ic Freedom Fallout

[Nerdzul]

Luke gave his friend a confused look. “I…” What’s happening? He was sure that this was… Matt… But a robot? Cyborg or something? What? How? Was he worried? Afraid maybe? Of course he was… He did recover a bit of composure shortly thereafter, though. In time at least to see Ashley burst on the scene. No way this was gonna end with Matt getting shot. Again.
 

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It’s alright, everything is alright…” He did position himself between the two though, just in case. “I mean, watch out man, Jaycee here, she’s the freaking ex-president daughter, got security, trigger happy one.” He threw a complicit glance at Ashley. Not that he actually knew how ready she was to shoot a teenage boy (hopefully not much?), but there was nothing wrong in having his friend being a little worried about it.

 

“Just, what is going on man? I mean… what’s up with this? I…” He pointed at Matt’s robotic arm.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Is this new?" asked Daystar suddenly. She shot a reassuring look at Ashley (whose expression was impossible to read behind the helmet but from her body language wasn't happy) and reached out to touch Matt's arm. "It looks like makes you strong. That's good. We all need to be strong. You know," she said kindly, "mah powers mean Ah can hear radio signals and send them out too. Is there somebody you want to call - like a policeman or a superhero?" For her part Ashley was not happy at all but she backed Judy's play, hand on her weapon as she studied the scene. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Matt looked at Judy, awestruck, but defensively pulled his arm back when she touched it, quickly moving his other, fully human, hand up to touch the spot she touched.

 

"Y-yeah. Its new." He hesitated a tiny bit as he spoke. Nothing too much, but enough that Luke should at least notice it.

 

He turned to glare at Luke. "What's up with this? With me being half robot? That's your fault, man! Somebody had to leave me behind when I get shot, and turns out this was the only way I'd ever walk again!"

[Nerdzul]

“I…” Luke’s eyes widened. He could not hold his Matt’s gaze for long… “F*ck... I should have-“ Well, he should have done a lot of things differently shouldn’t him? Not get his friend shot for once.

There wasn’t just that, wasn’t it? Sure, he had been with Matt since his friend got out of the hospital, where in fact Luke had carried him after the fact, but he knew what he meant. He should have stayed there, in Southside, with him, with his friends, his people.

Sure, he checked on everyone as much as he could, but that was not enough. He knew that Matt’s recovery wasn’t going fast, but last time they have seen each other it looked like there was still hope... What if his optimism though, was just a way to keep his own conscience at bay?

 

“I should have been with you. I’m sorry.” Yeah like that was gonna change anything. He slumped his shoulders. “Whe- How-“ Whatever it was not the time for it. “If there is anything I can do…” He added meekly, his eyes tentatively raised again to meet his friend’s gaze again.

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's Archetech, isn't it?" said Watchdog suddenly, her voice more compassionate than it had been just a moment or two earlier. "I recognize the tech." Strong enough that it gave him his functionality back, probably not enough to give him actual superpowers out of it. Poor bastard. The hell of it was, the kid was lucky to get it. Even in Freedom City, the average person in his situation would probably still be in a hospital bed. 

 

"You're just as God made you," said Daystar, putting her hand on the boy's cheek before impulsively hugging him to the almost fiery warmth of her chest. "Even if you don't look the way you did when you were born, you're still the person you were." and her voice pulled painfully tight at the last word, "you're still the person you were." She released him and looked at him to say "Whatever happened to your body can never touch your soul." 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"I got no clue." Matt crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at Watchdog. "Some people showed up, said they'd help me walk again, now this is me." 

 

He glared at Luke and shook his head. "You've done enough, man. What did you expect, a happy reunion? You left me behind!" 

 

Despite it all, Matt did seem to calm down a little bit at Judy's words. "I... I don't know. This is me, I guess. I still feel off... and..." He looked around, people were staring around them. "Can we please do this somewhere else? Everyone's kind of staring."

