Part 1, Part 2

TW: Violence, blood, mild body horror

As an obligatory reminder, this story stems from a prompt that was given to both me and @the-modern-typewriter! She made an amazing novella out of it on her patreon!! I hope you'll enjoy my version as well :) Sorry it's taken me...literally a year to make a third part.

The gunfire was so deafening that it almost covered the screaming. Almost.

Before they’d even crossed the threshold to the outside, the shots were head-splitting enough to send Eloise scrambling to cover her ears. All she could see from their current vantage point was a sliver of the courtyard framed by blue sky. 

It was too friendly a blue, too ordinary and ideal, for such an ugly day.

Someone pushed past them out into the open, wielding fists of fireballs and a battle cry. In moments, they dropped to the ground. The fire snuffed itself out as blood spilled from the hole in his head.

Whimpering, Eloise backed away from the space in the outermost wall where someone had blown open an exit, all jagged edges and crumbling concrete. It resembled a too-wide jaw; a yawning mouth cracked open and baring its teeth.

Her mind flashed to Frenzy’s mouth, stretched impossibly until it tore, and shuddered.

A hand caught the back of her neck, gently enough. Eloise still jumped. Artisan made a soothing sound. “You can do this.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

She was already shaking her head, murmuring something incoherent and horrified.

“Eloise.” 

His voice, calm as it was, snatched up her attention like the crack of a whip. She stared up at him in what she could only imagine was some terrible parody of a doe-eyed fawn bathed in blinding headlights.

Artisan’s hand rose from her neck to cup the side of her jaw. Given what those hands could do, it shouldn’t have been so grounding; so reassuring. 

He held her gaze. “You’re going to get us past the guns alive. And I’m going to protect you. Hey-” A gentle stroke of the cheek dragged her wandering eyes back up to his. Haunting. Beautiful. Eyes of endless depths she’d caught watching her read to him on many occasions. “You can do this. Take a deep breath.”

Eloise heaved in a clumsy breath that gusted out of her in the same second. Artisan’s lips twitched upward.

“Slowly. Match me.” Still cradling her cheek, Artisan demonstrated an exaggerated deep breath, then another. Eloise copied him as best as she could manage until she felt a little lighter. “Good.”

Eloise swallowed. “What if my power fails?”

“It won’t.” Artisan took a step closer, and it stole her breath all over again. “Close your eyes.”

Eloise gawked. “Wh-”

“Eloise.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, hugging her arms around her torso.

When he spoke again, his voice was a quiet thing, low and soft yet resonant still with all the power of, well, one of the greatest supervillains alive.

“When you are reading a book,” he said, “everything else around you slips away. You lose yourself in a world of inked pages, and nothing else exists. I’ve watched you pore over chapter after chapter, reading aloud on autopilot. Sometimes you forget that I am even in the room with you. And I’m me.”

“I-”

“Go to that place now. Focus only on your ability. We are going to walk out that door, and you’re going to camouflage our presence. They’ll look past us. We’ll walk away safely. Picture it.”

She did. Eloise allowed herself to imagine wrapping the two of them in enough influence to trick others’ eyes into skipping over them, seeing them as ordinary and belonging as the bugs in the grass. She pictured safety and steaming showers and warm blankets on her worn-but-still comfy mattress. She thought of home and books in her thrifted armchair; of pages that smell antique and crisp and make just the right sound when you turn them. 

Eloise opened her eyes. The fear still buzzed in her chest, but the world felt less like it was about to collapse.

Artisan gave a slight nod at whatever he saw on her face. “Good girl. Let’s go.”

In what felt both like an instant and an eternity, they were outside. Artisan kept a hand on Eloise’s shoulder to steady her forward, murmuring encouragements and instructions beside her.

Eloise tried to narrow her focus to just the two of them, willing the landscape to swallow them up into imperceivable specks of dust. They took two strides, three.

There were bodies everywhere.

Villains, even guards clamoring for escape, were mowed down. Snipers lined the roof, the watchtowers… A glance around revealed more on every side. They continued to creep forward with bated breath, dodging carnage with every new step.

Eloise’s toe caught on the leg of a corpse, and she squeaked, jerking away. 

Artisan grabbed her arm, pulling her close again. She could feel the perception barrier around them flickering. 

“Relax. Focus.” He said it like it was nothing. Like they weren’t staring down a firing squad, navigating a labyrinth of corpses and blood. “Close your eyes for me.”

The thought of being blind in the belly of so much danger made an embarrassing sound catch in her throat. 

“You’re distracted by what you see,” Artisan continued. “Close your eyes. Focus all of your attention on masking us. I will guide you. Eloise- I will protect you if you help me. I need your help.”

I need your help. 

The plea was simple, a disguise of its own, but it settled between her ribs all the same. Her eyes pressed closed. She concentrated on blending in. On protecting them both.

They were moving again. Artisan’s hands on her arms led her forward, weaving through the devastation with surprising grace. Despite his smooth guidance, she felt clumsy and staggering. If she tripped over another body… Her stomach squeezed.

Someone screamed. Eloise’s gaze snapped to them as she found herself clinging to Artisan’s side. The source of the shouting dropped to his knees, hands behind his head–a security guard from inside–leaking red from his side. “Please, it’s Mallard! It’s Mallard! I work here, I’m on your side! Please, help me, help–”

He dropped like a stone. Blood trickled down his forehead.

