Brainiac 5 | Querl Dox (post-zero hour) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
googledox) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2014-04-19 01:50 am
googledox) wrote in thecapitol2014-04-19 01:50 am
I Am Number 4
Who| Closed to Brainiac 5, Lyle Norg, Punchy, Donatello, Garak, Julian, and Carlos
What| Brainiac 5's visitor turns out to be the person he wants to see the least and she has plans for her exit from Panem.
Where| The Tribute Center, then an abandoned industrial complex
When| First day in family visit week Early in the family-visit week0
Warnings/Notes| cw: verbal/physical abuse, torture, some body horror, attempted filicide, general violence, etc. etc. Brainiac 4 is not a nice lady.
In the hustle bustle of family members being shown around, it would have been easy for them to escape notice. A brown-haired human woman dressed up in clothes that looked like she perhaps came from a world like the Capitol, her hand on a young man's neck as if he was leading her along to show her around. Even though she didn't look like she was the same species, clearly she had to be a family or a friend because of the familiarity between them, right?
Brainiac 5 didn't look happy to see her, though. In fact, his expression was very blank as he led her along, strange when these were supposed to be happy circumstances.
There should have been joy there or malcontent or at least something but instead his expression was completely emotionless. She, on the other hand, looked quietly pleased, as if there was no else she'd rather see. Never once did she remove her hand from the back of his neck.
What| Brainiac 5's visitor turns out to be the person he wants to see the least and she has plans for her exit from Panem.
Where| The Tribute Center, then an abandoned industrial complex
When| First day in family visit week Early in the family-visit week0
Warnings/Notes| cw: verbal/physical abuse, torture, some body horror, attempted filicide, general violence, etc. etc. Brainiac 4 is not a nice lady.
In the hustle bustle of family members being shown around, it would have been easy for them to escape notice. A brown-haired human woman dressed up in clothes that looked like she perhaps came from a world like the Capitol, her hand on a young man's neck as if he was leading her along to show her around. Even though she didn't look like she was the same species, clearly she had to be a family or a friend because of the familiarity between them, right?
Brainiac 5 didn't look happy to see her, though. In fact, his expression was very blank as he led her along, strange when these were supposed to be happy circumstances.
There should have been joy there or malcontent or at least something but instead his expression was completely emotionless. She, on the other hand, looked quietly pleased, as if there was no else she'd rather see. Never once did she remove her hand from the back of his neck.
no subject
Immediately, he lunged for her, despite how shaky he was after getting back control, but she was ready for him, smacking him in the face with one of her tentacles and taking advantage of him being thrown off balance to thrust the new device she'd formed at his chest. It immediately sprouted little legs like her own metallic spider-legs and clamped down into the skin there.
As he fell back, yelping in pain and alarm and grasping at it, she created a new device - a control device - and pressed a button, wordlessly, a tender smile gracing her lips, making it abundantly clear what the spider-like thing was for.
no subject
The entire multiverse was exploding in his head. Timelines imploded, millions of drums pounded inside his head to mark their passing. Stars crashed into each other. His entire world was cacophonous sound, the screeching of a broken hyperdrive.
It took him a moment or two to realize he was screaming. It was hysterical, thin and high, utterly broken, devoid of any stoic resolve. That quickly, that quickly, he'd broken, screaming for her exactly the way she wanted. One press of a button and he was utterly undone.
He tried to calculate it, tried his best to wrap the cognizant parts of his mind around it, tried to measure it (was it a million trillion gigahurts? Get it? Ha ha), tried to hold it at a distance but he couldn't. Every nerve in his body was flayed open and had acid trickling in, every limb trembled as electricity ran up it, his guts were hanging out of his stomach, his eyes had been ripped out, his skin was burning.
The worst part of all was that somehow she'd programmed the device to invoke a psychological onslaught of emotional pain as well. The most terrible sadness, the fiercest self-loathing, and the deepest despair that could possibly be felt by sentient being. Neither type of pain was worse than the other, they slid in and out of one another symbiotically, always intertwined, two interlocked snakes whose bites led to the same venomous agony.
open to a round of reactions! Then we'll push to springing them to take her out!
