Thunderstruck

The machine made an unpleasant sound. A warning blare that sounded over and over, which couldn't possibly be a good sign. Tarquin's understanding of the machine wasn't great, but he figured it was some sort of energy generator. The exact medium was a mystery to him, but he knew electricity was involved, and he knew the villain they'd been after had been tampering with the machine with the goal in mind of causing an explosion.

Tarquin never did understand bad guys who wanted to just destroy, especially if that destruction endangered the bad guy as well. His own drive for causing trouble had never been just 'break shit', and he'd never seen damaging property as a primary objective. His own motives had mostly been survival and revenge, and revenge was usually directed at a single person with limited crossfire where possible. Hex had liked to cause random chaos and damage back when he'd been a criminal, but that had mostly been out of anger and confusion, which Tarquin could sympathise with, he supposed. But when a person destroyed with intent to trigger mass genocide, now that he couldn't quite understand. Even coming from a land where torture was a regular occurrence, it seemed weird to just slaughter hundreds upon hundreds of innocents for whatever reason. He didn't even approve of the mass cullings of his homeland performed to prevent further spread of plague. Not that such measures had worked in the first place.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. To an extent, the man's sabotage attempts had failed, but to an extent, they had also succeeded. Again, he wasn't quite sure about the exact specifics of the thing, his area of expertise was definitely not electronics. He couldn't even figure out how the basic communications devices his team leader had provided him with worked. But he understood the basics of what was happening here, because it had been explained to him.

Elsewhere in the building, whatever sort of place this was, Shard and Hex were running to shut down the whole system before disaster could strike and the overload or misdirection or whatever it was caused an explosion large enough to take out all of...where were they again? Whatever. It would be difficult, and if they couldn't figure out how to shut the whole energy system down in time, it would be down to the team holding the bad guy captive near the explody thing to stop the explosion.

What he did know about his part in all this was that the machine had some major electrical charges firing through it. Some things had been moved out of place, but couldn't be put back safely while everything was live, which was what was causing the overload, if he understood correctly. No human could touch that thing right now and survive.

But then, Tarquin was no human.

He'd seen it before it had been tampered with. He could see which parts were out of place, and where the missing connector was. Flesh conducted electricity, so he himself would work as a connector until the thing was switched off, and he could delay total meltdown. At least, that was what he hoped.

With that thought in mind, Tarquin had stepped closer to the exposed parts of the machine, startling slightly when someone grabbed his wrist to stop him.
"Stay back." Whisper warned him.
"It's broken. They're taking too long. If I just move that wire and plug that back in, it gives them more time, right?"
"Tarq, no, you can't touch it. It'll electrocute you to death."
He gave her a scathing look. "You know my powers, right?"
The grip around his wrist tightened. "You can direct electricity."
"A Shadow Meister can conduct and direct electricity. It's a form of energy that agrees with us. I am not human, what may kill you will not kill me. But if that thing blows, it won't just take us out, it'll take a lot of innocents out as well."
She thought it over for only a moment, weighing up the pros and cons, the possible dangers. Tarquin was right, of course. The electricity wouldn't kill him, and neither would the other things this thing was doing. "Be careful."
"Plug the thing in, move the wire back in place and bridge the gap where the other thing was meant to be. I can do it."

Of course, while it was absolutely true that there was no way that this action would kill him, he did have to admit he didn't have total immunity against electricity. While a normal Shadow Meister would think nothing of 200 volts shot through the body for an extended amount of time, regardless of how the current was acting, Tarquin was not a normal Shadow Meister. He was a halfbreed, and he had his limits. He gave one last glance back to the members of the team still watching him - he was pretty sure Zhen was in charge of the prisoner, Viahar and Astral were in charge of evacuation, or being evacuated, one or the other, and that Crayon had decided to draw something that could potentially contain the blast - and offered a cocky smile before reaching out to grab the wires.

Electricity always looked for the fastest path to the ground, and once his skin touched the uncovered wire, he became the fastest path. While the charge would not kill him, it sure would hurt. His muscles spasmed and he felt flesh burn at the entry and exit points - his palms and feet. It was a bit more intense than he'd expected, he'd have to admit. Regardless, he had a job to do, so he tried to grit his teeth against the pain, tried to stop screaming, tried to keep his eyes open just long enough that he could reroute the wire in his hand. Somewhere vague in the back of his head, he thought he heard Whisper call out to him, but for the time being he ignored it. It was just a burn. Or four. Or more. It was just his muscles going a little too tense and really not wanting to move. It was just an outside stimulus irritating all those old wounds that would never heal quite right. It was a body he knew acting in a way he expected that would not be too badly damaged by this. It would hurt, but he would be fine. He would feel every part of the path that electricity took, and he would be fine.