Eloise choked on words that wouldn’t come. The world seemed to tilt, fuzzy at the edges.

“Eloise-” Artisan’s voice seemed very far away.

She was only distantly aware of more gunfire as Artisan pushed in front of her.

Artisan hissed through his teeth, clutching his chest. He staggered back a step, a jarring contrast to his usual bird-like elegance. Eloise stared, horrified. 

“Cover us, cover us now,” he said, his tone bleeding with urgency.

“Are you-”

“Now, Eloise!”

His tone spiked fresh fear up her spine, and Eloise closed her eyes, covering her ears as she pictured the two of them fading into the landscape with the same ease as a smudge in a watercolor painting. The veil slid thinly into place, fragile, like stretched skin. Eloise trembled with effort.

At the same time, Artisan jerked her to the side as another barrage of bullets chased them.

Eloise squealed, bearing down on her focus as if sinking her teeth in.

“I’m trying!” she snapped, just in case it wasn’t obvious. Just in case the effort mattered at all.

“You can do more than you think you can,” Artisan said. “I can feel it in you. You can do more than affect just us. You can affect them. You can change what they see; how they see us. Reach out in your mind. Change their perception.”

She imagined her power stretching in all directions, each line a stream in a spider’s web. She tapped gently at the windows of each guard’s mind and left a new idea there, coaxing them to forget what they’d seen. To move past it. To completely disregard the villain and his volunteer accomplice.

The shooting slowed, then stopped. The concentration left her dizzy and wobbling, sinking her to her knees on the ground.

She only opened her eyes when Artisan scooped her into his arms.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured, walking on with her, “You’re doing beautifully.”

She stared at the hole in his chest, jumpsuit soaked through with blood. “You’re hurt- You should be dead.” Dumbly, too boldly, she pressed a hand over the wound. She’d blame the fatigue.

“Dead?” He clicked his tongue. “Not so easily done.”

She could feel the skin and muscle beneath her hand shifting, warping, weaving back together. Relief flooded her. “Oh.”

“Oh.” Artisan was smiling again. “Don’t lose your focus. We’re nearly there. You might not want to look.”

As they neared the final gate, the guards began to drop one by one. Eyes glazed over, necks twisted and wrenched out of place. Moving as if puppeteered, the last one standing buzzed open the gate, finally leaning into the fence’s barbed wire to cut through his own throat. The blood gurgling out was quiet as he, too, fell to the ground with a soft thud.

Eloise really wished she’d looked away. Her insides heaved.

The strain of keeping them unnoticed tugged at her every nerve ending with a plea for relief. She’d never pushed herself so hard before. Her vision hazed in a dark vignette.

“You didn’t have to kill them,” she said softly, closing her eyes. Her head felt cracked in two. “I wish you hadn’t.”

Just a little farther and she could let go…

Artisan stroked back her hair, carrying her through the open gate out into freedom. His voice was something silken and velvet, something wicked and monstrous. She could feel the smile there. “Oh, sweetheart, but I wanted to.”

She finally blacked out.

I understand if you don’t want to!!❤️

Hello! This has been sittin in my inbox for many months during my huge writing rut, sorry about that! I know you also gave this prompt to @the-modern-typewriter and she's been making an incredible series with it on patreon! I changed some things around because I don't want to in any way attempt some sad copy of her interpretation, but I was still inspired by the prompt itself, so I've taken some fairly big liberties to avoid any significant similarities! Hope that's okay! Also, please manage your expectations, I do not compare to the magic that is TMT's writing 😆

TW: Brief depictions of body horror. Violence.

The power blew out in sections. The lights dissolved sector by sector with a sickening whine and click–one by one–in approach.

The commotion ripped Eloise from the fictional world she was lost in, aged page corners still pinched beneath her thumb. Her spirited storytelling abruptly died behind her teeth.

Somewhere in the distance, one person shouted. Two.

Her gaze flicked behind them to the door isolating herself and the bound supervillain from the other sectors of the Maximum Security Prison for Powered Individuals or, as everyone called it, The Max. Seeing nothing but black beyond the bullet-proof glass, her attention snapped forward again to the supervillain imprisoned across from her. 

Was this the start of some elaborate escape plan on his part? Why did it have to happen on a day that she was stuck fulfilling her community service hours instead of being something she could safely gawk at in the newspaper from a distance in a few days? Her stomach did a nauseated flip. 

“What are you doing?” she blurted, voice quivering only a little. Her fingers tightened around her book.

The villain made a show of looking pointedly at his restraints. Wrists strung taut and chained to either wall, he shrugged an innocent shoulder at her as if to say “clearly, nothing.” He was perched on the edge of his bed like a bird, tilting his head with a matching sort of probing curiosity. 

For all the chaos outside of the room, Artisan had not a hair out of place. He appeared perfectly unconcerned, though as thoroughly trapped as ever: ankles shackled, arms stretched uselessly apart from each other. The power-dampening collar wrapped around his neck still blipped a faint red light, indicating it was active. 

