The Doctor, The Wraith and Death [Adele/Lilith]

[Ryan D'Alteau]

There's a time for all our innocence when the tears aren't far away.
And a time to build a strong defence when the boy's too old to play.
And we learn the hard way, day by day.
Giving in but always coming back for more.
...and we cry no more.
______________________________Yngwie Malmsteen - "Cry No More"

"That ain't good enough!"

Like many people who had been a part of the battlefield in the nation's capital, Ryan Alcroft had, albeit with slight difficulty, seen first-hand just what chaos and destruction the woman who had only introduced herself as Lilith had wrought. According to her almost megalomaniacal tirade, she had been the one behind quite a lot of the things in the news over the past few months. Single-handedly, she had tried to bring the United States to its knees by enacting a series of plots which drew a startling parallel to the biblical Horsemen. First, she had introduced a mutated strain of cholera - an illness which had been eradicated from the developed world - into the population, hoping that the usual practices of organisations like the CDC and human nature would result in a weakened capacity to respond, both for them and the country at large.

That had been pestilence. The second of her antediluvian plans was the famine which had, up until Christian Moynahan had stuck his nose in, been driving the country closer towards inevitable panic. Personally, Ryan hadn't paid much attention to the court case or any of the other bullshit which the Ark CEO had managed to stir up by divulging the affair to the world's media, but even he hadn't managed to escape it. News, especially of something on a scale such as this, had a way of worming its way into every facet of one's life. War, however, was something of which he was even less aware. Through an intermediary, Lilith had brought the United States military face-to-face with the Jamaican Dominion's forces a few miles shy of the President's front lawn. There hadn't been a special yet who had dared to be so bold. Even Ryan, who had killed the President's predecessor, hadn't been so overt in his somewhat misguided effort.

Which left herself as the fourth Horseman. She and her ability - something which she'd very much proved until the point of her disappearance - had been appointed the mantle of Death. All she'd been missing at the time, except the last couple of sandwiches to make up the full picnic, was the pale horse. Back then, Ryan had assumed her to be dead; she had, after all, pretty much exploded in a colossal eruption of swirling smoke. It had been quite a while later - seven months, to be precise - before Adele had learned something intriguing. Even when she flat-out told him that Lilith was still among the living, Ryan knew that she was keeping something from him. A secret she'd been entrusted, a protective omission? He didn't care. He'd watched her from the sidelines in DC and, from what he'd been able to gather, the "house call" his fiancée was dragging him on was all sorts of inadvisable.

"Didn't y'notice what she did back then?" Ryan may not have known their names or who they were, but he'd witnessed their untimely demises nonetheless. Sparrow Akiyama, the Company agent-slash-action movie star had been torn asunder to such an extent that there'd been nothing left of her by the time Lilith was done. Reggie Sawyer, the President's daughter, had endured... well, Ryan didn't know. He'd seen the whole thing unfold and, even after spending half a decade with Adele, it had given him pause. Lilith had taken to Reggie's skull like a car crusher to a Honda Civic and the end result had been just about as expected; something torn from the annals of horror movies. Somewhere, he assumed, Jason was taking notes.

And now Adele was taking him along to pay her a visit? Was she insane? "I'm not goin' there t'watch her crush your head like a fuckin' grapefruit." It was a little superfluous, really. He was going. His seatbelt was on and Adele's car was in motion. He still had enough sense to stay where he was and enough loyalty to remain by the doctor's side. "So, please. Tell me why we're doing this. Tell me why were actually going to pay this Lilith woman a visit." Already, Ryan had his own theories as to why. Since even before the forming of the Jamaican Dominion, Adele and Dakari had been far closer to one another than he had been to the one-time Las Vegas hotel proprietor. He'd seen her at a couple of parties and, really, that was about it. He hadn't really seen her wearing a set of clothes which were considered normal. It had always been some form of costume.

The building to which Adele had driven him, to his slight surprise, was in Brownsville. A sixteen-story office building, looking just like any other, had sat on the outskirts of the downtown area for over two decades and had been renovated a number of times since its completion. Unlike the buildings which surrounded it, however, the security which patrolled its interior were far more adept-looking than the run-of-the-mill overweight men who had likely failed at being cops to be of use anywhere else. Instead of slightly overweight physiques, the guards were at varying degress of fitness and, instead of the normal nine-millimetre handguns, they were instead carrying MP5s, jet-black submachine guns which hung from their chests within easy reach of their well-trained hands.

They were soldiers. Former or otherwise, each and every one of them looked as though they'd done at least some military service. Even as the receptionist explained to Adele that the two of them were expected, the guards kept a wary eye on the pair of them. To Ryan, soldiers weren't really anything to fear anymore. If anything, they were more of a help to him than a hindrance. With a few errant thoughts and the element of surprise, he could have lain waste to the lobby without lifting a finger. Not as quickly as Adele, perhaps but, in his own way, he was more than capable of wreaking destruction. He simply chose not to.

At the elevator, they were met by one of the militaristic guards. Functional clothing, a flak jacket hidden beneath his shirt and a business-like stern expression on his face. "I'll lead you down, Doctor." Once again, someone made the mistake of ignoring him. Or maybe it was because he didn't have a title. The soldier produced a key from his pocket and, as he led them aboard, the key was driven into a small slot beneath the rank of buttons on the wall. To the civilians, the elevators were only capable of ascending the building as they expected but, for the three of them, the soldier's key granted them access to a hidden selection of smaller buttons, each of which leading to a basement level. The one they were after was number eight.

And, somewhere on that level, Lilith was apparently waiting for them. Hopefully languishing in a cell where she couldn't bring her abilities to bear, but that was mostly wishful thinking at this point.

[Adele D'Alteau]

Don't be shy, this little pain
Is just the price you have to pay
Its oh so small, for what you gain
These are the final words I say

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

Brownsville, Texas
Hotel El Jardin

Amidst Ryan's completely justified complaints, she did have her reasons for wishing to go visit the woman who'd attempted to bring the American union to its knees. It had been quite some time since she and Ryan had taken a “vacation” to mete out their own particular vision of justice.

"Didn't y'notice what she did back then?" Even though they were en route to their meeting with Lilith, he was still pleading with her to turn the car around and return to their condo across the causeway. "I'm not goin' there t'watch her crush your head like a fuckin' grapefruit."

