![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schizoauthoressTitle: The End is the Beginning
Author: D.L. SchizoAuthoress
Rating: R
Spoilers: Teen Titans v3 #98-99 (current issues, so... SPOILERS!)
Warnings: violence, gore, character death
Prompt: author's choice, author's choice, silent lucidity
Word Count: 1508
Summary: Match was meant to be Superboy's replacment, an improved clone grown and trained to be a soldier. For a while, he was. And then things changed...
The End is the Beginning
The first thing Match remembers are the knowledge downloads. An endless stream of information, imprinting deep onto his neural pathways, so that when he first opened his eyes to the real world, he was already well prepared for his duties as the Agenda's loyal soldier. He recalls being dimly aware of the confines of his tiny world -- the metal cloning receptacle, humming with power, that sheltered his unready form from the harsh world.
Match screams. Somewhere nearby -- he can't see where, the pain intense enough to white out his already dimmed vision -- a scientist clicks the cellular scanner up another level. His genetic code is on file already, once with the Agenda (and moved to Project Cadmus during the takeover), and many times over with S.T.A.R. Labs, his long-time prison. But the files are not the same. Never the same. Match was meant to be Superboy's replacment, an improved clone grown and trained to be a soldier. For a while, he was. And then things changed.... or simply became clearer.
There is a flaw in his genetic code. Whether an unintended side-effect from the Agenda's admittedly wasteful cloning process, or maliciously encoded inside him on purpose, in the end it does not matter. Even if this torment stopped, Match is dying slowly, in tiny increments.
Match has always been an experiment. A scientific curiosity, a freak of nature... never a person. Well, almost never. For a brief time, before his genetic dissolution started, he was willing and able to impersonate Superboy. He could pretend to be a person, pretend to have friends, as he pretended to be Kon. But in the end, that's all it was -- a game of make-believe on the part of something less than human.
He has to believe what the Agenda told him -- that he is less than human, intended to replace human soldiers on the battlefield, an expendable commodity. He has to believe that this fact hasn't changed -- even with the destruction of his hundred genetic duplicates, who had died in their cloning receptacles in a storm of radiation and fire when the Alaska facility's reactor exploded -- even when he has become unwillingly unique. He has to believe that he is still expendable, because otherwise his suffering and impending death should mean something. And none of it does, not to anyone -- it barely even matters to him.
The deeper genetic scans have always hurt. When the Agenda used experimental teleportation techology to retrieve him from the Alaska facility -- just in time, too, he'd been on the edge of capture by Superman and Steel -- that was painful. When they scanned him to make sure he had not been damaged or tampered with, that was painful, too. But, perhaps because he's breaking down on a genetic level, because his invulnerability is a thing of the past, this one hurts more. It hurts the most, the worst physical pain that Match has ever experienced.
Not even his Kryptonian genes activating had hurt this much. Match is certain that Superboy hadn't suffered when the same had happened to him -- Superboy, Kon, has always had advantages that Match never would. And Kon's genetic structure is stable, perfect... untampered with. Match remembers, years ago, in the wake of Donna Troy's death -- villains had heard of it, same as the heroes, of course -- doubling over from the crippling pain that twisted his guts, that made his heart race and his lungs burn. His white hair had fallen out in clumps, almost as quickly replaced by thick black locks. He'd shed all over after that, the hair coming in just as dark, in the spots where it came back at all. And even as that happened, all the pigment seemed to leach out of his skin -- he'd known terror then, fearing that he'd become a true albino and photosensitive -- but his new skin was tougher, invulnerable.
Even those days had been brief, though. In those days, he skulked on the fringes of villain society, hardly touching the world of normal people, ocassionally fulfilling his old purpose as a soldier for hire. He would sometimes turn his powerful ears to catch news of San Francisco, hate silently smoldering in him when he heard Kon trading affection with Cassie.
Match loved her. Still loves her, as much as he is able -- emotionally crippled by the Agenda's brainwashing, brain-damaged by his genetic dissolution -- his memories of her his only refuge from the horrible pain that Dr. Caligan is inflicting on him. He twists his body -- futilely, against the strong metal bands that keep him secured to the table -- in an almost mindless, animal need to be free, still fighting to escape the ever-present pain. He will not give up.
She is, still, the most beautiful girl he's ever known. He's always tried, in his hopelessly flawed way, to give her what she wants. And she's only ever wanted Superboy.
For a time, he took solace in the fact that she wanted Superboy, not Kon, because he could be Superboy. He could be a better Superboy than Kon -- that's what he was for after all. He could be a better Superboy for Cassie. But his programmed loyalty allows no deviation from the mission -- never has. So he turned on Young Justice, even knowing how much it must have confused and hurt her, even though hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do.
But she hates him. She thinks of him as some awful mockery of her precious "Conner", when all he's ever wanted is to show her how much he loves her. To worship her for the goddess she is. He's always wanted to have her see, somehow, that he can be better for her than Kon. But the betrayal of his body, and the deeper betrayal of his mind, prevents all that. The first time he saw her, after all the lonely years that passed, he couldn't even tell her "I love you" properly.
