Parasitic magic is turning Zachary Sparston into something monstrous. He hasn't committed any crime, but that's no excuse to not drag a dangerous superhuman into custody. Zach is willing to comply with the experiments. Anything to help him control his powers.
Unfortunately, this prison is also a testing ground for superhuman soldiers. Compliance will turn him into a weapon, but he'll be a supervillain if he fights back. Zach just wants to sit by the lake with his sketchbook. Instead, he's trapped down here.
The Story [completed]
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Katabasis
Chapter 3: The Handler
Chapter 4: Physical Exam
Chapter 5: Physical Exam (ii)
Chapter 6: Sara's Interlude
Chapter 7: Running Shoes
Chapter 8: Escapism
Chapter 9: Sunburns
Chapter 10: Control
Chapter 11: Possession
Chapter 12: Control (ii)
Chapter 13: Outside Contact
Chapter 14: Biopsy
Chapter 15: Control (iii)
Chapter 16: Training Arc
Chapter 17: Sparring
Chapter 18: Family Inheritance
Chapter 19: Sleep Deprivation
Chapter 20: Sparring (ii)
Chapter 21: Noah's Interlude
Chapter 22: Character Design
Chapter 23: Sparring (iii)
Chapter 24: Failed Escape
Chapter 25: Vivisection
Chapter 26: Hell
Chapter 27: Vivisection (ii)
Chapter 28: Apathy
Chapter 29: The Mission
Art
Chapter 5 Illustration
Chapter 11 Illustration
Cyrene in her cell
Tied to a chair
Chapter 25
The OCs
Zachary "Jasper" Sparston (he/him) protagonist
Noah Griffin (she/her)
Cyrene (she/her)
Sara “Sol” Torres (she/her)
AJ “Sapphire” Safir (he/him)
Additional character details can be found here (main cast) and here (minor characters)
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He stretches out on the examination table like a cat in the sun, or he tries, despite the restraints on his wrists and ankles. His eyes may be covered, but he can still feel the sunlight. The fact that he is hundreds of feet underground means little. Never mind the scientists watching as his skin burns. It’s just like summer.
Don’t judge him too harshly. This is the first time in a week that he’s felt truly warm. Of course, Zachary was blindfolded before he even entered the room, so for all he knows the thing above him is a burning torch, but he can’t hear it crackling. He did, however, hear discussion of wavelengths and solar radiation. He also knows his skin has been growing rough and desaturated. A patch has crept across his eyes like a bandit mask, but the rest resembles a reversed summer tan. It’s inhuman. He’s inhuman.
The cavern elves, call them dark elves if you must, who Zach inherited magic and memories from, lived underground to hide from the intensity of their sun. With white hair and grayish skin, it’s reasonable to think that their skin got rougher instead of darker to cope with the light. The scientists must wonder if they can speed his transformation by mimicking surface conditions. Again, his second-hand memories remind him that you must dehumanize your enemies before you slaughter them. In the shower, yesterday, Zach noticed the roots of his hair growing pale as snow. Doesn’t that happen to victims of severe trauma? Like that one guy in the tv show?
Zach doesn't know much else for sure, but this is what he suspects is happening. When he first was brought to the room, there was no blanket. They took off his handcuffs and he took off his shirt and laid down on the bench. His handler put another baseball game on the radio. Before long, someone pulled a blanket (more likely a medical sheet, but that doesn’t remind him of home) across his legs, and another over his head. Every so often, about once an inning according to the radio, they pull the blanket a little higher and write a note with pen on his skin. By now only his shoulders are uncovered. The baseball game has ended. He’s almost done.
Zach isn’t eager to have a sunburn by any means, but he’d rather lie here than run with a leash clipped to his collar. It won’t be particularly large anyway. Even if it was, his handler hasn’t been stingy with painkillers. If there's something else in the pills he has with each meal (other than vitamin D), he doesn't want to know.
The sheet does nothing to dampen sound, so the staff take care to only whisper. Mostly he just hears pens and typing, and the occasional shuffle of feet. Then they all go silent when the warmth stops. The air echoes with a faint scream.
“You lying bastards! You didn’t say anything about there being someone in the room!”
