Thread:FleetCaptainT/@comment-27324808-20170604060430

Fifty

Cyclone awoke with a throbbing in his head, a side effect of the mind control. He didn’t conceal his groan as he sat up in the prison cell that the Maelstrom Guard had put him in. There was no bed, water, or food provisioned for him, just the hard stone floor and obsidian-tiled walls and a narrow view into the hallway through the shimmering force field in place of a door.

His larger surroundings were like a palace of sorts. Cyclone remembered seeing, at times, even velvet flooring in one hallway, although most coloration came in hues of purple or black. The Leek Works guys might like it, he thought stupidly. It fit with their goth theme.

He hadn’t time to react when the electrical bars of the force field suddenly dissipated, and Jay and Katie were thrown inside his cell. Just as quickly the force field went back up and obsidian-clan Stromlings quickly left his view. Apparently the force field blocked sound as well, since Cyclone hadn’t heard even a scuff of their feet from outside, and he again heard nothing now, except for the Figdroids, who were sniffling or whimpering or something.

Cyclone went over to Jay, who was lying on his side with his face tilted down and his arms splayed out in opposite directions. “Are you okay?” he hissed.

Jay turned to him with tears in his eyes and his cheeks uncharacteristically puffy. Also his mouth was open and he seemed to be gasping for air. “...Can’t…” he whispered, “...breathe!”

Then Jay burst out laughing and Cyclone stepped back from him, mortified. He heard Katie laughing too.

“Why are you laughing?!” Cyclone exclaimed.

“We can’t stop!” Katie giggled, she tried to rise but opted to roll into a ball instead. “We’re ack - hic - shually being tortured. There’s a evil Sandy Studs here and hahahahaha! Jay!”

“He hacked our brains and started endless laughing scripts.” Jay managed to say. “We’re to suffer until we tell them everything we know.”

Cyclone stared at the two compromised minifigures. “You weren’t with my team.” he said.

“Spakybob captured us!” Katie chortled.

The name sounded familiar to Cyclone, but he couldn’t put a distinct face to it. He figured he was a Stromling, although there were independent forces in the Nimbus System that sometimes came into play as well.

“Is there anything I can do to help your… state?” Cyclone asked, although he knew as much about programming futuristic sentient robots as talking to ducks. Since he couldn’t talk to ducks, he obviously couldn’t help the Figdroids ease their suffering.

“Use the kill switch.” Katie said with sudden seriousness.

Apparently he could? Cyclone shook his head at the ominous sounding switch. “What… no, I can’t put you out of your misery, not that way!”

“It’s a sleep switch,” Jay corrected, “not a kill switch. They’re behind our heads and we can’t touch them. Only authorized Nexus Forcers can get near them.”

“What makes you think I’m, as you say, authorized?” Cyclone protested.

“You’re probably not.” Katie said. “Just try.”

Cyclone sighed and stepped behind the robotic girl. He keenly separated her brown hair, which felt like real hair, and spotted an obvious red plastic button with some glowing alien text written on it, saying sleep. He aimed a finger to press it but then Katie punched him in the face.

“Ha, you have to move faster!” Jay guffawed.

“Whoever built you is crazy!” Cyclone decided, and when he tried to deactivate Katie again her arms swung backwards and she grabbed him around the shoulders, lifted him off the ground and threw him against the force field. He bounced off and face planted on the ground.

“Sorry!” Katie laughed. “It’s an involuntary response, I swear.”

Getting flung around made Cyclone’s headache worse, and sufficiently annoyed. He extended his arm towards Katie and willed her to stop moving. Imagination swirled around her and propped her into a standing position and rooted her feet to the ground. Just in case, Cyclone stunned Jay too.

“Good idea.” Jay said.

“Hey, we’re not laughing anymore.” Katie pointed out. “If you keep us like this-”

“I can’t keep you rooted forever.” Cyclone said. “Sorry.” He stepped behind Katie and pressed the button, immediately starting her sleep cycle. He did the same for Jay, and then he let go of them with his powers. They automatically assumed supine positions, and all was quiet at last.

“Good work.” a voice cackled.

