JMJ
NOTE: This takes place after Verses Chemical X and Ace in a Hole and mostly takes place about ten years after the events of the show asside from this prologue which takes place directly after Ace in a Hole. It's probably not necessary to read Ace in a Hole to understand this story even if Shelby Warden first makes her appearance there before becoming a villain as in this story, and it explains Ace a little bit, but since he's not a very important part of the story it shouldn't get in the way. Another important thing to note is that this is a rather unusual take on HIM as being made of Chemical X himself and so I'm not sure if that makes it an AU or not, but it's basically a thing in this particular story that he is a secret creation of Pr. Ex (see Verses Chemical X to know more about Pr. Ex). I also give credit to Starscout-lost (a member of DA) plus another person I know in real life without an account to credit online for being co-creators and beta readers of this story. Thank you.
Prologue
"You're so beautiful…" sighed the woman.
Had there ever been a time he had felt so vulnerable before? He'd felt stupid before. He'd felt failure before. But this? Even in the previous weakened state he had been in up to this point "vulnerable" had not been quite the word. Feeling tired, sleepy, and completely out of touch to the point of withering away was not at all the same thing as vulnerable.
This was a tender feeling, somewhere between wistful and content. Nostalgic? He laughed only inwardly because of how weak he felt even if more conscious, but it was a jollity that touched soul. It was sickening.
Nostalgic for what? Oh, he had played mind games a sufficient amount to know his own mind enough to know.
It was only as if it were yesterday. His secret? It had been taken to the graves of many. Oh, how innocence could be destroyed so easily. More fragile than a rose, more enticing that crystal glass to smash.
The woman's touch was soft. She was using perfumed lotion. A vanilla-like smell pervaded so strongly it might have made some pass out, but he liked it somehow in its overpowering fakeness. It did not hide that familiar smell of halcyon days— or should one say seconds…
#
The pain had been great and as startling as when it ended. A bright and blinding light of instant immersion with reality. The explosion's impact was still all around as he flung upwards like being fired into the heavens.
Then?!
The power. It was so full. So invigorating. So beautiful. What was this life? What was this light? What was this existence around him? Energy pulsed through him and all about him. Atoms, cells, flesh, smoke and mirrors. He somehow liked these last two the best even before quite understanding like from dislike. This instant infancy to maturity was as pleasing as it was unbearable.
His mind was in a whirl. His own form was unclear.
Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors. He did not know why that thought was drumming in his head.
What was he in this place so brilliant? The white sheltering dome? The colored lights? The blinking whites? The reflections on bulbous forms of shiny clear glass things with pretty liquid inside? Greens, red, pinks, browns— all were glorious, but none was more glorious than the light that came from him. In fact, he soon saw that most of the crimson shattering about the room was his.
Beautiful was he.
#
"So beautiful…" said the woman again. She touched his face.
He sneered as she brought her face close.
"It's working just like I promised," she breathed with doting care.
Though, her seven-islands' salad breath was pugnacious, she acted as though this breath might actually breathe life into a soul, as though she was a goddess and he her own creature.
She stroked him like a lady might have stroked a leopard in some foreign place at some foreign time that both he and she could but feign to understand.
How funny it would be if he bit her then, but it would be funnier to wait, he decided. Besides, he had been so weak and so tired that all before this moment had been a blur. She could speak on for his understanding of the situation.
She had discovered his secret. He was not so much evil incarnate as X. He may have been the most powerful of all, but he was the most needful of that pulsing chemical. It was his lifeblood unlike those Powerpuff Girls…
"You would have died. This most beautiful and powerful of beings," she said.
"Too true…" he breathed back not even to the level of a whisper, but it was bolder than any scream.
#
He had been created for a purpose. He felt it in every pulse of his heart.
Sugar. Spice. A sad attempt at everything nice. Something more scientific in nature too, more ambiguous than the rest. Though, that Chemical X had not been so accidental being poured beforehand into the pot. All in haste. All in waste. But for a purpose. A true and glorious purpose.
He knew it. He felt it. He… recalled it?
To be the most powerful of all things in existence. To be a demon. To be a god. To be anything and everything that man could imagine. He heard it now in recalled thought. His maker. He sensed it in every syllable even beyond the words he spoke. He was to be ALL.
And the pride, the power, and glee he felt from this was overpowering. He was the embodiment of something deep within the stiff and arrogant maker if anything. He was the release of pressure long stifled. He was the steam, the fire, the lightning!