The hate in her voice, how she cursed him for defiling the memory of "Conner"... even his physical torment paled in the face of that anguish. Despite the way the Agenda had fractured his emotions, disconnecting them wherever they could, Match was heartbroken by Cassie's rejection. He was heartbroken because he could love, and because he still loves her.
He'd cursed the scientists that gave him life, the Agenda that developed him, that twisted a genetic code they knew so little about -- and his aversion programming had sparked to sullen life then, trying to activate the pain centers in his brain, with limited success. Match fought ruthlessly, for he had no other way to fight, and was defeated.
Jericho had poisoned him further with madness, until Match hardly knew what was happening to him, hardly cared.
There had been nothing but more pain. Pain and loneliness, the two constants of his existence.
Match wants to scream, wants to plead, "Stop, stop, please! I understand now!" but his verbal capabilities are entirely lost, for more than a year by now. His hearing is the only sense left still sharp, still powerful.
He hears a syringe sucking air, breaking through the rubber stopper of some drug vial. He hears the fluid drip-drip-dripping into the barrel of the syringe, and the tap-tap-tap of Dr. Caligan forcing the air bubbles to clear. The bevel of the hollow needle pierces another rubber seal -- this one self-sealing and located on one of the IV bags suspended over him like bizarre party decorations. He hears the soft scrape of plastic against plastic as the plunger is depressed and the drug sent into the saline solution. The process is repeated a few times, the drugs flowing into the ports set high in his chest, set into his arms. He goes still, the paralytic -- obviously one of the drugs used -- acting quickly. Now Match cannot even struggle.
His world is narrowed -- to this room, to this table, to being confined by metal once more. Perhaps Cassie never really existed. Perhaps Superboy is still waiting for him outside the cloning receptacle and this has all been a complicated virtual reality test. Perhaps he has failed, which is why the Agenda is allowing their virtual doctor to torment him -- so that he will realize he has failed. So he will learn.
A surgical saw whirs, and then looms large in his dim, blurring vision. But Match can see Dr. Caligan clearly enough -- he sees the awful, twisted glee shining in the man's eyes. He will not flinch. He will not falter. He stares at Dr. Caligan, eyes open and unblinking, defiant in the only way left to him.
The saw comes closer. The world is cold silver metal, as it was in the beginning. And then there is scarlet agony -- blood sprays hot from his skin, the saw screams as its teeth chew bone -- deepening to blackness, to nothing.
Author: D.L. SchizoAuthoress
Rating: R
Spoilers: Teen Titans v3 #98-99 (current issues, so... SPOILERS!)
Warnings: violence, gore, character death
Prompt: author's choice, author's choice, silent lucidity
Word Count: 1508
Summary: Match was meant to be Superboy's replacment, an improved clone grown and trained to be a soldier. For a while, he was. And then things changed...
The End is the Beginning
The first thing Match remembers are the knowledge downloads. An endless stream of information, imprinting deep onto his neural pathways, so that when he first opened his eyes to the real world, he was already well prepared for his duties as the Agenda's loyal soldier. He recalls being dimly aware of the confines of his tiny world -- the metal cloning receptacle, humming with power, that sheltered his unready form from the harsh world.
Match screams. Somewhere nearby -- he can't see where, the pain intense enough to white out his already dimmed vision -- a scientist clicks the cellular scanner up another level. His genetic code is on file already, once with the Agenda (and moved to Project Cadmus during the takeover), and many times over with S.T.A.R. Labs, his long-time prison. But the files are not the same. Never the same. Match was meant to be Superboy's replacment, an improved clone grown and trained to be a soldier. For a while, he was. And then things changed.... or simply became clearer.
There is a flaw in his genetic code. Whether an unintended side-effect from the Agenda's admittedly wasteful cloning process, or maliciously encoded inside him on purpose, in the end it does not matter. Even if this torment stopped, Match is dying slowly, in tiny increments.
Match has always been an experiment. A scientific curiosity, a freak of nature... never a person. Well, almost never. For a brief time, before his genetic dissolution started, he was willing and able to impersonate Superboy. He could pretend to be a person, pretend to have friends, as he pretended to be Kon. But in the end, that's all it was -- a game of make-believe on the part of something less than human.
He has to believe what the Agenda told him -- that he is less than human, intended to replace human soldiers on the battlefield, an expendable commodity. He has to believe that this fact hasn't changed -- even with the destruction of his hundred genetic duplicates, who had died in their cloning receptacles in a storm of radiation and fire when the Alaska facility's reactor exploded -- even when he has become unwillingly unique. He has to believe that he is still expendable, because otherwise his suffering and impending death should mean something. And none of it does, not to anyone -- it barely even matters to him.
The deeper genetic scans have always hurt. When the Agenda used experimental teleportation techology to retrieve him from the Alaska facility -- just in time, too, he'd been on the edge of capture by Superman and Steel -- that was painful. When they scanned him to make sure he had not been damaged or tampered with, that was painful, too. But, perhaps because he's breaking down on a genetic level, because his invulnerability is a thing of the past, this one hurts more. It hurts the most, the worst physical pain that Match has ever experienced.