It’s an unfamiliar female voice. She’s furious beyond imagining, and her voice must’ve traveled down long halls to reach his ears. His handlers mutter to each other. Of course the asset is uncooperative. Zach lies very still. Hasn’t he done everything right?
“She was cooperative enough. We’re five minutes short of the end. There was probably a communication issue. Let’s leave it here”.
It’s not the lead scientist who talks, but one of the others. Zach hasn’t learned to recognize most of the staff yet. Just Doctor Carswell, who couldn’t keep her hands off his ears, and those two lab techs who were eager to see him dragged by a treadmill. It’s Doctor Carswell leading things today. Whether it’s through magic or the vibrations of the air, he can’t tell, but Zach is certain she’s moved to stand directly over him.
“Scientifically, I agree”. A hand hovers just above his skin as she says a string of scientific words. He puts together that he has a sunburn now. Then her voice grows harsh. “I assume you have all been briefed on the outstanding protocol for Asset Solar”.
There is curiosity and there is fear. Whatever “Solar” may be, it sends a ripple through the few staff nearby.
“I have, but Sparston’s barely finished intake. He doesn’t even have a name yet,” says the first speaker.
Zach cannot rise from this position, strapped down on his chest with his arms by his sides, but he lifts his head slightly to listen. He can feel the irritated skin on his back itching. The sheet remains over his head.
“Oh, look, he’s awake”.
“Of course it’s awake”.
He lets his head fall back down on the bench.
The first speaker, who's come to his defense, continues. “As I was saying, he’s new, the test is done, and he has his own protocol. Handle with care. Let’s call it here”.
Someone pulls the sheet from his head. Zach blinks as his eyes adjust. He has to strain to see anything, but there are four adults around him. Doctor Carswell holds the sheet.
“That’s for the handlers to decide. Help me turn him over. She’ll want her to see his eyes”.
He knows he should not speak. Half the room already call him “it”. Still, there’s something very human about sitting upright, even shirtless and unspoken to. In the brief moment between being uncuffed and tied back down, he looks the woman in the eyes.
“Did I do something wrong, Doctor?”
“No. This is about someone else. Now lie back. You’re almost done”.
The first speaker turns her head at Doctor Carswell, and she begrudgingly follows him out of the room and shuts the door. The remaining two staff fidget. Zach hears the crackling of a radio as it turns on but can’t make out the words. Instead, he takes in the room. It’s yet another hospital space, almost identical to the one he was first tested in. The walls are white and studded with restraints. Oddly enough, he can’t see anything to produce the ultraviolet light that burned him. There are only the same ceiling lights as everywhere else. This Solar they mention must’ve created the sunlight. Is that a material, or another soldier-prisoner like Noah? Was she the woman who screamed from down the hall?
He waits, silently, with his heart beating like a rabbit. Every minuscule shift drags his new sunburns over the crinkling plastic of the bench. It’s cushioned, but not soft, and his body weight falls on the burns. He arches his back to keep the pressure off, then realizes he can fully lift his shoulders from this position. The two technicians look between him, each other, and the camera in the ceiling with increasing nervousness. Is he that frightening? He twists to look for a mirror and scares one of the pair.
The man scrambles to the door and wrenches it open. The two higher-ranked scientists argue in whispers outside.
“He’s- he’s struggling, or something”.
When the scientists turn, they see Zach, however alien he must look, dead still with his head hunched into his shoulders and his ears straight back.
The kinder doctor sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “What are you doing?”
“You all look…more scared than usual. I was trying to see what I look like,” Zach explains, cringing. Carswell steps back into the room and shoots him a glare. “Anyway, we do have our protocol to follow”.
One lab tech snickers, but the kinder scientist steps forward. “You look the same as usual, Sparston. With the light, your eyes are very blue, and your hair looks whiter. The sunlight hasn’t turned you to ash or anything like that. Now, I’m going to hold you down for another second. This… will be over quick. Your handler is coming back to get you”.
Then he has him lie back and gently, so gently, places a hand on his bleaching hair. Zach’s ears twitch, but the man is more careful not to touch them.