The prisoners were rioting. Surely they couldn’t get too far? Containing the most dangerous of powered individuals was, after all, the express purpose of the facility…

The lights above them flickered, dipping the room in and out of inky darkness before settling into a dimly lit haze. Eloise’s breath stalled. The imposing dark felt like a threat, as if the lights could keep the monsters at bay. It only made a little sense, in the way that a child feels safe from the monsters under their bed as long as their nightlight is plugged in.

Except that these monsters were real. The most dangerous in the country. And she was currently feet away from the monster that made even other monsters run.

He hadn’t seemed so bad in the time that she’d known him. Quiet, impassive, yet twisting her gut with pity any time she eyed his barbaric restraints. The least she could do–while crossing off her hours–was to read the supervillain a story every few days. She couldn’t change his fate. Couldn’t make him more comfortable. What she could do was rattle off, sheepishly, about fictional worlds and impactful characters in literature and the way that a well-crafted story could transport you somewhere better.

A crash, gunshots, a scream. Tension racketed through Eloise’s shoulders. More shouts chased thundering footsteps.

Things were going very, very, wrong. And she was very much out of her depth.

Part 1

When Eloise closed the book and set it aside, her heart jumped to find Artisan staring.

She watched the super’s mind tick, his attention picking her apart to expose the soft and squishy pieces of her. High school lab pig dissection came to mind: pliable flesh carved open to be poked at and scrutinized against a cold table.

She’d cried in that class. It had felt cruel to play at scavenger, pecking and probing for a once-living thing's deep and hidden parts as if she were entitled to its most vulnerable insides.

Though she felt more like the pig at that moment, it felt invasive, too, to track the inner workings of Artisan’s terrifying brain.

Eloise couldn’t seem to look away.

Artisan sat up from his resting position on the bed, grabbing at the inhibitor cuff on her wrist. A startled sound choked in her throat, managing not to jerk back on pure prey instinct. Her arm twitched, cagey, in his hold even as the rest of her froze. 

Her bones ached as if aware of how fragile they were.

Then her arm went numb altogether, turning jellied and moldable. Her palm folded in on itself, pliable bones bending grotesque and wrong and– painless.., as Artisan slid the cool curve of metal over her fingers and tossed it away.

Her bones settled back into their original positions and Eloise snatched her hand away as sensation returned, pins and needles tickling her fingertips.

She stared, horrified.

She stared, impressed.

Artisan smiled and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “It’s an interesting story. Though Dracula is a bit simple as an antagonist, don’t you think?”

Eloise blinked. Had the past minute really happened? She glanced at the abandoned cuff on the floor. Her brain floundered to catch up.

“Um. He is singular in his goals and motives,” she managed. “He isn’t portrayed as misunderstood or sympathetic in the original text, just hungry. And spiteful. He wants food, he wants control, and he wants revenge. He is evil, not for solely being different, but for abandoning all human instinct like love and care, even though human emotions–boredom, anger, hunger–are what drive him through the story… He chooses to turn his back on his humanity, to fulfill the role of monster, even though he is capable of more. It would not be evil if he had no soul. His soul humanizes him, but the force of his will strips it away. He is a villain of his own making. I'm not sure that can be simple.”

Artisan hummed. “Do you fancy me that sort of villain?”

Eloise shook her head. Her skin still itched with the phantom touch of his power.

“Dracula wouldn't have helped me.” Her voice sounded very small in her ears. 

“Will you help me with something?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“There are always choices, Eloise. Dracula chose one straight path. I can be more…” He wet his lips. “Flexible. Helps stave off the boredom. I love a good unexpected twist.”

Eloise swallowed. “You think I’m useful. Is that why you’re protecting me? Do you plan to bleed me empty until you're full? Or…to fill me with your own blood until I become what you are? Dracula didn’t turn Mina to keep her safe… He did it to damn her.”

Artisan straightened out his spine to his full seated height. “What would you like me to do with you?”

“It doesn't matter what I want when I can't stop you.”

“I'm asking.”

Eloise tensed as a shout and bang echoed too close for comfort. She snatched a fistful of the supervillain’s sleeve and scrambled instinctively closer. 

When the noise finally subsided, Eloise looked at him. He was watching, letting her cling to him like a frightened puppy. She was practically in his lap.

Eloise let go as if burned. Heat flooded her cheeks. “S-Sorry-”

Artisan was smiling, a sharp curl of lips that sent her stomach swooping. “So which is it? You think me the monster that will bleed you dry or the scary guard dog that will protect you from the rest of them?”

She eyed him, then looked at the floor. “I think you're kinder than you let on.”

Artisan snorted. “I've never been accused of that before.”

“You asked what I want… I want to live. I want out of here, away from the violence and death. I just want to stay safe. I want to take a shower and scrub the blood out of my hair.”

Artisan leaned in. “If you help me escape, I’ll keep you alive.”

Her gaze jumped to him. “Me? How do you think I can help you?”

“Your power,” he replied, the ugly fluorescents catching the blood spots on his collar, “as you so subtly demonstrated, is to blend in. Raise no alarm bells. You can walk right past the firing squad. We can walk right past the firing squad.”

Eloise was already shaking her head. “I told you, it doesn’t always work. I can’t do it reliably on command. Besides–I can’t help a deadly supervillain escape The Max! I’d get thrown straight in here for life! I’m not even a supervillain! I’m barely super!”

Artisan’s eyes glittered, lowering his voice conspiratorily “Hm. You’d rather stay here? Unprotected? Okay. Should I just call the others over, or…?”

