In the event of the Unforseen...

Crey Industries - Two months ago

It had been a long day at the lab, and the techs in the maturation chambers had just clocked out. Not a day had gone by in a long while where something, somewhere, hadn't gone wrong. A spontaneous abortion, a metahuman raid, or worse. The floor supervisor cheerfully clicked the button on the wall and set the "Days Without Mishap" sign to "1". Closing the lab, shutting the lights, and sealing the entrance, he swiped his passcard, threw his coat over his shoulder, and made for the elevator.

You should never trust a good thing. Not in this line of work.

As the night grew long, something curious happened. A small crack appeared in the ground beneath the supervisor's desk, yielding a single vine - only one, not much to be feared. Small it was, and thin - it was no more than a half inch in width, and slowly climbed the desk like an intrepid snake. Inching its way across the desktop, around the soda can and under the calendar, it crept up into his little potted bonsai tree... and stopped.

Then, like a grenade, the plant exploded in a cataclysm of flora - growing roughly 300 times it size in under a minute, it threw vines and flowers all about the office, and quickly coated the walls with ivy. From each corner near the ceiling, a large vine grew towards the center of the room. Connecting at this junction, they spun together and coalesced into a large ball of plant matter. Within five minutes, the ball swelled to incredible proportions. From the crack where the original vine spawned, a massive vine split the floor nearly 2 feet wide, and connected to the bottom of the ball. It retracted, pulling the floor tiles over itself on the way out. The ball split open on the side, and spewed forth a human being.

Kevin DeSantis stood up amongst the chaos of the entrance he had devised, and grinned weakly through his stitched mouth. He always did love the dramatic.

Opening the door to the lab room, he froze and swept the area with his mind. Reaching out beyond the tubes, he sent small vines to the surveillance cameras and obscured their vision. With a quick nod to himself, he made for the database. He disengaged the two youngest specimens, and had his walking flytrap mule them back to the office.

Not to be underestimated, Crey's response team was already at the lab door. Sidling up against the wall, First Victim did what he did best - made friends. He heard shouts and threats on the other side, then silence. Gunshots followed soon after, and six bodies hit the floor at a musical pace. Victim opened the door and greeted his new friend, Security Chief Harris - fully compliant and eager to help with the assistance of his Power Tank suit. Harris unwittingly guarded the lab entrance while Victim made his escape at the supervisor's office. As the vines retracted all about and swallowed his two purloined specimens, he sent his flytrap to stand guard next to Harris. Harris smiled cautiously, and pet it. As DeSantis began to be consumed by his vines, he laughed a little, and had Harris hit the reset button on the "Days Without Mishap" sign.

As the vines creeped across DeSantis' face and began to drag him back into the ground, Harris screamed. The flytrap made a hasty exit down the hall and headed for the incinerator, its job done.

-------------------------------------------

In the northern reaches of St. Martial, First Victim watched many of his subjects with interest. Two of those were currently engaged in raid-like combat of Siren's call, and he watched them intently through his spy vines near Buildville.

The first one was an interesting sight, a man turned foul and rife with the stench of seafood. His pronounced snout, his razor sharp claws, his tough hide, it was all remarkable and it took First Victim by surprise just how easy he could leap through the air as he could swim from the shores by the oilrig. Victim watched intently, his vines growing fast and stealthily to keep up. The shark stopped, and sniffed about. Snapping his left fist outward, he struck an unseen foe and it crashed to the ground. The shark leapt on top of his foe and began tearing at him in a frenzy - until a second adversary showed up, covered in leafy matter but completely unaware of the vines. Victim snickered at this obvious fledgling, and then his gaze was cut short as his left ocular vine was stomped on by a thoughtless robot.

Reeling in pain for a moment, Victim massaged his eye and reconnected to the spy-vine. Placing his hand to the ground, the connection was re-established in time to see this red robot leap in to save the shark, crushing the ribcage of the plantman. Victim watched in curiosity as the robot ceased his attack, scanned it with an infrared beam, paused a moment, and then finished it off.