He swung in a loop-de-loop and laughed, and let his power surge through him. It wanted out! Out into this world dimmed by his presence as much as it was made more complete with him.
There was screaming then. Screaming he did not understand.
#
How he had wished to scream before this moment for being captive to a mere human in such a miserable state as he had been reduced to. Not even his own maker ever knew for sure that he had been the same creature he had made in that laboratory. For all he knew he had exploded like other things made poorly with X. Deep down Pr. Ex might have felt it like a haunting, but never had there been physical proof, but this present idiotic predicament?
Oh! What a time to be into palates, eh? He did not fume now.
"Halcyon-induced malevolence," he told the woman just a little bolder.
"What?" she cooed as though to the chirping of a pet.
"Oh… nothing!" His lips curled like the ends of a twining vine. "Just thinking about acronyms and ironies."
#
Shouting and sirens sounded after those first few seconds of exhilaration, of joy, of pure wonder and amazement.
It was then that he looked down. It was then his childhood ended.
Someone. More than one. Of those strange knobby creatures with their puffy faces. Their frail tufty hair. Their white drapes. Their black hanging laces. Their black gleaming boots. But, yes, one was down. No. three were down.
They were no longer part of the vibrancy of physicality and consciousness together. Heartbeats echoed none in those and breath was silent in them even as everyone else's picked up and their bodies trembled in fear, in anger, in horror.
He knew. He just knew. All innocence was gone, and somehow… somehow he did not regret it despite how his face fell in confusion and misery. He understood life then, he felt.
It had been him.
The destruction was that of his maker. The pride and disdain for life was imparted to him. It was all meant to be on him. All lies, evil ties, all trickery, all malice, all mockery of sweet and goodness. Well? It was him.
"It was him," said the living as though in echo.
"It was him!" he then agreed in stupefied awe, and him was him.
It had been HIM.
#
"Are you feeling better?" she asked as though speaking to a wounded child that she had rescued off the streets. "You seem to be close to your usual humor."
"It will take much longer for that to be true, I'm afraid," said HIM continuing in his lighter tone.
"Well, it should be perfected soon. I'll have to give you some more, but I didn't want to use too much at first. I've never used it before. I might overdo it."
And he knew so well that woman did not mean any sort of danger for herself, of course. All concern was for HIM.
"You are the dark academia type, I can tell," said HIM beginning to recline as he made more of his surroundings.
In a soft clean bed, he had a clear view of some very lacy drapes over one broad window. He was in a rigidly square room of four gray-blue walls and plain white frames and ceiling. Simple white cubby shelves, a pristine photo of some younger version of this same woman looking like an eager young female scientist, some credentials, and a painting of random streaks of color forming a sort of implied crate. A four-paneled door implied the type of home with a perfect picket fence. A braided rug curled like a faithful dog neatly under the bed upon the golden-brown floor boards. A diamond dream catcher hung up above the very plain boxy bed. The quilt was of brightly colored squares of the most classic sort in perfect tune with the fundamental square-ness of the conventional room.
But it was those drapes that got him thinking. Something about them was a little too lacy. Something about them was too thin like the veil of ghostly mist. This ethereal mistiness was whispering from her soul just as the corner of the drapes fluttered gently in the reflection of her eyeballs.
He had a way about these things. He always had. He understood people at their weakest even if he did not always perceive them at their strongest.
"Actually, I'm more of an electro pop person," said the woman.
"Oh! I'm more of a 'Pop goes the Weasel' person! A secret favorite of mine right up there with the 'Hamster Dance', 'Dreamer' and anything by Lady Gaga and Weird Al. Not partial to genres myself. Heh! Either way, I'm sure you've never listened to Al Wilson. He did a lovely rendition of 'The Snake'." His voice suddenly deepened to a dangerous gravel, but it did not phase the woman.
Interesting.
Was it because she did not understand the reference?
No. Even if she had never heard the song, she was not uneducated enough (even with a full doctorate) to not understand the old-school— the fable days old school— of symbolism surrounding that infamous creature upon which the woman either crushes its head or bows in homage before it; who devours eggs whole as quickly as one day accidently constricting a showman to death.
There was a little tremor in her heartbeat. Ever-so-faintly she drew in a breath. And yet her fears were bound within the lock and key of her passion. She wanted to save him. She wanted HIM.
He threw his claws behind his head smugly and crossed one leg over the other beneath his cottage-core quilt. There was only one thing on his mind. It was more than briefly wondering if she had found him with a rather disturbingly large head and small body with bug eyes when he had been unconscious— mostly since because he had never been that unconscious before— could his shape could be held in such a state? That thought was fleeting. It was the second that he stuck-to.