“It makes me so wonderful to know that you have so much faith in my own ability to protect myself.” She stepped on the Zonda's brakes—perhaps a little too hard—and parked the Italian supercar in front of the façade of the recently renovated Hotel El Jardin. In its heyday, the hotel had played host to some of the world's most influential individuals including Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and Howard Hughes. It had since fallen into disrepair until a West Texas entrepreneur had bought the hotel and began extensive renovations.

Unknown to those above ground, however, the hotel housed an extensive underground network where foreign dignitaries and US government officials could find sanctuary if the country ever fell under attack. The underground bunkers were nearly impenetrable, and there were rumours that given the facility's close proximity to the water, that it could essentially become the world's largest submarine the size of a small island with the capability of supporting a population of roughly one thousand souls. Virtually indestructible and built within lead alloyed walls, a radioactive blast would have had little to no effect on its exterior.

"So, please. Tell me why we're doing this. Tell me why were actually going to pay this Lilith woman a visit."

She exited the car and tossed the keys to a young valet whose eyes widened as if she'd handed him the keys to Stiletto's Cabaret. “I know precisely how many miles I have on this car. There are plenty of vacant spots in the lot. If I find that it's been driven more than six tenths of a mile . . . ” She let the threat hang in the air between them. Somewhat disheartened, the valet entered the vehicle and started it up. Normally he would have taken it for a little joyride, but he reckoned that pushing his luck with this woman would have led to a very bad outcome.

Most of the building with the exception of the topmost floors, had been turned into office space, housing several gem dealers and elite onshore banks with whom the top 1% of the country could launder their money without fear of being caught. As they approached the steel-doored elevators, they were greeted by a guard who escorted them into the contraption. "I'll lead you down, Doctor."

“I suppose I'm to leave my husband to his own devices in the lobby then, yes?” She gestured to Ryan, standing steadfast at her side. “I'd advise against ignoring Ryan again . . . ” Adele read the small embroidered swatch on the front of his shirt, “Major Hart. It's disrespectful, and disrespect is not something we tolerate.”

Once they reached level eight, the sights which greeted them on the other side of the doors looked like something out of a science fiction movie. The interior was composed of what appeared to be steel and glass. Through the windows of the rooms, they could see everything from a small breakroom to full-scale laboratories with state of the art equipment, not yet available for public use. But she wasn't interested in any of that . Their prize lay behind several sets of doors at the far end of the level. A different guard met them at each point of entry, each guard looking more ominous than the last. The level of security increased as they passed from hallway to hallway until they reached a dead end.

The walls in this room were a uniform silver colour with no identifying characteristics, aside from a small, finger-print sized divot impressed about a half-inch into the material on the section of the wall to her left. She placed her index finger against it and flinched slightly as a needle penetrated her skin, and extracted a drop of her blood for DNA analysis. The identification process took less than a second, and the wall lost its metallic lustre, morphing into what looked like a clear gel. Stepping through the filmy substance felt like walking through a warm waterfall, and she emerged on the other side completely dry. Ryan followed through roughly a half minute later.

Ryan had kept several secrets from her over the past year, including his fetish for becoming a woman named Calla, and that he'd been working for Maurelle Lacroix, doing the gods only knew what. Her secrets were slightly more clandestine in nature. Given her unique ability to bring someone to the brink of death whilst still keeping them alive and conscious, she'd become quite an expert in coaxing out confessions from even the most brainwashed of individuals. Her skills had proven to be quite useful in breaking individuals from the mindblocks of the MK Ultra program. Pain was an incredibly powerful teacher when used in an appropriate manner.

Her medical supplies and surgical implements were housed in a room full of industrial-sized lockers, controlled by a complex series of locking mechanisms which made the lock on the front door of their apartment look like a simple luggage lock by comparison. Placing her hand against the locker door's non-descript silver exterior, she called her ability forward. Tiny black capillaries and veins fanned out across the surface and she could feel the mechanisms within responding to her touch. She removed her hand a moment later, and the network of veins vanished as the door opened with a hydraulic hiss.

The locker was large enough to house every type of torture-turned-medical instrument ever created. She pulled two large kits off one of the shelves and pulled a crisp, starched white lab coat from a hanger, slipped it on over her arms, and buttoned it down.

She picked up the kits and exited the locker, allowing the door to quietly close behind her.

The unit which housed Lilith was located across from a set of surgical suites which had bore witness to several scenes of horror, including vivisection and the skinning of at least a half-dozen individuals, four of whom were still alive and recovering elsewhere in the building.

There were a pair of guards stationed outside each of the doors, and she approached the set guarding Lilith's cell. “I'm here to speak with Lilith. Ryan will accompany me.”

One of the guards moved aside, revealing a keypad next to the door. She was slightly taller than Ryan and just as muscled underneath her clothes. Her companion was slightly shorter, though Adele still looked like a dwarf next to him as he towered over her by at least a foot. The female guard typed in a sixteen-digit code and the door unlocked. “Would you like us to leave the door open?”

“That won't be necessary. But I will need you to escort her to suite 824-A.” She let the guards enter the room before her and stood in the doorway, easily hidden by the bulk of their bodies. “Ryan and I can handle the rest.”

[/font][/div]

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1365
۵ Mood: I DON'T WANT TO GO TO WORK.
† Outfit: Contagion!Adele, except her hair is longer.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Close Your Eyes, L'Ame Immortelle
† Illustrations: Included in post.
۵ Comment / Informational links: 24 Aug. is Adele's birthday. Hence 824. lol

[Lilith]

Fall on your knees
'cause this time I won't be so kind
Can't you see that this is life and life
is killing me?
-Evans Blue, "Over"

Visitors? Well. For one thing, only a handful of people knew she was alive, and most of those were confined to cells across the country much as she was. For another, none of those people would want to “visit” her. The closest anyone came to seeing her was her randomly scheduled transport to a new facility. Someone wanted to keep her hidden, then.

She had been isolated for… if she counted correctly, roughly eight months now. Her hosts had always kept her comfortable, well fed, and inhibited. She had not had access to her abilities since the night of her attack on Washington. No - that was not true… she was granted access to them when they ran their experiments… but that was only for short periods of time and she seldom had full control over them. It was exasperating, really.

