![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
A Warm Welcome
Who: Little Cato, Hellboy, and Bones
What: An unpleasant meeting between the problem prisoners
Where: A Project Prometheus base
When: Around the same time as Valentine's Event
Warnings/Notes: Imprisonment, guards being assholes, child endangerment, some other CWs will be added as needed.
Unfortunately not everyone gets a warm welcome to the Guardians' universe. Project Prometheus, a secret human organization dedicated to studying, controlling, and destroying myths, manages to ambush a few of the new myths. Their capture is quick, quiet, and almost impossible to fight due to the magical dust they use to knock them out.
And then they're stuck in a nightmare of metal and concrete walls, a sterile secret base where the Promethean agents do their sinister work. In some rooms of the base there are magical artifacts, safely locked away, studied to figure out new methods to fight myths and to destroy magic. In others, sinister experiments are done on captured myths.
These two have been lucky so far. They're being merely kept imprisoned for now, for containment and future study. Buuuut they've become a bit of a problem.
And the guards have decided the best way to deal with several problems is to cram them together and hope they're problems to each other. That way they're a little too distracted to keep up their shenanigans.
The bands around their necks, inscribed with mystical marks, block any of the powers they may have gained upon being changed into myths. They'll have dampened Hellboy's natural strength. Their hands are in shackles, magically reinforced so Hellboy can't break them. The shackles have chains that are attached to a strange floating metallic orb overhead. It moves along at a quick pace, almost too fast for walking speed. No amount of pulling can slow down its progress. It drags them along, leading them through the halls towards their inexorable end point.
Three armed guards usher them along.
"You two wanted to be problems? Then you're going to get treated like problems. So you're going to where we put one of our other problems and I promise you, you're not going to like it."
Another guard sneers. "You're both going to get a new roomie. The Beast is a real friendly little guy." He nods to another guard with bandages all over his face. "You can just ask my buddy over there."
The orb stops before a heavy prison door.
The first guards goes on, "After what it did to the Fomori and grindylows we threw in there, you'll have yourselves a bit of a handful."
The guards step back and a metal wall shoots out of the floor creating a sort of airlock for the prison they're about to enter. Hellboy and Bones will be there for a minute or two as the guards finish the digital prisoner transfer checklist.
Fun way to meet a new person, right?
What: An unpleasant meeting between the problem prisoners
Where: A Project Prometheus base
When: Around the same time as Valentine's Event
Warnings/Notes: Imprisonment, guards being assholes, child endangerment, some other CWs will be added as needed.
Unfortunately not everyone gets a warm welcome to the Guardians' universe. Project Prometheus, a secret human organization dedicated to studying, controlling, and destroying myths, manages to ambush a few of the new myths. Their capture is quick, quiet, and almost impossible to fight due to the magical dust they use to knock them out.
And then they're stuck in a nightmare of metal and concrete walls, a sterile secret base where the Promethean agents do their sinister work. In some rooms of the base there are magical artifacts, safely locked away, studied to figure out new methods to fight myths and to destroy magic. In others, sinister experiments are done on captured myths.
These two have been lucky so far. They're being merely kept imprisoned for now, for containment and future study. Buuuut they've become a bit of a problem.
And the guards have decided the best way to deal with several problems is to cram them together and hope they're problems to each other. That way they're a little too distracted to keep up their shenanigans.
The bands around their necks, inscribed with mystical marks, block any of the powers they may have gained upon being changed into myths. They'll have dampened Hellboy's natural strength. Their hands are in shackles, magically reinforced so Hellboy can't break them. The shackles have chains that are attached to a strange floating metallic orb overhead. It moves along at a quick pace, almost too fast for walking speed. No amount of pulling can slow down its progress. It drags them along, leading them through the halls towards their inexorable end point.
Three armed guards usher them along.
"You two wanted to be problems? Then you're going to get treated like problems. So you're going to where we put one of our other problems and I promise you, you're not going to like it."
Another guard sneers. "You're both going to get a new roomie. The Beast is a real friendly little guy." He nods to another guard with bandages all over his face. "You can just ask my buddy over there."
The orb stops before a heavy prison door.
The first guards goes on, "After what it did to the Fomori and grindylows we threw in there, you'll have yourselves a bit of a handful."
The guards step back and a metal wall shoots out of the floor creating a sort of airlock for the prison they're about to enter. Hellboy and Bones will be there for a minute or two as the guards finish the digital prisoner transfer checklist.
