basic_powers | Placeholder: Confrontation

Entry tags:

rainmaker

Placeholder: Confrontation

April 14th
Original Rainmaker Site, exact location unknown, Iowa.
3:30 pm

Minutes later, after the children went in with Doctor Irons, the high-end family car pulled up to park by remote. Seconds later, Tyler got out, hiding behind the car door to peer up at the abandoned and heavily damaged former institution warily...

"I'm here."
.
.
.

"So... now what?"

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"Harold's probably helped him. But this seems more like a distraction than—"

The floor suddenly cracks and bulges upward, starting at the far end of the hall, dodging around Steve and plowing straight at the vigilante duo, for all the world like Bugs Bunny passing through.

"—an attack!"

The tunnel moved fast; the Revenant barely has time to dodge aside.

The same thing goes for Tyler, except his attempt to dodge aside results in him landing back on his butt away from the floor upheaval.

"Zach's trying to dig under us!"

"I don't think burying us was his plan!" the Revenant declares, as thick vines erupt from the loosened earth below the broken floor to wrap around them.

"Are these Orchid's plants?"

Oh so now the bad feeling starts, just as the young hero is wrapped up to the neck in living vines and unable to get free.

"Very likely," says the Revenant as he struggles lightly against the plants, not to wear himself out, looking for weak points.

The plants haul the pair along the hallway, toward the door at the far end. There's a figure silhouetted there, leaning against the doorframe. An adult.

"Well, well. The Revenant. I've heard tales of you. And you have a sidekick now. A pity for him, yes? He gets to have his career end while you watch, yes?"

"And you are...?"

"Ah, yes. I am, as one might say, a new man. Let me show you what these ingenious children have done, with my guidance, of course. Orchid? Be a dear and have the flora bring them into the light..."

...You tend to notice a lot of things when you're hanging upside down. Like the floor and the stuff that's on it.

...Like that note with his name on it. Now THAT'S peculiar. It's even right next to where Zach's path was, and it's hardly disturbed at all.

Moon
Shadow:
CHALLENGE.
WATCH.

The Revenant is being held upright, so he has a better view of the other things in the room. People, mostly. There's Harold Nelson, standing to attention off to one side. Some of the Rainmaker kids are lying in unconscious disarray on the floor; the others are staring at the captives, looking smug. And then there's their host.

"I can't believe the job they did on this new body in only minutes," says Doctor Irons in that falsely jovial tone villains like to adopt while gloating. "Of course, with Harold enhancing their powers and my genius to help them, it wasn't difficult. Thanks to the young lady's plant-powers, I have organic parts that can get energy from photosynthesis or mineral sources. The boy who can make inorganic matter into food has given me parts as strong as steel that can heal if damaged. I made use of their other enhanced talents, especially the healer's powers to jump-start the whole thing. Granted, a few of them are nearly comatose from the effort, but the result is impressive, is it not?"

In his usual, deceptively mild tone: "The old Doctor Irons didn't seem terribly happy about it."

"Oh, that. I needed my previous form rebuilt so my old brain could re-map my motor functions before the mind transfer. I didn't want this new body having to re-learn how to walk. After the transfer was complete, I decided to wind up my old metal corpse and let it have a go at you. Its mechanical innards were collapsing, anyway. Oh, yes, I knew you were coming. Your helicopter's stealthiness leaves much to be desired, yes?"

He turns aside, monologe evidently concluded. "Harold, be sure the children who weren't over-exerted into unconsciousness are as powerful as can be, so they can deal with these two nuisances." He heads for the door.

"Harold! Don't!"

Nonono, this is bad, so very bad.

...Not quite up to as bad as that recurring nightmare about Harold, but darn close.

Irons gives a little sigh and wheels back around to crouch before Tyler, face to upside-down face.

"Young man, while this body doesn't have the subliminal hypnotic capabilities of my metallic form, I did use them most extensively before my transfer. They'll follow my orders for some time yet, so don't bother. Just pass on quietly, yet?"

He gets up to leave again.

"I suppose I should tell you you'll never get away with this?"

Doctor Irons waves a hand over his shoulder without looking back. "And a parting cliché to you, too. I trust you left the keys in the helicopter?"

He leaves without waiting for a response.

The conscious children smile nastily as the plants drop Moon Shadow unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Who gets him first?" asks Uther. "Orchid's already had her fun."

"I want to make him re-live his worst memories a few times before Zach gets him dirty," Vera declares.

"Hey, Vera," snaps Zach, "leaving the both of you a mile underground wouldn't be much of a challenge."

...Challenge. For some reason that last word is bouncing around his head pretty omninously as Moon Shadow gets to his feet while the remaining children argue.

...Challenge?
Wait was that other word? Oh! Watch!
...Why Watch?... He pondered watching them argue some more.

...Unless...Well it's worth a try... He dug around in the belt pocket for his earlier purchase.

"I'll only fight the one who can beat my high score! I got to level Five with three thousand and fifty two points!"

All the children gleefully raise hands to wrists (except Steve, who takes his watch off to play two-handed). Beeping fills the air.

"Easy," Marvin says. "You're so dead."

"I beat you all last time," declares Vera, "so I'll get to—"

"Forget you!" Zach interrupts. "I wiped the floor with this game!"

"So why'd you say 'I was robbed' so much when we were playing in the car?"

...He couldn't have planned it better himself. The children now distracted, Moon Shadow reaches into the other pocket to dig out the quarters from earlier.

Coin tricks are damn handy for getting a brandnew quarter to go across the room.

"HAROLD! CATCH!"

Harold, like, the children, is still under Irons' spell, but, as with the children, it's a subtle, subconscious control and leaves the conscious mind free to otherwise act normally.

Harold catches the quarter automatically. He stares at it.

Then he digs into a pocket and pulls out another quarter, much weathered and tarnished, but minted identical. Oregon, 2005.

"It's him! He's the kid from the future... when we... traveled..."

"And now it's time for you to stop all of this, Harold," says the boy leaning on the old examination table.

"Lyle! What're you doing out of your room? You told me it hurts to be out—"

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