Another problem: She had been wearing nothing but jumpsuits or bodysuits for the entirety of her imprisonment. Normally, fashion did not bother her. But the drab greys of her jumpsuit irritated her. besides, they were not comfortable at all. They must have been made of some sort of light wool or some really itchy polyester. Plain cotton would have been just fine, thank you very much.

She would have her revenge, of course. The moment she found a good break, she would take it and kill everyone who had so much as blinked at her since that stupid day. Then she would kill everyone else. Well, she would leave enough to build a queendom on. Mostly idiots who would never think to question her authority, or who would be afraid to do so. She had already begun to think of places that would suit her needs for this queendom of hers. New Zealand, perhaps. Large enough, and beautiful. The weather was wicked, though. Iceland? Also beautiful, but quite cold. She was not certain she wanted to handle that. Then again, she could probably could use her abilities to make the climate suit her a bit better. Hmm.

As she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, Lilith stood and ran a hand through her short black hair. What if it was him? She doubted it, on second thought; he never made a sound when he approached. Someone else, then. She leaned casually against one side of her cell and watched as two burly guards made their way toward her. “Well, then, Left and Right,” she drawled, reaching for all the confidence she’d had at Washington. “What treats have you brought for me today?”

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Whatever happened to "beautiful"?
Where is our story? Where's our love story?
So now we're sellin' our dreams.
Oh, yeah! We're selling our dreams to you all!
______________________________Marion Cotillard & Franz Ferdinand
___________________________________"The Eyes Of Mars"

"Well, then, Left and Right..." The voice which tore through the air was one Ryan hadn't heard in months. Even now, when Lilith was imprisoned and (hopefully) powerless, she sounded just the same as she had when rampaging through the nation's capital, albeit slightly weary from her time behind bars. For the moment, he and Adele were hidden from view, shrouded behind the collective bulk of the two guards who had accompanied them here. The woman who keyed in the lengthy code keeping the door to Lilith's cell sealed, somewhat surprisingly, was taller than he was. It was a little unnerving, to say the least. There weren't many people in his life who one-upped him in height. His brother was the main one. "What treats have you brought for me today..?"

"You are the treat," the male guard fired back. He'd never liked any of the prisoners under his care, Lilith least of all. It wasn't the fact that she possessed the ability to kill just about anything in the blink of an eye which gave rise to his disdain, however. It was more that she had chosen to use her gift to become an almost clichéd supervillain. All she was missing was the secret hidden lair and a legion of henchmen. Knowing his luck, she probably already had O Fortuna playing in her head on an incessant loop, just to make everything more predictable. Standing to one side, he left just enough space between him and his colleague for Lilith to walk by. "Get moving. Looks like you're getting a playdate today."

Ryan looked almost broody as the procession - now with one extra member - eventually strode by. As much as Adele made a point of informing people that it was bad manners to ignore him, he had fostered something of a preference for remaining in the background. If he kept up appearances and did his best to convince people that he was passive, insignificant and, if he was lucky, devoid of any special abilities at all, then his emergence as anything but would have earned him even more of an element of surprise. Surprise helped. Surprise was what allowed him to wrestle away control of people's minds. The more of it he had in his hand, the better. He had all but tuned out the exchange between Lilith and the guards and, even as the last of the quartet strolled by, it was a couple of seconds before he pushed himself up off the wall and joined them.

He already knew where he was going - suite 824-A - and, in order to get there, all he had to do was follow whoever was ahead of him at his current languid - though still sufficient, given the length of his average stride - pace until the person at the front slowed to a halt. With the configuration of the single-file line being what it was, Ryan's fiancée was completely invisible, a five-foot-nothing doctor hidden between two guards and a homicidal sociopath. Even so, Ryan had had more than enough opportunity to look into her eyes and see the expression imprinted on her face. She might not have explicitly answered his inquiries as to why she'd brought him here, but he knew that look anywhere.

It had been a look which he hadn't seen for a while and had once flickered over her features when she'd clapped eyes on the partner of a Company agent who had, once upon a time, had it in for Ryan. Don Munroe. The... second life Ryan had taken, and the first which had been snuffed out completely willingly. Don's partner, Silvia Moore had been unfortunate enough to run into the couple as they were leaving one of the Company's many holdings at the time. Ryan had just spent the past two days enduring an attempt by Pacy McNeil to turn him into a double agent and, from their separation, Adele had bred a new notch on her vengeful streak. Having met Don and Silvia herself, she knew precisely who the woman was and, as a parting gift, had acid-boiled her internal organs before sauntering off on her way.

At the very least, Adele was intent on bringing harm upon Lilith for her crimes and, while a few years ago, Ryan would have been inclined to stop his fiancée from killing on account of being more morally sound, it was a nuisance which, these days, was far more seldom seen. The world was already in a state of technical overpopulation, its cities filled to the proverbial rafters with seven billion plus and, as statistics convincingly showed, a good chunk of them weren't worthy to be around. As the man who had killed the previous President of the United States, there were certainly some people around who would have thrust such a distinction upon him but, to Ryan, their opinions didn't matter. If the world reached the end of the day devoid of an entity such as Lilith, then it would surely be better off for it.

The guards, keeping a watchful eye on Lilith as they went, led Ryan and Adele back towards the elevator. As they were with the very existence of the sublevels, the residents were equally unaware of the level of control the group housed within those sublevels exerted over the rest of the building. Numerous rooms and even whole floors had been cordoned off for their own uses, the eighth floor being no exception. Under the cover story of being rendered off-limits due to extensive renovations following a fire - a fire which they themselves had started in order to make the masquerade more believable - the apartments had been converted into various additional facilities. The elevators used by the residents had had their 'eighth floor' buttons removed, while the service elevator - which the quintet were about to use - remained the only way anyone could access it. It eliminated the need for the people sequestered below to pose as builders or service personnel in order to avoid looking suspicious.

Suite 824-A was, in essence, a torture chamber. Officially, they referred to it as an interrogation room; a way to evade such pesky nuisances as the Geneva Convention, but its purpose was abundantly clear. Abundantly clear, that was, to just about everyone bar Ryan. Ryan had never seen this place. Just as he had his secrets, so too, it seemed, did Adele. "How good's th'view from this one, then..?" It was probably a slightly inane question for him to ask but, having stayed out of the conversation for the whole trip up to the suite, Ryan was at a loss for anything relevant or fitting to say.

