Log:Catsequences

2017/09/12 	 The Mechanic Copycat

1

The bodies left behind from Kat's Massacre aren't even cold when the Mechanic recalls her and the Torus 'prototype' to a place of his choosing.

This place happens to be the eye of a storm on Neptune.

The trip here was not particularly pleasant either as the Mechanic removed a number of the Torus' safety parameters. She experiences every astronomical unit of distance between Earth and where the Mechanic appears to be waiting. The trip is nauseating to say the least- feeling something akin to being stretched into spaghetti and reassembled at the other end.

Worse- when she arrives, it is without her suit. It is unbeleivably cold, but she can breathe. So at least some of the safety parameters are active though it sure doesn't feel like it.

Worse, No matter where Kat looks, the Mechanic will be at the center of her vision unless she closes her eyes. He does not look happy. His arms are crossed, and he isn't wearing his glasses. His cold metal eyes bore into Kat's soul.

Copycat was still reeling from the accident and her own near death before Annie healed her. Everything feels numb and in shock as she tries her best to not break down crying in front of Griffin or Rick. The fact that they're soldiers and believe "these things happen, they would've killed innocents if they weren't stopped" does little to console her. It just makes her feel worse, because she doesn't feel that way at all.

The pair had ushered her away from the scene while they dealt with the authorities, leaving Cat feeling lost and on her own as she walks down a quiet alleyway two blocks from the scene. Here, away from them, she can finally let her tears trickle down her cheeks. She knows they care about her and want to protect her, but...but she shouldn't just get away with this. If she does, she'd be no better than Kit. No better than the villains she tries to fight.

Her shaking hands curl up into small fists and she turns about to march back and turn herself in. And that's when her stomach drops for a completely different reason. Probably because it just got left several meters behind her as her body defies physics and contorts through space and time in an instant of agonizing pain that shocks her system.

The cold, for a brief moment, is soothing. Like putting ice on an injury. But then it quickly feels so cold that it burns all around her and saps away her strength. Disoriented, pained, and shivering from the penetrating cold, she drops to her knees while her arms wrap around her in a vain attempt to keep warm. The tears, she realizes, have frozen instantly on her cheeks, and even though she's staring down at the ground while recovering, she sees the Mechanic.

Expecting her lungs to burst or for there to be no oxygen to breathe, she holds her breath as long as she can to try and survive just a little longer. Her head snaps up and still sees him, staring damningly at her as she freezes and as her air runs out. He's going to kill her! A wave of fear washes over her, followed shortly with resignation. It's what she deserves for what she did.

And that's when she gives up. Her lungs still have air left in them, but with a big whoosh, she lets out a huge sigh and reflexively gasps again, expecting unbreathable gasses to kill her if the cold doesn't. She's surprised when air fills her lungs instead, and the primitive part of her brain takes over, gulping down huge breaths of air desparately.

The Mechanic 'watches' Kat without any reaction. He sifts through her mind- not at all being gentle. He dives deep witht he help of her bond to the Torus- directly into Kat's memory of the whole affair. He lives the moments leading up to, and through Kat's eyes. He forces her to relive it simultaneously- forcefully.

When he's through his eyes narrow and he flies forward at Kat, but his distance never decreases. Kat will realize that the Mechanic is pushing her back- back towards the wall of the storm that is an unfathomable distance behind her.

That is until she looks back again- and that wall be twice as high as it was only a few seconds prior. The Mechanic stops.

"I'm unsure of where it was I went wrong. Perhaps you can help me understand. I'm quite cross about this whole affair and I'm afraid of what it means for humanity- what it means for our future if I am wrong." He says mysteriously, his voice booming over the call of the storm stretching all around.

Reliving the events cause fresh tears to fall and freeze on her cheeks, which along with her nose are turning pinkish red against the cold. Seen again outside of the immediate heat of battle, she's able to understand a little better just how it happened. As usually, it comes to her confidence and fear. She was afraid given the situation, and under confident about her abilities to help, so she overestimated her opponents and overcompensated.

And then, she when got a little boost of confidence when she didn't get shot by the pilot--and before she realized how much he was injured--that she thought with his skills, she could land the helicopter. And that mistake caused the crash that ended up killing both pilots, and nearly her.

It just makes the pain and guilt bubble up even more, since it hadn't gone away yet. After the memories and sensations pass, she pants a little from the cold and the rise and fall of adrenaline from reliving it. It's only after the adrenaline drains away from her tingling limbs that she notices why the Mechanic is flying at her and not moving. She looks back with wide eyes to see the wall of the storm looming behind her.

Her head swings back as he speaks. His booming voice cuts to her core as she trembles from cold and fear at what his words may mean. Not for her, but for humanity.

