanted them to ask him something, but all they did was measure and then argue about settings on the machine. He was ready to confirm anything Lao had told them, or elaborate on details, but they'd powered down the processor without looking at him. Then they switched to something different but equally brutal.

The third day they introduced him to the Monster.

Back in his cell, he couldn't keep his head off of the icy metal floor. Nothing was broken; they'd fixed that before returning him to the prison wing. He could still sense the Monster in the cell next to him, though. The wall shuddered, and he could feel more than hear the rage of a predator denied its catch.

The rescue party might not be coming, he realized. Not in time. He hoped they'd get something out of this plan.

He hoped that they'd ask questions tomorrow. He longed for it. They might even ask him about Lao. He'd like that.

a/n: Sorry, this has been stuck in my brain since Martin III suggested adding a few intermediate chapters to last year's story. The Monster showed up in Xenotober 2020: a rogue Prone with a wicked ability to disable his enemies before ripping them to shreds. His son now lives in NLA, just saying.

Tomorrow, we'll meet his other cellmate. It should be less of a horror show.