Doctor Who
by Tyloric

Beta read by the lovely youroctober.

Chapter 5

One. Two. Three. Four.

Another charge ripped through his body, assaulting every nerve-ending they had yet to fry. He clenched his teeth, a few of which had cracked from doing so over and over again.

Four seconds. The charges were coming in closer intervals now.

"He still alive?" a voice asked from what sounded like miles away.

"Yes… but I can't explain how…" another responded.

He was on automatic now, going through each jolt without thinking about them. Programmed.

He was, for all intents and purposes, half dead. It was like walking the edge of asleep and awake. You're able to tell your mind is working, that your eyes are closed, but you don't actually notice it. You're there but you're not. A push in either direction could send him over the edge: live or die.

He had gone over it in his mind over and over countless times. Why? Why had he done it? That man hadn't been any different than anyone else. No reason for doing what he had done. No reason.

Electricity flowed into his limbs and his torso, but he didn`t scream, given he'd lost the voice to do so hours ago. The pain was dulled now, anyway. A minor annoyance.

"Get him down," a gruff voice commanded, not human. Bad Horse. Dr. Horrible recognized him in spite of himself. "Next stage," he said afterwards.

He would have sighed had he had the energy, the will. He could feel himself slipping, going towards the darkness. He didn't want to, though. He kept wanting to hang on. Which was odd, really. He had nothing to live for. He was alone. By himself. No friends. No family. No Penny.

Perhaps he just didn't want to give them the satisfaction of finally killing him. Or maybe that was being counterproductive? Maybe they would hate for him to die, to not be able to torture him anymore.

He felt another piece of himself chip away, literally felt his mind unravel a bit more.

They strapped him into the chair, bound by leather. It wouldn't have mattered though; he was too tired, too lost. He didn't even flinch when the first injection went in, and fire erupted in his body.

***

Orchid tapped a finger against her bicep, her arms crossed impatiently, waiting for the test results to print.

She had been working diligently for the past few days, operating on little sleep and less food. She was exhausted, but this was the last test. However, if this one showed positive results, the work was only beginning.

She shook her head vigorously, shaking the exhaustion away, blinking her eyes hard.

The raid on the League stronghold had gone well, though there had been causalities for the Guild. It was to be expected, but the losses still weighed heavily on her mind. One of them had been… no. No time for that. There was work to be done.

A beep followed by a whirring noise signaled to her that the results were being printed. She snatched the piece of paper the moment it finished, skimming over the results.

She gaped, reading the page of data over and over. It wasn't possible. I couldn't be possible.

This was bad. This was very bad.

***

Billy pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting an oncoming headache. "Where are we going?" he asked again, knowing full well it was futile.

"You'll see," Hammer responded with practiced ease. Billy would have punched him if he thought it would do any good. He half expected that Hammer only acted this way because he knew nothing would do any good.

"Humor me?" Billy sighed.

"Nope."

They'd been walking for thirty minutes now, Billy having gotten fairly bored after the first fifteen. His legs were tired, and he was doing his best not to complain, which wasn't helping in the long run.

A throbbing in his head halted his thoughts, a sharp stabbing pain between his eyes. He groaned in frustration.

"Almost there," the captain reassured offhandedly. The lack of sincerity made Billy squint angrily in his direction.

***

Professor Normal observed with an almost childlike glee as Horrible writhed in his restraints. This was without a doubt one of his finer achievements. If it survived, however. That was his main concern for the moment.

"Normal," the inhumane voice he had become so familiar with beckoned.

"Bad Horse," he responded.

"How does he fare?"

"As well as can be expected. This would be going smoother if the other half hadn't escaped, however."

Bad Horse let out a sound that was a cross between a whiney and a growl. "We didn't expect the facility to be so easily breached," he hissed.

"Indeed," Normal responded, playing over a thought in his head, running it through the appropriate filters before voicing it. "Could it be that they had help from inside the facility?"

"It would appear so," Bad Horse said simply, moving past the topic with authority. "Will the other half of this experiment cause us any grief?"

Professor Normal let out a low, humored chuckle, but only to cover up his uncertainty. "It shouldn't. In fact, it should have already begun to degrade at this point."

"And this half?"

"The electro-therapy has stabilized it, as I thought it would, and the injections, courtesy of Dead Bowie's necromancy, are reforming the damaged bits quite nicely. It's the strain that worries me. If we continue to do this its mind may be too far gone to be of any use to us."

Another whiney, the tone Normal recognized as contemplative. "What of the discards that were left in the facility?"

Professor Normal tensed visibly before he could stop himself, and when he didn't offer a reply, Bad Horse pressed. "Answer me, if you know what's good for you, Normal."

"I…" He hesitated for a moment. "I didn't discard them."

Murder flashed through Bad Horses' cold, dark eyes, his voice dangerous. "What?"

"I needed them. Without their tissue I wouldn't have been able to progress as far as I have. It was vit--" Normal's words were halted as Bad Horse delivered a solid hit to his face, launching him backward a good five feet. He landed on the concrete floor in a heap.

"You're lucky you're needed, Normal, otherwise you would be dead by now," the leader of the League growled. "Three days. If in three days it is still not ready, it will be you strapped to that chair." He leaned in closely. "Understood?"

Normal gulped, willing his fear to the back of his mind. "Understood."

Bad Horse stalked out of the room in quick, powerful strides.

~tbc.