Post by Lunatic on May 21, 2017 9:11:43 GMT -5
Under the Influence - Part One
The whole world was black. In fact, it had been since Marc had been captured right in front of GAWD and everyone, right there on the air on Trauma 209. Yeah. Sure. The panicked look in Marc's eyes were all "part of the show." His cries for help were just "scripted nonsense." Bastards. The more he thought about it, the more he seethed about it. No one helped him. A lot of people have tape put over their mouths and a sack over their heads as a lark when being stuffed into the trunk of a car. Happens all of the time.
Time.
Time was meaningless. There was nothing for him to use as a measure. No light. No tell-tale signs of night or day. Whatever these thugs put over his head once they dragged him out of the PCW Arena was dark enough to prevent his eyes from being useful.
His ears, however, were quite open to the surrounding sounds. He thought he heard the rush of a swollen river before they arrived here. Wherever "here" is. He was positive he heard a train on its tracks several times since then. Cars. Tractor trailers backing into docks. He wasn't sure how long he'd been pretending to be luggage in that car, but it felt like at least a couple of days.
His mouth was parched, either from dehydration or nerves. Perhaps both. This was a new thing for him, this whole "kidnapped" thing. He'd had a lot of things happen to him, but this was one that, until recently, had not quite made his bucket list.
A door opened, and he swore he could see little specks of light, but he couldn't tell if it was the sun or man-made. His olfactory got a slight whiff of the dust cloud kicked up by the invader as he entered.
"How is the patient doing?" The voice was baritone and familiar, yet he couldn't place it. A deeper voice muttered an answer that his ears couldn't quite pick up. "Prepare yourselves. It's time to remove the blindfold."
He heard a bit of slight rustling, followed by tugging at the thing over his head. Instead of immediately having the blackness whisked away, he felt something get slipped around his neck and snap into place. Whatever it was made a "whirring" sound as it came to life. As it did, his mind started to feel clouded, foggy.
Finally, the world went from black to bright white as he saw light for the first time in who knows how long. It was overwhelming, especially at first. The world was bright and fuzzy now, and the spiders creeping around his mind wouldn't allow him to focus much. He felt a tug at the tape, and then it ripped free in one swift motion.
"OWIE!" Marc yelped in surprise. "That hurtipated, you sadistic..."
"Be quiet," ordered the baritone voice.
Normally, Marc would keep rattling on, especially if told to shut up, just to irritate his captors. This time, he felt an involuntary desire to obey. He even tried to talk, but nothing came out. Damn! His wit was already a hindrance. Now it was BEING hindered.
"That's no fun," he thought.
A bottle of water was pressed to his lips. At first, he resisted, but the voice echoed through his brain as if it was the only thing in the universe he could hear. "Drink." Again, he blindly obeyed, as if he had no control over his own thoughts or body. "Swallow."
His surroundings started to come into focus, at least partially. The owner of the baritone voice stood in front of him with the water bottle, his own head covered in a burlap sack with two holes cut for the eyes and a symbolic mouth of cross stitches set where the actual mouth should be. It would be a nightmarish vision, if the man known as the Lunatic hadn't been across the squared circle from many a masked luchador in his career.
The water always hurt as he drank it, ever since he discovered his powers a while ago. It just didn't... Wait... His powers! Normally, he could zap things with his electricity. For whatever reason, all he could muster wouldn't be enough of a charge to light a lamp, much less escape the bonds of the straightjacket he was in.
"You can't use your abilities unless I allow it," the burlap covered voice informed him. "I'll allow you to talk. For now."
It felt as if a switch was turned on in his head, releasing his speech from confinement. "No powers to get out of this," Marc thought. "Good thing I have other ways to get out of these things."
An old injury left him with the uncanny ability to dislocate his shoulder on a whim. It hurt like hell, but it was fun to win the occasional bet. Until now, he'd never used that particular skill for a situation like this. He began to speak loud to cover the popping as his limb removed itself from it's socket.
"I guess I could start by asking who you are," Marc grimaced as he made exactly zero effort to hide his struggles. "Then again, I don't care. I'm just going to feed you your own spleen when I get loose."
"That's the Lunatic I grew to know," chortled the voice. "My true name will come with time. For now, call me Dr. Psychotrauma."
"Well, Doctor P," another pop and he'd be able to use the loosened limb to manipulate the straps and buckles, "Allow me to... ugh... introduce myself..." Thirty seconds was all the time he needed to undo the bindings that held the jacket down by his crotch and slip it off over his head. The two burly goons that helped throw him in the confining accouterments lurched forward, but the man in the mask held out a hand, halting their momentum. "I'm the guy who's going to wear your backside like a slipper."
Marc tossed the sloughed restraint at the face of one of the orderlies. They caught it as it fell harmlessly into his arms. He rushed at the man in burlap. Suddenly, the Doctor's eyes glowed as he held up a hand. "Stop."
The command was agitatingly irresistible, preventing any further advances by the Lunatic. It was as if he were frozen in place. He was stopped in mid-stride, one leg up in a comical position, freeze framed like a movie still, and a determined grimace of hate on his face.
The tall, skinny man clasped his hands behind him, pacing in a circle around his charge in such a way that was both haunting and arrogant. "You're going to need quite a bit of rehabilitation, but I know just how to tame that wild spirit within you." He continued to encircle Marc as he stood helplessly motionless. "You'll be my master work, my opus, the one accomplishment that no one before me could hope to achieve."
"Stand." These single commands seemed to echo through his entire body, not just his ears. Regardless, he was powerless to resist. His body straightened upright, coming out of its frozen run, and still very much out of his own control.
"Once I'm finished retraining you to be what I need you to be, you can make a triumphant return to PCW. Once I've completed your rehabilitation, you will do exactly as I say. Then your career of failures and missteps will be behind you. I will focus you like a laser and aim you as I please. The world will tremble as I show them what the man they ridiculed for so long is truly capable of."
"You're monologuing?" The disdain in Marc's voice carried through, in spite of his inability to move, raising the Doctor's ire just a bit. "Wow. How cliché. Next you're going to tell the whole world your nefarious plan while you hope in the back of your mind that I can't stop you."
Blinding pain shot through Marc's brain, bringing him to his knees as he clasped his cranium. He yowled from the torture, looking into the glowing eyes of the man behind the burlap mask. The world began to fade away as consciousness left him, thankfully taking the pain inflicted with it. The last words he uttered before sleep overtook him was, "Stay outta my head."
The Doctor observed his patient quietly for several seconds. "No, Mr. MacGwire. You will be my weapon. You will be what I use to display my true potential to the world. And yours. PCW will be but a playground. I've already set my sights upon several within its roster. Miss Kelli Starr shall be the first, but she is far from the last. So many interesting cases within its walls; sycophants, megalomaniacs, narcissists. All present a chance to study the boundaries of human nature and its self-destructive potential."
The man motioned to the thugs. They collected the slumbering body from the floor, placing it back into the chair it had been seated in at the beginning of the encounter. Another wordless command from the glowing eyes entered the collars of the brutes as they obeyed seamlessly, leaving the room.
"Let's get started, shall we?"
The glow in his eyes intensified as the Doctor turned his attention to the helpless man napping in the chair in front of him. As the door shut behind him, that glow was the only light that could be seen.