Fun way to meet a new person, right?
no subject
His co-prisoner's appearance surprised him a bit. He could understand why assholes like these wanted to lock him up. He knew what he looked like.
As far as he could tell, though, the other guy was entirely human. Yet another mystery to add to the ever growing pile.
"So, fellow troublemaker, huh? Name's Hellboy. You?"
no subject
He tore his gaze from the wall and let it rest on Hellboy, taking him in with tired interest– less of one mashing their face to the glass of a freak show enclosure, more as one ally gratefully finds another, eyes traveling from his feet to the sawn edges of his horns. Well, the name's a bit on the nose, but this guy isn't the most alien that Bones has ever met. Kind of a comfort, actually, while he tried to ignore the rill of anxious fear riding his spine.
"Leonard McCoy. I hope you got a plan or somethin'," he drawled, "'cause I'm fresh outta ideas."
no subject
"Whatever's in there can't be bigger than four, maybe five feet. Grindylow only go after kids. Might be a jumper, lookin' at Tony Montana out there."
no subject
"Alright, what then?"
no subject
Which is what had gotten him here in the first place. That and the sizable dent he'd put in the cell wall after wailing on it with a stone fist.
no subject
They'll need them to be free because they are about to deal with a handful.
The room is mostly dark. It looks like some of the light panels were smashed. The lights that work are the ones closest to the door. The back of the room is mostly in shadow. While the room's been cleaned at this point, there are still a few small splatters on the walls of brown and green blood spots that were missed.
The second the door slams, it's immediately clear that the darkness is not empty. There's a surprised noise, something between a gasp and a hiss. Then eyes pop open in the dark. They're clearly not human because normal humans don't have eyeshine.
on the other hand, animals with eyeshine tend to be animals whose eyes stay closer to the ground. These eyes rise to a little over four feet tall. There's a hint of fur and pointy ears, then bared, pointy teeth flash in the half-light. Their cellmate hisses like an angry cat.
There's no more warning. The shape pounces out of the dark. Hellboy is right that their cellmate isn't that tall. But he's very fast, very ferocious, and very bitey. And capable of more than just using his teeth and claws. Just because he's trying to scratch and bite doesn't mean he's neglecting trying to punch and jab at pressure points.
His scream is strange, falling in a place somewhere between the yowl of an attacking mountain lion and something far more humanish.
His clothes have some wear and tear and are spattered with blood. Like the guards said, this isn't the first fight he's been in.
no subject
And, y'know, their more immediate issue: the screaming, bipedal furry tornado of gnashing teeth hurling itself at the both of them. Caitian? he thinks feverishly, and scrambles roughly backward with a yelp.
"Hey hey hey hold on a damn minute!"
no subject
His rocky right hand lashes out and grabs the little furricane by the scruff of the neck while making sure to hold the cat as far away from him as possible.
"What he said. I'm guessing you've had a pretty bad time of it, right? So've we. So maybe turn off the meatgrinder impression for a bit."
no subject
And that's how he learns how hard the arm is. There's a far more human sounding yelp from banging his toes on stone. (The humans stole his boots because of the rockets in them).
So then, despite the fact it's deeply uncomfortable to even try to move, he still tries to claw at the hand but that is - wow, that is stone, isn't it. Straight up stone. Or at least like stone.
He's firmly caught and it's at this moment of being forced to think his way out of this situation that he actually stops and takes stock of it. The one guy looks disarmingly human and he said some of the curse words Cato learned from his adopted human father, Gary.
The other guy is a species Cato isn't familiar with. He has him restrained buuuut isn't taking advantage of it to try to hurt him. The words finally register. You've had a pretty bad time of it, right? So've we.
He dangles there unmoving for a second. Then narrows his eyes.
Then "The Beast" starts talking and sounds all the world like the dinky young teenager he is. This is not really a side the humans have gotten of him much, what with him mostly just trying to claw their faces off when they wouldn't let him go.
"Talk is cheap. The other guys they shoved in here with me before were like 'oh no, we've been captured, everything sucks, we're all in this together against these evil humans' and then they tried to kill me in my sleep. Both times." He holds up two fingers for emphasis and then crosses his arms. "Luckily, I wasn't asleep and just pretended to be, 'cause they were strangers and I'm smart like that."
He looks back and forth between them.
"So 'having a bad time of it' doesn't mean anything. Everyone has a bad time of it in this place and sometimes they're still willing to make it worse for someone else. How do I know I can trust you?"
no subject
He's just a kid. Just a kid; caught, stuffed into a cell and tormented, just like the rest of them. If he was angry about this situation before, he's incandescent now, swallowing his fury and folding his arms across his chest.
