#mans built a FUNCTIONAL ARM in HIDING in some LAIR

[cauliflowermaterial]

something I just noticed on my... third?? rewatch of nimona: Ballister TOTALLY noticed something was up with the sword the squire gave him. like did you catch the way he tested it in his hand?? he KNEW something was up!!!

#GAAAAAAAHHHHH #and that's so true for him—ain't no way he'd make top of his class without that sort of sense #he KNOWS his sword #aaaa it just kills me man #the whole opening sequence is actually so sad like arrgghhhh the queen was so genuinely kind?? and she's killed??? AAAAA #yes yes i know stories and plot and inciting incident I KNOW but I can still FEEL BAD about it #nimona #ballister boldheart #ALSO Ballister so skilled??? are people aware??? #mans built a FUNCTIONAL ARM in HIDING in some LAIR #and he was top! of! his! class!!!!! he's literally the most skilled knight????? #fave fave fave

[multiversal-excursions]

Breaking Free

Maria wasn’t moving.

If anyone who knew her happened to walk past her kneeling form, they would have been filled with a sense of dread. Especially when seeing the normally red and orange armor, now corrupted by black, swirling shapes that originated from the black box on the back of Maria’s neck.

But no one walked past her here, and if there was anyone left who knew her, they would have been torn between running from her or running towards her, screaming her name.

“Maria! Snap out of it!”

“Maria! What did they do to you?!”

Maria! WAKE UP!”

None of those cries could move her to do what they had asked. Instead, they moved her to do as her masters commanded, as they had programmed.

Search. Contain. Bring to heel.

Obey.

Maria had. And the people who knew her had fallen, one by one, under the command of the Dark Arms who now ruled this world, formed from the many worlds they had merged into one.

Still, there were some who rebelled.

“—Maria and hopefully snap her out of—”

A proximity alarm went off.

Maria’s constant, low level of energy spiked in response, but she didn’t move. She would move if her masters needed her.

“Rise.”

Wordlessly, she did. Her blank white eyes, no longer showing a blue iris, stared into nothing. She wasn’t programmed to meet her masters’ gazes as they stared down at her. Giant beings, with curving black horns that rose from hooded cloaks, hiding every facial feature except for glowing red eyes and large, clawed hands.

“They speak your name. Silence them and bring them to heel.”

“Understood.” Maria’s voice was a flat monotone, just as her face was flat from lack of emotion. She didn’t need them. They would get in the way of her orders.

She left the chamber she was kept in between missions to retrieve rebels, and stepped onto a city street. The proximity alarm was going off in the back of her head, guiding her towards the voices that had been detected speaking her name. The masters had built microphones and wire-tapping equipment into every space of this new, merged world, so that they could monitor the movements of those who lived under their rule. None of it was physical, and no one could detect it.

She ran towards the source of the alarm. Figures disappeared into nearby alleys, but she paid no attention to them. They weren’t the ones she was tasked with locating.

“It’s the Dark Hand. Hide!”

“God help the souls who got that thing’s attention….”

She followed the alarm to an alley. Her name had been spoken somewhere below, but there was no visible way down into what was likely a hidden base.

Her vision shifted from standard human sight to other spectrums. She hadn’t been built solely to function as a human lookalike, with human limitations. She was a walking weapon, and weapons were meant to be capable of locating their targets.

Locating the hidden door was easy, with the right spectrum of light detection. Tearing the door off its hinges was equally easy. She only looked human, after all. An android was only limited by the strength of its mechanical parts, which could be easily replaced when overclocked.

She dashed down the stairs into the hidden lair. Somewhere up the street, dark shadows were following after her, large, monstrous, and cloaked. Clawed hands held small, black devices that looked like innocent cubes.

Just like the “innocent” cube that Maria had on the back of her neck.

At the base of the stairs, in the main room of the lair, were four figures who looked like they’d seen better days. Their clothes were torn in places, and one wore bandages.

“Oh, no…” A teenage, blond boy wearing a green and white jumpsuit that seemed more like armor was staring, wide-eyed, at Maria. She registered fear, but didn’t feel anything in response. Emotions were useless to her masters for her missions.

“I got this Ritchie; they can’t get me.” A dark-skinned young man in an outfit of purple, black, and yellow, with a lightning bolt symbol on a black shirt, stepped forward. Purple electricity crackled in his hands. “Madeline didn’t get in my head, and Brainiac couldn’t, either! This’ll be a piece of cake – we’ll have her back in no time.”

“Who has called your name?” a voice rasped in Maria’s mind.

“Richie Foley: Codename, Gear,” Maria replied aloud. “Virgil Hawkins: Codename, Static. Steve Rogers: Codename, Captain America. Matthew Carsldale: Codename, Aura Seeker.”

“Richie, Matt, run!” the man in the red, white, and blue uniform moved next to Static. He was the only one wearing bandages. He would be easy to bring to the master’s control, if he was already weakened.

“The ones known as Gear and Aura Seeker are of no use to us,” the voice hissed. “We have the answers we need. Kill them. The other two will be brought to heel.”

“Understood.”

Maria burst forward as Richie and Matthew bolted down a corridor to the back of the room. Captain America started to throw his shield at her, but she raised her right arm and summoned the laser cannon she was equipped with. A blast of orange energy forced the Avenger to change from attack to defense in order to prevent Maria’s attack from doing him harm.

Static started to move to intercept, but he too was forced back – this time by one of the dark shadows that had followed Maria, now spilling down the staircase.

Which meant Maria was left to chase Richie and Matthew down, still following the orders she had been given.