The shark and the robot stood there quietly, scanning the area for a third foe which had been attempted to circumvent the confrontation with a quick teleport of the automaton. Without warning, another hero leapt out from the alley - quick it was, so much so that Victim strained to keep his eye on it - it went right for the robot and shoved a spine through its shoulder. The robot scanned it with the infrared beam, then began to automate an upgrade process in which several parts of itself folded inwards to push out a different type of armor plating. Its color shifted blue, and it struck back with a vicious overhand two-handed smash - but to no avail. The hero tore through the attack easily, and the robot took off. The shark, knowing better, retreated to the water.

Standing there proud, the hero tapped her comm and taunted the fleeing foes. Victim trained his vines on her, analyzing her form and stature. Whatever powers she had, he wanted. He found his new study, and set off to research.

***

Upon reaching Siren's Call, Victim set an elaborate trap to get near her. Making his way to the commongrounds where many heroes and villains clashed, he grasped a tree tightly and merged into it. None the wiser, he hoped, would ever stop to inspect it. He waited for several hours until again the shark and the robot drew near, looking for prey. The shark began backhanding citizens to draw attention, while the robot scanned each of them. Eventually a pack of heroes showed up, and the shark engaged them. The robot stopped a moment, turned to the tree that Victim was inhabiting, scanned it and moved on. Victim's heart skipped a beat as he wondered what it was the robot wanted - but knowing he was not safe, he pulled himself out and began to take off.

As he began to backpedal, he turned and caught a glimpse through his psychic vision of the one he sought. She came roaring down from the clouds and landed on the shark with all her weight. Thrusting a spine into his back, he roared in agony and threw her off. Victim looked on as she hit the building and fell, stunned.

Seizing this opportunity, Victim ran to her and grabbed her face to probe her mind... and what he got was more than he bargained for. Images, words, screams, they all flashed by his sight in a second, followed by a speeding car, which struck his psyche with the force of a ten-ton bomb. The last thing he saw before he detached from her was a Founders Fall's hospital, and a girl sleeping in bed.

What had he come upon? Did he himself even know? He'd been doing this for a while now and every mind followed a discernable chaos; and entropy that the human mind devised to keep its thoughts scrambled to all but itself - this one was different, constructed even, of an order and pattern that defied nature. He fled Siren's Call and made haste to his apartment to dwell on it.

***

Back at his apartment, he punched the walls in fury as his thoughts yielded no answers. How could it be, that this hero was so different? How can a mind deviate from entropy to a rigid order of thought? In his fury, he went downstairs to his roommate.

Unlocking the door to her room, he smiled sweetly as he caressed his roommate's chin. She struggled slightly against the harnesses that strapped her to the bed, so he palmed her forehead and put her to sleep. If nothing could make him feel better, maybe giving his nemesis's most precious possession a nightmare could pick him up.

He grabbed Marie Malone's face and lept into her subconscious. Entropy, chaos, twists and knots, this was the psyche he knew. He could not answer the question burning at him, but delighted as he began crafting monsters to torment her. Several he made, of all shapes and disfigurations, and sent them running in different directions. One made for the id, the other the superego. The last one stayed with him by his side, a twisted visage of flesh that he loved having sneak up on her when she thought she was safe. He waited, patiently, for her defense mechanism.

Soon she came, the force to combat his intrusion. Jennifer, Jennifer... predictably charging at him from the left, claws bared. She tore apart the visage of flesh and in his vanity, Victim stood still and grabbed her face defiantly, with the utmost bravado. Unintentionally, however, he initiated a mind probe. Time stood still a moment as layers upon layers of psychosis washed over him and Marie, both minds struggling to comprehend how one could mind probe inside a mind probe. It was then, as if some force somewhere was driving him painfully towards the answer, that he got it. He entered the dream-state mind that Marie had constructed to defend herself, the visage of his nemesis, and found order, structure, and organization of thought.

Victim pulled out of Marie's mind sharply, gasping for air through his stitched mouth. He clawed at his scalp a moment, writhing in pain. Falling off the bed and onto the dirty wooden floor, he curled up in the fetal position and screamed. Then, all was deathly silent. A low laugh escaped his lips, as he'd finally gotten to the answer he sought.

He had mind probed the walking manifestation of a psychic defense mechanism. He boggled at the concept, and wondered how to reproduce it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

The woods stretched out in all directions, the blue sky rife with clouds tinged pink and trees chittered with the sounds of woodland life. He raised his hands to his face and touched his eyes, which were no longer stitched. He gasped at this, and stuck a finger in his fully open mouth. Confirming the reality of the situation, he poked himself in the eye. It was really there... his idea had worked.