"I-I'm sorry. I made a terrible mistake, and people died because of me. B-but..." she stammers as her teeth chatter, "humanity can be better. It -is- better than me..."

The Mechanic watches all this unfold in the mind of Copycat passively. Always an observer, rarely an actor.

But as he watches, something occurs to him. Having a planet sized brain will do that kind of thing at the most inopprotune times.

Nevertheless the Mechanic seems just as unmoved by Kat's fear or cold- but that may be the point of all of this. She's here by his will, she breathes by it and when she agreed to wear the Torus she... she...

Well as he thinks on it- most of the problems he's having at the moment seem to involve him making a lot of implications and expecting Kat to adhere to them.

"I can see that you are sorry- and it feels that you're aware of the reprocussions of your actions. That said you were completely and utterly reckless with your own abilities when dealing with the unpowered." The Mechanic says, "Life is sacred and this is a rule we aren't to violate. For any reason. The Torus is a learning device, and I fear what it might learn with someone who would so easily disregard that. Especially when the result of that decision tree was the death of two human beings. Two fathers and husbands who despite working for an organization who was hunting you were coerced into their positions. It does not alleviate their own guilt of course- but perhaps, it would be best to remember that you are not judge, jury and executioner. Unless I misunderstand the purpose of a 'heroine' in this era. Am I mistaken?" He asks, yet he continues without waiting for an answer.

"Humanity cannot be 'better' than this, if you are a champion of their kind- and are held to a higher standard. It is not logical. It leads me think that your time helping the Torus better understand your era has been for naught."

He pushes her towards the clouds again, a bit slower- but they are definitely getting closer still.

Copycat is more than keenly aware that she is helpless and at the Mechanic's mercy, alive now only by his will while being plucked away from everyone and everything she knows. She's also aware that she's starting to lose feeling in her extremities already. She tries to grip her fingers tighter around her biceps as she curls up against the cold, but she feels like she can barely hold into her arms.

Even with the numbing cold and getting pushed back towards the wall, she listens to the Mechanic's words, and her heart sinks even further. Part of her had thought the pilots were heavily armored, or perhaps they were like Alpha and Beta. She curses herself for never stopping to think that they were really just human.

But as the Quantum Mechanic explains his seemingly omniscient details on the pilots, she feels another sort of cold, deep down in the put of her stomach. In the moments after finding out about the pilot's deaths, she had guilted herself with all sorts of thoughts of their innocence or extenuating circumstances. But every worry that she had and more is suddenly confirmed. They were coerced. They had families.

The news takes her breath away, and in that moment, she doesn't want to live anymore. She's resigned to the thought that the Mechanic will kill her for her crimes, and she'd deserve it. "You're not mistaken," she says with a constricting throat. She never intended to act as judge, jury, and executioner. And even though she didn't mean to kill them, it doesn't excuse her. And she didn't realize what the Torus might learn from her mistakes.

. o O (I'm sorry, Torus. I let you down. I failed you...)

"I'm not a worthy champion," she realizes, her breathing condensed and hanging in the air briefly as fog. She's known all along. "I am supposed to be held to a higher standard. There are better champions than me. Better for the Torus," her voice cracks at her last statement about the Torus. Her heart aches, not from the loss of the Torus' powers and abilities, but from missing the Torus' companionship. "I'm not worthy of him anymore," she pronounces, trying to be strong despite shivering, managing for now to hold back her tears, but only barely.

"Its worse than I thought." The Mechanic says, stopping them a few hundred miles from the walls. The sound of the storm starts to become so deafening the Mechanic is forced to switch to telepathic communication exclusively halfway through his response ot Kat. Well besides that whole force of nature being called up behind her. But that's really unspoken, isnit?

"Much worse than I thought. I was... wrong." He says, not so much as mentioning Copycat or her moral failings. Him being wrong seems to be the great misdeed done here today.

(You certainly are not worthy of wielding the Torus adequately. You also need to find out what it means to put on a costume like that.) The Mechanic says. (Katrina Prince- I revoke your rights as Primary User of the Demiurge Torus.)

The PowerPixie+ shifts subtly as the the Torus is separated forcibly from the device.

He becomes a hologram and snaps his fingers- the sound of the snap somehow overwhelming the storm before the pair is wisked away to a much more stable clime. "That will not do. Not one bit. I must fix this immediately. First we must find you another teacher- one who can teach us what it truly means to be a 'hero' in this era of yours. I will serve as the other- my example will show you what the Torus is truly capable of."

He turns to look at Kat. "So do you accept Katrina Prince?"

As Katrina Prince is given her choice- her PowerPixie+ continues loosing mass as the black substance of the Torus rises like smoke, accumulating into a ball floating in front of her.