He stood from the creaking mattress, taking two steps toward the gaping hole where the door used to be with a teasing eyebrow quirked in her direction.

Eloise leapt to her feet. She skidded on blood-slicked shoes in her panic to grab at Artisan once more. “No-! No. Please.”

Their eyes met. That time, Eloise didn’t let go of the super’s arm.

Which would be worse? Angering Artisan and letting him break her into splintering pieces? Or being thrown to a pack of super-powered wolves? Angry, restless, nothing-to-lose, wolves…

She swallowed. “Please?”

For a moment, the cell fell into a familiar quiet, terse but not particularly uncomfortable.

Artisan turned to face her properly.

“I get you to the exit. You get me past the gunfire. The cameras are down, they’ll have no idea that you helped me. The two of us will slip free with no one the wiser. When they eventually notice us gone, after killing the other idiots who dart out into open fire, they will assume we slipped through the cracks separately. Deal?”

Eloise watched him, nerves buzzing through her body. “I didn’t know you could talk so much,” she said dumbly.

To some, that would be an insult.

Artisan snorted a laugh, clearly caught off guard. “Eloise.”

“What will you do when you’re out?” she asked, more quietly.

If she helped him escape and he went on to keep hurting people, wouldn’t their blood be on her hands?

It wasn’t fair. That would be far too much responsibility to ask of a girl who’d done nothing but do her best to stay on the sidelines, not step on any toes, and serve her time as quickly as possible. She couldn’t truly be expected to sacrifice herself in the name of altruism, could she? She wasn’t a hero. She wanted to go back to being a no-one, someone without the attention of supervillains and regulators of the Powered Peoples Registry.

And yet… she didn’t want people to die because of her choices. She didn’t want any more carnage.

Belatedly, gently, Eloise let go of his arm. Artisan tracked the movement.

“When I’m out..,” he mused, voice returned to the softer, low tone he normally used in the rare moments that he decided to speak, “I will never let them catch me again.”

Eloise’s mouth felt dry. “Business as usual?”

He shrugged. “Until I’ve regrouped. Then, I’ll come back for each and every person who trapped me in this hell hole. Every hero responsible for catching me. Every trigger-happy member of that execution squad outside. And–if any are even left alive–every guard, every staff member here, who ever locked me in this room. Ever kicked my plate of food just out of reach and laughed. Each of them who mocked me and treated me like- like cattle. And every little boot-licking coward here ‘just doing their job’; ‘just here for their paycheck.’ Their excuses for torturing us won’t matter anymore when they’re all broken and bleeding in the same mangled pile, will they?”

Eloise shivered. That sounded like a very, very dire outcome, no matter how much she agreed that the something needed to change.

“And… And me?” Her voice shrank impossibly small and fragile. “I’m staff.”

She imagined herself, a crumple of slimy sinew and shattered bones, piled with the rest of them. 

She picked at the dry skin of her lips–a nervous tic kicked into overdrive–and only stopped when the supervillain pulled her hand away from her mouth where it it began to taste of copper.

Artisan studied her, his expression giving nothing away. The thumb of his free hand smeared the bead of blood away. “No.”

“No?”

“Not you.”

Eloise’s heart squeezed. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to. And I do whatever I want,” he said simply. “Besides. Who will read to me when you’re gone? My right-hand’s voice doesn’t have quite the same effect. His has much more of a droning quality… If he attempts to replace you, I may need earplugs.”

Eloise’s sore lips twitched into a small smile. “If we help each other get out… What happens then? What if they come after me; after us?”

He grinned and it was a sharp thing of silver cutlery and broken glass; of moonlit, gritty alleyways. “We run.”

As a reminder, this story comes from a prompt that was given both to me and to @the-modern-typewriter! She made her series on it first and it is AMAZING! Go check it out on her patreon, it's The Supermax Prison Blues! I'm not in any way trying to copy her (though naturally, some influences might creep in from obsessing over her work!) or compare our work, as she is an absolutely magical writer, and her series is completely her own!

This is a Secret Santa Snippet for @esperosisdoeswriting!! Merry Christmas, Esper, I hope you like it!!! Her prompt was villain dad who' loves his small child and is not afraid to kill ppl over it!

TW: Blood, violence, mention of needles

“Our target is a child?” The horror in Blythe’s voice seemed loud, even past the pound of blood pulsing in her ears. 

Fellow members of the hero’s team poured into the back of the van, one strong-arming a terrified little girl. Her wrists were bound, mouth covered and tears streaking her cheeks. The child kicked and thrashed with pink-booted feet, legs dangling helplessly above the floor of the car where the hero’s sidekick kept her firmly hoisted in the air.

She looked barely older than 7.

Blythe’s protest was suitably ignored as the team shouted instructions at one another. The back doors slammed shut and the van lurched into action. Passengers plunged themselves into their seats.

“Are you crazy?” Blythe hissed. She stood only to stagger into the side window as the vehicle made a sharp turn. “This is crazy! Why are we kidnapping a child?!”

“Bosses orders,” another said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. 

Mockingbird said “Jump” and they said, “How high?” That was just the way of things, wasn’t it? It had never concerned Blythe before–their leader was a just one.