He had spent several days using the servers at Malice in Wonderland's lair to research his quarry. The hero DragonBerry, he knew now, was the one he sought. She, the spined lizard girl, the fearless power he'd encountered in Siren's Call, was not in fact real - but a transubstantiated psychic defense mechanism of a comatose girl in a Founder's Falls hospital. He had no idea such things were possible until he had mind probed her, an experience that left him stunned and out of breath. Having the computer read aloud to him the articles available to him online, he learned about the tragic accident that placed her there and the charity case she'd become over time.

What he didn't understand, of course, was how exactly this little girl could possess such talent as to embody her imagination into an ambulatory extension of her will. That's why he was there - in the dreamland world she'd made for herself, to get the answer. Hidden behind the pillow in her hospital bed was a solitary vine which had crept to the base of her neck. That was the easy part, getting answers was proving to be more difficult.

He admired the trees, the texture and feel of the bark realistic enough to buy into. It was interesting, looking at these things with his eyes, and not his mind, for once. But even more interesting were the things that the mind did not have the capacity to generate. He peeled off the bark easily, revealing a pink bubblegum texture beneath it. Her mind, while powerful, still only retained the knowledge of a child, and challenging the delicate world she'd created bore interesting results. He kicked a rabbit, and it turned into a bird mid-trajectory, then flew into the tree to sing with its flock. Victim smirked, and decided not to press the issue with her mind lest he irreparably damage the place and lose his answer for good.

Making his way through the cheery, technicolor and awfully cartoonish forest, he caught sight of a small plume of smoke. He paused, touched the ground, and felt foolish for a moment as he realized his powers held no sway here. Breathing heavy, and coping with being inert in this realm, he walked carefully down the rocky hill and headed for a small cabin at the bank of a creek.

He approached carefully, not sure whether or not to expect resistance to a new face. As he stepped up onto the porch, a hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He was face to face with a bear, standing upright and looking menacing. Victim desperately wanted to have his powers back, but all he could manage was a scream. The bear roared, then yawned and scratched its stomach.

"Howdy there, stranger, never seen your face before, are you also feeling ill?" The bear inquired, overly-friendly.

"Y-yeah. Wait, what? Are you talking to me?" Victim took a step back just in case.

"Well shucks, why wouldn't I? We're all friends here. And friends love to talk! You're my friend, right?" The bear asked, with saucer-sized eyes.

"Of course, of course... Uhh, my name is Kevin, what's yours?" Victim asked.

"Bear!" replied Bear.

"Good name... good name." Victim said. "Hey, I don't suppose you could help me, could you, Bear? I'm looking for a little girl. She's got something very important and I need her help."

"She's right inside! She made a home for herself here, she did, and let us all be her friends! Let me show you inside." Bear made for the door, and deftly opened it with his big bear paw. He looked around, and called for her.

"Little miss! Little miss! You have a visitor!" Bear yelled.

"Show him in! I'll be out in a moment Bear!" The girl responded.

Victim grinned innocently.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

"Hey there! My name is Bridgette Lilian Sterling! You can call me Bridgette!" The small girl bounded towards Kevin, full of energy. "Put 'er there, friend!" She held out her hand.

Victim extended his hand and shook hers, he being the less exuberant half of the act but still genuine nonetheless. He motioned if he could sit, and she nodded. He sat down on the maroon couch and lounged. For an illusion, it was surprisingly comfortable.

"What is this, velvet and tempurpedic cushioning?" Victim asked.

"Iunno. Comfy huh?" She stood up and jumped on it, showing it always kept its form. "So, are you in the hospital too?"

"What?" Victim became alerted to the idea he might be trapped. "What do you mean, in the hospital?" He asked, masking his worry.

"You know, asleep in the hospital! They're the only ones who can visit. It's kinda lonely at times, and when people come in from getting hurt some of them can dream like me. They always end up here! I try to make this place as nice as possible so they can be comfortable even if they're sick." Bridgette beamed.

"That's very considerate of you, little miss. No, I'm not actually sick. I came here of my own free will. I was wondering if you could help me?" Victim inquired, trying to steer towards an productive conversation.

"Oh neat! You're a psychic? Sister Psyche was here a few days ago to try and wake me up. She couldn't do it, but she said she was going to figure it out! Did she send you?" She asked eagerly.