The wire was back where it needed to be. He stepped back, taking a deep breath, and reached for the plug.
"Tarquin, stop!" He heard Whisper approaching. Her powers were electricity-based as well, but she was still human. He didn't know if she could survive touching this thing, especially since he didn't know what else could be leaking out of it, so he did the only sensible thing he could think of. He threw his shadows out behind him to push her back, and picked up the next bit. The plug. If he was correct, it went...there!

The sound that came from the thing, accompanied by the bright flash, was one he would describe as a mini-explosion. It also earned him some more burns, which hurt like a bitch, but that was inconsequential. He shook it off with a few nasty words in his native tongue, tried to ignore his team leader's attempts to force her way through his shadow shield, and went to bridge the gap. Connect part A to part B and break the feedback loop. Use himself as a conductor. It would hurt until Hex and Shard succeeded in switching it off (or it exploded after all) but he figured he could manage it.

At some point after that, he must have blacked out, or been really stunned, because the next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the floor, looking up at a completely dark room with all the power off, and with someone sat by his head. Whisper, most likely. He could still acutely feel the burns, and an unpleasant urge to vomit, though that could have been the lunch he'd eaten earlier - it had had leaves or something in it and he'd almost immediately thrown it up again, but it was entirely possible that some of that was still in there, unable to be digested.
"I take it...we all lived?" He managed, squinting through the darkness.
"Just about..." He tilted his head back so he could see her. She looked angry. "What were you thinking?"
"'Prevent unnecessary death'. I think I did. I told you I wouldn't die. I never said it wouldn't hurt or make me sick." Using his elbows rather than his hands, Tarquin tried to push himself up to a sitting position. The wave of queasiness quickly pushed him down again. He heard Whisper heave a sigh.
"We've had the 'full disclosure' talk before, haven't we?" It was an understandable situation, but..."You nearly gave me a heart attack there. Are you okay?"
"...Just need some rest. Already feeling better." Again, it wasn't a lie. With no electricity coursing through him, nothing was being irritated by that path. He was just tired and nauseous now, which was normal when he'd overexerted himself, and any of his powers could cause him to overexert himself. Not that his health had ever been great since he'd met Whisper, but potato potato. He felt her take his hands and examine the burns, wondering how good her night vision was.
"We'll get Viahar to look at you. There's bound to be something for burns back at the tower, too, so you should be fine...just..."
She went quiet, and he pushed himself up again, managing to stay mostly upright this time. "Just?" He echoed, peering through the dark curiously.
"Just...don't scare me like that again, okay?"
He offered a smile he hoped she could see. "No promises. But I'll do my absolute best."

A Lesson In Self-Defence

It happened at the same time every Wednesday night, like clockwork. Like some sick ritual Mr Cura always had to stick to.

It had been this way ever since he'd been moved here. Ever since the courts had ruled Mr and Mrs Bergameschi incapable of caring for their own children, because that was why he was here. A vulnerable and neglected child, with only his big sister to rely on.

Big sister wasn't with him here. It was just the boy, and a few other children from bad homes moved to here for their own 'safety'. Supposedly Mr and Mrs Cura would take good care of them, keep them safe and ensure no further harm could come to them. They'd gotten Bergameschi a tutor who wouldn't ask too many questions, changed his entire wardrobe to clean and crisp outfits of their own choosing (and certainly not something he would have chosen for himself), and picked and chose who he could spend time with. At first, he questioned none of it. It didn't seem bad, or sinister, not then. They seemed like ordinary people, and the government trusted them to care for children already in a vulnerable place, so surely they had to be good people, right?

But if that were the case, then Bergameschi wouldn't need to stay awake all night, watching the clock like a hawk, waiting for Cura to make his way to his room. Sometimes he would just sit on the bed and talk. Never nice things, though. Always things that made his skin crawl. Other times, Cura would get physical. It was something he never wanted to relive.

He was sure the other children stuck here were suffering abuse as well. He could hear screams and cries. He was suffering more than he ever had been before, and nothing he could say to any authorities seemed to help. Every case meeting, he would say the same thing. "The Cura's are abusing me and the other kids. I want to live with my big sister instead."
And every time, he would hear back "We'll look into it" or "Your foster carers are here to help" or "You must have been really traumatised by what happened before, but it will be okay now" and they would never do anything to help. There had been so many custody hearings as well, where his sister had tried to get her brother transferred to her house, but the boy remained firmly at the Cura household.

He'd tried to run before, as well. The police had found him pretty quickly. He'd ended up right back where he started, and the officer he'd spoken to had even laughed at him when he'd tried to explain why he ran.

