It was a low buzzing hum that could be heard as the machine would be starting up. Talia kept close to the controls to monitor things as Dorji quietly chanted; hoping he'd either make it, or if not, perhaps come back in a much better life than the hell that he would leave. Things really started as the machine made a very loud bellow sound before the electricity really started to make noise.
And then that instantly followed Dorji screaming out in pain as the machine began its true work on him. The captives almost felt like they were watching a repeat with things as they heard the noises; everyone except Waylon who was the one screaming the last time. It almost was too much for Martha herself as Dorji was suffering because of her. The machine kept going for a few more moments before Dorji's screams suddenly stopped as alarms began to ring.
Talia shouted, "Shit, his brain's going all over the place, and the heart is heading to flatline!", and Ra replied, "Do the shock pads, now!".
Talia pushed buttons and such, and under Dorji is a series of shock pads, sending electricity through his body, shocking him as screams rang out once again, as Dorji's brain is changing unknown to the watching audience, with mental chants to try to go through the pain, and then he felt something in his core break away the familiar presence of his power.
He saw flashes of all the visions he had seen, and visions he hadn't seen before, and then nothing as he saw something in his view, a peaceful feeling amongst a warm, bright, and beautiful place, as his heart cannot keep up with the pain, and then he saw black for a moment, feeling light all of a sudden.
Before he knew it, he was in a familiar place, a beloved piece of his home with the monks, yet without the vivid colors, yet it was still beautiful, exhaling, looking around to recognize the serene courtyard with the pond that was behind his home, "I...I'm dead...".
"Not quite, you're still in limbo, Dorji...It's beautiful...I can see why your friends loved your work with the courtyard garden...", a voice replied, and Dorji turned around to see Thomas sitting on a bench, and he widened his eyes, "You're Thomas, Mrs. Wayne and She-Hulk's husband, right?", having seen Thomas in a few past and future visions around Martha and She-Hulk, through it was a bit hard to differentiate between this timeline and alternate timelines sometimes.
"Yes...", Thomas nodded. "And before you say anything, I'm not upset at you. Ra forced you to tell; lying wouldn't have helped.".
"It might have...", Dorji sighed. "I could've taken those secrets to my grave.", with a frown. "Ra would've come after Martha and Kel and the rest of the family with or without you. All you really did was make him have to do less work to get it.", Thomas told him.
Dorji nodded, "I know...I wish I could help them...They don't deserve all this horror, those punishments from the visions and rumors I had seen...", as he sighed, sitting on the bench next to Thomas, and Thomas replied, "Actually, you could...You honestly never had a vision of them including me, and Caroline escaping?".
Dorji blinked in confusion and surprise at him, "No...I didn't...wait...unless I was dead during it...but...how? How could I help?". Thomas exhaled, "You have a choice, unlike Ra, I am not like him...You can come with me to heaven, so your soul can go home, to be with your friends and monk family, or you wait here, and go back through the Pit...", with a gentle smile of understanding.
"How do you know that?", Dorji replied in surprise, and Thomas chuckled, "We truly look over our families and loved ones, that myth is true about the heavens...Right now, you are being taken out of the machine.", gesturing to the courtyard pond that suddenly revealed the chamber, like looking through a window.
Dorji widened his eyes as he saw his body being carried out by some of Ra's men, with Ra looking to say orders, probably for his body to be taken to the Pit immediately, seeing the family nearby being escorted alongside, "Wait, is this real time?".
"We have all the time in the world right here in limbo, seeming like forever, while it's just happened for you.", Thomas explained with a nod. Dorji exhaled, understanding that as he's a monk, and he is used to seeing the magic of the world and such, including science and technology, even if it baffles him at times, feeling lighter, no sore bones and such, and for once, he doesn't feel that familiar presence of his power that he had for all his life since he entered puberty and his monkhood.
Dorji blinked, looking down to see that his body isn't old anymore, but rather in its prime, around his late 20s, like he was, before that day his life changed when Ra and the League captured him from his home, his family, having been forced to see everybody die when they tried everything from peace, to being neutral, and forced into extreme measures to save him.
"Is...I felt something break when I was in that machine...", Dorji spoke softly, and Thomas replied, "You are free of your power, Dorji, and if you choose to go back through the Pit, you're a normal monk. I believe the machine saw your power as a second soul or something, and removed it from you, because the machine was supposed to intend to grab another soul out of a body, like my beloved wife being taken away from Kel, and Kel...well, she's a soul, yes, but she's part of Martha's soul, while Martha is part of Kel's soul...I...I don't know if the soul of Kel would become a body or not, because that...Oh, please, tell me that you remember seeing that at least...or can't you recall anything of your visions?".