"Umm, yeah! She did send me. She wants to know more about DragonBerry, she thinks that she might be the solution to it all! How did you... make her?" Victim asked, politely.

"Oh! I don't really know. I had to imagine real hard for a while about a friend I always wanted. Tall so she could reach the cookies on the top shelf, and help get my toys from the rain gutter... Strong enough to fight the monsters under my bed and in my closet when Mom and Dad went to sleep... and definitely a sense of adventure so we can play all day! Once I put all that in my head, I looked around my room at my dolls and this one was really cute! So I kept looking at it... and looking at it... and then POOF! There she was! I couldn't believe it! It was the best day ever." Bridgette collapsed back onto her section of the couch, exhausted from the story.

"That's so neat!" Victim exclaimed under pain of pretense. "Was she real from right then?"

"Oh no, mister!" She could move stuff when I asked her to, but if I had to do homework or do chores, she vanished! When I got into that crash though, that's when she became real! That's all I could think about. I think she might have saved my life that day, maybe even taken the actual impact! How cool is that?" Bridgette asked, punching Victim on the arm.

"That's really awesome! I wish I could do that." Victim hoped his ploy of goading her into teaching him would work. It did.

"It's easy!" She laughed. "Think of someone you've always wanted to have around, and shut your eyes!" She curled up and grabbed her legs, watching Victim. Victim shut his eyes and concentrated.

An effigy swirled above the coffee table and gained a human form. "Super cool! It's working! Don't open your eyes! Think about what it does, and why!" The effigy turned dark, dark brown and grew somewhat misfigured. "Good try! Keep thinking!" She giggled. The form filled out, and looked a lot like DragonBerry. "Hey," She yelled. "that looks like DragonBerry, mister! Got to make your own friend!" She began laughing hysterically. She had no idea what she was in for.

DragonBerry's form began to pervert. Her face grew wrinkled and her hair retracted into her skull. It turned blue and stood straight up. Her breasts shrank into pectoral muscles and the whole form faded into androgyny. The ears grew pointed, and spines protruded grotesquely from all angles of its skin. It hands became bound in tough leather which the spines then broke through in a bloody mess. The feet followed soon after in similar fashion. Bridgette screamed and shook Victim to get him to open his eyes. He opened both his eyes and beheld his creation, and the terrified little girl.

"What the heck is that?" Victim asked innocently, feigning shock. Bridgette clutched him close. He threw her off, back onto her section of the couch and stood up. Bear charged in to protect her, and was met quickly by a stab through his eyesocket by the creature's palm spine. The exit wound splattered a hundred butterflies at the wall, which took off out the window without a care in the world. Bear quickly dissolved into a hundred pounds of granulated sugar as a result, spilling all over the floor. Bridgette passed out from the shock, leaving Victim there to laugh and behold his creation. He placed his palm on its chest, to remember it for later, and then dissolved it into a pile of M&M's and a note saying "Thanks.".

------------

Ducking into the Malice in Wonderland base, Victim grinned like a fool riding atop his flytrap. Bloodywedd and Kryogentic stood there, the former amused and the latter indifferent. At his behest, they'd confiscated some lab tables from the Black Heart Memorial Hospital and made a special room off of the theater just for his next act of villainy. Strapping himself into a chair, he requested Bloodywedd mind probe him, while clasping a neural interface. Enchambered behind him were the two Paragon Protectors-to-be he'd been nurturing. His original plans for them, a half-[censored] plan to grow his own hero, had been shelved for notions of greater grandeur. In truth, he was just about to turn over the two purloined miscreants to Kryogentic before he stumbled upon the "DragonBerry Phenomenon"; hence her lack of amusement.

They had two tries to make it work. Bloodywedd palmed his face and grasped the neural interface, and began to concentrate hard. Victim convulsed, and began gasping for air. The tube behind him to the left began to mutate and deform, quickly resembling the horror from Bridgette's lessons. Kryogentic, not amused by the parlor trick, quietly stated "Get on with it, you puppet! If you had half the talent my left finger had, this would done already." and turned an about face to leave. On her way out, however, Cryo's tail struck Bloodywedd's leg and she broke concentration. The neural interface slipped from her hand and she hit the floor with a thud, exhausted. Victim awoke sharply, and in his rage he threw Kryogentic against the wall and kept her there. With his mind, he lifted Bloodywedd back to her feet.

