Strikes The Same Place Twice
Subject: Kaplan, William
Date of Birth: 06/28/98
Citizenship: American
Family: Located and contained
Location: New Jersey State Institution for Troubled Youth
Enrollment Date: 06/16/12
Status: Active Mutant
Clearance Level: Alpha
Abilities: Electrical type of powers, can overcharge items around, is practically a walking reactor; intelligent
Weaknesses: William has 'good' morals, believes in heroes, likes helping other people.
Notes: He will be hard to break. Dr. Ambrose requests you use the Shepherd boy to your advantage here. They seem to work better together.
He’s half asleep and completely dead tired the first time he feels it. At first, he just chalks it up to the lack of sleep caused by midnight premieres of a certain comic book inspired movie. At first, it started small, just a tug some where at the edge of his mind, gone as quickly as it had come. He ignored it, considering he was tired and had more important things to do, to avoid. Like Kessler, for instance. The next few times, it hits him like a shovel to the head and he's gripping the edge of his locker, the door frame, a light post, anything. He clenches his teeth from the pain and tells his parents, who send him to the doctors, all who say it's just a mild case of migraines. They package up some pills and send him on his way. The headaches stop and he's fine, for a little while. The hallucinating his favorite superheroine, The Scarlet Witch, that's a thing he should tell his parents, tell someone. He doesn't.
Instead of telling someone, he zaps John Kessler, the bully, who had found another victim. The whole point of not telling was that Billy was keeping it together even with headaches. He only had a few more years of high school, and he would be home free. That's what he told himself. College was supposed to be more inviting and respectful of this sort of thing. At the very least, he'd be far away from the Kesslers of the world. So he ignores the warning signs for what they are: warning him.
Ignoring something does not mean it will go away, no matter how much you wish it. So when he does that ... when he apparently attacks Kessler, he goes home. He passes by his neighbor, Mrs. Carson, who says something about tea for headaches and he nods, pain coursing through his body. He feels like a live wire, electric. He feels like he's gone through a battle with Thor, for all the lightning the Norse god had at his disposal. He doesn't remember much else from that day.
He doesn't remember much of that week, really. He remembers he goes to The Place, that bench in Central Park that haunts his painful dreams, and comes home to a government agency. He comes home to all those agents at his home, with contracts and papers and legal things he doesn't want to think about. Luckily, he parents aren't home, he's safe. For now, no one else knows about this. No one else knows that he's sent a boy to the hospital.
He doesn't want to think about it.
He doesn't want to think about anything else. So for the next five hours, until his parents come home, he stares at his room.
“Is everything okay, Billy?” his mother calls out, knocking as she enters. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” he replies softly. “I just …”
“You can do a mental health day, tomorrow, if you want. We'll call the school. Your father has the day off. You two can talk or something,” she hums. “You know,” she smiles, “the normal things.”
“No, I’m fine,” Billy shrugs, as he pulls himself up from the bed. “I’m going to get ready for bed now, Mom.”
“You look a little peaky,” she says with a tone of finality, as she leaves.
~*~*~*~
They were locked in a room, one for each new 'conquest', where they were allowed to move exactly one inch in each direction. They were made to stay there for almost three months, their food delivered by a robot wearing a platter, who then set the tray in between the slit open in the door. The first few days, Billy refused to cooperate with the staff. He still had hope, still thought that his parents would rescue him. He waited, bearing the scorn of the terrifying staff. For three months, Billy never saw another being. He withdrew into himself, more so than before. He had vivid fantasies where he was free, where his parents came to save him, where he found ... But it wasn't true, he had to tell himself, remind every single hour. He couldn't make that true, it would ruin things. Real is the cage, real is the hurt and pain.
But pain, real pain ... it came next.
"This may not be ordinary, as you are used to a much different lifestyle," the scientist hums, as she cuffs Billy to the sterile, cold, metallic bed. "But do not fret, this too will become your ordinary. I promise you."
The room with the pool beneath the tiles, where they dunked him. It was for research, they said, as they closed it back over his flailing, drowning, arms. It was for research, he tries to remind himself, as he feels his lungs fill with water, as his body fills with some sort of energy, unspent, coiling under his skin, itching to set free.
Electricity, it seems, does not want to work under water.
~*~*~*~
“What are you in here for?” a voice calls out.
Billy tries opening his eyes; one of them is swollen shut. His throat hurts from screaming, from begging for help, mercy, for a lot of things. One of the guards had laughed, he remembers that. Said there wasn’t going to be any help, that he was doomed. Billy can deal with doomed. It implies some sort of future. Implications are things Billy likes, can twist into his own … ideals.
But his ribs hurt and his face hurts and his legs feel like someone ran them over. Scratch that, he feels like his entire body was run over. He should just go back to sleep, try to get some rest, preferably without moving.