[Adele D'Alteau]

I come and stand at every door 
But no one hears my silent dread 
I knock and yet remain unseen 
For I am dead, for I am dead

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

“Well, then, Left and Right,” she heard Lilith inquire from inside the room, “What treats have you brought for me today?”

Adele chuckled. 'Treats,' indeed.

"You are the treat."

Well, now that that was settled she waited for the guards to move aside, revealing her diminutive form. She looked far different than she had in Washington D.C., covered in bloody armour, commanding what looked like an endless sea of blood in her wake. “I really wish you'd show a little more respect for our patients, regardless of how egregious their actions may have been in the past.” Adele felt completely indifferent toward Lilith. Aside from their brief run-in, she really knew very little about the shackled woman they had in tow.

They boarded the elevator without issue. Adele swiped her keycard through the card reader next to the number panel, then pressed the number 8. She had access to all the levels of the facility, and each level increased in security and the level of secrecy. As they exited the elevator into a brightly lit corridor, they passed a number of other doctors and orderlies going about their daily business, walking from room to room checking vital signs and giving out medication where necessary.

"How good's th'view from this one, then..?"

She glanced over her shoulder at Ryan who, until he spoke up, she'd nearly forgotten was with them. He'd wanted to come with her for this particular trip to protect her and make sure that nothing happened. “The rooms here are quite nice, even though we're currently several hundred feet underground. The walls are composed of a complex array of plasma screens which the patient can control at will.” If they wanted to pretend that they were in the middle of a vast, dark forest, a few simple keystrokes could make it happen.

As far as she knew, all of the patients currently housed in the lower levels of the facility had been injected with some sort of radio isotope to inhibit their abilities. The effects wore off with time, and needed to be administered roughly once every two weeks. Lilith had received her latest dose within the past three days, so Adele considered herself relatively safe. Even if Lilith had had full control over her abilities, that didn't worry her much. She could quite literally make each cell of Lilith's 37 trillion cells burst simultaneously, and turn her into a puddle of human stew on the foor.

But she wasn't in that sympathetic of a mood at the moment.

Once they reached the room, she stood in front of the retinal scanner and allowed it to do its work, scanning the unique shape of her retina with a series of lasers. When its calculations were complete and the system 'recognised' her, the door unlocked and allowed them entry.

The lights flickered to life, sensing the motion in the room as both the guards, Lilith, and Ryan followed behind her. She walked to a computer in the corner of the room and swiped her index finger over the fingerprint reader attached to the computer tower, then waited for the system to finish its boot sequence.

The room looked like any other non-descript surgical suite with an examination table and an operating table set side by side in the centre of the room. All of the surfaces in the room were cold, emotionless stainless steel. It made cleaning and sterilising the area much more efficient. The room gave no hint to the atrocitities that had been committed inside it previously, though it had a distinct air of death and decay. Those particular scents were scents that individuals in her profession couldn't escape; they seeped into the walls and the floor and the fibres of her clothes, and no amount of bleach or cleaning products ever truly got rid of it.

“You can leave now,” she addressed the two guards .

“We'll be right outside the door if . . . ” If what? If something happened? If Lilith had a psychotic break and decided to kill everyone in the facility? “If you need us, just holler.” With that, she and her partner exited the room and stood outside the door like giant sentinels, guns crossed over their chests.

Adele made a few adjustments to the room's general ambiance, accessing a program which piped in one of her favourite pieces of music from a series of hidden speakers placed around the room. The plasma screen walls filled with a panoramic real-time view of a forest somewhere in the northern hemisphere. With the atmosphere set up to her liking, she picked up the duffel bag that she'd retrieved from her locker at the beginning of their journey and set it down on the counter next to the one sink in the room. She unzipped the bag and pulled from it two pairs of forearm length blue neoprene gloves. Rolling up her sleeves, she pressed the bar located just under the lip of the sink with her knee, turning on a continuous stream of water. She passed her hand underneath the automatic soap dispenser and began the minutes long process of prepping herself. When her hands and arms were finally dry, she shook the sleeves of her coat back down and pulled the gloves on, wrapping the thick, flexible material over the cotton of her labcoat. She gestured for Ryan to do the same while she pulled what looked like a fishing bait and tackle box out of the duffel bag.

The box was filled with a number of folding shelves which housed an array of blades and forceps. The deep belly of the box was home to a rather primitive, manual bone saw, and a large set of pliers most commonly used to crack open the bones of the thorax. She extracted three different scalpels and a pair of dissecting forceps from the collection and placed them on the sterile tray.

“It really is a shame that you had to allow your ego to get the best of you. Look at where it's gotten you. I would suggest at least attempting to adopt some humility before you attempt another violent thrashing of the world's strongest nation.” Infiltrating organisations and ruining them from the inside always appeared to yield more fruit than running full force into a thick steel wall and expecting it to fold under the pressure.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1172
۵ Mood: I think bed!BG is bed now.
† Outfit: Same as previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: I Come and Stand at Every Door, This Mortal Coil
† Illustrations: Included in post.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Included in post.

[Lilith]

Pray to the pessimist
They told you not forever
they told you not today
Save me
’til it’s all you can take
You promised me Broadway
but you sold me cabaret
Spit it out!
-Parabelle, “Pray”

Huh. Wasn’t that guard feisty? Lilith gave him a sweet smile, and felt a tiny sliver of her power sliver down her right arm. She snapped the fingers of that hand, and a taste of decay filled the guard’s mouth as his tongue temporarily disintegrated. Lilith smiled. The power went away then, but it had been enough for Lilith to get her point across and give Lilith some enjoyment. She passed between the two guards, admitting to herself that she was curious as to what this “playdate” was.

Soon she picked out a tall young man, very tall, dwarfed only by the freakishly tall female guard. Lilith figured he must have had a terrible time of it in school. It must be an odd thing, being able to see over everyone’s heads, in essence. Lilith herself could be called “tall,” but not compared to this guard and this man. She was not taller than her new friend the male guard but certainly was over the little woman who was next to the tall young man.