[Nerdzul]

"Look man, I... I didn't know you felt this way I'm sorry." Luke eyes were now deeply set on the ground, his shoulders slumped. It was obvious though, he had been blind all this time, or perhaps just selfish. In hindsight, Matt had much likely just kept it bottled up until that point. 

 

 

"Who? What did they ask you in return?" He tossed. "You didn't tell me when we talked last week... But if you need anything... for real ok? I will do it." Perhaps though, he had already done enough to his friend. That said, it did sound kinda weird that he had never even mentioned this whole cyborg thing. He seemed so enthusiastic in every tiny progress of his recovery, there was no way he was not gonna mention something like this...

 

Plus 'a happy reunion' now, on second thought, that was a strange choice of words wasn't it? it was not like they haven't spoken in a long time. He gave Matt a puzzled look.

 

"Yeah right." He nodded. Things were bad enough already without the eyes of an entire crowd on them. It was not gonna be exactly easy to leave them behind, especially with Judy there. He sought to meet her gaze, silently pleading for help. Too shaken himself to try and figure out a way for himself.

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Nerdzul

[Avenger Assembled]

Ashley and Judy exchanged a look, Ashley feeling a warm flush of pride as she caught the mouthed "signal?" from Daystar through her helmet's radio even as she wrestled with the implications of whatever it was being broadcast by Teenage Cyborg here. Judy really was smarter than she acted, a thought she herself quickly stifled as she said, "Sure thing, kid. Watch this." And with that, she took Matt's arm and firmly guided the teens inside a nearby Panera Bread.  "Hero business!" she called to the staff, who of course were already taking pictures because Judy Cahill had been standing outside the door just a little while earlier, and then all but muscled the teen inside a private room in the back of the restaurant. 

She kept her eyes on the doors and windows, half-expecting an ambush, and was pleased again when Judy spoke, her voice echoing as she studied Matt. "Matt, who are you talking to?" she asked him, with the sad voice of a friend who'd caught another friend in some private vice. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Last week? What the hell are you talking about?" Matt just stared at Luke, like he couldn't understand what he was saying. "You haven't been around to check up on me since I was put in the hospital in the first place!" He was raising his voice, starting to step away, and then Ashley pulled him along. He struggled at first, but then followed.

 

"Talking to? What the hell are you talking about? What's with you people? First Luke leave me behind, then you're asking if I'm talking to anyone? Pulling me along without even asking! I know you're Jaycee Cahill, but who the hell do you think you are, mask lady?"

[Nerdzul]

Luke furrowed his brows that... that was way worse than he thought. Now one thing was for Matt to believe that he hadn't done enough for him another was not to remember what happened just a week before. He threw a worried glance toward Ashely and Judy.

 

"I.... I was the one that brought you there? You don't remember?" He told gently, but his tone definitely betrayed that he was indeed worried. "And... I could have been around more, I'm sorry about that, but we have been seeing each other since then..." Somehow though, he already expected Matt not to trust him on that. What if there was a way to prove it though?

 

 

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'm the one who knows about the encrypted signal you're sending out," said Ashley firmly. She hesitated just a moment, then said, "Judy, you need to go back to Claremont. If he's sending out signals to somebody and doesn't know about it, they're probably using him as bait." 

 

"I...okay," said Judy hesitantly, shooting a worried look at Ashley, then Luke, before she vanished in a brilliant rainbow burst of light, leaving just the bodyguard and the teen alone with the cyborg. 

 

"So how about it, kid?" said Ashley not unsympathetically. "Are you in it, or are they using you?" 

[Nerdzul]

Actually... now that he knew that his friend was not accusing him to not being close enough metaphorically, but instead he didn't remember what was going on Luke did have a way to prove their time spent together. "Look..." He whipped out his (cheap and probably barely younger than him) phone and showed Matt a picture, it was the two of them, with Luke doodling on his friend's cast shortly after Matt got out of the hospital. "This is one of my favorite." He added, this time focusing on a short Tiktok video of the two boys them attempting a stupidly dangerous stunt (one that ultimately wasn't exactly the smartest of ideas given that Matt was still wearing crutches), both laughing loudly.