“I asked you a question,” a voice calls out, again. It’s a Jersey accent, Billy can tell. “Are you even alive?”
Billy winces preemptively, already poised for the pain he’s going to inflict on himself as he turns to the voice. “Who’s there?” he gasps, pain filling his every senses.
“I asked a question first.”
"I am," he replies, glaring at ... nothing.
"Well, so am I," the voice replies. “Hate to break it to you, but chances are … you’re probably a mutant.”
I wish I was a mutant.
Trust me, Billy, you don’t want that. People would want to hit you more if you were.
“You’re kidding me,” he gasps, as black creeps into the edge of his eyesight.
“Not even a little,” the voice snorts. “This whole place, it’s a fa …”
~*~*~*~
As Billy shivers inside a soft towel, trembling with both fear and the cold seeping into him, he thinks, is this meant to be one of those situations? His eyes meet his so-called savior, the boy. Green eyes glare at him, flickering between Billy's own eyes and the doctors, as he spews insults and threats.
Is he supposed to feel grateful to this boy, who looks half mad?
"You're safe now, William."
Yes, yes it is one of those situations.
They hand him wrist cuffs, ones that hum with energy, someone telling him to channel his feelings, his hurt, his very life into it. It will work, they assure him. You will never be able to hurt anyone else again. We have helped you, they say, and for a few seconds, his mind accepts that. Billy thinks, yes, they will help me. They are helping me. I am grateful to them.
I am grateful for this.
His hands clench and the cuffs turn bright blue.
"Good," one of them says, softly, sweetly. Billy tries not to preen.
He tries not to feel good about this.
~*~*~*~
"Dr. Miller wants to have a session with you," the voice booms out. "You will cooperate fully," it continues.
Billy wonders, once again, how he could even possibly do anything but cooperate.
"You could refuse to stick your hands out to be cuffed," Tommy, the voice in his head, the one posing as one of
the cell mates, as another trapped here, states.
"Why would I do that?" he asks, curiously. "Don't they punish you for that?"
"You're still young, Billy buddy," Tommy snorts. "You have much to learn." The door's hatch opens and Billy sticks his hands out, ready to be cuffed.
He wasn't always like this.
Was he?
~*~*~*~
He is struck immobile, speechless.
That ...
That is Captain America.
Right there.
On the screen, alive.
Or maybe it's a Life Model Decoy.
No.
Yes?
"William, where are you going?" his father demands, yanking him back, away from the door. "It's World War III and you're going OUT?"
Billy shakes his head. "I'm sorry."
Iron Man's repulsors sound, all the way over here, and he thinks, we're in the middle, we're going to die, my god, this is not the way I wanted to go.
This is not the way I thought I'd die.
This is not the way we imagined.
"William, get away from the window!"
"Billy," his mother scolds, yanking him away. "It's god knows what out there. Understand ..."
He nods, glances at the tv. He hadn't even noticed he was walking to the window, to the door, to anything.
The roof, though, that's a thing.
His red sweater flutters behind him, like a cape, the gentle breeze flicking it side to side, like a white flag, like a damn 'come hither' to the aliens. It's better than screaming fresh blood, come and get it. It's better than most things, he thinks. His family is safe, this time. His mom shouts, but she's safe. His twin baby brothers are safe in his father's clutches. They're downstairs, safe.
Safe.
He takes a deep breath.
He can stop this.
He can do it.
Billy Kaplan can do this.
William Kaplan will do this.
William was born to do this, to help the world.
He is the son of great people.
The ring around his neck glows red, red like the powers.
Everyone would be so proud.
He jumps and ...
~*~*~*~
He turns to Tommy, who is already blinking in dark, at Billy, as if expecting it. He should. This is a long time coming.
"I know Kitty said something to you, about Dr. M."
"She doesn't like me."
Billy glares at him. "Tommy, don't lie to me. She told you."
"Why would she tell me anything?"
"Because we're friends and she's the only one I told, so she must have told you."
"She didn't tell me anything," he states, looking away, even if the other boy can't see him. "She complained about the damn holidays she was missing and I told her to shut up."
"Really," he asks, flatly.
"Look, ask her yourself. I don't have anything to do with whatever you think I did."
Billy pauses, peering into the darkness. He's surprised they still let them stay, together, when all they do is talk after lights out. It seems like a security concern. Tommy throws something at the wall. Billy falters, shaken from his thoughts, from his concerns. "Thanks, Tommy, for what it's worth."
"We're on the same side, aren't we?"
"Are we?"
"I'm on their side, not by choice, Billy." Something flickers in Tommy's eyes, an emotion flits across his face for a second, he looks ... guilty. "But if I could choose, it'd be your side."
Billy sighs, too soft for his cell mate to hear. "Good."