A radio warbles. Zach’s breathing picks up. Something, Darkness or instinct, realizes that this is going to hurt.
“What’s happening?”
A lab tech snaps for him to be quiet, but Carswell waves him down. “No, let him talk. This is the point”. She turns away and mutters. “Even better if he begs”.
The radio. His frantic breathing. The shifting of chains. He’s warm again. Hovering a few feet above his chest is a softly glowing orb of light. Unlike the sun, which shines so bright even across empty space that it blots out half the sky, Zach can see the twisting currents within this sphere. It flickers like liquid fire, equal and opposite to the living Darkness in his chest. It is beautiful. All five of them in the room are made equal by their awe. They stare.
“Damn. I guess she’s finally making progress,” a technician jokes.
“Everyone has a pressure point”.
It gets brighter. Zachary squints and then closes his eyes. The fake sun bears down on him.
He hasn’t had anything to drink in a while, but under the oppressive heat, he starts to sweat. Then the sphere contracts like the sun over his long-lost kingdom before a solar flare, and an entire lifetime of knowledge screams to find shelter. Deep underwater is best, underground can manage. Images of the deepest tunnels flash through his mind. Picking fungi in the tunnels, tracing battle maps in the citadel, screaming sirens after decades of war when the second-to-last battle raged. It wasn’t a solar flare, but they didn’t have a alarm for something worse.
He already is underground. What now? He knows he should not do this, but the need is real. Zachary pulls his magic to the surface and draws it through his skin like a wave across the shore. It would look evil, inhuman, like the clear eyelid of a lizard sweeping sideways, except that in the same moment he acts, the brightness explodes outward. Even through two shut eyelids, Zachary notices the light. Once it fades, he wills his magic away as much and as quickly as he can. His veins and sclera are still black, but who’s here to notice? The camera in the ceiling sparks. The adults lie crumpled on the ground, their skin as red as his back.
“Jesus Christ! Is everyone alright?”
With a rough tug, Zach frees his arms and sits upright. A dusting of ash falls from his hands onto the table. He shouldn’t help them. He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t use his magic to free his legs and then drop down to the floor and roll the kinder scientist onto his unburned back. He should either be escaping, or pretending nothing has happened.
Zach tries the radio on his belt. It’s close enough to things he used at camp, and hits the right buttons.
“Hello? I shouldn’t- there are four burned staff that need medical attention. I’m not sure where we are, but it’s the room that was dealing with Solar? The camera is burned out”.
Stunned silence on the other side, followed by sputtering rage.
“Who are you?”
“Zachary Sparston”. Then he pauses. “Asset 736…1512? I’m the only person who wasn’t incapacitated”.
“Of course you weren’t”. The connection cuts, and the voice on the other side seems amused when it turns back on. “Your handler is on his way. Put down the radio”.
Zach does. He checks each person’s pulse and sits them upright. He’s standing awkwardly above Doctor Carswell when his handler all but kicks the door open. Zach scrambles back.
“I swear it’s not what it looks like. I was trying to help!”
“Shh. I heard on the radio. Besides, I can tell. You can’t cause burns like that. Sit down”.
He immediately obeys, pulling his feet up and wrapping his arms around his knees.
“Who did this? Are they all going to be okay?”
“An asset called Solar. And yes, they should be. These look like nasty sunburns, not anything worse.
He looks down at the floor. “Did they want her to do this to me?”
“No. She was supposed to give you that little burn on your back, that’s it. But she saw an opportunity to hurt staff and she took it. Most people here will do that. It’s why I’m so cautious around you”. He motions for Zach to give him his wrists.
“I mean, I’m me, and Noah seemed nice. I guess I forgot there were criminals here too”. He tightens the cuffs.
“You shouldn’t forget. You’re a good kid with bad magic, but most people here are worse. I’m trusting you to be better than they are”.
Zach looks up with (metaphorical) fire in his eyes. “I am”.
“Easy, easy. I believe you. We need to leave before the medical staff can move in, but you did good. You have compassion for others. That can be complicated, but it’s a good place to start”.
Zach stands. He’s obediently proud to not need the blindfold right now.
“Why is that complicated?”