But now…

The child’s knees were muddied and scuffed. As if she'd fallen. As if she'd run. She squealed panicked cries against the sidekick's palm.

Blythe's stomach bottomed out and pooled again with a honey-slick dread. “Who is she?”

“Static's kid,” the driver called back. Blythe caught a shiver skating through them in the corner of her eye. 

“Static's ki- I must be missing something, are you crazy?” She rounded on Mockingbird's sidekick once more. “You said we were retrieving a powered weapon that could bring Static down!”

He blinked at her as if she were exceptionally slow. “That's what she is.”

Blythe shook her head, feeling an angry tremor seize her bones. “She's a little girl, is what she is.”

Blythe startled as the radio station crackled to life, flipping noisily through channels. The driver cursed and mashed at a button. Clicking on his coms device, he spoke aloud as his free hand yanked the wheel into another screechy turn. 

“On our way back with the package in hand, Boss.”

Mockingbird's sidekick yelped and dropped the girl, a red welt forming on their palm where it had pressed against her mouth. The child hit the floor and scrambled on her knees to an empty corner.

The driver's eyes lit the rearview mirror. “What's–” He hissed and ripped his earpiece away from his head as it fizzled with blaring static loud enough for the rest of the van to hear. “Hey- She's interfering with our coms!”

“Probably trying to reach her father,” another in the front seat agreed. She pointedly shut the radio off as it flitted through stations of chatter and music once more.

The child’s nose was bleeding. Had it been doing that before? 

“Somebody knock her out already!”

The sidekick sighed and lifted a hand. All-consuming shadows danced at his fingertips seeming to choke the air around it.

“Don't.” Blythe hurled herself in front of Static's daughter. Her eyes tingled with a familiar heat that told her they were glowing, power teeming just beneath the surface. 

They stared at each other in a terse stalemate.

The sidekick’s teeth clenched.

“Listen, rookie–”

“We do not threaten children, and we certainly do not hurt them.” Blythe was proud of how steady she managed to keep her voice–firm and leaving no room for argument.

She still wanted to cry a little. How had this become her life?

Little hands grabbed at her from behind and a warm face pressed into her back. Then, a tiny sob. Blythe softened. 

“You're okay, sweetpea, it's alright,” she crooned. Blythe turned to take the child gently in her arms, gathering her close in her lap. “Shh, it's alright. I won't let anyone hurt you. I promise.”

The sidekick's seething was palpable, gaze cleaving cleanly through her, but he finally sat back down.

An eternity later, they were back at the base. Blythe had smacked away any hands reaching to grab the child away from her, carrying the girl inside herself. The little one’s legs wound around her waist like a koala, bound hands clutching fistfuls of Blythe’s shirt fabric.

Blythe’s thoughts felt scattered as TV static. She moved on autopilot, only coming back to herself when the sterile-white lights of the laboratory hummed over them.

Mockingbird was there, black curls cascading freely over her shoulders and contrasting with the icy gray of her eyes. They were not particularly kind eyes, but Blythe had always thought the hero to be good, at least.

“Boss,” Blythe heard herself speak. She cleared her throat. “What exactly are we doing here? Why did we take this kid?”

Mockingbird gestured toward the lab table. “Put her there. We need her blood.”

Blythe’s eyes widened. “Her blood?”

“We are going to use her cells to create a power inhibitor for her father and a power replicator to dose myself with. When he comes to retrieve her, we inject him with it. He won’t act out when he knows we have his daughter. And with his own powers used against him, he’ll never escape again.”

Blythe’s voice came out croaky. “I think you’re putting an awful lot of faith in the self-control of the most powerful supervillain we’ve ever encountered. When we’ve taken his only child. And stabbed her with needles.”

Static’s daughter tightened around her. Blythe glanced down and murmured a soft apology against her ear.

“I don’t care,” Mockingbird snapped. It was clipped with a danger Blythe had never felt aimed at her before. It now felt like a knife against her soft underbelly, as silver and glinting as the superhero’s eyes. “We’re close. Too close to lose now. If you plan to stand in the way of that…”

She stepped closer and plucked the child out of Blythe’s arms with her own super-strength-enhanced, bionic ones. The child knew better than to thrash that time.

Blythe wondered now, nausea climbing her throat, whose blood she’d stolen to replicate that particular gift. The metal prosthetics weren’t just technology, now, were they? Blythe had never thought much of it before… 

“Then you’ll have to take a time out,” the superhero finished. “Somewhere quiet where you can re-evaluate. Understand?” Her voice was a fake-chipper, then. Something Barbie-coded but full of invisible teeth.

Blythe’s powers hummed low beneath her skin, a tamed beast waiting for permission to lash out. Her fists clenched. “I really don’t think this is wise.”

“No?” Mockingbird sounded bored as she set Static’s daughter down on the table, tying a strip of elastic around the child’s forearm.

The little one jumped, blue static zapping Mockingbird’s fingers where they touched.

The superhero jerked back. “You little–”

“She’s just scared,” Blythe said, stepping between them. “I’ll do it. She’ll let me do it. Please.”

Mockingbird’s metal hand clanged into a fist. She took a long-suffering breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Get it done.” She pointed at the tray of tools on the counter. “Strap her down if you have to.”