Her running pace was far more even and quick than the two humans. She caught up with them and grabbed them by the backs of their uniforms – Richie’s white and green, Matthew’s blue and black – before swinging them into a wall. Richie’s helmet took the impact for him as the visor cracked, while Matthew grunted in pain.

She let go of the two of them and stepped back, observing them for a moment. They were dazed; good, that meant they were unable to run. It would make her orders much easier to fulfill.

Maria made sure she was standing over them as she raised her left arm. Her right arm was still in cannon form, but she was not going to use it against close range targets. She clenched her fist, and a blade emerged from one side of her left arm, curing around her fist like a protective guard. She raised it high, intending to slice down and cut into her two targets.

Obey. Kill. Obey.

errorerrorerrorerror

The blade stopped in a jerking fashion mere inches from Richie’s neck.

Something felt wrong about this. Very wrong.

Maria’s power core surged suddenly, and a sleeping part of her mind roared to life with an angry whirlwind of mental, purging fire.

“E-e-error. E-error. Attempt to bypass moral core detected.”

Richie and Matthew looked up sharply, eyes widening as Maria’s eyes flickered, revealing her normal blue, backlit eyes as her entire body shook.

A grin started to cross Matthew’s face. “Come on, sis. Come on! You can do it! Fight them off!”

Maria didn’t seem to register the words of encouragement as she stared at the wall above Richie’s and Matthew’s heads. Or, perhaps, she was staring through it. “Scanning system…source of program invasion detected. Program marked as invasive and detrimental. Purging system of invasive program…. Purging…purging complete. Rebooting.”

Maria’s eyes flickered back to pure white as her body went still. Then the blue flared back into her eyes sharply as the black swirls covering her armor were burned off at once as Maria gasped for air.

The black box that had been attached to the back of her neck was ejected from the port. It bounced down the corridor, smoking and fizzing with heat and fused-together circuits.

Suddenly, Maria felt the weight of her own limbs again as everything rushed back at once. She deactivated the laser cannon in her right arm and the blade in her left as she stumbled back into the wall behind her. Her eyes were wide as she took in quick, shallow breaths, one hand on her chest and the other on her head.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she gritted her teeth. There was a throbbing headache, but it was fading fast, leaving nothing but a heavy shock and horror at what she had done.

The actions had not been her own, but she had made them regardless. She hadn’t been able to stop herself, and her own programs couldn’t defend her except for when someone else stepped in.

Instead of stopping the problem, she had caused it. What kind of--

“Maria?” Richie asked.

Maria winced as the alarm went off in her head. She couldn’t afford to have a breakdown now. Not with so many problems that needed to be solved. To be reversed. “Don’t say my name.”

Matthew jolted. “What? But—”

“They use it to track people I’m connected to – people who know me. Every time it’s said, another base is found, and guess where we are.” She motioned to the corridor.

“That’s how they know?” Richie asked weakly.

Maria nodded. Rather than being expressionless, now, her eyes were hard, battle-seasoned and worn. Under that lay an angry guilt over her own actions, and a fury towards the monsters she’d been forced to call her masters. She drew on that for energy. “They’ve probably been alerted by now that I’m loose. They’re gonna think you did something. Run.”

“What about you?” Matthew stepped forward. “Sis, there’s another base where—”

Maria shook her head. “I’m going back. Someone’s gotta rescue Cap and Static. You get out of here – try to get the others together and for Primus’ sake don’t say my name ever again.”

Richie gulped.

There came the sound of scratching claws in the distance – the Dark Arms had noticed the corridor and were coming their way.

“GO!” Maria barked. “I’ll hold them off!”

It was the least she could do, after all the trouble she’d caused them.

Richie and Matthew hesitated, then gave quick nods and bolted down the corridor as Maria turned to face the monsters that were coming for them.

“All right you alien hunks a’junk!” Maria bellowed, pouring on her anger. Flames coated her hands, red-white and hot enough to create a mirage that Maria’s presence in the physical plane was flickering in and out of existence. “Come get me!”

“Foolish machine,” one of the shadows said. “You were not programmed for disobedience.”

“Frag your MindTech!” Maria roared back. “That wasn’t my programming, that was enslavement! I wasn’t willing, you forced it on me! And now you’re gonna learn why you don’t mess with a World Jumper!”

----

Maria’s eyes flickered open. For a moment, she saw a dark metal ceiling and heard creatures moving around just out of her line of sight. She inhaled sharply and blinked.

Wooden ceiling. She wasn’t strapped down on a hard table, but lying in bed. The only sound was the soft breathing of someone nearby, asleep.

Maria sighed heavily and raised a hand, running it down her face. She blinked at her white-gloved hand and frowned. “Shifted in my sleep again.”

A long sigh and a slight flash of light later, and the armor was gone, replaced with jeans, an orange jacket, and a red shirt.

“I didn’t need to relive that memory in my sleep again.” Maria’s now gloveless hand dropped onto her face, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. The dredges of the memory she’d just relived faded into the back of her mind slowly as she breathed slowly through her nose.

As an android, she didn’t need to breathe, but it was something that helped calm her down. She was made to be human like, after all.

“Some nights I wish I didn’t have dreams,” Maria muttered. “They’re just memories being copied back….”

She let her arm drop from her face and lie next to her, staring up at the ceiling.

“I don’t think I’m going back to sleep tonight.”

#((just a thing I wrote concerning Maria's backstory)) #documented worlds (fics) #visions of the present (drabbles) #Matthew Carlsdale #tw mind control #dreams