 

Luke gave Judy a look of apprehension as she disappeared into a burst of light, she seemed to have a calming influence on Matt after all... That said, Ash was probably right, this have started to sound like they have been set up or something.

 

"A signal?" He echoed Ashely. "Matt? Do you know about it?" He frowned.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"What?" 

 

Matt just stared at the videos. He barely seemed to register that Judy disappeared.

 

"I, that's, what, I..."

 

His voice was changing. There was a strange reverb to it.

 

"But, you... you weren't there, I was..."

 

His eyes start to glow yellow.

 

"No!"

 

Matt pushed at Luke. His entire body was shaking. Something was clearly happening, something that he was fighting against. 

[Nerdzul]

What the hell? That was sick, something was messing with Mat’s head. It was the cybernetics wasn't it? Damn!.

 

“Man… come on… you can fight this...” Luke tried to force a smile, doing his best to put his hands on his friend’s shoulder and letting their gazes meet.

 

No panic Luke. We can fix this. Could they though? Maybe with the school’s resources. Damn!

 

If only there was a way that he could led him some strength to resist this. Maybe? Perhaps he could do at least a little bit. As he steadied his gaze to plant it firmly into Matt’s eyes, he called on a little bit of power. Truth was though, he had never really used his gift to inspire strength, appealing to people’s base instincts was so much more easier to him, perhaps due to the origin of his abilities, yet he did his best to  grant all the conviction he could muster to his friend.

 

“I'm here ok? You are not alone. We can fight this.”

[Avenger Assembled]

Ah, jeez! thought Ashley. Quickly she snapped open a pair of shackles, the long ones that wouldn't immediately tug, and snapped one around the lower leg of the big, heavy table. It was bolted down, maybe to keep customers from moving it, making it the perfect anchor as she slapped the other shackle around the cyborg kid's ankle. An instant after it was on she wondered if this was just going to aggravate the kid's fear, but there was no time to go backwards now. 

 

"Hey! Hey!" She got between Luke and the cyborg, her hands out unthreateningly, raised on either side of her head. Luckily she was far from defenseless that way, but there was no reason to alert the kid to that. "It's all right! It's all right! You're safe!" 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Nnn... no. No." Matt was stammering. Pulling against the restraints.

 

The restraints were holding. The table seemed to be starting to give in.

 

"No."

 

His voice was different. Mechnical, automatic. He spoke, but he did not want to speak. Someone else was making him do this. He raised his free hand towards Watchdog. His skin tore and peeled as it broke apart, a barrel breaking free from his skin and pointing at him.

 

"Release me. Now."

[Nerdzul]

 

“Come on man. You can fight it!” He really couldn’t though. Damn. Luke’s heart was racing hard in his chest.

 

Woah! Woah! Woah! That was a freakin’ nightmare, wasn’t it? It felt like someone else had taken over… Possessed his friend or something. And truth was, the young man didn’t know what to do. One thing was certain though. He wasn’t going to fight his friend.

 

“Who the hell are you! Let him go!” God that made him feel completely powerless.

[Avenger Assembled]

The teenage doofus Ashley had had to play her first year at Claremont, the thug who was a parody of every bad decision the Raven had ever made, would have threatened the kid - or maybe whoever it was that was puppeteering him. Watchdog didn't have to play that game anymore, though. Instead she said out loud "Sorry about this, kid." Then she punched him in the stomach with her right hand, right over the diaphragm. The movement forced a sudden intake of breath, and she took advantage of that by raising her left hand and spraying him in his open mouth with knockout spray. Well it was technically knockout spray. Having tested it on herself, she knew it burned. Geez I need better stuff she thought as she emptied her cartridge into the cyborg's mouth. 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The cyborg doubled over from the blow. He started coughing wildly, tears streaming out of his eyes. He looked up at Luke, his eyes no longer glowing, then slumped over, unconscious.