“There’s not much room for compassion on the battlefield. If you care about everyone, then you have no real loyalties”.
The reasoning is solid enough, but discussion of the battlefield makes him twitch. Zach can imagine being a hero, but being a hero is all about sacrifice. Just a few months ago, two of the original Horizon Guardians died to save the world. He doesn’t like the idea of simple soldierhood. And where should his loyalties lie? Toward Handler Bridges?
They exit the room. Several medical staff pour in.
“And another thing, Zachary,”
“Yes?”
“You’re unharmed except for the burn on your back, and all those people’ll be in the infirmary. How is that?”
There’s a poem that describes a glare as “pitiless as the sun”. He never understood that until he got his alien visions of a harsher world. Bridges has that glare now.
“I used my powers, sir. The orb of light contracted, and I knew instinctively that it would explode. The Darkness defended me”.
“Your instincts or the parasite’s?”
“It’s instincts”.
He nods slowly. “Don't make it a habit, but..." his handler gestures back at the burned staff. "I can't quite blame you this time. You kept enough control to help those people. The magic breaking your cuffs is different. Still. Progress. I’ll report up and recommend we start the next phase”.
After he gains control of his powers, the training will begin. That’s what Noah said. He is eager to make progress, but graduation seems less ideal.
“Thanks?”
“You don’t sound thankful. Don’t lie to me”.
“I’m a little nervous”.
“Nervous is good. Anything worth doing is a little scary. Trust me, with powers like yours, once you’ve got control, you’ll know it was worth it”.
In spite of it all, he's smiling as they walk back to his cell. He doesn’t even mind the cold air. It feels nice on his burns.
...........................
The media referenced in this part is Yeats’ “The Second Coming” and Voltron Legendary Defender (where Shiro’s hair turns white). Zach contains multitudes.
Next week, Zach starts the next phase of his training. It’s the meanest thing I’ve written yet. I’m so excited to share it.
Contains: aftermath of whump/captivity, multiple whumpees, guilt
writing little disconnected chapters now that I'm done with the main story is pretty fun, actually.
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Only Noah can stand that her room is underground. In fact, she hardly leaves it. Noah isn’t hiding because she’s afraid of being recaptured. The world wants her free, at least for now. She is hiding from the world itself.
The staff tell her not to worry. Her fear of losing control is itself a control tactic, taught to her over ten months of captivity. It’s August, anyway, and isn’t she strongest in the cold? Noah knows she still can’t afford to relax. This is a city of millions. If she stays inside, the ventilation system will hold the temperature steady, no matter how her anxiety spikes.
Funny how she’s supposed to be joining an organization called the Horizon Guard. The open sky will swallow her.
If she closes her eyes, Noah can imagine she’s safely buried in her old cell. If not for the shared bathroom, she could believe it with her eyes open. Ten months in prison, and she wants to go back? Her cell was nice. She was secure. She was unbelievably lucky. Is she sick from anxiety or from shame?
A door clicks, and Noah pulls herself to attention. Privileges come at the cost of responsibilities, and she can’t make them wait. It’s instinctive after ten months. Noah is waiting attentively by the exit when she sees that the door to the bathroom is actually what’s moving.
“You know the door is unlocked, right? Or are you like one of those dogs that’ll stay in place if you put the leash around a water bottle?”
Sara Torres is only three months older than her, but she’s far more mature in a way that can’t be explained by her suffering alone. She’s dressed in a fittingly yellow tank-top, despite the air-conditioned chill. If not for her ability to heal, Noah thinks that every inch of her brown skin would be covered in scars. As it is, all she has are a fading bruises and a burn on her neck.
Higher powers have decided that they will be partners and share a bathroom. Her stuff goes to the left of the sink, Sara’s on the right. The last time they spoke before being freed, Noah was smuggling Sara painkillers after a guard dislocated her wrist. She was caught, punished, and banned from all contact. Someone more clever would’ve found a way, but Noah’s not clever, just smart.
“Old habits, I guess. You startled me. I’m used to a schedule”.
She leans in the doorframe. “I startled you?”
It used to be the other way around. Her visits to prisoners had to be irregular. The policy on base was to leave future weapons with no sense of time, or identity, or anything at all.