"Again, please..." Victim begged. Bloodywedd obliged, and Kryogentic landed softly on her feet. She harumphed, and walked out to do more interesting and self-serving things. As Bloodywedd clasped the second neural interface, Victim clenched his teeth and slipped into the mental abyss, envisioning his creation. The tube behind him to the right swirled with bloody tendrils of color as the Protector deformed and matured much faster this time, reaching completion in under a minute.

Bloodywedd disengaged and Victim exhaled sharply through his stitching. She unbound Victim's hands from the armrests and stepped back, humming a tune and playing with invisible objects in the air.

"What do we do with the first one?" He asked.

"Beats me. Maybe it's a good copy and you can have two?" Bloodywedd replied, distracted.

He ejected the first creation and it stood up, heaving for breath. Dripping with nutrient, it bowed and attempted to stand upright.

"What is your name, servant?" Victim demanded.

"Massssssssster calls us Blindsssssssssside, he does!" It replied.

Victim sighed, and threw the creation at Bloodywedd with his mind.

"Bloody [censored] useless." He said. "Can't even talk right." Bloody caught it with her mind, spun it around a few times and set it down. It cowered, waiting for a reprimand. None came.

"Cynthia, do be a peach and show it the transporter to St. Martial. Send Brianna with it, to get it registered with the Port Oakes registrar and settled into my basement. Tell her its name is Blindside. I expect two copies of the ID, and it all to be done by 9pm tonight." Cynthia left, singing, with the beast in tow.

Victim disengaged the second tube, and allowed it to spill out onto the floor. The nutrient goo lapped at his boots a moment before receding into the floor drain. It stood up, panting but looking stronger than the first.

"What is your name, servant?" Victim demanded.

"You have entitled me Blindside, master. You imparted that upon me when I stabbed the bear."

Victim grinned like a child. "You are going to work out just fine. I have some work ahead of you, and I think you will find it catered to your skills."

"To hunt down DragonBerry, Master?" Blindside inquired. Victim turned around and punched it in the stomach. "Insolent miscreant, how dare you read my mind!"

"No sir!" The creature gasped. "You imparted yourself upon me by making me, I am humbly in possession of your best strengths and vices... including your plans and ambitions. I share your hatreds, your fears, master! Forever I am indentured to you, but I am more like you than anyone could ever be. Don't kill me, master!"

Victim sighed and struck it once on the forehead with his finger. It fell asleep instantly, and Victim levitated it. It followed him, floating, to the teleporter and they both vanished into St. Martial.

----------

Back at his apartment, Brianna Volpe, his student operating under the alias Icespark, sat on a dirty couch watching TV in Victim's St. Martial apartment. He creeped in through the back window, and advanced slowly to her. Lunging at her, he came face-to-face with a wall of ice.

"Good." He said, tapping the ice. "You're learning to be more aware. Where is the [censored] end of this duo I've made?" He asked through his puppet plant on his shoulder, and floating Blindside to his front.

"Downstairs, sir. Had to make room in Kid Switchblade's cell for them." She replied.

"Fine. And where are the ID's?" He asked.

Brianna paused.

"Slight problem, sir." She said, hesitantly.

"Oh?"

"Blindside was taken, sir."

"Oh ho? What are their names then?"

"Unforeseen, sir." She gulped.

"Excellent! That's an ominous name if ever I heard one! You'll be doing great things under my tutelage. Let me have those ID's, please."

She gave him the ID's and smiled, even though she knew a smile was pointless. He ran his hands over them, checking the braille.

"Good lord, woman. You spelled their name wrong."

"What, sir? I'm sorry!" She gasped. "What did I write?"

"Unforseen. You're missing an E. Eh, close enough. Not like anyone's going to live to mock them for it."

Victim brushed her off rudely and headed downstairs. The cell was too crowded for three. It was time he parted with his prize, her debt to him paid in full. Summoning forth a vine cocoon, he tossed Kid Switchblade into it, erased the last 3 months from her mind, and sent her back to the Defenders of Paragon headquarters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

(Hey you actually posted it I told you before and I'll say it again I love love love your writing )

I forgot I had posted this here so long ago. Deebs, did you ever want to do something with this stalker of mine?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.