She was eating it up, through her eyes down to a stomach that no longer existed. Despite being pinned to the floor, they'd be able to lift their heads enough to see her light up over her son's agony, looking almost as joyful as a parent would look at their child's graduation or their wedding or the news of some great lifetime achievement.
Some mothers glowed over their kid getting a diploma. To her, this was his greatest achievement, him writhing and screaming on the floor.
"This is just the first setting, by the way."
no subject
Truth be told, as he lay pinned to the cold factory floor, Carlos felt a great swell of homesickness.
He also felt fear, of course, and horror, and a driving need to do something, but wasn't all that part of how Night Vale made him feel, too? This sense of being in so deep that the light from the surface could not reach him, this visceral horror at the juxtaposition of the mundane and the grotesque, to Carlos, was so nostalgically familiar that his breath caught in his throat -- or would have, if he weren't already struggling to breathe thanks to that gravity/telekinesis thing.
As he stared at Brainiac 4, as he resolved to put a stop to this, as he searched for what, scientifically, he could do about this situation, as he waited for the pressure to either kill him or let up enough for him to act, Carlos the scientist felt more like himself than he had in months.
no subject
Actually, he wasn't very surprised that she'd somehow been prepared, even for someone like him. On the other hand, if Brainiac 4 thought the pressure currently on him was enough to keep him down, she had another thing coming.
Hold your breath. It saved him and his brothers in the vacuum of space, when there was truly no air to be had. He could do that, even with the pressure on him; in comparison this was akin to someone like Hun sitting on him back home. And shell knew how many times his shell had taken similar slams...he, at least, could survive this current onslaught. Painful as it was.
Though it was nothing compared to what Brainiac 5 was obviously going through. An eye twitched in righteous indignation and perhaps, a little rage, at the scene, that woman just smiling at Brainiac. As much as the guy's personality grated on him, this was just unwarranted. Cruel. And that was his mother. Family. Blood.
And yet, it was also one other thing. Almost downright illogical - especially for someone who claimed to be a twelfth level intellect. A creature of logic. The smartest person in the room.
She's monofocused on her son, just like he said. Even though she's got attention on us, and she's got her advanced intellect and skills, she still just wants him right now.
Now, for Don, even in his horror, it was just a question of figuring out how to take advantage of that. He'd done it before, and if it meant this time at least saving someone, it was worth trying to keep his head. Even if he couldn't look away from or stop the disgusting display from reaching his ears (and somehow, he had the feeling that Brainiac 4 was keeping them this way for that precise, and sadistic, reason. To watch and have Brainiac 5 know it was being watched. Again it...wasn't the first time something this had happened to him.).
So Don tried to think. He could try and move, but it would be slow going. Not as bad of a thing, if that woman's telekinetic focus was just focused on keeping them pinned to the floor so they could watch her show. None of them could get up, obviously, but nothing prevented them from going in other directions.
Right?
But even if he could have possibly moved - and he was wavering on whether to even try, for if she were somehow alerted at his attempt, the torture on him might get worse - could anyone else?
His eyes managed to break from the display forced on them. Instead, now they looked around for some kind of answer. Hoping there was one.
no subject
Julian had never come face-to-face with a Borg drone before, thank all that was holy. But he'd seen the data, the holos, and heard the stories of those who had, at Wolf 359 and elsewhere. The disgust and fear he felt was nearly staggering. He didn't recoil when her whole head turned around, but it was a near thing.
And then everything went sideways at a much more rapid pace than he could have ever imagined, everyone was slammed to the floor and pinned like a bulkhead had collapsed on them. He couldn't move, breathing was a Herculean task--he was up to holding his breath, if he had any, but all of it had been driven out by the impact with the floor. He couldn't do much but deaden his pain response and draw in as much air as possible, slow his pulse further so he didn't need as much oxygen.
The high and reedy screams of pain would have been impossible for anyone to ignore, and being able to do nothing but lie there and grind his teeth was awful. Grating, abrasive, potentially evil though Brainiac 5 was, Julian wouldn't have wished to hear that sort of agony out of anyone.