"You can't," he admits, "And you'd be damn stupid to immediately trust anyone around here. I don't know about Red-" with a sidelong glance at Hellboy, "-but I'm tryin' my best to get the Hell outta this place, and fighting with other folks won't help that. I'm a doctor, not a killer."
no subject
And this kid was both. Which meant that the Prometheus mooks were going to have a very, very bad time when he got out of here.
"And I like to think I'm smarter than a bucket full of crabs."
The only way they were getting out of here was together. The Fomori and grindylows might've only said that to get the kid to let his guard down but they hadn't been wrong.
"So, I'm gonna put you down now. You think you can hold off trying to gut me and the doc for a bit?"
no subject
A pause.
"And I'm not a kid. I'm fourteen," says the kid, in the familiar kiddish tones of 14-year-olds everywhere that think they're more adult than they are.
But he reluctantly nods and holds up his paws, visibly retracting his claws. When he's eventually put down, he retreats. Not entirely into the shadowy part of the cell, but halfway there, hunkered close to the wall.
He shrinks in on himself a little, one arm crossing over his chest to hold his other arm. Though he seems slightly calmer now, his body language is still tense. His ears flatten back against his head and his tail is flicking around sharply, occasionally thumping lightly against the wall.
Now that he's standing still it's obvious he's not in the best shape. He's not too injured but there are blood stains on his clothes where it looks like claws raked through the fabric, and there are a few bloody clawmarks on his bare left arm.
He looks between them both, considering. They've got a lot more going for them than his last cellmates.
Doctors help people, right? In his universe, it's usually at a price in his universe, but everyone's got to get by somehow, and he knows some of them genuinely want to help people.
The large red alien, on the other hand, saying he basically only kills scumbags isn't entirely unbelievable. After all, Little Cato's crew isn't the only one in existence that wouldn't tolerate certain things. Also the alien's voice is weirdly soothing. Like he's heard it somewhere before, in a positive light. He can't really remember where, though.
He turns to look at the human.
"They've only taken me out of my cell a few times but I haven't seen any humans here before that weren't guards or scientists. Just the people that call themselves 'myths' that seem to be from this version of Earth. Which sounds totally different from my version of Earth."
A pause.
"My dad's human."
He knows better than to trust them implicitly. A lot of Infinity Guards were human too, supposedly dedicated to doing good and protecting the universe, and they sold out everyone in the universe to the Lord Commander and the Titans.
But there's still a difference between one that's a guard and one that's on this side of the cell doors.
"I'm Little Cato."
no subject
He takes a knee, easing down a bit gingerly due to his own collection of aches and hidden bruises. Sure, Little Cato could still decide he's now the right height for flaying alive, but Bones opts to put his faith in the Ventrexian.
"Mind if I take a glance at those scratches? Those look like they sting."
Not like there's anything around to patch them up with, but he hasn't gone looking any further in the cell.
no subject
As much as Hellboy was uncomfortably reminded of the BPRD, his father would've never let this happen. And as much as he hated Manning the man had a heart in there somewhere. And definitely knew better than to try anything like this where Hellboy had even the slightest chance of hearing about it.
Which meant..."fuck. I'm gonna miss seeing the twins being born.
cw: minor cannibalism reference
"It can't be my universe's Earth." His expression is hesitant. He considers time travel since he's dealt with it before. "Or at least...not the version of Earth from my time."
That would be on account of it being destroyed.
He's not ignoring the doctor's offer, though, just talking to buy some time to ruminate on it. The scratches on his arm are definitely infected. Maybe it'd be good for a doctor to check it out. Make sure it's minor and that his arm isn't going to fall off.
He has good instincts for vibes. The vibe is different with these guys. Red guy, Hellboy, is upset about what - potentially missing his kids being born if he doesn't get home soon? Ouch. That...that seems real. That means he's a dad - well, a soon-to-be-dad anyway. Very daddish. If he's telling the truth.
And the doctor is... he knows that look. He's seen Gary kneel down in front of him and do his "I really want to help" look so many times. Gary always wants to fix things, he always wants to make sure people are safe.
With Hellboy able to so easily overpower him, he's not sure he could stop them from killing him anyway, so Little Cato reluctantly and very cautiously inches forward, holding out his scratched arm to McCoy, though he looks like he's still agitated enough that he'll dart if spooked. His tail is still flicking around in agitation.
