"It's like being murdered... and surviving."
By
FunstuffofDoom,
Posted on: 2008-08-24 21:00 in Roleplaying
Mysterious! I LIKE it!
I'm not just saying that, either. I really do like it.
The man wasnt always strapped down to a table. Sometimes he was incased in a large tube. Others, he was suspended in a whirlwind of various energies and particles. Frequently, he was restrained in some futuristic device never before conceived of. Today, however, he was strapped down to a table.
It mattered little to the man. He wasnt broken. He was past breaking. He didnt move, he was carried. He was restrained while on machines to keep him on the device in the throes of agony, not because the scientists worried about an escape attempt. Guards didnt even bother to feed him. Enough nutrients to keep his body regenerating were pumped in via IV.
The man wasnt always strapped down to a table, but today he was. Typically, this meant he was going to subjected to a variety of serums, radiation, and whatever the scientists could do with portable equipment.
We have a surprise for you today, Vitale. The Lead Scientist said as he entered the room. He frequently talked to the man, even though the man has ceased reacting to external stimuli some time ago. The scientist held up a single syringe. We think this ones the one. If it works, itll all be over.
The syringe was inserted. The liquid inside was pumped into the mans body. There was no reaction. The scientist sighed. Take him back to his cell.
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Finding a person to talk to was harder than I would have thought. Wherever I was, the locals had developed no real interest in assisting a naked, blue man. Of course, I appeared to be in a slum of some sort, and so most of the people I encountered were in no position to lend assistance had they the desire to do so.
Eventually, though, I did encounter a man possessing, perhaps, and ancestor of Samaritan heritage, for he leant me his coat and answered my questions as best he could.
Unfortunately, he couldnt answer many of them. I was in Paragon City, on the coast of Rhode Island. Specifically, I was in a section commonly referred to as Kings Row, due to the number of local factories for King Garment Works. But, he couldnt tell me anything about myself other than the fact that I appeared super. He recommended I visit the City Hall in Atlas Park, a district some distance away, as it had plenty of resources for helping younger heroes. He also suggested I find some pants before I enter the building. I thanked him for the information and the coat, and headed on my way.
It was at this moment I met them. I had no idea who they were at the time, of course, but that bothered them not at all.
There he is! Get him!
There were four of them. Three men in flack jackets, and a fourth in some kind of armor. And they were pointing at me. Probably not good. In fact, Id say that the odds of a near-naked man surviving an attack by three men armed with automatic weapons and whatever that armor could do were astronomically bad. But my mind surprised me.
It began cataloguing data. Things I wasnt sure how I would know, but I knew. It noticed that the three men in flack jackets were coming at me with batons, which meant they were inclined to leave me alive. It noted the angles they were approaching from, and how best to disable them. It noted the armor the fourth man was wearing, and that he was hanging back. It sent directions to my muscles, and I was quite prepared for them when the finally circled around me. One in front, one slightly behind each shoulder. All of them, as far as I could tell, had their batons held in front of them.
The one in front of me spoke. Give it up, meat, and we wont beat your sorry [censored] into the pavement. His words were meant to intimidate me. He gave me a slight nudge with his baton, and that was the opening I needed.
I moved with the push, and staggered back a bit. For all intents and purposes, this appeared to be a claim for balance, because I was too weak to stand. It wasnt. My balance was perfect. It was a claim for space. The stagger dropped me a step away from the man in front of me- a step hed have to take if he wanted to hit me. It also caused my left leg to be placed a pace or so in front of my right leg. Initially a rather awkward position to be sure, but to a person with some training, it was a twitch and a movement away from a side kick, sans the telegraphing the usually accompanies the kick.
The poor man on my left probably never knew what hit him. He crumpled.
The man in front of me was my next target. He came at me with an overhand chop of his baton, which never actually translated into a strike because I caught his elbow as he was stepping forwards. A twist broke his elbow, and a shove threw him into the third man. It wouldnt remove him from the fight, but it would occupy him for several seconds. I turned to look at the armor and Move! discarded the notion to hurl myself aside. A bolt of energy lanced past where Id been standing. I looked up to see the armored man gather more energy for a similar strike. Bad.