The little woman could barely be seen amidst those people around her, but Lilith saw her. She sensed her. Even without access to her abilities, Lilith could sense death, and it was rolling off this woman in waves, emanating from her like a flare. The young man was not devoid of that sense of death, either; she could practically see mass murder on his hands. She smirked as the guards led her in silence through a number of security doors and protocols. Each one made her roll her eyes. It was necessary, of course. To keep madwomen like her from escaping. That was how the world saw her, wasn’t it?

She preferred to think of herself as a visionary. The psychiatrists she had seen seemed to differ. Ah, well. A shame, that. If she’d had the power, she would have killed them all simply because they had annoyed her. She was devoid of that ability, however, and while the officials of this particular prison liked to say it was because of some injection or something, they were most unfortunately deluded. Perhaps the other holdees were, but Lilith knew she was special.

Lilith’s abilities were being controlled remotely. She knew that much, but how it had come to be that way, she did not remember. Well, she did remember, enough to hazard a guess at how and why it was being done. She was nothing but a lab rat, and she knew it. It only fueled her anger. Once she found a way to get out of this, she would kill everyone….

She had a few fantasies of what her world would be like. She would be revered, worshipped. Whether that would be borne of true love or fear, she did not care. She did know that she was no criminal. If she found it suitable to rid the world of most of its idiots, did that make her wrong? They should have let her do her work, should have thanked her for it. Now there were seven billion and more beings on the Earth just milling about. Wasteful.

She had been surprised, however, when the little woman defended her… in a manner of speaking. The woman’s tone said that she really did not care one way or the other, just that there was a modicum of respect that should be afforded the prisoners. Well, there was that, at least. Her “playmate” was polite.

Soon they reached their destination, with much unnecessary flourish in the form of safety protocols. Lilith sighed as they finally entered the room. The guards let them be. She heard the music begin to filter in. “Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto,” Lilith remarked, with some bit of appreciation slipping into her usually snide tone. “An excellent piece. Good choice.”

The scenes around them turned to a forest. “This is quite relaxing,” Lilith commented, making herself comfortable on a steel table. “You look somewhat familiar, but I don’t believe I’ve learned your names. I’m Lilith, of course.”

She watched as the little woman and the tall men washed their hands and pulled on gloves. A glance around them showed shiny and sharp instruments. “Well. Now, whatever could those be for….” She trailed off as the woman turned to look at her.

“Oh, did you disapprove? I rather enjoyed my little plot. There were a few obstacles I did not expect, is all. Besides, I seem to recall you and your boy toy over there running from me even before I killed the sweet little Asian girl. Are you trying to make up for it now? It’s too late to compensate, I’m afraid… and humility is so overrated.” She gave them a smile - one with teeth, with lips upturned, much like that of a shark. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll have my turn again sooner than you think.”

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Don't even bother with ya boastin'.
Just take care, 'cause this here rat race ain't fair!
Even the saints, them are fallin'!
So beware! You'll find no winners in there!
______________________________Skindred - "RatRace"

"Rachmaninoff's Second Concerto... an excellent piece. Good choice."

Even with Adele residing under the same roof, Ryan's overall grasp of the classical repertoire was far from stellar. Like many who were unversed in the storied genre, his knowledge was limited to those songs which cropped up over and over again in movies and television as well as watching Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra on DVD. Conversely, however, Adele was next to clueless about the torrent of metal music which often emanated from Ryan's car; something she'd dubbed a "discordant racket" on more than one occasion. The couple had long since agreed to disagree about their respective musical tastes and had been happily tolerating the wildly differing structures of sound for years.

Upon closer inspection, Ryan realised that instead of a run-of-the-mill set of windowless walls, the torture chamber's inner surface were in fact lined with colossal screens; displays which the prisoner or those that accompanied them could alter at will. Even before his surroundings changed to that of a dense forest, he was able to tell that the walls he saw weren't real. Because of the pixels and the fact he'd (not) seen numerous wall-sized plasma displays in his time. To stop the screens getting dirty, they were sheathed in a layer of clear Plexiglas which kept the expensive equipment from harm. Just as Ryan had made no comment on the music permeating his ears, he elected to remain silent when Lilith asked for their names. The last thing he wanted to give her was a method by which someone as powerful as her could find out where he lived.

"I rather enjoyed my little plot," Lilith remarked as she and Adele made with the polite conversation. As ever, he remained the passive colossus, looming over both women and subtly poised to act if danger befell the one he actually cared about. Right now, however, he was more interested in the technology crafting the image of the unspoiled natural landscape around him. Just how much did it cost to hook up and run over a dozen flat screens which were nearly twice his size? "Besides, I seem to recall you and your boy toy over there running from me even before I killed the sweet little Asian girl. Are you trying to make up for it now? It's too late to compensate, I'm afraid... and humility is so overrated."

"'S amazin'," Ryan sighed, his head barely angling to regard anyone. "Didn't think you an' I would actually agree on something." Was there really any point to being humble? When humility was an emotional state which people faked far more than sincerely feeling, the concept as a whole, to him, had quickly lost its relevance. With the crimes that specials had committed - including him - Ryan didn't see the use in wasting effort trying to play nice in a world which, where he was concerned, flat-out refused to. He may have come off as a little pretentious as a result but, even at the genetic level, he was better than most people. Better than 99.93% of people, if that textbook on evolutionary genetics from a few years back was to be believed.

"Don't worry, though. I'll have my turn again sooner than you think." Her last remark, however, certainly proved the point. Even in captivity and with her abilities only unleashed at the behest of scientists, Lilith was still smiling like the archetypal supervillain; one who knew she would eventually break free of the confinement imposed upon her and get right back to wreaking her unique brand of havoc. "Maybe." Finally, Ryan turned himself around. Adele was still busy setting up her scalpels and forceps - probably giving them deceptively cute French names in her head as she went - but Ryan was different. If he was going to be a part of this torturing business as he believed the guards expected him to be, then he would need tools of his own.

Or, in actual fact, just one. "But that's later. And only if you're lucky." Right now, it was their turn and, in Ryan's opinion, his fiancée's method of exacting vengeance right now was flawed. While the facility would obviously have measures in place to allow Lilith to recover, he was uniquely gifted - or so he hoped - to deliver the best of both worlds. If he could wrestle control of a person's mind with little more than a few errant thoughts and a bit of concentration, then how else could he trick a person's mind? Here and now, he could actually go some way towards finding out.

