Who Needs Power When You Have Prep Time

Entry 29:

Jack Slash POV:

Today is going to be fun, a break from the norm because, sad to say, using the chaos of end-bringer attacks just is not doing for me anymore.

And here is my luck when I hear of this new company, Oz, something or other trying to fix the world.

What a joke! I almost laugh. Oh wait, I already did, but regardless, Boston won't know what hits them.

I turn around in my seat and yell to the rest of the crew.

"Oi! you fucking wastes of space. We are almost there, nearly an hour out."

Crimson and Winter are still having sex right in the back seat, and I swear they are smiling as they ignore me.

Siberian keeps staring off into the distance with her thousand-yard stare. She is creepy as hell, but she is necessary, and she also scares me, so I say nothing.

Gray Boy flips me off and loops himself so that he does it repeatedly.

I would call him a brat, but he is almost as old as me and nearly as demented.

But the man's got skill. His loops make for all sorts of fun.

Remind me of the time he put that girl in a loop, being raped over and over again. Just the pure and utter despair that her time will never end. It was beautiful.

Or that time Siberian walked through the PRT's containment foam, and the cops barely had time to piss themselves before she ate them alive.

Good times, and they're just going to keep coming.

But as I reminisce on our various fun times, I notice something a couple of miles down the road.

Wait, what's that, another one of Dragon's suits?

No, that's not her design, and it's actually piloted, and there are no registered heroes around here.

Oh boy, it's a newbie biting off more than he can chew.

This will be fun.

I yell back to the crew, "Hey, bozos, we got fresh meat just down the road."

This catches their attention, and most smile in such a way that makes me proud of our little merry band.

"Who's ready for an appetizer before the main course?"

Crawler wakes up from his nap and begins to froth at the mouth, hoping for new damage types to be used against him. Damn masochist, but I love him for it.

I drive a bit further down the road and stop the van as I notice that he is sitting there, almost meditating.

What, is this guy a monk or something?

But as he notices us, he stands up and stares at us as if taking in a view. This upsets me more than it should.

I am Jack Slash! Damn it! I have killed dozens if not hundreds, and he is just staring at us.

Siberian stares at the man and approaches him. But as she almost touches the guy, they stand off before Siberian throws a punch, yet something odd happens.

The punch goes through him, not in a fun way, but literally phased through him.

But that's when things get weird because now I find myself in an entirely new location, and I'm surrounded by a blizzard, which should not be possible.

I yell to the rest of the crew, but they're gone. I try to find an exit, but the storm goes on forever. This shouldn't be real, yet I can feel the cold chipping at my skin.

I continue through the blizzard, yelling, "Siberian! Crawler! Crimson! Gray Boy! Winter! Hatchet! Where are you guys!"

"Show yourself, you damn coward! Make this a fun time for me!"

The silence is deafening. This doesn't seem right. He should have been a simple mob hero. We are nine, goddammit, we are not amateurs!

But then the area changes, and I find myself in some graveyard with headstones all around me, and as I bend down to wipe one off, I see my name scratched away.

This almost frightens me, but I yell.

"Is this it some graves with our names on em real scary tough guy. Tricks and illusions are nothing to the nine! You can't hide forever!"

Then I feel a sharp pain in my head, and things go black.

Soon enough, I try to go over and smash the damn radio, but I can't move.

"What is this," I try to say, but my mouth is gagged as I find myself bound in a cage above a pit of what looks like multiple, if not hundreds, of medical needles.

I smile as I try to use my power to control the length and sharpness of the needles to free me, and soon, I smile and wait for freedom.

But then, after a couple of minutes, I am still restrained, and the needles have not moved.

I try to use my power but get nothing!

As I woke up, I noticed that the settings had shifted again to a room with a tape recorder on the table that began to play.

(Imagine Zoom's voice from Flash Season 2)

"Welcome, Jack, to my little game, and trust me, you are going to love it."

He pauses and continues, " You may have noticed that you cannot access your abilities. This is by design, as it wouldn't be much of a game if you could cheat. Now, would it."

" This is your game, after all. And you should have all the enjoyment."

I can practically feel the smug smirk forming on his face and try to break the bonds, yet it's for nothing.

" Yes, keep trying to break those bonds. Fight for your life. The one thing you could never allow for others to have."

Soon, I feel something get injected into me, and I feel every sensation multiply, and it hurts, it hurts.

It hurts, It hurts. It hurts. It It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Make it stop. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Make it stop. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH! LET ME LEAVE! WHERE ARE YOU?! I WILL FIND YOU AND GUT YOU LIKE THE IRRELEVANT SPECK YOU ARE!" I yell, but the gag muffles my words.

