A Forgotten Hero and an Unseen Threat. (Bloo/Private)

How long had he been here? The prisoner took in a shuddering breath. He opened his eyes slowly and he looked around his cell once again, wincing at the pain of moving his head. It was bare stone, like something out of the medieval ages. A fitting end for a disgraced knight. He snorted at the thought, gasping in agony shortly after. He strained painfully to look up at his arms, bound to the wall above by heavy manacles which themselves were held to the masonry by a heavy metal pin.

His captor had been cruel in his imprisonment. He had been chained to the wall so that his torso dangled some two feet above the cold ground in a position that mocked his useless legs. If they weren't withered and lifeless, the prisoner would have easily been able to support himself somewhat comfortably. As it was, he was forced to dangle against the icy wall, somewhat grateful that his legs could not feel the frigid stone floor nor the filth that had accumulated below him. His once proud golden hair had grown filthy and matted in the grungy cell, and his once shaven face was hidden beneath a beard as unkempt as his hair.

There was one crucial detail that the machines who brought his few meager meals were incapable of seeing. To their soulless lenses, he was an atrophied shadow of a man encrusted in filth and on the brink of death. They knew nothing more than their programing, and could not spot this one detail for what it was: buried beneath the filth and overgrown hair were a pair of golden eyes that still burned as fiercely as they had the first day the prisoner had arrived. His body was weak and broken, but his spirit was not.

The prisoner's ears perked. What was that sound? He could not remember when his last meal was, but nor was he on the brink of starvation so it had to be too soon for another. For the seemingly endless days, weeks, months he had been down here, that had been the only cause for visitation - if he could even call it that. At first his captor had come down in person to ask questions, torment him, or simply run tests but in recent memory his only visitors had been the autonoma who served his captor - usually bringing some small portion of unpleasant food or occasionally bringing implements to test his vital signs. He listened intently, and was able to discern another sound over the clanking footsteps of his captors’ servants. Something was being dragged. It was faint, but he was sure of it. He started when the door to his cell was flung open and a pair of humanoid machines bore a body between them.

Ugly, haphazard things, the automata were little more than hydraulically powered humanoid frames with bundles of exposed wires and dirty hydraulics to power their movements. Crude sensor arrays were mounted on a swivel where a man's head would be, and a small engine mounted on each machine's back rattled away with occasionally squealing belts in order to provide power. These were the older models, hastily slapped together as the first wave of manual laborers. The prisoner had seen later models possessed of far greater sophistication during his time in his cell but as it had worn on the lesser machines became more commonplace - perhaps they had been replaced by the better machines elsewhere and had been sent down to toil in the dungeons rather than simply being scrapped. Whatever the reason, it was only the occasional medical check up that saw the more advanced automata down with him anymore. Incapable of speech, the clanking drones simply tossed the body in an unceremonious heap in his cell and left - their unwieldy gait forcing them to simply back out of the cell rather than turn around. Once more the door was closed with the echoing clang of a funeral bell, the bolt was drawn back into place, and the lifeless sentinels stomped off in their awkward gait.

Astonished by this unexpected turn of events, the prisoner looked over his new cellmate. From what he could tell from her prone form, she was female with pale skin and short, styled black hair. She was short and slender, but her size seemed to belie a power lurking within her toned muscle. Like he had been, she seemed to have been stripped of whatever equipment she had once held. Unlike him however, she wasn’t dressed in anything at all while he had simply been stripped to his boxers, now more of a ragged loincloth, and unceremoniously chained to the wall.

His face visibly reddened, and his concern was momentarily replaced by embarrassment and he looked away. His embarrassment was replaced by concern once more as a suspiciously fresh scar on a bit of exposed flesh caught his attention in the fleeting glimpse he’d gotten of her. Was this some new creation brought to existence by his captor to torment him anew? Was it something even more sinister? Simply the remains of a new creation, cast aside like refuse? The prisoner forgot his timidity and looked back at the nude girl, frowning at her unconscious form. It seemed like no answer was forthcoming, however he was able to see many more fresh and precise scars so perfectly cut that they had to be surgical in nature. He did not know how long he waited, but eventually she began to stir, and long unused muscles clenched in silent anticipation.