Exhausting all his other options, Bergameschi lay awake, staring at his clock, hand curled under his pillow and around the handle of the kitchen knife he'd managed to sneak upstairs when no-one was looking. He wasn't crazy and he wasn't lying, and if he had to use violence to protect himself then he would. He refused to be a victim any longer.

The clock ticked over. 2:34. 2:45. 2:46.
Creeaak
He hated the door. It gave the slightest creak when it opened, and he winced, tightening his hold on the knife. Cura stepped in, humming something ever so softly. Some Duran Duran song from however long ago. The bed dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside the boy, and Bergameschi felt him hesitate.

It had to be obvious that he had no intention of going to sleep that night. He lay there fully dressed with his glasses still on, body tense and eyes wide. He heard Cura tut.
"Now why are you still awake?" He leaned over, close to him. A hand was near his head, unpleasant-smelling breath tickling his skin. "It's two in the morning, you know. You'll be exhausted if you don't get your sleep." This was followed by a slight chuckle, as if he didn't wake Bergameschi up every Week at half two anyway. Cura braced his hand against the boy's pillow, moving so he was practically straddling him. His hands were positioned to support him and touch the boy's head. Nothing free to protect him from a single strike. With his head that close, it wouldn't be that hard.

Without a moment's hesitation, he'd pulled the knife from its hiding place and plunged it upward, into Cura's throat.

What happened next was by no means quick, nor was it pretty. There was a lot of blood. He recalled Cura thrashing as he plunged the knife in a few more times for good measure, never quite sure where he was hitting, not able to clearly see his target in the darkness. He kept stabbing upward against the struggling and gurgling, kept going until Cura fell still and silent and slumped down against the boy. After a moment, making sure his ex carer was no longer breathing, Bergameschi pushed the body off to the floor and inflicted a few more stabs. Just to be sure. He had to be sure.

It took a couple of minutes to calm down. He felt across the wall for the light switch, wincing when the light burned his eyes and grimacing further when he removed his glasses and saw the blurred remains of the man he'd just killed. He pulled a shirt from his wardrobe to wipe his glasses clean, the wipe that came with them having gone missing a while back, and slotted them back into place.

Odd. Murder was easier than he'd expected. He didn't feel any guilt, or like he'd done anything wrong. This was to protect himself and the other kids, after all. Mr Cura was a dangerous predator, and he was sure the bastard had abused all the children in the house in this manner. As one of the eldest in the house, at 14, Bergameschi felt he ought to protect the others from such monsters. And Mr Cura wasn't the only one to subject the already vulnerable youth to such cruelty. Sure, Mrs Cura's violence and deprivation never went to sexual levels, thank god, but it wasn't by any means any less serious. She would wake up in a few hours, find her husband dead and never pay for her crimes herself.

Well, he couldn't have that.

He wasn't sure if the struggle against his foster father would have woken the others up or not. Even so, he was quiet as he could be as he slipped through the door and tiptoed down the hall, to the door at the end where the Cura's normally slept. Mr Cura had left the door slightly open when he'd left his wife to sleep. This meant minimal noise involved in slipping through to her bedside.

Bergameschi stood stock still by Mrs Cura's bedside for several minutes, paranoid she would waken and he would be caught. Or that she was pretending to sleep, only to catch his arm when he tried to stab her. The time stretched on, crawling at an impossibly slow pace before Bergameschi steeled his resolve and struck.

Afraid she might wake later if he didn't kill her quick, he kept his blade flat and stabbed at the chest. Repeatedly. And when he was done, he backed off and sat against the dressing table, breathing hard and watching her for any sign of movement. He stayed there, watching, feeling the blood coating him dry and cool. When the sun came up, and he heard the shuffle of the other children in the house waking up, he stood again. Mrs Cura hadn't moved an inch, and when he went over to check the body, he was relieved that he could find no sign of life.

He closed the bedroom door behind him and returned to his own room, ensuring the man was dead as well before shutting his door. The least he could do was keep the others in the house from seeing the bodies. They'd been told it was an absolute rule that no-one was allowed in any bedroom but their own, after all, and Bergameschi's door had even had the doorknob removed a while back, so that he wouldn't be able to completely close it. It was just another way they wanted to take away his privacy and sense of self.

He did his very best to be quiet as he descended the stairs, creeping toward the front door, not wanting the kids to see him as he slipped out into the mild morning. Still blood-drenched, he made his way down to the local police station, followed by stares and whispers. Running. Running faster and faster, not wanting anyone to stop him and ask him any questions. Not wanting to explain what happened, not wanting to deal with their looks of disgust.

Murder was wrong, but he didn't feel wrong for what he did. He felt justified. He felt, if there was no other way to protect himself and the others, it had to happen. Even so, as he got to the station and walked up to the front desk, he was fully prepared for the consequences as he told the man sitting there "I've just committed a murder".