Blythe’s hands went numb as she picked up the syringe. “Mocking–”

Their attentions snapped away as the speakers throughout the building crackled and spat. A wave of clammy dizziness flooded the room. Did the superhero feel the same sick lurch in her belly as Blythe did? The two clutched opposite ends of the counter to steady themselves.

Mockingbird whirled on the little girl. “Stop it, right now!”

Wide, terrified eyes stared back at her, but no blood oozed from her nose.

Blythe swallowed, choking down a roiling wave of nausea. She felt unsteady on her feet, light-headed and woozy. “It’s not her.”

A deep voice sounded over the intercom. “I’m coming to skin alive everyone who laid a finger on Verity. Those who merely stood by–don’t worry, I’ll fill your head with radiation so quickly you won’t even be able to choke out an apology.”

Oh no. Oh, they were so dead.

Blythe grabbed the child–Verity–and took a step toward the door.

Mockingbird blocked her. “No.”

“He’s going to kill everyone if he doesn’t get her back safely!” 

Blythe tried to push her way past and Mockingbird grabbed her by the throat, cogs whirring in her bionic arm. She shoved, Blythe and Verity hurtling back into the wall.

“I said no!”

Blythe’s breath collapsed out of her lungs as her back hit the wall with a sickening crunch, drywall cracking and littering the floor around them.

Mockingbird turned to the monitor screen, making furious selections on the keyboard. Security footage of the whole base blipped to life.

They watched as Static strode into a room with the terrifying grace of an apex predator, tearing down anyone in his way. Radiation flooded his fists in a green glow as he punched through the receptionist’s chest, shifting to easily grab the next closest person and brace his hands on either side of their skull. The poor soul thrashed as blood leaked from their eyes, nose, and ears. When they were no longer moving, Static let them crumple to the floor.

The next group ran and Static bowled them down with infinitely multiplied radiowaves, hurling them from open palms as if it were nothing. The speakers filled with screams, the feedback whine behind the sound forcing Blythe to cover her ears.

Her blood iced over as in the top right frame, the supervillain looked up at the camera. His head tilted, making chilling eye contact with the lens until the screen cracked and went blank with buzzing stripes of radio static. 

Verity was the only one in the compound who didn’t look afraid. She looked relieved.

Mockingbird moved for the door just as it burst open. She swung at Static with her bionic fists, missing and punching straight through the steel door instead.

Static stood on a platform of squiggling waves that lifted him off of the ground. He looked god-like. Untouchable. The impulse to run coursed through Blythe, but she stayed rooted to her spot, clutching the child to her chest. Static’s hands glowed green again as he lifted Blythe’s boss into the air. Those same up-and-down scribbles seized her, wrapping her prosthetic limbs and ripping them from her shoulders.

Mockingbird screamed.

“What did you do to my daughter?”

“Daddy!” 

The villain’s attention shifted immediately. Verity wiggled free of Blythe’s arms, running to her father.

Static dropped his target as if she were a ragdoll, scooping up his daughter instead. “Verity,” he breathed. His eyes fell closed, stroking her hair, whispering tender praises and apologies into her shoulder. 

The child clung to him. “Daddy.”

He pulled back to search her for injuries. “Are you hurt, darling? Tell me what they did to you.”

Though his voice was gentle for her, there was still a sharp undercurrent to it, as penetrating as the radiowaves that still leaked through the air. His eyes narrowed on her bloodied knees and the stained skin between her lip and nostril. 

“I’m okay, Daddy,” Verity said, looking back at Blythe.

Her vision swam as the supervillain’s focus shifted, once more, to skewer her to her spot. A calm sort of rage stretched his posture taut as he stepped closer.

Blythe, embarrassingly, may have whimpered. Her hair stood on end, floating above her head.

Verity squirmed out of her father’s hold, jumping between them. Just as Blythe had done for her. 

She held her breath.

“No, Daddy! She protected me.” Verity’s eyes took on a determined sort of gleam; valorant and unwavering. 

The air around them fizzled quietly as another wave of illness rolled over Blythe. 

Radiation poisoning. She wasn’t going to last much longer like this.

Static’s head tilted, looking from his daughter to the broken super behind her.

“She kept me safe,” Verity insisted, turning her head to look back at Blythe. Blythe couldn’t seem to speak. “She’s hurt. Can we take her home?”

“Verity.”

“Please?” Verity moved to Blythe’s side, taking her hand.

Despite her swimming vision, Blythe couldn’t help but smile softly at her. A powerful weapon indeed. Blythe believed she could move mountains.

Seconds passed and Blythe thought she may have passed out. Her vision stretched fuzzy and dim at the edges. Then she was being lifted from the floor, broken bones screaming their protest.

Blythe whimpered again, unable to help burying her face in the supervillain’s shirt.

His voice buzzed in her ear where it pressed against his chest.

I made my first quiz, so here is a little tag game. Take the quiz and share the results then tag someone else!

also, super thank you to @thepenultimateword for helping me with some questions and stuff 😊✨

Part 1

When Eloise closed the book and set it aside, her heart jumped to find Artisan staring.

She watched the super’s mind tick, his attention picking her apart to expose the soft and squishy pieces of her. High school lab pig dissection came to mind: pliable flesh carved open to be poked at and scrutinized against a cold table.