A groan escaped the sore and ragged chest of Mariya as she slowly moved her hand against the cold concrete. Where the Hell was she? She couldn't remember anything about last night as she heaved against the floor to push herself up. She felt unbelievably weak, which only served to push a growl out of her lips. Her eyes lazily scanned the room from the ground up. The first think that caught her attention was the various fresh scars on her nude body. What the Hell managed to cut her? And so cleanly.

The next thing her focus fell on was the chained up shell of a man hanging from the wall near her.
"What the... You ain't lookin so good, kid."

She pointed out, ignoring her own weakness in the moment. As frail as she felt, she was confident that she was miles ahead of this chump. Finishing her push up, she stood to her full height despite the protests her body gave. Was this what it was like to be sore? That was new. Usually a few hours in the sun erased any lingering soreness from the alien.

"I'm going to kill somebody." She pointed out with a deceptive calmness. Her muscles were coiled tightly, and if the man had any ability to read people he'd be able to notice the blinding rage lurking beneath the surface of her scarred skin. She walked slowly to the door, drawing her fist back and punching it full force... only to hiss in pain. "Ah! Jesus!"

With the pain, her facade of calm lifted, and she turned a steady glare to her cellmate. "What's going on?"

As the justifiably angry young woman rose and commented on the prisoner's appearance, he opened his mouth. At first nothing came out. His second attempt elicited a dull croak, and his third attempt brought a cracked and dry voice from a throat that hadn't spoken in months. “My body was never my weapon.”

While she continued to take in her current situation and subsequently injured her hand on the door, the prisoner's mind raced and he cleared his throat painfully. “I only know a little, but I have guessed at more. The man responsible is an unnamed scientist. I faced him once and it took myself and two others to bring him down.” As he spoke, the prisoner's voice gradually grew stronger. “He escaped and the next time I saw him, I was already in this cell. I was captured via some crude and painful form of teleportation that left me immobile and in agony for several minutes after its completion. In that time I was disarmed and restrained by the mechanized drones he has working for him. Some time later, those drones grew in sophistication. I believe he has learned from my equipment and applied it to his work.”

His voice cracked, and he took a moment to rest it. After a few false starts where it outright refused to cooperate, he cleared his throat and began again. “I'm assuming that you're usually much stronger?” His scientific mind was in full gear, and he stared at her thoughtfully, the state of her clothing (or in this case lack thereof) momentarily forgotten in the face of scientific curiosity and the challenge of a mystery. “The fact that you aren't is extremely worrisome, especially paired with those scars. Unless you surprise me by saying that you already had them, I'd say they were very recent and surgical in nature. I don't know what that means, but it can't be a good thing. The other major question is that if he went through the trouble of taking you apart, why bother putting you back together?” The prisoner had somewhat lost himself to his own ramblings and musings, and at this point was more thinking aloud than talking to the half kryptonian. After muttering a few more questions to himself and staring at the floor for a moment, he seemed to have a small “eureka!” moment as his gaze snapped back up to his new cellmate.

“You didn't damage the door, but you also didn't break your hand. You may yet have some residual strength. If you can muster enough, you may be able to pull my manacles out of the wall. If you can do that, I've got a plan to get us out of here.”

As the intelligent and useless man hanging from the wall eyed the Kryptonian with scientific curiosity, Mariya was getting more and more irritated. Someone clearly kidnapped her... and the strange scars and annoying soreness had her on edge. If whoever took her had managed to negate her powers, it had best be temporary. Otherwise, what was the point of escaping anyway?
Quickly shaking the morbid thought from her head, Mariya decided that following the advice of the man would serve two purposes. First, she'd get him off the wall for whatever stupid plan he had. Second, and more importantly, she'd get the reassurance of using her strength to prove she still had some of it.