Dorji bit his lip, having seen the machine quite a few times as it was being built, and he spoke, "The completed visions feels like faded memories now, and the ones that's recent, and not complete yet, they are fresh memories now...There was a vision last night, and I was there as a witness...is that because of what if I chose to go back through the Pit?", looking at Thomas.
"I believe so...", Thomas said as Dorji closed his eyes, trying to remember, anything, that could help if he decided to go back. Dorji asked, "You... what you've seen, you know so much... is, is Martha and her family planning some sort of escape?".
Thomas nodded at Dorji's question, "Yes... they do plan on springing it shortly after Caroline, Jane and I would be restored; they feel that would be the best time when they're ready...".
"You... you and Caroline, her child... you all have so much to go back to, but me... I have nothing.", Dorji closed his eyes once more. "No... I do have one thing to go back to... and that's to hopefully give your family the chance they need...".
Thomas gave a small, hopeful smile, "So, you're choosing to go back?", and Dorji nodded, "Yes. My monk family taught me to help any people who is lost physically, mentally, and spiritually...It's time for me to stick to that...".
"Thank you, Dorji...Your monk family is very much proud of you.", Thomas replied, and Dorji gave a little sob by hearing that...He thought he had disappointed his monk family and friends all this time, yet hearing that validation, he is now more determined to get Thomas and his family out free with the League gone for good.
Dorji nodded, "Right, how are they doing it?", and Thomas replied, "Grenades, and they're thinking of laying them underneath the boilers and such.".
Dorji focused on his memory of the vision he had last night, and he replied, "I am trying to recall everything I could right here... As it's Halloween tomorrow, after the machine gets adjusted and such to Ra's demands, thinking that something went off with me, taking away my power, there's a slight alternative decision for Ra, Martha takes the machine this afternoon, or tomorrow morning after breakfast, and then your restoration to life, next to Caroline and Jane happens in the afternoon. I can't quite remember the chaos soon afterwards, if your family distracts the League with going Hulk out and all Croc, and I run to the boiler room that is near the Pit, or if I have one of those short-range timers, to set off the grenades while we are being sent off to our cells, and still the same hulking out and full Croc. And my death, that is unclear, but the same feeling as I had just earlier in the machine...that was clear...".
Thomas glanced away for a moment as Dorji became worried, "Is something wrong? I get it, there's a lot that can happen; but what other option is there?".
"It's not that... it's...", Thomas sighed. "Caroline and Jane... they deserve to have their lives restored; it wouldn't affect anything really other than the personal lives of Alfred and Waylon and the rest for the better... but me... Caroline was a face in the crowd, no one would've known that she'd passed apart from Eustice, the town down in Louisiana which is only a small place. However, the world knows Thomas Wayne, they know he's been dead for well over a decade... and if I came back...".
Dorji may not have been entirely connected to the world with reading newspapers and such, but the League was updating everything, and he came to know what had happened to Thomas Wayne.
He exhaled, seeing the point...All the family would be publicly stalked, attacked, and such, and if it was 50 years ago or earlier, it might have been easier to hide and all of Thomas's return and all, and he knew Thomas would want to see the outside world, to venture through his home without gossip and such...He needs someone to adjust the perspective of Thomas's life from the world's eyes, or rather Gotham's eyes, with only the family knowing the truth, like his fate was spared that night like he was in a coma...Fate...Wait, Doctor Fate...
He remembers a week, a week where he and his monk family here at his beloved home had welcomed Doctor Fate, a man who wanted to learn how to use astral projection...Didn't he mention that he lived in Gotham often? That was almost 25 years ago...He could be alive as when he visited, he looked like he was still in his prime, and there was something about being fairly aging slower than other humans that he had mentioned...
"Actually, there is something, or rather someone who can help...", Dorji replied as he looked at Thomas, and Thomas turned his head back to look at Dorji, "Who?".
"I don't actually know his name... strange man, just called himself Doctor Fate.", Dorji explained. "But I do know that his power was considerable... strong enough to even help you, at least I think.".
"He'd have to be pretty strong to make practically the whole world think I wasn't dead. Maybe a long coma perhaps...", Thomas replied. At least in that case, for Thomas though, that might work.