“I always knocked”.
“Why’d you bother, anyway? It’s not like I’d ever turn you away”.
Her first thought is to reply it seemed like the right thing to do, but that’s a trap. The right thing to do, to Sara, was fight tooth and nail for every scrap of decency, not fetch scalpels for the surgeons.
“My parents taught me the importance of manners. I didn’t think that being down there was a reason to stop”.
“Sounds nice”.
Sara had been a superhero who went too far. She did absolutely anything to avoid hurting another prisoner. It was determination that should only exist in comics, and determination can be pretty damn rude.
“The staff rewarded compliance. I took the offer. I can’t heal like you, you know”.
"Of course not. I just wonder why you even got an offer. It’s certainly not that you’re innocent”.
She froze a city, in autumn, when it was even less prepared for "natural" disasters. Underground, though, she had no weather to control. Noah was polite and she was smart, but mostly she was harmless.
“What do you want, Sara? We can’t go back”.
“I’m just trying to make conversation, since, you know, we’re gonna be roommates”.
Sara speaks without emphasizing anything at all. It reminds her of the kind of wind that throws papers just out of reach. Noah sits back down on her bed. She runs her hands over the purple quilt and averts her eyes like most guards wanted. Please leave, she thinks. I’m not a fighter like you and I don't regret it.
“Skystriker must have thought we would balance each other out”.
“Balance”. Sara almost smiles. “More likely she thought I’d start clawing at the walls if I was the only Black person on the team. How she managed, I'll never know. Some of these kids… have talked to Vicky, yet?”
Noah shakes her head and doesn’t show relief. Sara has decided to accept a change of subject.
“Well. I’m glad she’s not my roommate. That kid was never even arrested. Doesn’t have any clue. And she never shuts up”.
Sara crosses past her toward the door. She twists the handle.
“Daniel wants to show both of us the park, though. Are you coming?”
“There’s rain in the forecast”.
“Which you could change, if you want to go outside”. She turns and gestures to the far wall, which is covered with paneled screens. They look exactly like a window, and Noah has set hers to a lakeside view. “You do need real sunlight”.
She begins to glow, maybe for emphasis. Brightness clings to her skin, and her hair becomes like a halo. Noah shields her eyes.
“Does being your roommate count toward that?”
“Maybe, if you ask nicely. You might just have better luck commanding the sun”.
Sara walks out. Cell doors would slam shut regardless if there was a foot in the way, so Noah lets her go. The light of the fake window is suddenly so pale and blue. She thinks for a moment about the clouds that must be gathering above, and reaches for the handle.
………………………………
because Zach isn’t the only oc in the world (and whump tumblr is too saturated with skinny white men like him).
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Set during their mutual captivity era because outfits are hard!
Zachary + Sara
AJ + Noah
Cyrene + Elster
(Even though Elster is not with them at this point in the timeline. He’s under ineffective house arrest thousands of miles away, and learning how to code)
Four unfortunate superhumans trapped deep underground, plus one who's free to go. He won't be much help though, because he has a duty to protect the people from villains. And everyone else here is a villain, obviously!
You can find the navigation post (writings, tag lists, synopsis) here: behold
Zachary “Jasper” Sparston (he/him) is a fandom-loving farmboy who pays for his own curiosity. A combination of factors have granted him reality-warping power that awakened when he had the misfortune to literally die. He came back wrong, with something else’s memories alongside his own and chronic pain from magic too strong for his actively transforming body to handle. Main Protagonist
Tropes: came back wrong, nonhuman whumpee, compliant whumpee, body modification.
Featured posts:
Zach Moodboard (Buried Depths era)
Noah Griffin (she/her) was studying science before she accidentally froze her city over, but is harmless underground. She’s spent long enough here that everyone forgot why it even mattered. It’s earned her privileges. Noah is every scientists’s favorite lab intern, but she’s trying to help her fellow prisoners too. Within reason, of course. She isn’t just booksmart.
Tropes: Whumpee that is also a caretaker, forced to watch, woman whumpee.