She’d cried in that class. It had felt cruel to play at scavenger, pecking and probing for a once-living thing's deep and hidden parts as if she were entitled to its most vulnerable insides.

Though she felt more like the pig at that moment, it felt invasive, too, to track the inner workings of Artisan’s terrifying brain.

Eloise couldn’t seem to look away.

Artisan sat up from his resting position on the bed, grabbing at the inhibitor cuff on her wrist. A startled sound choked in her throat, managing not to jerk back on pure prey instinct. Her arm twitched, cagey, in his hold even as the rest of her froze. 

Her bones ached as if aware of how fragile they were.

Then her arm went numb altogether, turning jellied and moldable. Her palm folded in on itself, pliable bones bending grotesque and wrong and– painless.., as Artisan slid the cool curve of metal over her fingers and tossed it away.

Her bones settled back into their original positions and Eloise snatched her hand away as sensation returned, pins and needles tickling her fingertips.

She stared, horrified.

She stared, impressed.

Artisan smiled and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “It’s an interesting story. Though Dracula is a bit simple as an antagonist, don’t you think?”

Eloise blinked. Had the past minute really happened? She glanced at the abandoned cuff on the floor. Her brain floundered to catch up.

“Um. He is singular in his goals and motives,” she managed. “He isn’t portrayed as misunderstood or sympathetic in the original text, just hungry. And spiteful. He wants food, he wants control, and he wants revenge. He is evil, not for solely being different, but for abandoning all human instinct like love and care, even though human emotions–boredom, anger, hunger–are what drive him through the story… He chooses to turn his back on his humanity, to fulfill the role of monster, even though he is capable of more. It would not be evil if he had no soul. His soul humanizes him, but the force of his will strips it away. He is a villain of his own making. I'm not sure that can be simple.”

Artisan hummed. “Do you fancy me that sort of villain?”

Eloise shook her head. Her skin still itched with the phantom touch of his power.

“Dracula wouldn't have helped me.” Her voice sounded very small in her ears. 

“Will you help me with something?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“There are always choices, Eloise. Dracula chose one straight path. I can be more…” He wet his lips. “Flexible. Helps stave off the boredom. I love a good unexpected twist.”

Eloise swallowed. “You think I’m useful. Is that why you’re protecting me? Do you plan to bleed me empty until you're full? Or…to fill me with your own blood until I become what you are? Dracula didn’t turn Mina to keep her safe… He did it to damn her.”

Artisan straightened out his spine to his full seated height. “What would you like me to do with you?”

“It doesn't matter what I want when I can't stop you.”

“I'm asking.”

Eloise tensed as a shout and bang echoed too close for comfort. She snatched a fistful of the supervillain’s sleeve and scrambled instinctively closer. 

When the noise finally subsided, Eloise looked at him. He was watching, letting her cling to him like a frightened puppy. She was practically in his lap.

Eloise let go as if burned. Heat flooded her cheeks. “S-Sorry-”

Artisan was smiling, a sharp curl of lips that sent her stomach swooping. “So which is it? You think me the monster that will bleed you dry or the scary guard dog that will protect you from the rest of them?”

She eyed him, then looked at the floor. “I think you're kinder than you let on.”

Artisan snorted. “I've never been accused of that before.”

“You asked what I want… I want to live. I want out of here, away from the violence and death. I just want to stay safe. I want to take a shower and scrub the blood out of my hair.”

Artisan leaned in. “If you help me escape, I’ll keep you alive.”

Her gaze jumped to him. “Me? How do you think I can help you?”

“Your power,” he replied, the ugly fluorescents catching the blood spots on his collar, “as you so subtly demonstrated, is to blend in. Raise no alarm bells. You can walk right past the firing squad. We can walk right past the firing squad.”

Eloise was already shaking her head. “I told you, it doesn’t always work. I can’t do it reliably on command. Besides–I can’t help a deadly supervillain escape The Max! I’d get thrown straight in here for life! I’m not even a supervillain! I’m barely super!”

Artisan’s eyes glittered, lowering his voice conspiratorily “Hm. You’d rather stay here? Unprotected? Okay. Should I just call the others over, or…?”

He stood from the creaking mattress, taking two steps toward the gaping hole where the door used to be with a teasing eyebrow quirked in her direction.

Eloise leapt to her feet. She skidded on blood-slicked shoes in her panic to grab at Artisan once more. “No-! No. Please.”

Their eyes met. That time, Eloise didn’t let go of the super’s arm.

Which would be worse? Angering Artisan and letting him break her into splintering pieces? Or being thrown to a pack of super-powered wolves? Angry, restless, nothing-to-lose, wolves…

She swallowed. “Please?”

For a moment, the cell fell into a familiar quiet, terse but not particularly uncomfortable.

Artisan turned to face her properly.

“I get you to the exit. You get me past the gunfire. The cameras are down, they’ll have no idea that you helped me. The two of us will slip free with no one the wiser. When they eventually notice us gone, after killing the other idiots who dart out into open fire, they will assume we slipped through the cracks separately. Deal?”

Eloise watched him, nerves buzzing through her body. “I didn’t know you could talk so much,” she said dumbly.

To some, that would be an insult.

Artisan snorted a laugh, clearly caught off guard. “Eloise.”

“What will you do when you’re out?” she asked, more quietly.