 

The bell on the door jingled lightly as someone stepped in. A man stepped inside, clad in red, white and blue. His right shoulder was blue, with a large star in the center of the shoulder. Red and white stripes stretched from the shoulder and onto his torso, left arm and legs. He wore white fingerless gloves and heavy red boots. His face was covered by a full face mask, red on the sides and white on the front of the face. He wore a white quiver and a red bow that he was holding in his hand.

 

"Please step away from the cyborg. You're out of your jurisdiction here, ma'am." 

Edited March 25, 2021 by RocketLord

[Avenger Assembled]

Her face hidden behind her helmet, it suddenly occurred to Watchdog to curse herself for letting Judy with the panic button see herself home. "ID," she said flatly, and didn't put her stun spray down until she saw it. The problem with ranged fighters is that most of them didn't like it very much if you got right in their face and hit them hard. The guy was bigger than her, and armored, but she was armored too, and they tended to assume she was going to start with the acrobatic flips and kicks instead of opening with a laser bolt to the kneecap. "And if your ID is "I'm the Patriotrcher", you'd better step aside now." 

[Nerdzul]

Luke’s eyes widened. “Hey… We didn’t need to knock him out.” He protested, sure maybe it was effective, but the young man could do nothing, but wince when he saw his friend in such a state. He kept holding him, until he stopped trashing, doing his best to keep Matt from hurting himself. Then he gently let him down on the table.

 

He didn’t have the time to let the situation fully sink in however, when a costumed, masked guy burst on the scene.

 

“And who the hell are you man?” He remarked angrily as he placed himself firmly between the newcomer and Matt unconscious form. No way he was gonna let a stranger (albeit one that was dressed as a superhero) get to his friend, Matt had already suffered enough.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Really?" The man raised an eyebrow, with the eyes on his mask somehow following and changing shape, letting them see at least some kind of facial expression through it. 

 

He pointed at Ashley. "I don't answer to a glorified bodyguard," and then to Luke, "and not at all to a some punk kid, got it?" 

 

And yet, he relented, reaching back into a pocket on the side of his quiver and pulled out a card, holding it out to Ashley without moving closer. As far as she could see, everything was in order. The card identified the man as a special operative of the United States government with the codename U.S.Archer.

 

After giving Ashley a moment, the man pulled the card back. "Now. Hand over the cyborg." There was more than the hint of a threat to his tone.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Putting on the costume doesn't put you above the law," said Ashley coldly. She lowered her stun spray but didn't put it away. Her eyes narrowed behind the helmet as she studied the card, and she decided to keep her own helmet on. She did not respond to the taunt about bodyguards, but she did find herself interposing between Luke and the new guy. "Okay. So you're a fed. Do you have a warrant to arrest this child?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. "Why don't I just call the assistant director and we can check your story, hm?" She pressed a button on her phone that would call the assistant director of the Secret Service's Protective Intelligence Operational Center. 

[Nerdzul]

“Hey.” Luke clenched his fists, now punching a freakin’ superhero wasn’t probably the  smartest idea, but then again he was not going to let him take Matt away.

 

“That cyborg has a name you know? And is my friend and he is not going to go anywhere without me.” He remarked confidently. “And I don’t care if the freakin’ president sent you here.” He continued. Nodding gratefully at Ashley when it looked like she was on his side again (maybe it was not enough to forgive her for tasing his friend, but it was definitely a start). 

 

“What the hell is going on by the way? You’re involved with this?” He was addressing Archer, but tossed a worried look toward Matt’s unconscious form.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

"Yeah, go ahead. Call the director. I got a warrant, bodyguard. Some of us are real agents, not some diversity hire." U.S.Archer's tone was growing harsher. He was clearly not interested in spending more time here than he had to.

 

He reached to the quiver on his back and pulled out an arrow, taking out a bow and raising it. The arrow appeared to be some sort of high tech contraption, not a standard arrow. He aimed it directly at Luke.

 

"I got orders, kid. They don't involve you. Now, step aside so I can take the cyborg into custody, or I will be forced to consider you a hostile force. And we really don't want that, do we?" There was a challenge in his voice. Ashley and Luke couldn't be sure, but it almost sounded like he wanted them to fight back.