Featured writings:
Cyrene (she/her) isn't certain who she is anymore. She ran a criminal syndicate during the branched-off bad timeline that no longer exists, and the government imprisoned her so she doesn’t try it again. (It’s honestly too bad. The people loved her) Cyrene is a brute-force type of telepath. She puts on a brave face, but is starting to break. She's never been trapped like this before.
4. Sara “Solar” Torres (she/her) believes that with great power comes great responsibility. Her powers are perfect for combat: flight, superhuman toughness, glowing light. Unfortunately her superheroic desires won’t help in a place like this. Sara was a young social worker. She got arrested not long ago for a fight that went too far, and for choosing enemies that the government wanted to protect.
Tropes: Defiant whumpee, living weapon in-training, forced to hurt, woman whumpee.
Featured writings:
5. AJ “Sapphire” Safir (he/him) isn’t a whumpee, what are you talking about? He’s been training to run missions and defend civilization ever since he was eight and his parents were murdered by a supervillain. He follows orders. He plays video games. He thinks of the orders like an objective in a video game when they make him uncomfortable. For example, guard duty and other odd jobs at an underground laboratory prison.
Tropes: living weapon, doesn’t realize this is wrong, minor whumpee (he’s 16).
Featured writings:
One For Sorrow [set two years later]
Alex Moodboard
………………………………
To see these same people a few years later, mostly recovered and getting whumped in new and different ways (hero business is hard work), keep an eye out. Buried Depths is a zoomed-in AU of a small fraction of a much larger story.
An expanded character list for Arc 2 of Buried Depths, now that Zach has been cleared to have social interactions. (most of which will be sparring matches)
An incomplete record of the superhuman assets imprisoned at Elkhorn Base
Liam & Calder (codependent with a terrible handler)
Rachel & Daniel (survivors of a supervillain attack, unstable)
Sara (captured superhero)
masterlist
Liam & Calder
Name/Codename: Liam Atwood / Ymir
Pronouns: he/him
Risk ID: 755 (7/10 Strength, 5/10 Range, 5/10 Control)
Power(s): control over ice
Handled by? Handler Sharpe, same as Slasher/Calder
Appearances: Chapter 6 (Gladiators)
Imprisoned at Elkhorn for the murder of his father, no prior superpowered incidents. Scrappy and desperate but taking well to training. Codependent with Calder/Slasher.
……………………
Name/Codename: Calder Westwood / Slasher
Pronouns: he/him
Risk ID: 525
Power: transformation into a draconic form
Handled by? Handler Sharpe, same as Ymir/Liam
Appearances: Chapter 6 (Gladiators), Chapter 17 (Sparring)
Arrested during a raid on a superhuman fight club. Worked as hired muscle during the Lost Years until being killed by Cyrene/Nemesis. Neither particularly cooperative nor defiant, but dangerously protective of Liam/Ymir.
Rachel & Daniel
Name/Codename: Rachel Reyes / Phosphor
pronouns: she/her
Risk ID: 756
Power: making things blow up
Appearances: Chapter 6 (Gladiators)
Arrested for getting in the way of a city cop. Survivor of Elster’s major supervillain attack eight years ago (“When All Hell Broke Loose”) and something of a leader among the survivors. Volatile and prone to violent outbursts.
……………………
Name/Codename: Daniel Asato / Alloy
pronouns: he/him
Risk ID: 574
Power: control over metal
Appearances: None that are canon
Arrested on petty theft charges, but was a minion of Cyrene/Nemesis during the Lost Years. Possibly former romantic partners? Daniel doesn’t remember and Cyrene won’t tell. Lost his entire family eight years ago When All Hell Broke Loose. Debilitating phobia of the dark and small spaces. Hates human touch.
……………………………………
Name/Codename: Sara Torres / Solar
Pronouns: she/her
Risk ID: 767
Power: flight, super-strength, generation of energy identical to sunlight
Appearances: Chapter 6 (Gladiators), Chapter 9 (Sunburns)
Arrested for attempting to shut down an arms dealer, and was a superhero during the Lost Years. Defiant to a degree that defies all explanation. (an innate resistance to pain that the power dampener can’t block?) Genuinely, how long can she keep doing this for?
