She was a dark and stormy Daxamite. Sister Andromeda stared at the wall she'd collapsed using Brainiac 4's body. She turned to help Querl but her attention was drawn back by the sound of giggling. Brainiac 4 was picking herself up out of the rubble, giggling and wiping away hair and blood. She looked up at Andromeda, smiling like the sun. "Betrayal! Rage! Indignation! Oh, this is WONDERFUL!" she said gleefully, and slammed her fist up into Sister Andromeda's jaw.
"You're kidding me!" Umbra said in shock as she and Violet entered. "She's crazy enough to pick a fight with a Daxamite?"
"Be careful! She's got new weapons and she's.. WHERE'D SHE GO?"
"Grife, when did she learn to teleport?" Gates said, materializing and taking a swing at Brainiac 4, as he had once before.
She vanished and reappeared in a flash of light behind him. "I must thank you," she told him, vanishing and appearing again and again, "Your method of combat was most effective. It was inspiring."
Gates tried to anticipate her, keenly aware that his gates nowhere near matched her speed. "Yeah, well, not glad I could help."
BRACKT! screeeeeeeeee...
"GATES!!" "Great, there goes our escape route."
"Grife, was that a neutrino beam?" Andromeda muttered. She launched herself at Brainiac 4, took a beam in the chest and slammed back into a wall. "...ow."
Violet put all of her power behind her fist, growing rapidly from mite size. Brainiac 4 spotted her coming and slapped her hand onto Vi's head, discharging her neutrino patch. Vi went down without a whimper.
"Hang in there, buddy," a voice whispered, "I'll have you out of here in a jiffy."
Barely conscious, Querl focussed on it, "...lYle?"
"Stay with me, buddy. what's she pumped you with? Looks like an anesthetic. Hang on, I've got an antidote..." Still invisible, Lyle discharged the syringe contents into Querl's arm, then resumed picking the restraint locks.
"..lYle... s'CkeTs.. dOn' l'T hEr uSe heR sOcKetS.."
"Just hang in there, buddy, just stay with me, the antidote'll start working soon." Lyle ducked a chunk of flying masonry and looked anxiously towards the fight. Andromeda and Brainiac 4 were in a speed race to see who could lay a fist on whom. The flashes were almost blinding; teleporting at the speed of her thoughts, Brainiac 4 could just about keep up with Andromeda's super-speed. Then Andromeda scored a lucky shot and sent 4 careening. She staggered to her feet, giggling.
Umbra knew that watery sound. She'd heard it before, out of Brainiac 5. His implants had failed, their personality suppressors crashed, and the whole of his 12th level intellect had burst forth all at once. Well, she knew how to handle that. She released her darkfield, obscuring Brainiac 4, and strode forward. "Fun's over, Mommy Dearest. Time for you to urk..." Umbra stared down as her darkfield dissolved.
"Was that supposed to frighten me?" Brainiac 4's voice sounded a long way off. "Afraid of the dark? But I don't feel fear." Umbra couldn't look away from the green wrist buried just below her ribs. Who knew she could be so strong? Shouldn't it hurt more? "I don't feel anything," Brainiac 4 continued, "Really, what good did that do?" She withdrew her hand and shook the blood off of it. The darkness swallowed Umbra instead. "But you're right. Fun is over." She touched a switch and the room filled with red light.
"Oh grife," Lyle whispered, shocked, "She changed it to a red spectrum... and that takes out Andromeda."
Indeed, the Daxamite woman looked apprehensive and afraid, swallowing hard. Brainiac 4 approached her slowly, her neutrino patch glowing on her palm and whining faintly on the cusp of hearing. "Fury... joy... satisfaction... grief... victory," she recited, giggling and crying, her eyes lit with an unholy glow, "I feel so much when my son is near. I knew I could count on him." She smiled through her tears and raised her palm.
Andromeda threw a fast uppercut and Brainiac 4 hit the ceiling back first then crashed to the floor. "..What?"
"Or is it red light means 'stop'?" Andromeda's fists rained down, not giving her time to recover, "I always get those two mixed up." Her fists hit concrete.
"You are not Daxamite?"
"Sure am!" Andromeda spun around and launched for the teleport flash, feeling her fist connect to flesh then nothing.
"But Daxamites lose power under a red star spectrum."
"Sure do!" Another strike, then hit the wall, "But I have your son to thank for that particular work-around. Actually, I just adapted his force-field idea for my own spectral needs, but I still give him the credit. Oh and by the way," she added as she attacked another flash, "The lead trick doesn't work either. Your son saw to that, too. You should be proud of him, really."
Brainiac 4 materialized near her computer. She reached down and picked up an input cable, "I need information..."
"Laurel, STOP HER!" Andromeda's hand shot out, breaking the sound barrier, and seized Brainiac 4's wrist. A moment later she had her in a firm hold, unable to move. Querl wove unsteadily on his legs, shaking off the effects of the drugs. "It's your sockets," he said, "It's your implants. They're what's cancelling out your emotions."
Brainiac 4 stared as her son staggered across the floor, subtly aided by the still-Invisible Kid. "What do you mean?"
"The way your sockets are placed, they pass right through the emotive centers of your brain. They were placed there deliberately, to keep you from developing emotions. They cross your visual centers and keep you from seeing them. Literally, Mother, they were activating every time you looked at your scans and they were keeping you from seeing what was wrong with you. And every time you use them, they suppress you even more, Mother. You're stealing from yourself, every time you use them." He took a deep breath, "Mother, if you want to emote normally, then we have to remove your sockets."
"But then why can she feel when she gets violent?" Andromeda asked, puzzled.
Querl hesitated before answering, praying this bit of news wouldn't kick Laurel's xenophobia into gear again. "Because those emotions are coming from a different area of her brain, the same with some of my more... primal emotions. It's a long story, but Mother's father, Lyrl Dox, was only half Coluan. The other half was... something else. It's left its mark on the Dox physiology." He blushed, "Anyways, that area of her brain is just out of reach of her implants, so the responses generated there can't be directly suppressed."
"But... without my sockets..."
"Mother, you know I used to have implants, myself. They were personality inhibitors. They allowed an artificial control of my emotions but when they failed... After they failed, I found they were shutting my emotions down. Which was great! I could think really clearly, no distractions, no clouding my reason." Querl reached down to clasp his mother's trapped hands and looked earnestly into her eyes, "But I got rid of them, Mother. I got rid of them.. because they were making me too much like you." He reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"Yes," she said in a strange voice, and vanished. Querl spun around in time to see her materialize beside the drill. She touched the switch and it screeched to life. "...they must come out."
"Mother, NO!!" Querl tried to launch his forcefield but his head was still muzzy and he couldn't concentrate fast enough. The drill found its target. Brainiac 4 screamed once and collapsed, blood pooling around her head. "MOTHER!"
"Oh nass..." Lyle breathed.
"You take care of Brainiac; I'll patch up Umbra," Andromeda told him. Lyle nodded and went to kneel beside Querl.
"That was an astonishingly stupid thing to do," he spat, examining the ruined socket partially emerged from his mother's head. Lyle felt his stomach do a slow roll and dip to the left. Querl looked at him, tears streaking his pale face, "We have to get her to my lab immediately. Will you help me with her?"
"Of course. Get her stable; I'll help Sister Andromeda with Umbra and Vi."
"Vi's just conked out. Gates is coming around. Once we get Umbra patched up, we can head back to Legion World," Andromeda reported.
"Good," Lyle sighed. He looked around at Brainiac 4's destroyed lab, then looked at Querl and sighed, "Well, at least we know you really do come by it honestly."