Snatching a wide stool from one side of the room, he set it against the wall before perching himself upon it, his gaze firmly fixed on Lilith. His eyes were already swimming in that thick oily dark blue that preceded the detaching of his consciousness from its physical vessel and, with the solid wall behind him, Ryan hoped that he wouldn't simply topple over and crack his head on a medicine cabinet the moment his waking thoughts waned. His intent wasn't to hijack Lilith's mind and walk her hapless body out of the nearest nth-story window. This wasn't the time for brute force. Brute force was something she'd notice. Instead, he tried drifting into her thoughts like a subtle contagion. She wouldn't notice at first. And it would be far too late when she did.

His first port of call was to put a stop to her eventual thrashing. Over the years, he'd learned to visualise the near innumerable machinations of the human brain in an abstract manner; streams of energy which varied according to importance and purpose. It was as if he was gazing at a code to which only he had the key. There really was no explaining what he saw - or felt - whenever he possessed an individual. All he had to do in order to force someone into performing an action - or prohibiting them from doing so - was grasp at the right streams and reconfigure or block them as he wished. Once he really got going, Lilith would want to move. Moving would have resulted in a risk to Adele and such things simply would not do.

After locking down her arms and legs, he could finally set to work crafting his masterpiece of the day. In a manner of speaking, the skin was the largest organ of the human body and, like everything else, it was capable of translating signals into pain. Sometimes, the pain would be justified, such as when the skin was scraped, cut or burned. However, vast quantities of evidence existed which showed that the brain could be tricked. Tricked into firing baseless signals that provoked responses that, to the person, would be no less real. Hallucinations, they called them. And Ryan, with his rather specific mastery, was able to do so much with them. Such as, for instance, convincing Lilith's skin that it had suddenly been doused in petrol and set alight.

Of course, that wasn't to say that Ryan could simply do as he wished with reckless abandon. Not at all. Because he was now a passenger inside Lilith's head, he was constantly running the risk of suffering from the same degree of shock into which his antics could have easily plunged her. He could do a lot. But he couldn't go too far. This was simply his contribution, a constituent part of a more complete whole and, after a little over a minute, everything ceased. Ryan withdrew from Lilith's mind and, as quickly as he'd gained control of her, he had thrown the reins back to the appropriately named villainess and was awakening back in his own body across the room. "And, unlike you, we don't have to start a war to show people we're not t'be fucked with."

[Adele D'Alteau]

Dark thoughts of the sleepless—hung out to dry.
Slip through the bedclothes - unblinking eye.
Long tongue flickering - fixed stare grip.
Sweet venomous potion, held to my lip.
Be my slippery slider.
Black Mamba crawl over me.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

“Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. An excellent piece. Good choice.”

“It's one of my favourites. My parents used to play it for me on an old record player when I was having trouble sleeping as a child.” There was an unmarked orange 55 gallon plastic storage container in one corner of the room. The large box was secured by a latch on each side, ensuring that it remained shut. She picked it up and carefully placed it on the floor next to the examination table.

“You look somewhat familiar, but I don’t believe I’ve learned your names. I’m Lilith, of course.” She hadn't learned their names since the two of them had left the battle before the tides had turned. What Lilith didn't realise was that she had made a grave mistake; in threatening the Johessmans as well as Ryan with imminent death, she'd earned a rather negative reputation in the doctor's mind. “Oh, did you disapprove? I rather enjoyed my little plot. There were a few obstacles I did not expect, is all. Besides, I seem to recall you and your boy toy over there running from me even before I killed the sweet little Asian girl. Are you trying to make up for it now? It’s too late to compensate, I’m afraid… and humility is so overrated.”

With her back to Lilith, she rolled her eyes and knelt down to pull apart the latches on the box one by one. If either of them were paying attention, they would have noticed the caution with which she was handling removal of the lid. She knew what the box contained. It was something she'd wanted to try for a very long time. Following the war in D.C., she'd started to push her ability to its limits. Toxins were carried through the blood to various organs which filtered them out. She subjected herself to septicemia and had successfully expelled the bacteria from her bloodstream. Using a handful of the connections she had within the medical underground, she'd also been able to procure various types of snake venom, which she'd injected into her veins. Through the use of her ability, she was able to separate the molecules of the venom from her cells and secreted the venom through her skin in the form of sweat.

She had not, however, had much of a chance to test out her theory on others.

“Don’t worry, though. I’ll have my turn again sooner than you think.” Over-confidence in the form of sheer arrogance was something that Adele had never been one to tolerate.

Sensing movement inside the container, she lost her vision as her ability took over, and enabled her to 'see' inside the box. While she couldn't see in the traditional sense while using her ability, it enabled her to see all of a body's internal structures and systems. She could see the outline of bones, and tendrils of nerves and veins undulating as the box's inhabitant uncoiled, disturbed by the unlatching of the lid. “I'd like to introduce you to Belle Ténèbres, a prime example of how venom has evolved over millions of years. How familiar are you with venomous snakes? Given your proclivity toward destruction and death, I imagine you're well-acquainted.”

Prior to removing the large orange lid, she grasped hold of the serpent's nervous system and forced it into a state of submission, as it was no doubt aggravated by its mode of transport. Once convinced that the snake was calm enough, she removed the lid and grabbed the mamba firmly behind its head. On instinct, the nearly eight foot long steel gray snake wrapped the length of its body around her arm and her waist. She pressed her thumb and index finger into the hinge joint at the back of its jaw, forcing its mouth open and exposing its namesake. “Dendroaspis polylepsis, more commonly known as the black mamba, can deliver up to 400 milligrammes of venom in one bite.” Keeping her grip on the snake, which was growing more and more agitated, she soothingly stroked its scales and kissed the top of its coffin-shaped head. “Its venom is a dendrotoxin which affects the body's ability to contract its muscles, eventually leading to cardiac arrhythmia and respiratory arrest, usually within fifteen to thirty minutes if anti-venin is not administered.”

She walked around the examination table, holding the large snake away from Lilith's skin. The reptile was still well under her control and unfurled its coils from around her arm once she'd managed to quell its agitation. Black mambas were known for being aggressive if provoked, and did what they could to avoid mingling about with humans. With the large snake now somewhat relaxed once it realised it was in no immediate danger, Adele unravelled the serpent's body and draped it around her shoulders and the back of her neck. “Other immediate symptoms include limb paralysis, vertigo, glossopharyngeal paralysis, and acute epistaxis. Once bitten, if access to anti-venin is not possible, envenomation from a black mamba is 100% fatal.”