"When's the wedding?"
"Wedding?" asked the woman blinking in very guilty-looking surprise.
"Well, I know I'm to die for, but I'm sure there was a plan of bonds between us," said HIM, he stretched languidly. "Simply curious is all. I seem to recall you saying something earlier about a certain Professor. Breakup? What a shame."
"Pr. Utonium and I were never a thing," retorted the woman.
"Ah, so it was Utonium, after all," said HIM licking his lips fully tantalized now. "Such a cruel twist of fate that he did not understand your vision for a better world. Is not that what your vision is all about? Too bad he didn't understand."
"This—he— uh!" said the woman, very embarrassed now.
He may not have been in the habit of chewing, but anyone who knew HIM knew he could bite hard without upsetting an incisor. Right at the heart of things was his best aim. Stab it. His mind was already hungering for it. Her guilt was raw. She still cared about the Professor. She still had a heart for ethical science somewhere in the madness. She wanted normalcy still. She wanted morality still. She felt bad that she had taken his rejection so hard and that she felt there was no way she could make amends now without extenuating circumstances.
"He's still more your type than I am I think," said HIM in mock despair as though parodying an envious rival. "I'm only your second choice, aren't I?"
Theatrically, he threw his claw over his brow and sniffled.
"Oh, come on," she sighed. "You don't really think I wanted to… well, marry you, did you?"
HIM laughed. "Oh! I thought you wanted me to be in better spirits."
She was just handing herself to him on a silver platter.
Nothing made him felt stronger than someone being prey to his power that led to one's own destruction. Her despair was so very, very real. It was not quite dominating, but just a breath might blow it into shape like molten glass. She still had hope. A fool's hope.
If she could prove to the Professor that she could save someone like Utonium had saved… who was it now? The silly teen punk leader? Oh, yes. That was definitely the kid. Not to mention, if he was not mistaken by his memories of this woman while recovering, Pr. Utonium had added legally three more wards to his charge.
Three fathers now, is that it, boys? he thought.
And cute little Jojo to boot! Only this time without his boots, of course. Pity. He looked good in high-heels. He had had good taste in clothes altogether and anything was better than a diaper.
How 'bout a 'nana now, little chimp! He also thought with some cheap amusement.
But the rescue of HIM was something much more imposing, wasn't it? Baby boys and lonely pets was one thing. It would be the most glorious of achievements if one could make HIM an ally too… She may not have been thinking very consciously about these things, but he had less doubt than a proud scientist about a new discovery that she had these feeling and more hidden by only the thinnest veil to hide her self-righteousness.
She was weaker than he had just been.
Though… he had to admit he was feeling a little feeble again already.
He blinked. The mood was waning fast. And he sat bolt upright in bed.
"What's going on, sister?" he growled, black smoke emitted fiercely around him, light visibly shimmered like daggers ready to spit lightning like poison all at once. Ghostly screams emitted from nowhere specific, though originating from HIM. He was not sure if it was all anything more than smoke and mirrors literally this time, though. His strength was so unpredictable right now. He could not trust himself even to pop in between time and space where he used to keep his lair. He spun his head a little from actual dizziness from rising too fast from his pillow!
The woman jumped back. "Wh—what's wrong?"
He had half a mind to kill her where she stumbled, but he needed his answers. NOW.
Thankfully the light bulb went on above her head.
"Oh! I told you. The formula is weak. I'll have to administer more. It will have to be like that for a while, I'm afraid."
"What?" he hissed.
"Coming back for more," said the woman very apologetically.
Revenge and games, it seemed, would have to wait. How he resented more than ever being caught unprepared at the worse time to be struck by the volcanic effects of the strongest of Antidote X!
He slowly allowed himself the repose of his head back against the pillow. He missed. The headboard was startlingly hard.
"OUCH!" he snarled like a storm would erupt right in this very bedroom.
The woman rushed to him.
"Are you alright!?" she gasped, scooping up his head without reserve. "There, there! You poor baby! You must not be used to having pain like that and so humiliatingly."
She had his skull pressed right up to her chest in endearing embrace. He blinked in utter disbelief as he listened to her cooing like a pigeon before an adder's lair. Then he pouted and looked up at her with huge watery blinking eyes like the mockery of a newborn fawn.
"Oh, Mommy dearest!" he fake-sobbed.
And she kissed him tenderly.
HIM only smiled more wickedly and treacherously than before.