Dorji replied, "He is, and besides, it isn't like you are famous in the entire whole world, just rather Gotham more like, and yes, a coma would work...Anyhow, he told my family and I that he lives in Gotham...So, you might need to somehow stay low and out of sight until he helps out, because the kidnapping of the Wayne family, for a week, is rather big news right now as you must be seeing occasionally to check on Gotham for Martha and Bruce, yes?", looking at Thomas.
"It's all so complicated...", Thomas sighed. "But... can't say this family hasn't been up to that challenge over the years and especially with what Martha and Bruce have been doing as of late.".
Dorji replied, "Being She-Hulk and Batman, right? I have seen a few past visions and a few future visions here and there...It feels strange to be normal again, only having memories of a past, a past I lost at Ra's hands, and those visions that led to much pain for his enemies, countless people with potential rebelling or worse, and this...I'm truly sorry, Thomas...".
Thomas replied, "It wasn't your fault, Dorji, you only knew that your gift, your power was for good, thanks to your monk family, and then Ra had manipulated it, manipulated you. You have a conscience, a soul, and that means something much more than you know.".
Dorji gave a small smile, "Thank you, Thomas...My monk family had taught Doctor Fate about astral projection and such...I don't know if you could travel to Gotham and back here in time for tomorrow.".
"Dorji, I'm a spirit. If Doctor Fate is even much stronger than you and your monk family over the past several years or whatever after practice, he will possibly sense me if I search for him, and time is nothing to spirits. I will return swiftly to here as I and Caroline has followed our family as we watch over them, no doubt about it...I'm not going to waste my second chance again if I can help it.", Thomas declared.
Dorji nodded, "I understand...I swear I'd do my best to help your family.", and Thomas smiled, "I know...Dorji...when you said that Martha goes in and out of the machine differently...does...does that mean she survives, but...but Kel doesn't?", now frowning as he recalled Dorji's explanation of his memory now of the vision he had last night.
As always, he was watching over his family that day of Caroline and Jane's funeral, and heard Kel's confession, willing to sacrifice herself to save Martha, even giving most of herself away to protect Martha from the pain, and now she had repeated the same words yesterday. He loves Kel as much as Martha, yet he knew Kel didn't have her own body, and to hear that, it hurt and shocked him, yet he realized that Kel is a true hero, willing to put herself before others in danger.
"I don't know...", Dorji admitted. "I could never be sure with the future. Sometimes things went as I foresaw, but other times they didn't...", he told him. "I wish at least I could be sure of the outcome but when it comes to the future, it's never set in stone.".
Thomas exhaled softly, "I see. Now I truly know what that means...Anyone just have to take the first step...", and Dorji nodded, "Indeed...And for me to go back there, I'm afraid, yes, of Ra, but I'm free of my power...I can lie as it's technically true now that I lost seeing the past and future, but I still can pretend to keep having Ra's grand vision as it's fresh in my memories. I just need to be careful...".
"You really are a good person, Dorji...You can do this...Focus on your mission.", Thomas warmly encouraged, and Dorji exhaled before they heard the warning alarm, glancing at the window through the pond, to see that Dorji's elderly dead body is just about to go into the Pit in a few minutes.
Thomas squeezed his shoulder, "Tell Martha and Kel that I and Caroline ain't abandoning them either, tell them that we are waiting for tomorrow, okay?", and Dorji smiled gently, "I will...".
Thomas smiled, "I must get going, make my spirit flight to find Doctor Fate. I just need to hold faith that he would help and then get back here. You just wait here, and follow your way back to your body, alright?", and Dorji nodded, "Good luck, Thomas.".
Thomas nodded, and then he disappeared, vanishing into the sunshine of Dorji's beloved courtyard garden, and Dorji took into the scent of the flowers, closing his eyes as he felt some sort of instinct, a connection to his body, ignoring the back door that is glowing with the faint call of angelic music.
"Hope it's a matter of interpretation...", Dorji admitted to himself, partially feeling a tad bit of doubt in his whole faith system as it seemed that perhaps the Christianity/Catholicism belief might have been correct. But perhaps the afterlife was just based on whomever it was, and it seemed like maybe he was in Thomas' afterlife than his own at the moment. He took a deep breath as he slowly made his trek back to the realm of the living as he was certain his body was about to be revived.
"Throw him in.", Ra ordered as his men holding Dorji's corpse complied, tossing it into the Pit. When Dorji died to the machine; Ra had a bit of a row with Talia involving it. She deemed it to be unworthy to the League's plans and that now it would just be holding the family hostage and used as blackmail to get Martha and Kel to do their bidding. Ra argued that the machine would work, but that Dorji was just too weak to survive it.