He needed to think like Miles. There had to be something around that they could use, to disrupt her systems--because technology had just as many weaknesses as flesh and blood, once you knew what to look for.
cw: gore
Seeing awful things happen to people he loved was a horrible herpetic sore in Lyle's life. But he knew, he knew that if he didn't let it break him -- if he paid attention, if he didn't flinch, he'd find an opening. He'd find a way to turn it on the villains and the torturers of the universe, and he would find a way to bring. Them. Down.
He could only hope that, this time, he'd be able to do it before irreparable harm happened to Brainy. Lyle didn't pray much these days, but he did so fervently at the times he did.
Gritting his teeth and wheezing in Brainiac 4's hold, Lyle waited and prayed for the opportune moment.
Re: cw: gore
And so even though he can't move, he pushes against that invisible weight, squirming and wriggling and trying to get to his feet no matter the futility. At the very least, he can serve as a distraction while the others stop and think. His breaths hiss out his teeth and his face starts turning red.
Re: cw: gore
"What - what are you doing - to this world?" Brainy choked out, still twitching on the ground. "It's not - just me. It's never just me."
Last time, she'd tried to kill him after decimating fleets of starships in a war that hadn't had to happen.
"The device. What does it do?"
Re: cw: gore
She walked over to the device, now finished, the last of the nanite goop turned into a delicate wire structure at the bottom. The robots she'd reprogrammed floated away.
"I'm leaving enough false flags in the programming to make it seem as if this world's rebellion is responsible for the slaughter. Minimally, it'll incite open war. If the rebels have weapons of mass destruction like the Capitol, it might even lead to the decimation of what's left of the human race. I can only hope."
no subject
No. No, the people of this world weren't going to die, even if some were responsible for the callous enslavement of others because of their silence. Even the Capitol had its innocents and if open war was incited in this way, the Districts would never have a chance.
And the other Tributes - and their families - would never see freedom from this world.
As she monologued - so predictably - Brainiac 5 started the slow and agonizing process of doing the unthinkable, the impossible: Sitting up.
The device being used on the others to pin them wasn't being used on him. She'd wanted him to writhe in pain freely.
no subject
"You won't live to see it in all its glory, though. I need to move now if I'm going to escape this world. You can just die knowing it's going to happen as soon as the devices have all received the activation signal."
A red button gleamed on the screen and she tapped it. The machine lit up, sending its signal.
"It'll just be a matter of minutes now. Your little friends here and these puffed up pink apes will all die scream -"
She turned around to see him standing in front of her, lurching towards her, sweat pouring down his face, his screams barely contained.
"Oh, I think I underestimated you. I keep doing that." She sounded only mildly discontented about it, as if him fighting back so fiercely would make still it all the sweeter when she killed him but was a minor inconvenience.
no subject
Those people were mistaken and those closest to him knew the truth: it was his utterly inability to back down, boundless stubbornness and willpower that never relented.
He felt a tsunami of pain hit him as she suddenly dialed up the controls on the device, and still made the last few torturous steps towards her, kicking one of her segmented legs to make her bow down, then punching her in what should have been the solar plexus, scrabbling with one hand in the direction of the torture device.
no subject
He fell to the floor, twitching again.
"Did you really think you could get this device out of my hands when holding it means I get to see you like this?"
no subject
He triumphantly held up the device that had been clasped at her hip, pinning the others down - pulled from her side while he'd made a feint for the device controlling his torture - and smashed it against the floor.
That was her problem, the same problem that plagued all the Brainiacs. They never looked outward. They couldn't empathize with others, see them as people of value, talent, or skill.
Naturally, that meant they never relied on other people or were willing to self sacrifice, which meant she wouldn't have even considered that he would, that he would go for the device that trapped the others instead of the one that trapped him.
He was in agony, possibly even dying now. He certainly wasn't going to save this world.
Fortunately, there were several very daring and selfless people in the room that could do it instead. And now they were free.
Okay, gonna do subthreads now for each part!
She only had a moment to prepare to fight them. Perhaps if she'd taken it to do something other than torment her son, she'd have had time to create another device like the one that had pinned then all down - perhaps something to just kill them all this time instead of making them witness his torture and their upcoming demise.
But her son was writhing on the floor, dying. She didn't dare risk losing that, not after thinking she'd already lost him once.
So she tapped on the controls to his torture device, causing a forcefield bubble to spring up around him, attaching the device to her side.
It was all the time she had.