The voice returns, sounding completely calm." But Jack, that would take away from the game. And what would a game be without its challenges? All you need to do is find the key to release you from your bonds."

The pit of needles then rises, and soon I realize where the key is, and as I try to touch one of the needles, it burns me to the touch.

"Oh, I may have forgotten to mention that all the needles have been superheated to over 500 degrees. Oopsy."

I want to scream in pain, but I can't as I try again to dig, but I can't as they seem to replace one another.

(For reference, he is bound to the wall, with the rest of the room being a giant pit of needles. Self-replicating, of course.)

The voice then returns and says, "Ohh, Jack, it seems that you're lacking motivation to dig. Let's see if I can't turn up that motivation."

The room then begins to heat up hotter and hotter. as I begin to sweat and pant. Every time I try to dig, it gets harder and harder.

I scream in pain and mutter "Why? What did we do to you?"

" You must be wondering why I'm doing this to you. And it's rather simple. You are a disgrace. Jack, you have no goal, no style."

" All I see when I look at the slaughterhouse 9 is a bunch of murderers and thieves and cretins. I don't see a merry band. I don't see a glorious bunch."

"All I see is yesterday's news. You coast off of end-bringer attacks and use the chaos to your advantage. You slaughter and kill for no reason other than simply enjoy it. So here I am, giving you the same hopelessness you gave others."

" But to be honest, this is all just semantics, as I know what you truly fear, Jack. And it's actually relatively common."

The voice then pauses as the needles pierce my skin, and I groan and cry in agony.

" You are afraid of being forgotten. You could not succeed in life, so you decided to grant others the same. You wanted everyone else to suffer just as you have."

" You are boring, Jack."

" After today, the nine will be forgotten like a memory long past."

" You will remain here, digging for the rest of your life. And don't try to kill yourself because you'll simply heal. Your suffering shall never end until. I say so."

Why does he know those words?

" I know everything about you. Jack, I even know your real name. In all honesty, you're just boring. We all could become like you with just one bad day, and it would just be that boring."

I try to get angry as I toss needles at the radio, searing my skin in the process, yet it just bounces off.

" You were all alone, Jack, just like you were then, and you shall remain so for the foreseeable future."

"I hope you enjoy my little game, Jack. Have fun and suffer until your mind gives out due to the pain."

I scream in agony and pain as I dig through the piles of needles and find a key, and when I place it into the lock, it breaks.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Linus Ozias POV:

I am actually surprised he found the key. But the funny part was that any key he finds will just break as soon as he places it in the lock, as they're all too brittle to actually use.

Regarding the rest of the nine, as soon as. I had them in my sight. It was already too late for them. And so when Siberian threw that first punch. Connor activated the countermeasures I had in place. With some traps teleporting a member of the nine to a different location among other things.

Jack was sent to a warehouse I created on Mars deep underground just for him.

Marcus killed Edward Manton right after the Nine were teleported, and so the Siberian just popped out of existence.

It honestly reminded me of the instant transmission noise from Dragon Ball Z abridged when the Siberian projection popped.

Gray Boy was sent into the Sun and was unable to loop as mid-teleport. I turned off his shard, so he burned only a second after exiting the portal.

Crimson and Winter were shot by Connor and myself with the rounds used, giving them the highest amount of pain possible as each of their organs and bones were liquefied from the inside out.

Hatchet and Crawler were disintegrated instantly using the lasers I set up before they arrived.

Chuckles and Shatterbird had their shards eat them from the inside of their heads and were soon left brain dead.

Mannequin I just disabled as he was more electric doll than a man, and hey, I got to cop their ride.

The end of the nine was just as mundane as I hoped. No one will know what happened to them. No one will remember them. I will make sure of it.

But for now, I look to Marcus and Connor as they fly over to me, with the latter asking in his robotic voice due to the suit.

"Mission accomplished, sir?"

I nod and respond to Connor as I look at the remains of the Nine.

"Mission accomplished, Hair Gel."

(For reference, their code names are Contingency (MC), Hair Gel (Connor), and Best Painter (Marcus).)

Connor sighs as he really hates his code name, but Dread and Cyber made it, so he is forever Agent: Hair Gel.

Marcus then chimes in before Connor can complain more about his name. " Well, Sir, the mission has been accomplished. Come on, let's head back to base. We all deserve a rest after this."

I nod as we head through the portals only after getting rid of the equipment.

Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed as I had literally ten other fail-safes in case the traps I created in the weaponry I made didn't work.

I guess this is how it feels to be Batman. Prep time FTW.