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."