If she helped him escape and he went on to keep hurting people, wouldn’t their blood be on her hands?

It wasn’t fair. That would be far too much responsibility to ask of a girl who’d done nothing but do her best to stay on the sidelines, not step on any toes, and serve her time as quickly as possible. She couldn’t truly be expected to sacrifice herself in the name of altruism, could she? She wasn’t a hero. She wanted to go back to being a no-one, someone without the attention of supervillains and regulators of the Powered Peoples Registry.

And yet… she didn’t want people to die because of her choices. She didn’t want any more carnage.

Belatedly, gently, Eloise let go of his arm. Artisan tracked the movement.

“When I’m out..,” he mused, voice returned to the softer, low tone he normally used in the rare moments that he decided to speak, “I will never let them catch me again.”

Eloise’s mouth felt dry. “Business as usual?”

He shrugged. “Until I’ve regrouped. Then, I’ll come back for each and every person who trapped me in this hell hole. Every hero responsible for catching me. Every trigger-happy member of that execution squad outside. And–if any are even left alive–every guard, every staff member here, who ever locked me in this room. Ever kicked my plate of food just out of reach and laughed. Each of them who mocked me and treated me like- like cattle. And every little boot-licking coward here ‘just doing their job’; ‘just here for their paycheck.’ Their excuses for torturing us won’t matter anymore when they’re all broken and bleeding in the same mangled pile, will they?”

Eloise shivered. That sounded like a very, very dire outcome, no matter how much she agreed that the something needed to change.

“And… And me?” Her voice shrank impossibly small and fragile. “I’m staff.”

She imagined herself, a crumple of slimy sinew and shattered bones, piled with the rest of them. 

She picked at the dry skin of her lips–a nervous tic kicked into overdrive–and only stopped when the supervillain pulled her hand away from her mouth where it it began to taste of copper.

Artisan studied her, his expression giving nothing away. The thumb of his free hand smeared the bead of blood away. “No.”

“No?”

“Not you.”

Eloise’s heart squeezed. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to. And I do whatever I want,” he said simply. “Besides. Who will read to me when you’re gone? My right-hand’s voice doesn’t have quite the same effect. His has much more of a droning quality… If he attempts to replace you, I may need earplugs.”

Eloise’s sore lips twitched into a small smile. “If we help each other get out… What happens then? What if they come after me; after us?”

He grinned and it was a sharp thing of silver cutlery and broken glass; of moonlit, gritty alleyways. “We run.”

As a reminder, this story comes from a prompt that was given both to me and to @the-modern-typewriter! She made her series on it first and it is AMAZING! Go check it out on her patreon, it's The Supermax Prison Blues! I'm not in any way trying to copy her (though naturally, some influences might creep in from obsessing over her work!) or compare our work, as she is an absolutely magical writer, and her series is completely her own!

I understand if you don’t want to!!❤️

Hello! This has been sittin in my inbox for many months during my huge writing rut, sorry about that! I know you also gave this prompt to @the-modern-typewriter and she's been making an incredible series with it on patreon! I changed some things around because I don't want to in any way attempt some sad copy of her interpretation, but I was still inspired by the prompt itself, so I've taken some fairly big liberties to avoid any significant similarities! Hope that's okay! Also, please manage your expectations, I do not compare to the magic that is TMT's writing 😆

TW: Brief depictions of body horror. Violence.

The power blew out in sections. The lights dissolved sector by sector with a sickening whine and click–one by one–in approach.

The commotion ripped Eloise from the fictional world she was lost in, aged page corners still pinched beneath her thumb. Her spirited storytelling abruptly died behind her teeth.

Somewhere in the distance, one person shouted. Two.

Her gaze flicked behind them to the door isolating herself and the bound supervillain from the other sectors of the Maximum Security Prison for Powered Individuals or, as everyone called it, The Max. Seeing nothing but black beyond the bullet-proof glass, her attention snapped forward again to the supervillain imprisoned across from her. 

Was this the start of some elaborate escape plan on his part? Why did it have to happen on a day that she was stuck fulfilling her community service hours instead of being something she could safely gawk at in the newspaper from a distance in a few days? Her stomach did a nauseated flip. 

“What are you doing?” she blurted, voice quivering only a little. Her fingers tightened around her book.

The villain made a show of looking pointedly at his restraints. Wrists strung taut and chained to either wall, he shrugged an innocent shoulder at her as if to say “clearly, nothing.” He was perched on the edge of his bed like a bird, tilting his head with a matching sort of probing curiosity. 

For all the chaos outside of the room, Artisan had not a hair out of place. He appeared perfectly unconcerned, though as thoroughly trapped as ever: ankles shackled, arms stretched uselessly apart from each other. The power-dampening collar wrapped around his neck still blipped a faint red light, indicating it was active. 

The prisoners were rioting. Surely they couldn’t get too far? Containing the most dangerous of powered individuals was, after all, the express purpose of the facility…

The lights above them flickered, dipping the room in and out of inky darkness before settling into a dimly lit haze. Eloise’s breath stalled. The imposing dark felt like a threat, as if the lights could keep the monsters at bay. It only made a little sense, in the way that a child feels safe from the monsters under their bed as long as their nightlight is plugged in.

Except that these monsters were real. The most dangerous in the country. And she was currently feet away from the monster that made even other monsters run.