To a doctor's eyes, it'll be obvious the scratches on his forearm are infected but at least not severely. It's still within the realm of him possibly being able to fight it off on his own. And they're only skin-deep.
"Jen, one of the jerks that tried to kill me, she said humans only become 'myths' sometimes. Like it's some kind of thing you can change into? And otherwise it's a lot of different nonhuman kinds of people born as...whatever they are. I think something must have brought us here but the humans think we're whatever these 'myths' are from their world. And the humans definitely don't like them."
Maybe he'd almost died but at least being tossed in with the roomies from hell had netted him some useful info about the place because they'd played fake-nice before trying to eat him.
cw: infected particulars
Something Little Cato said, though...
"'For good or ill, the children of this world have chosen you'," he murmurs to himself, and looks up at the youngster before he lets him go. "They ain't happy, but if you can try to keep anything else from getting in 'em, you should be all right."
"What do either of you remember? Before you got here?"
Re: cw: infected particulars
And he was all for fighting monsters and helping kids, but he'd kind of assumed the world of myth and magic had been his.
"And, of course, then I got drugged and woke up here."
After that, he'd mostly put off working out the exact details of what had happened in favor of trying to punch his way through a wall.
no subject
When he finally lets go, Little Cato doesn't retreat into the shadows again, but he does lean against the wall, arms crossed, careful to not touch his scratches. His gaze casts down to the floor. Tired. Sad.
"I don't want to talk about home."
Home, where his friend Fox's coffin floated out to rest among the Hidden Lights forever after his funeral, and Ash shattered after losing another sibling, becoming lost to Invinctus' influence, probably lost to them forever, and her ripping Mooncake apart, and -
And after they escaped Final Space, the universe ripped open and Invictus loomed.
And then...he wound up in this world. Alone.
"I was with my crew. And...and something bad happened. That we were trying to stop. And then I was suddenly in this world, I guess." His ears flatten. "They weren't with me."
He points up because, well. Moon. "I heard the voice too. Saying something about kids. But I got knocked out right after. The people they shoved in here with me hadn't heard any voice. I asked them."
no subject
Settling down into a proper seat on the floor, he watches Little Cato a moment longer, but decides not to press him for the reason his ears are drooping. It isn't as though he's ready to discuss the finer details of his own life, besides.
"Mine's a similar story as yours. I was minding my own business, then I was on Earth again, under the moon. Then ambushed by these fools, and woke up with this around my neck." The collar gleams faintly in the low light, horrible matching triplet to Hellboy and Little Cato's. Come to think of it, he hasn't had a decent glance at the restraint until now – no mirrors in the cell they'd shoved him in – and he touches it, looking this time to Hellboy.
"You said this place feels a little closer to home. Any chance you know what the gibberish on them means?"
no subject
He'd spent maybe a little too much time relying on Abe to translate things like that, but he was sure enough of his ability to divine that much.
"Nothing actively dangerous. It's just keeping any ability they don't think is natural locked down. In my case, I'm usually a lot stronger than I look."
Which was saying something, because he looked pretty strong to begin with.
no subject
Little Cato is now a lot less uncomfortable now. Without even really thinking about it, he watches McCoy for a second and then sits down against his own wall, in a similar pose. The light mimicry is likely not shocking at all to a cat owner like Hellboy.
There's a strong chance Little Cato's finally gotten normal people as cellmates, coming from a similar otherdimensional situation, at that, and he's used to getting thrown in with totally random people and having to fight against something bad - it's how things worked out with his crew, after all.
That means if this isn't all just a front to earn his trust and try to kill him like the others, he is now possibly in a rebellious cool guy squad and therefore must give off more of an air of grown up cool guy-ness.
(It may not be Team Squad but a squad is still a squad.)
(Please let him have an actual squad now.)
Some species back home had abilities that kind of registered as 'powers' versus just 'Abilities.' Mooncake's death beam sure registered as something you'd call a 'power.' But he sure didn't have any.
"I don't have powers. Normally." A pause. "Do you think that changed? Since Jen said humans in this world could change into what she was?"
Maybe since they were pulled here from possibly different universes, and were something weird and alien, something changed them too. If the humans caught them and put the collars on they clearly feared it.
no subject
It wasn't like humans with powers were unknown back home. Liz and Johann were in the extreme end of things, but minor psychic talents popped up here and there.
no subject
"If I have any powers, that's new to me." Bones leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. There were those with extra-sensory perception back home, sure. Vulcans and their touch-telepathy, and then other species, those who could communicate at a distance, or move objects. Measuring an Espers' abilities were in Starfleet Medical's purview, but humans weren't the usual suspects for being anything out of the ordinary.