"Fine." She barked out in a gruff voice, heading to the wall and touching the chains a bit. The fact that she was practically pressed into him and nude was hardly on her mind as she gave a few test tugs on the chains. If it were a regular day, ripping these out wouldn't even take any effort at all. Right now, however...

She heaved, both hands on the chain over his right arm. With huffs of effort and strain, Mariya positioned her weight to assist. There was a crumble as the chain was yanked from the wall and she stumbled back a few odd steps. Next, she worked on the left hand. With even more effort, she plucked that chain out as well, falling back as the mans weight was suddenly on her.

"Damn it..." She grumbled, breathing heavy and ignoring the fact that the cripple was laying on top of her for a while. When her breath was caught, she shoved him off with less effort. He was dangerously light it seemed. "I need to get out of this basement and into the sun. If I spend some time in the sunlight, I'll have the strength to tear this whole friggin' place down..."

She hoped.

The prisoner mused aloud as Mariya got to work freeing him. “Good. If we can get to my equipment, we can find out what's going on here and either put a stop to it or get help and do so later. Whatever this is, it can't be-” The prisoner stopped, his train of thought was cut cold. He hadn't even considered just how close the Kryptonian would have to get to pull on his chains.

Awkward shyness overtook him and he frantically looked around to find something else to focus on, but with his lack of mobility and her close proximity there wasn't anywhere he could look where he couldn't see some part of her pale form. He clamped his eyes shut hoping to pretend that this wasn't happening, but his lack of sight only served to boost his other senses. She was so close that he could feel her warmth against him, and he was painfully aware of each time she brushed against him. He had a mini panic attack when some part of her brushed against his beard, and he desperately tried not to imagine just what part of her had done so.

The prisoner was absolutely terrified. Fear and social ineptitude momentarily overcame logic and reason as he processed what was happening. He'd never been this physically close to anyone before, let alone a woman who was, now that he actually pictured her instead of just her new scars and the mystery they posed, extremely attractive. On top of that, this attractive woman was completely naked, and for the most part so was he. And to top it all off, she was obviously furious at her predicament, used to power and its abuse, and both in the mood and perfectly willing to kill. What terrified him above all was what came with this chain of realization. A straight man who'd been taken from normal society and immediately put in his current situation wouldn't have been able to stop what was happening. The prisoner had been without human contact for months, and was going straight from zero to eleven with this interaction. The two conflicting emotions the prisoner felt as Mariya worked combined to bring about what he could only adequately describe as a fear boner.

Moments after this mortifying epiphany, the first of his shackles was wrenched free and his embarrassment was temporarily replaced by elation. It returned tenfold when she switched to his other arm and he opened his eyes to realize that his face was now buried in soft mounds of her chest as she jerked and yanked on the chain, inadvertently rubbing against him. He let out an eep that would have been audible if he'd had his full voice. In a small bit of mercy however his voice gave out again and no sound came out. He tried to shift himself from his fleshy surroundings, but only made it worse for himself. He gave up and simply clamped his eyes shut in an attempt to submit to oblivion while thinking about the least sexual thing he could come up with in the spur of the moment: The creepy dancing mascot outside of the Jump City Pizzaria. That thing had always been unsettling. To his credit, he was making progress before the second chain came free and the two collapsed in a heap on the ground. The prisoner tentatively opened his eyes only to realize where he was lying and where his face was still buried. Needless to say he lost all progress. He froze in terror. His heart was pounding in his ears. He snapped to his senses and tried to work his arms, but for far from the first time today his body betrayed him. After months of hanging from them, his arms were as responsive as his legs. He strained, and was able to wiggle one of his fingers and twitch his forearm before the half kryptonian shoved him off of her. He floundered for a moment before something she said cut through his embarrassment.