That wasn't necessarily true. She'd read of one case study where a snake handler had been bitten and had survived by receiving supportive care and respiratory intubation whilst being in a medical coma for roughly a week as the venom worked its way out of his system.

While she'd been giving her lecture on the effects of the snake's venom, Ryan had pulled a padded stool to sit on across the room, and focused his gaze on Lilith. She kept her distance from him as the blue substance bled from the whites of his eyes, covering them in a dark, almost indigo coloured film. Adele assumed that Ryan was about to acquaint Lilith with his unique ability. Via astral projection, he was able to insert himself into the mind of another person and control them either for as long as he deemed necessary, or until he passed out from exhaustion.

Roughly a minute passed before he regained consciousness and spoke again. Lilith hadn't moved from her spot on the examination table, but from her neural patterns alone, Adele could see that her mind was ablaze with pain.

"And, unlike you, we don't have to start a war to show people we're not t'be fucked with."

Just as Lilith was emerging from the sudden shock of agony no doubt caused by Ryan dabbling with a few choice neural connections, she pressed the snake's fangs to the inside portion of Lilith's elbow, on top of the radial artery. Its fangs pierced through her skin and penetrated the major blood vessel where it proceeded to inject its toxic payload. Two drops of the toxic substance was capable of killing an adult human. A 'full' bite was capable of killing a full-grown elephant in the span of a day. The severity of the bite was influenced by a number of factors, including how long it had been since its most recent attack. This particular snake had been isolated for several weeks.

With both of its venom glands now emptied, she withdrew the mamba's fangs from Lilith's arm and calmly stowed and locked the creature back into its protective container. “I suppose I should have mentioned earlier that there are no phials of black mamba anti-venin available in the state of Texas right now.” She glanced up at the digital clock in one corner of the room. “By my watch, you have about twenty minutes to live.”

She sincerely doubted that Lilith had even so much as set foot on the path which led to Death's door, let alone have been welcomed in by the spectre as a friend. “Seeing as how I'm quite literally the only person within several thousand miles who can save your life, I suggest you listen clearly while you still have control of your mental faculties.” Her ability allowed her to see the effects of the venom in real time as it coursed through Lilith's veins and neared her heart. “You can have your petty war all you want. But should you ever even come close to harming either of us or our families,” she gestured to Ryan, “—including friends—what your body is experiencing right now will not compare to the absolute torment and suffering I will visit upon you before walking you straight to the Gates of Hades. You may think you know Death, but you do not know me.”

Adele paused, staring back at Lilith with unfathomable eyes, completely devoid of emotion like the eyes of the snake she'd been holding. Ryan had told her on numerous occasions that he found her void-like visage unnerving, even when she meant no harm. She could only imagine the thoughts which must have been roaming through the other woman's mind as the venom took hold. “Dites-moi que vous comprenez, et je vais vous laisser vivre.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1581
۵ Mood: Shaky.
† Outfit: Doctor's coat, etc.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Black Mamba, Jethro Tull. lol
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Here
Here
Here

[Lilith]

With a yawn, Lilith watched her two guests as they moved about the room. She was swaying and moving her hands in time with the concerto, her eyes closed, letting her memory of the piece guide her. Whatever these two were doing, Lilith doubted they could have any effect on her.

She was Death, after all. The words they spoke to the contrary filtered in and out of her ears as her mind concentrated on the music. She knew the piece to be roughly ten minutes long, depending on who was conducting it at what tempo. She hoped she would not be trapped in this room for… seven more minutes, she estimated, left in the concerto. She had already grown bored.

Then, suddenly, she caught on fire. There had been no dousing of gasoline, no sound of a match being struck, but she was certain she felt her skin burning and blistering. “Auuuugh!” she shouted, doing the only thing she could think to do, reflexively, batting her hands against her arms. That was when she realized there was no fire. She opened her eyes; indeed, there were no flames anywhere on her body. She looked over to the man, who seemed to be in a trance. Was he doing this? Certainly the woman was not; she was otherwise occupied. “Son of a bitch!” she screamed once the pain finally began to subside. “You’ll pay for that!”

She lunged at the man - but froze mid-lunge as she caught view of the woman in the corner of her eye. The woman was coming toward her, with a snake wrapped around her. Automatically, she began to back away, tripping over the steel table she had been seated on, then regaining her balance and pressing her palms into it. With almost no effort, she jumped up onto the table, seated on it again, but then began to slide backward, inching her way away from the crazy woman.

She held up her hands to emit death energy, willing her ability to work. Come on! Please, let my powers loose! I’m in danger! As she ran out of table, she folded her legs under her and slipped off of it, now backing against the wall. It did not matter; she knew there was nowhere to go in this room. “Help! I’m being attacked!” she shouted, expecting the guards to rush in, as they were not to let her come to any harm. But there was no response. Lilith suddenly felt very alone.

With her back against the wall, she slid to her right, until she reached a corner, and realized she had nowhere to go but forward, and hope she could knock the woman out. That was when the snake bit into the crook of Lilith’s left elbow. Panic filled her, widened her eyes. She screamed.

As the woman spoke, Lilith’s eyes narrowed more and more. She knew that, with the length of time the snake had been attached to her arm, that Lilith had a fatal dose of its venom in her veins. She gritted her teeth. “I don’t give two fucks about your family and friends,” she hissed. “I’ll kill whoever I need to kill, even if that means the whole state of Texas, or the entire country. Can you imagine that? Your entire country as a desolate wasteland?” With effort - for she was secretly losing her confidence - she bared her teeth again. “No, on second thought, I won’t harm you or your family, or your friends. I’ll just kill everyone else, and watch you all waste away in the hell this nation will become.”

She forced herself to stare into the woman’s eyes, as frightening as they were. “So, how do you like that? I won’t touch a hair on your heads. I’ll simply let nature destroy you. That fits perfectly with your demands.”

It did, in a literal sense, and yet she knew the woman would make no move to save her life. “You think I don’t know Death?” she said, fighting the temptation to wrap her hands around the little woman’s neck. “I’ve tasted Death more often than you can imagine. I don’t care who you are. You are insignificant. Now,” she continued, her head held high, “I have fulfilled your terms, haven’t I? Administer your antidote and let me go.”