I rolled to my feet, and jumped aside of a second blast, this time having the foresight to land in a roll, and thus continue moving as soon as I hit the ground. The man was charging a third blast, and I was sprinting at him, full speed.
Ten paces.
Would I make it?
Five paces.
Almost charged
Three paces.
My body reacted for me, again. My legs twisted and spun. I flung myself into the air in a convoluted horizontal spin, I think. Im not entirely sure what the movement looked like, but the blast of energy missed, by centimeters, and my feet connected with the mans faceplate.
Glass crinkled, and the helmet fell off the mans head. He looked a bit dazed for a second, and then seemed to realize he wasnt wearing his helmet. Blood drained from his face. Oh, please, God. Tell me you didnt
Energy built up around his body, and exploded. I remember looking up from down the street, and seeing nothing but a crater where the man had been.
And then I blacked out.
He moved. Weaving, because his legs couldnt properly support him. Stumbling, bashing into walls. One arm desperately clutched passing objects for balance, while the other swung a glowing torrent of energy with all the grace and subtlety of a baseball bat at any of the laboratory technicians foolish enough to get close.
Eventually, though time meant nothing to him, antiseptic tiles and sterile white gave way to aged concrete and nighttime street lamps. Hallways with doors became streets with parking meters. Windows into lab rooms became entrances to apartment buildings. Men in lab coats and surgical masks became the odd pedestrian, who would take one look at the bloodied, naked man, staggering down the street like a life-long drunkard, and suddenly realize they had a pressing appointment somewhere else.
The man kept moving. His body healed faster than anyone he knew, or knew of. It would continue to move. But his mind did not. There were no thoughts. All that could be considered sentience had receded into a corner, and was doing its level best to not exist under any circumstances. The man was operating on instinct, pure and bestial. But even that wore out. The body would never tire, but the mind was quite fallible. And so instinct threw the man into the safest place it could find before it, too, receded. And then, the man collapsed.
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For those who have never awoken in a state of complete disorientation, I will say now that it one of the worst experiences the normal human being can expect to live through. And I have the right to say this with complete confidence, because when I awoke, I knew absolutely nothing about myself, where I was, or why I was there. I awoke to a good deal of ache spread throughout my body, which surprised me on some level, but I couldnt say why.
As I shook off the stupor of sleeping no, call it what it is. I shook off the stupor of awaking from deep unconsciousness, and began to take in my surroundings. I was in an alleyway. Brick walls surrounded by the detritus of hard living. Crushed cans, corrugated cardboard, rusted pipes protruding from walls. Newspaper, as battered and dirt-ridden as I was, lay crumpled about. Some of it lay near me, and by the smell, it had been used, once upon a time, to wipe. I decided movement was in order. And that brought me to focusing on my body.
I was naked, which didnt seem so much a surprise considering my current location, but my skin was a dull blue. Not So-white-it-looks-blue-under-certain-conditions. Blue. Like the sky, during a thunderstorm. And it shouldnt have been.
Too, I was bald. Not just along my head, which I felt to ensure I was, indeed, hairless, but also my eyebrows, my face, my chest, arms, back, and even my legs were entirely clear of hair.
What in the world had happened to me?
I would find out. But first, I needed to move.
My body uncurled. My knees, which had been pulled to my chest, straightened out. My arms, clenched against each other and my chest, braced themselves against the ground. My spine flexed, and I rolled onto my knees. That produced no discernable ill effects save a slight nausea, so I rose to a knee, and then to my feet. The nausea immediately expanded at geometric rates, and I managed to support myself against a wall as dry heaves hit.
When I was done, I decided to try movement again. The situation I was in was full of questions, which could only be answered by interaction with other people. And so I took a step. Nausea attempted to strike again, but it was manageable, and so I took another. Out of the alley I walked, though I admit, it lacked any semblance of grace. Onto a street. I could see no one around me, so I picked a direction, and I walked.
Eventually, I would run into someone.