“The sun?” His mind raced. Why did that set off so many alarm bells in his head? The it hit him. “Kryptonian! You're a Kryptonian?” His gaze fell upon her scars once more, and memories of his first encounter with the Scientist flashed back, when Wildfire had arrived to help him fight the madman. “And what are you? You look like a hero who once protected this city. I always wanted to dissect a Tamaranean. To see exactly what gives your kind such abilities.” The words hung in his mind, as did the look on that goggled face. A frozen chill ran down his spine. “I have a very bad feeling about that…” He flexed an arm, rubbing his forearms then his biceps before rolling his shoulders, all in an attempt to get feeling back into them. After a moment of this, he cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Right. Now you aren't going to like the next step of my plan.” He quickly put up his hands almost defensively. “Before you get mad it's nothing bad. Just something that will probably annoy you. Now that you've wrenched them out, I need you to put them back in. But only just enough to support me - so that it still looks like I'm chained up, but they'll need to be loose enough for me to pull out on my own. They dropped you off a little while ago and they still need to feed me this week, so they'll be back any moment. If they see anything wrong, they won't enter - they'll just leave and raise the alarm. But if it looks like I'm still chained up and you're still unconscious, we'll have the advantage.” His voice gave out for a moment but when it came back it seemed a little stronger. As he outlined the plan, he seemed to be deliberately looking anywhere Mariya wasn't.

“There should be two, and they're sluggish and crude at best. The most logical thing for them to do is for one to check on you while the other walks past you to feed me. If you've got the strength to rip these out of the wall, then with careful planning we can take them out without setting off any alarms. When the second drone kneels to check on you, aim for the lense in the center of its head, then go for the wiring at the base of its spine. It's just wires, hydraulics, and framing, so you should be able to get to both from the front. The second one will turn at the sound. This is extremely important - pin it down without damaging it, and stay no higher than its chest. We need to keep it from seeing you. If you can hold it down, I can get to work.” He looked around for a moment as if visualizing the entire exchange before looking back at her and quickly looking to the ground at her feet. “Do you have all that?” His voice was still dry and cracked, but with use it was gaining strength, seemingly at a faster than normal rate. His brow furrowed in thought. This had to work. She'd have to be quick and strong, and he'd have to work faster than he'd ever worked with worse conditions than he'd ever imagined, but it would have to work. It was their one shot. He glanced down. At least his fear boner was gone now.

The shell that once hosted a man clearly still had a high functioning brain, Mariya noted. He had the whereabouts to look embarrassed as she pressed against him to yank the chains. Not that she cared much about the situation. Confidence was never something the Kryptonian lacke- wait what was that against her leg?
A moment of realization dawned on the girl after she shoved the light body off of her, and there was a hint of pink to her cheeks that she would never admit to anyone ever. She really was pressed into an invalids boner? This day was too much, that was certain.

While she was regathering herself, the man had the decency to look away from her. Good. She was close to lashing out at him, despite the fact that the situation was rather unavoidable...
He displayed more brainpower, deducing that she must have been Kryptonian with the little info she'd provided. She'd be impressed, if she hadn't been more focused on biting her cheek to keep herself in line-- and prevent ruining her only possible ally.

"Hn... put you back up there..." She quietly complained, though she was sure that he heard. "So... let me get this straight? You want me to break a tin can robot thing... then pin it's friend down? At what point do you show me some amazing skill that makes you valuable here..?"

Though she was complaining, she didn't wait for an answer as she dragged the limp man by his chains back to the wall... to undo the hard work that she'd just put in...
Biting her cheek again, she sharply punched the metal into the wall again. It held, but the sharp motion would probably hurt the mans atrophied muscles a bit. Despite protests, she'd do the same to his other hand so he was held up again.

"That's the best I can do." She grunted out, cracking her neck and shoulders. "I'm going to say this, this plan better be good. I've put in too much work for this to fail now."

Before she could complain more, a noise rang out from around the corner. Something metal. Mariya looked over quickly, eyes glowing for a moment as she used her xray vision. "They're coming. Showtime, I guess..."

Mariya slowly laid down on the ground, trying to get back in the position she was in before, though it was clearly not the exact same.

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