Not even his Kryptonian genes activating had hurt this much. Match is certain that Superboy hadn't suffered when the same had happened to him -- Superboy, Kon, has always had advantages that Match never would. And Kon's genetic structure is stable, perfect... untampered with. Match remembers, years ago, in the wake of Donna Troy's death -- villains had heard of it, same as the heroes, of course -- doubling over from the crippling pain that twisted his guts, that made his heart race and his lungs burn. His white hair had fallen out in clumps, almost as quickly replaced by thick black locks. He'd shed all over after that, the hair coming in just as dark, in the spots where it came back at all. And even as that happened, all the pigment seemed to leach out of his skin -- he'd known terror then, fearing that he'd become a true albino and photosensitive -- but his new skin was tougher, invulnerable.
Even those days had been brief, though. In those days, he skulked on the fringes of villain society, hardly touching the world of normal people, ocassionally fulfilling his old purpose as a soldier for hire. He would sometimes turn his powerful ears to catch news of San Francisco, hate silently smoldering in him when he heard Kon trading affection with Cassie.
Match loved her. Still loves her, as much as he is able -- emotionally crippled by the Agenda's brainwashing, brain-damaged by his genetic dissolution -- his memories of her his only refuge from the horrible pain that Dr. Caligan is inflicting on him. He twists his body -- futilely, against the strong metal bands that keep him secured to the table -- in an almost mindless, animal need to be free, still fighting to escape the ever-present pain. He will not give up.
She is, still, the most beautiful girl he's ever known. He's always tried, in his hopelessly flawed way, to give her what she wants. And she's only ever wanted Superboy.
For a time, he took solace in the fact that she wanted Superboy, not Kon, because he could be Superboy. He could be a better Superboy than Kon -- that's what he was for after all. He could be a better Superboy for Cassie. But his programmed loyalty allows no deviation from the mission -- never has. So he turned on Young Justice, even knowing how much it must have confused and hurt her, even though hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do.
But she hates him. She thinks of him as some awful mockery of her precious "Conner", when all he's ever wanted is to show her how much he loves her. To worship her for the goddess she is. He's always wanted to have her see, somehow, that he can be better for her than Kon. But the betrayal of his body, and the deeper betrayal of his mind, prevents all that. The first time he saw her, after all the lonely years that passed, he couldn't even tell her "I love you" properly.
The hate in her voice, how she cursed him for defiling the memory of "Conner"... even his physical torment paled in the face of that anguish. Despite the way the Agenda had fractured his emotions, disconnecting them wherever they could, Match was heartbroken by Cassie's rejection. He was heartbroken because he could love, and because he still loves her.
He'd cursed the scientists that gave him life, the Agenda that developed him, that twisted a genetic code they knew so little about -- and his aversion programming had sparked to sullen life then, trying to activate the pain centers in his brain, with limited success. Match fought ruthlessly, for he had no other way to fight, and was defeated.
Jericho had poisoned him further with madness, until Match hardly knew what was happening to him, hardly cared.
There had been nothing but more pain. Pain and loneliness, the two constants of his existence.
Match wants to scream, wants to plead, "Stop, stop, please! I understand now!" but his verbal capabilities are entirely lost, for more than a year by now. His hearing is the only sense left still sharp, still powerful.
He hears a syringe sucking air, breaking through the rubber stopper of some drug vial. He hears the fluid drip-drip-dripping into the barrel of the syringe, and the tap-tap-tap of Dr. Caligan forcing the air bubbles to clear. The bevel of the hollow needle pierces another rubber seal -- this one self-sealing and located on one of the IV bags suspended over him like bizarre party decorations. He hears the soft scrape of plastic against plastic as the plunger is depressed and the drug sent into the saline solution. The process is repeated a few times, the drugs flowing into the ports set high in his chest, set into his arms. He goes still, the paralytic -- obviously one of the drugs used -- acting quickly. Now Match cannot even struggle.
His world is narrowed -- to this room, to this table, to being confined by metal once more. Perhaps Cassie never really existed. Perhaps Superboy is still waiting for him outside the cloning receptacle and this has all been a complicated virtual reality test. Perhaps he has failed, which is why the Agenda is allowing their virtual doctor to torment him -- so that he will realize he has failed. So he will learn.
A surgical saw whirs, and then looms large in his dim, blurring vision. But Match can see Dr. Caligan clearly enough -- he sees the awful, twisted glee shining in the man's eyes. He will not flinch. He will not falter. He stares at Dr. Caligan, eyes open and unblinking, defiant in the only way left to him.
The saw comes closer. The world is cold silver metal, as it was in the beginning. And then there is scarlet agony -- blood sprays hot from his skin, the saw screams as its teeth chew bone -- deepening to blackness, to nothing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2011-08-12 00:27 (UTC)no subject
on 2011-08-12 00:56 (UTC)no subject
on 2011-08-12 01:02 (UTC)