His gaze falls onto Hellboy's stone hand, not a scratch left on it by Little Cato's claws.
"Let me see your collar." It's a sudden impulse, followed by movement, as Bones pushes himself to his feet. "Maybe we don't need powers to get out of them."
no subject
Liz was, again, on the extreme end of things.
Then McCoy wants to see the collar and Hellbpy doesn't have any problem with that, walking over to him.
"Whatcha thinkin', Doc?" he whispers. Hopefully if there are mics in here they aren't sensitive enough to pick whispers up. Equally as hopefully, he wishes Cato's ears are because that kid doesn't need any more trust issues.
no subject
He even scoots a little closer to the door, the one ear still primed in that direction.
"I don't know if they have cameras in the cells," he whispers in warning, now that they're messing with the collars.
There's no telling if the guards watched the conflict with his old roomies or just figured out what happened from the aftermath.
"You should pretend you're doing doctor stuff. Like, out loud."
The collars are uncomfortably tight. There is valid reason to check for damage.
no subject
'Pretend'?
He curls his fingers in to Hellboy, the universal lean closer before he can put his hands on the guy's collar, looking and feeling for a latch, a seam, anything in the cool metal that might be a way to remove it..
"I don't care if you are built like a brick shithouse, you still breathe oxygen. Not much of a tank if you choke." The litany of 'Doctor Stuff' continues, almost a stream of consciousness ramble, until he pauses to take a breath, and quietly murmur:
"How tough is that hand of yours?"
no subject
"...they can't have been that-" he whispers, before taking onto account what they'd seen so far. "-oh crap. They're *exactly* that dumb."
His hand wasn't build for fiddly detail work, but he could probably do something about the collars if he was careful. They just needed to make sure Project Prometheus didn't suspect anything.
"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, I can do it, but carving the right symbols'll take time. And we can't let 'em think we're cooperating," he says, still quiet. The kid had the right idea here.
Louder, he growls out, "Everything good? Nothing cutting off my air? Cause I might not wanna to kill ya, Doc, but that doesn't mean I want you in my face."
no subject
So he still has a stone hand and it might be able to scratch at the collars. The collars with writing that does...something. Little Cato doesn't know if they're just code letters in alien writing that have to be hit in a certain order or if it's something weird and mystical but the fact his hand might be able to mess with the symbols and scratch the surface of the collars means they might be able to wreck them at some point.
But they need more than that. They don't even know if the "you might have powers" thing is true and if he and McCoy even have any. Or if they're useful. The humans were able to drop them all before no problem - that's how they got in this cell. They need more time being led around this place to try to scope out security. Exits. They might need things to crack security doors in between themselves and said exits, including the door to their cell. They need to find ways to arm themselves once they try their escape attempt.
But there are three of them now. They're not all fighting alone. That's three times the chances to steal useful things when dragged around the facility to the scientists, three times the chances to scope out their surroundings and get useful intel from other "myths" they come into brief contact with.
His mind is awash with the same kinds of feverish escape plans he practically tortured himself with during those years as Lord Commander's prisoner.
But this time he's not alone.
"We need to keep faking that we don't get along," he whispers with the absolute ghost of a breath. "Or they'll separate us. They thought we'd keep each other busy by fighting."
His eyes dart towards the cell door he so desperately wants to door dash past.
"If we work together we maybe have a chance of getting out of here."
Loudly, he goes into fake anger mode and sneers, "Dude, you're one to talk about faces. Your forehead looks like you had a butt there that got sliced off by laser filament."
He fake glares at the doctor. "And don't think I'm fooled for a second by the super soft act. I don't care if you're a doctor, I know how humans are. Here, they're assholes, back home they're all a bunch of sell-outs and cowards. And assholes."
Except for his dad. Except for Quinn and Nightfall. Except for all the human members of the Resistance, the former Infinity Guards that refused to sell out to the Lord Commander and the Titans. Buuut the human guards don't need to know that.
no subject
Maybe, just maybe this hairbrained idea will work, and then... then, they'll figure out where to go from there.
"Shove it, son, no one's interested in your complainin'. Settle down before you give yourself a hairball."
no subject
"And at least I don't have fleas."