#just that was a big transfer and he hasn't been treated well in Blackwing

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Holistic Coffee Shop -- Modern Prometheus

Okay, so two weeks ago, I showed you the scene I came up with for Victor using his power of “life transfer” for the very first time. Now, that scene involved a stabbing, courtesy of Barkis Bittern, but this one happens to be even darker!

Mostly because it takes place inside Blackwing. And someone dies. Someone who really goddamn deserves it, to be sure, but still. Your warning for the day!

Backstory: After the above scene, upon getting Emily to safety, Victor eventually goes back and gives himself up to the CIA so they’ll leave his other friends alone. Barkis happily takes him in, and Victor is put into Blackwing custody. Amidst the experiments performed on him, he learns that Alice’s sister Lizzie is too a guest of Blackwing -- she’s a ghost now, trapped inside a containment field for study. The two become friendly, as her cell isn’t far from his, and start making escape plans.

Meanwhile, Alice is furious that Blackwing has her boyfriend and tells the others they have to rescue him. Everyone is for this, and they even bring in this universe’s Bart and Ken to help. Plans are made, discarded, and made again, and eventually the group heads off to find themselves a secret CIA facility.

The escape attempt and the rescue attempt end up colliding, and for a bit all goes well. Victor and Lizzie take out the power and release the child subjects Blackwing was testing on, while the Rowdy 3 run into those same kids later and Martin has Gripps, Cross, and Vogel get them out of there safely. Victor and Lizzie meet up with the remaining members, and all prepare to flee --

And then Angus Bumby shows up with an armed guard, a portable containment field for Lizzie, and a hard whack across the shoulders for Victor. A short standoff ensues, with Bumby THINKING he has the upper hand. . .

"Now, I'm sure I can arrange somewhat more comfortable quarters if you all come quietly." Bumby smiled at Alice. "Particularly you, Miss Liddell. Perhaps something near my room?"

Even through watery, pain-filled eyes, Victor could see the hate smoldering on Alice's face. "You expect me to comply with my family's murderer?"

Bumby shook his head. "Alice, even if you were to escape – who would believe you? You're a coffee girl with a history of mental illness. Specifically, of psychosis and hallucination. We know it's a bit more than that – much more than that, in fact – but to the outside world, if you started going on about Angus Bumby, who disappeared twelve years ago. . .well. Rutledge never refuses a patient."

"It's more than just me!"

Bumby's eyes raked over the rest of the rescue crew. "Ah, yes. A 'holistic detective,' another girl locally known as mentally ill, her dropout brother with a history of untruth, a computer hacker, an unkempt 'assassin,' and a common thug. I'm sure everyone will find them credible witnesses." He smirked. "I have friends in much higher places than you do, Alice. And I've been doing this a lot longer." He nodded to the men with guns surrounding them. "Please – let's do this the easy way? Your sister chose the hard way, and you see how well that worked out for her."

Lizzie tried to lunge at him, but the man next to Bumby twisted something on his device, and the containment field constricted with a crackle, forcing her to her knees. Victor looked at her, then back up at Bumby. He's going to win, he realized with a sick sinking feeling. He's actually going to win. Martin's going to start swinging at any moment, and he'll probably take out a couple of them, but even he can't survive being riddled with bullets. Same with Bart – she'll get a few, and then she'll be dead, and probably Ken too since he'll try to help – and the others will be taken in and Dirk won't have the universe to help him anymore and Amanda will be just another experiment and Todd will probably be 'recruited' and have to help them torture his own sister and Alice – no no no I have to do something I have to stop him – but I don't know how to fire a gun and they'll probably just shoot me if I get up and even if I end up a ghost like Lizzie I won't be any good to anyone I won't even be able to heal anymore –

And, for some reason, he suddenly found himself thinking of Emily and the oak tree.

He blinked, unsure why that memory had popped into his head. Emily was nowhere to be seen this time, thank God, and he wasn't near any trees. . .maybe he was just worried he was never going to see a tree again? No, that can't be it. Dirk says everything is connected – how does that memory connect to what's happening now? He shut his eyes and let it replay. Emily's tortured gasping, the blood under his hands, terror frazzling his nerves, the crunch of the leaves in his fingers – then that incredibly pleasant, warm electricity zipping through his body – and then the dead leaves crumbling to the ground, and Emily sitting up, the color returning to her cheeks, wiping away the blood to reveal the wound was gone – he'd saved her, at the cost of practically killing the tree –

His eyes snapped open. His power – how had the scientists put it? He rebalanced the distribution of life energy – helped and harmed in equal measure. And he'd saved someone from a fatal wound. . .maybe he could – it was a mad idea, but they were always encouraging him to push his powers farther. . .

He reached out and took Lizzie's hand, ignoring the faint sting from the containment field. She looked down at it in confusion. "Trust me," he whispered, then looked up at Bumby. "Sir – I just had a thought."

"What is it, Prometheus?" Bumby said, not even glancing down.

"It's about that, actually. My project name. You said it was from the Greek myth, but there's actually another place someone might have heard it from."

"Oh?"

"Frankenstein. I had to read it for an English class. The subtitle is The Modern Prometheus."

Bumby finally deigned to look at him. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"It's a book about raising the dead, more or less." He gritted his teeth. "Let's try an experiment."

His hand snapped out and closed around Bumby's wrist before anyone could react – and then suddenly his body was overflowing with energy, pulsing through him like a live wire, scorching his nerves with something that wasn't quite pain as he rebalanced the books of life – he could hear Bumby screaming, feel the man trying to pull free; his fingers tightened, sucking with lethal intent – Lizzie yelped, and he squeezed her hand, now comforting, now giving – and then there was gunfire and a familiar howling scream from Martin and a whistling snickersnack and an uncoordinated "Hiiii-yah!" followed by what sounded like someone's foot meeting someone else's groin and he wanted to worry about it but he couldn't right now because he couldn't really think beyond the flow of pure unadulterated life roaring through him, pouring through veins and arteries as it sought a new home, touching him along the way with the merest whisper of the sublime – everything was connected, and right now he was that connection –

And then, with a loud thud!, it was over. Victor released both Lizzie and Bumby, needing his hands to brace himself as he came, shaking and wheezing, off the high of being the conduit for the most powerful force in the universe. He managed, after a moment, to focus on the scene around him. Bumby was lying dead on his left, face twisted in a rictus of shock. The containment man was also dead, blood dripping from multiple gunshot wounds, his device sparking. The rest of the Blackwing soldiers didn't look much better – even those that he could see were still alive weren't getting up anytime soon. His friends were still standing, blood staining faces and hands and clothes but apparently uninjured – and all staring at him like they'd never seen him before. And to his right –

was Lizzie, gaping at him, her body no longer a mass of blue electric light but wonderfully, warmly solid. Victor managed to give her a smile as he struggled to catch his breath. "Oh good. I was hoping. . ."

The world inconveniently started spinning then, the walls and floor switching places like he was stuck on a Tilt-A-Whirl. He pressed down hard on the tiles, trying to steady himself, but all that did was make the ceiling start twisting in a different direction. He raised a weak hand to his head. "I – I think I overdid it a little," he confessed in the vague direction of Alice, tipping dangerously toward the left wall.

Then everything went black.