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Who the hell said any of you get a taste, stupid?!
Who would ever wanna get all up in your face? You better just take it!
And nothing you could ever do could ever make me go away! Fake it!
Poor baby, I'm gonna make it all okay...
______________________________Mindless Self Indulgence - "Lights Out"

For a woman who so fervently believed herself to be a harbinger of death, it wasn't too difficult for Ryan to shed the mysticism away from her. She was just as fallible and mortal as he was. With a bit of insistent prodding here and there in the back of her mind, the tall, so-called "lapdog" of Adele Couteau had managed to trick Lilith's body into thinking it was on fire. It wasn't a facet of his ability with which he'd experimented all that much, but it did make him wonder just how much real control he could exert over people. Could he manipulate them into enabling his ascent up a social ladder? Could he find a way to grant himself actual power? The distance he had to morally travel in order to enact a movie villain-esque plan wasn't far at all.

"Aaaaugh!!" Lilith's fitful shrieking was, if anything, amusing. For the moments it took her to battle beyond her panic and realise that the pain and burning was literally a figment of her imagination, Ryan had proved a point. Regardless of what a certain Mr. Mercer might have led him to believe at one point, the minds of others was his playground and his alone. Even he couldn't imagine the havoc he could wreak if given half a chance. This, however, was torture; a part of her punishment for what she'd done in the capital. He and Adele were taking it in turns to really make her regret her actions. Of course, that was the more hopeful reason they were here. In reality, Lilith was about as remorseless as Adele was and, with remorse impossible, all that really remained was causing pain.

So he did. He wasn't about to drive a scalpel into her shoulder, but he had other ways of accomplishing the task. Better yet, it left her body completely unmarked. He could just do this over and over again, almost with impunity. Of course, the best part was when Lilith realised what was going on. She wasn't burning. The pain wasn't real. And Ryan was still stood well out of arm's reach. "Son of a bitch!! You'll pay for that!"

Ryan simply shrugged, the oily blue retreating from his irises. "A lot of people've said that, y'know..?" His voice was cold, almost lazy in the way he enunciated his words. He'd heard all the usual retorts from his adversaries a hundred times by now. They were empty. He never had paid for anything. When the sound of limbs tensing against solid matter rang out, however, Ryan had to stop himself from visibly flinching as Lilith lunged for him. She may have (apparently) been powerless, but she was still in the same room as him. But, as she spotted Adele, her air of attack flipped instantly to one of hasty retreat. Having not had his eyes on Adele - or much of anything - for a good few minutes, Ryan wasn't sure what was making Lilith recoil in terror from a woman standing at a hardly impressive five-foot-nothing. When he did look, a question flickered through his mind. One which he surmised was running through Lilith's too.

Where the fuck had Adele got a snake from?!

"Help!! I'm being attacked!" With a pleading cry that made Ryan smirk as he noted its similarity to a scene from Monty Python, of all things, he watched as Lilith fled from the table and made it to the back wall before Adele's diminutive strides allowed her to catch up. With nowhere else to go, it was a simple task for Adele to jab the snake's fangs into the midpoint of Lilith's arm, forcing the creature to dispense a load of venom into her body. Having taken his own turn to dole out punishment, Ryan simply watched, doing nothing as Adele launched into an assault of her own.

"I suppose I should have mentioned earlier that there are no phials of black mamba antivenin available in the state of Texas right now. By my watch, you have about twenty minutes to live." Of course it was a black mamba. Over the years, Ryan had been pestered by his fiancée to get a household pet. With it being Adele, she was far from content with the usual cats, dogs or tropical fish. She'd named a variety of exotic species and, after sporadic Googling, Ryan had come to realise that near enough all of them were venomous. Of course, he'd stonewalled her at every turn. The last thing he wanted was for his accomplishments to come crashing down after a run-in with Adele's pet.

"Seeing as how I'm quite literally the only person within several thousand miles who can save your life, I suggest you listen clearly while you still have control of your mental faculties." Adele's tirade was, for Ryan, the usual fare. She didn't care about Lilith's actions or motives. She offered her - as the latest of her adversaries - the customary warning of what would befall her if she tried to pick a fight with her family and, lastly, likened herself to Death; the same Death of whom Lilith thought herself an arbiter.

Of course, Lilith seemed to be made of sterner stuff. Without intervention, she would be meeting her end in the space of an episode of Red Dwarf and, regardless, she still didn't give two fucks about Adele's family and friends. She made it clear that she would remain intent on bringing her wrath to bear against any she deemed necessary but, now that Adele and her companions had earned a one-way ticket onto her shitlist, she'd seen fit to alter her plans slightly. "On second thought, I won't harm you or your family, or your friends. I'll just kill everyone else and watch you all waste away in the hell this nation will become."

"God, you're boring!" Ryan growled, slamming the sole of his foot against the wall he'd been leaning against. She'd tasted death more often than they had and, by her reckoning, they were insignificant. Really? By his reckoning, this bitch couldn't even kill a President properly. She'd used a rebel insurgency and the standing military of the world's most powerful nation for her own ends and had still come up oh-for-one on the "murdered Presidents" front. Ryan had done a lot more with nothing but a tuxedo and some willpower. It was her who was insignificant. "Y'fucked up, so you're tossing y'toys out th'crib, is that it?"

She'd made a demand of them. She wanted the antidote. Apparently, she'd adhered to some terms. And all while stuck in a torture room. "And, by my count, you haven't fulfilled shit. Pers'nally, I'd just take my phone out, knock over a few levels o'Candy Crush and wait th'twenty minutes." It was a lie. He didn't have Candy Crush on his phone. It was an inane "connect three" game. He had better ways to while away his free time. Besides, the handheld market hadn't offered all that much of note since 1989. "But it ain't me you have to appeal to. Though, I'm hungry." Taking out his phone, regardless of whether he could get a signal or not, he began to scroll through a couple of menus. "Y'think they deliver pizzas t'secret torture houses, Adele? I hope so. I could go for one."

But where the hell were his manners? His mouth flashing a near sadistic grin, he sidled over towards Lilith, his phone clasped in one hand. "Y'want anything? Not sure they do a riding on a pale horse pizza, but I can check."