Cyclone rolled his eyes and turned to face the force-field, which was now temporarily disabled again. Standing in it was the Stromling that had captured him, Demonstrait, flanked by two of his royal blue-wearing Stromling guards. Now that he faced them up close, Cyclone realized there were other blue things about them. The outfit of one of them still carried a Sentinel logo, and where the armor was intact looked vaguely like that of a Sentinel Knight’s. The other more resembled a Samurai, and the connection made Cyclone’s heart worry if Kate was alright, since if Jay and Katie were captured…

A sudden ringing in his head interrupted Cyclone’s trance, and he could not raise his hands to cover his ears, because when the ringing stopped he had been put in a different trance. Demonstrait released the button on the remote control in his hand, and smiled menacingly at Cyclone, who tried to move but failed. Demonstrait’s forced control of his muscles was effectively paralysis, until he made Cyclone walk to the Stromling guards and join them in the hallway.

He was then walked a short way to a teleportation pad, and the four of them were reconstituted in another part of the palace in a hallway that was much taller, outside a giant set of doors. Their height, well over 70 feet tall and over ten times the height of a standard minifigure, could only mean one thing, Cyclone knew with dread.

Demonstrait pushed the doors open and stepped through. Then he was struck by lightning and sent skidding back into the hallway.

“You fool!” the voice of Baron Typhonus bellowed. “You bring my gravest threat, an Imagination Electi, straight to my doors?!”

“You unlocked the doors!” Demonstrait wheezed.

The Darkitect rose from his seat, a massive structure built of solid-Maelstrom ore and laced with silver, and laughed. There was nothing Cyclone could do except mentally reach inside himself for his greatest strength, his Creative Spark’s Imagination, and attempt to use it – but his body remained paralyzed. But his Imagination continued to ‘bubble.’

“Look, he’s trying to resist!” the Darkitect noticed. “Well, Demonstrait, it would appear you are correct, this time. They can be controlled, to a point-”

Cyclone’s Imagination exploded out of him in a spherical shockwave that blew the Darkitect’s hat off and sent bolts of lightning towards every Stromling in the room, although they dodged the blasts and were not smashed, and the Darkitect responded by swinging his staff and summoning Maelstrom spikes around Cyclone. As soon as his lightning struck them the energy was infected and bounced back to hit him instead. Cyclone’s vision went black from the pain, but he still heard what the Maelstrom leaders said about him.

“Have I gone to the effort of capturing him only for you to kill him?!” Demonstrait protested.

“No,” the Darkitect said, as he aimed his staff downwards and directed for Maelstrom fog to surround Cyclone. “Your plan has merit. Your loyal replacement, Spakybob, has already shown me that it is possible to turn an Imagination Electi. Unfortunately his specimen was smashed, but he demonstraited extraordinary potential, before his emotional shortcomings got the better of him.

“This one, on the other hand, must suffer so much pain that his conscience is completely eradicated. He will be as brainless as the Stromlings of old!” Typhonus cackled.

Cyclone felt like he was being split in two. Then he felt an Imagination double of himself being built alongside him, a new form to escape into as his current form was infected. His infected body went numb as his mind began moving, entirely out of his control, to the new form. His mind and his Creative Spark.

But then that duplicate of him was smashed by the Darkitect’s lightning. Cyclone felt like all his bones had been snapped when his mind rushed back into his original body, but his Creative Spark could not be felt. In fact he could feel nothing at all, he realized with horror. He could only stare ahead through unblinking eyes as the Darkitect tilted back his staff and the Maelstrom spikes retracted into the ground, freeing Cyclone from their stunning effect, but his body refused to listen to his thoughts.

Instead, dark instincts that he had not felt in two and a half years took over. His view shifted as his body, completely taken by Maelstrom, assumed a kneeling position before the Darkitect. A pool of black sludge, shiny like oil, pooled under Cyclone’s body. It dripped from him. In its reflection he saw the glowing red orbs that were his new eyes, in his new face, that of a Stromling whose only purpose was to serve the Maelstrom, and completely separated from Cyclone’s conscious mind. Rather it was his mind that was isolated. He was a prisoner in his own body.

“Arise, Cyclone.” the Darkitect commanded, and Cyclone stood. “Good, good. Now, why don’t you show us what powers you have for us?”

Arms that were not his own appeared in the sides of Cyclone’s vision, dark palms with blades for fingers aimed upwards. Orbs of Maelstrom energy appeared in them, and then the entire room shook as the massive stones in the floor were overturned. Stromlings began to scatter and Demonstrait shouted orders as dust billowed upward and the ceiling began to buckle, raining smaller stones that smashed the Stromlings that stayed put. Cyclone was blind in the dust storm that his Maelstrom powers created, and the rumbling of stone was loud in his ears, but not as loud as the laughter of the Darkitect.

<ac_metadata title="Song of the Swans Part 8 Chapter 50"> </ac_metadata>