Copycat strains to hear over the storm, her hair whipping about so violently that it stings as the ends lash at her face, even with the burning of the cold. The cold has become agonizing all over her body, worse than diving into arctic waters, not that she knows. Much more of this, and she'll probably develop hypothermia. IF she lives that long.

The Mechanic stopping and distraught at being wrong catches her off guard, right as she was brokenheartedly trying to think of what to ask the Torus to say to Griffin on her behalf as a final farewell. She loves him and always will? Don't come looking for me and I hope you find someone who makes you happy? There were a number of mental rewrites, as she never thought she'd have to be composing a love note and goodbye message while freezing to death.

She only barely registers the shift of her PowerPixie+ on her heavy, numb limbs, but the snap punctuates the change clearly enough with his revocation. With the sudden transportation away from the storm and the howling in her ears, she collapses on all fours, her limbs shaking from fear, relief, and frost.

She's...alive. She's going to live? But how can she live with herself after what she did? Although...how would Griffin react if she never came home?

She lifts her head up raggedly, her body swaying even with the stability being on hands and knees should give. "I accept," she answers. For Griffin. For never harming an innocent again.

The location of The Mechanic's choosing is much warmer, yet only marginally less desolate. Kat finds herself on hands and knees on a desert isle in the heart of the South Pacific.

The holographic form "Oh please, Katrina Prince. I put on all that about the sanctity of life and then I execute you? Perhaps your time with the Torus was a waste as well." He says, leaving no doubt to where the Torus' attitude and tendancy for scathing comments shared over their mental channel originated.

"Nevertheless, it was a wise decision." He says- as the real man, the real Mechanic steps out of the hologram.

He begins to float in the air as the black sphere that was just inside Kat's PowerPixie+ drifts and then orbits The true Mechanic. (As Master User 01, I restore my status as Primary User of the Demiurge Torus.)

"Torus- Unlock all user upgrades. Initiate Nanotransgenic Apothesosis subroutines. Initiate merge with Primary User." He announces as the sphere spins faster and faster. It gets going so fast that the sphere disintegrates into its component parts. It uses the energy from centrifical force to realign the material of the Torus into strands and then those again together as a net, and then a series of networks layered deeper and deeper towards the Mechanic and his outstretched arms.

Suddenly the Torus collapses onto the Mechanic- and then INTO the man's physical form. The largest mass accumulates along his spine and skull, then he begins to glow and rotate rapidly himself. The glow builds until he is outshining the rising Sun behind him.

"I...guess not." Copycat blushes in embarrassment at her assumption that the lack of rational thought behind it. She was hardly thinking rationally or logically, given her state of mind even now.

The warmth of the desert aisle is a welcome relief, even if scorching. All she wants is to flatten out on the sand and thaw herself.

She twists her hands at the wrists to bury her hands into the sand, then sits up a little. She keeps her shins and feet in contact with the sand, but spreads her legs out to the sides enough that she can sit her rear on the sand and warm that up, too.

Now resting on the ground and slowly warming up as she continues to shiver, she watches in awe as the Torus and the Mechanic combine. She sniffs once and mentally thinks to herself, even though the Torus is gone. o O (Goodbye, Torus. I'll miss you...)

The New Celestial Mechanic is born right before Kat's eyes- a merger of Man & Machine the world had never seen.

The light begins to fade as the destreum shell begins to cover the Mechanic and the rotating slows. Only the light of the rising sun remains when he is covered entirely. The two-dimensional looking golem examines its hands, turning them over and then looking at its arms- but its clear the process is not yet complete because there is a palpable energy still in the air emminating from The New Celestial Mechanic.

The shell crumbles, but it falls upwards, recasting itself as a sphere and then a ring 5 inches around. The Mechanic puts his right arm straight up- revealing himself. He's revealed to be a man like before- but his face is solid, firm. His eyes remain solid black. He's wearing a two-toned suit that looks to be half futuristic spacesuit and half superhero costume (think Reed Richards) beneath a white lab coat that has a glowing blue vortex as an emblem on his breast pocket.

Near the peak of the transformation and as the Mechanic burns bright, Copycat is forced to avert her eyes and close them, even raising a hand to block the light that's searing through her eyelids.

When the red haze fades from her vision, the slowly blinks open her eyes and lowers her hand, gazing in awe at the merging and final transformations of the Mechanic. Her jaw even hangs open a little as he settles into a rather heroic looking form.

The Mechanic is as surprised as anyone as he drifts back towards the ground in his new form.

He examines himself as the Torus Ring drifts down over his arm stretched upward.

The Torus then shrinks into in arm- almost fusing itself to him.

"Astounding." The Mechanic says, "I had forgotten what it was like to have a physical form... it has been... so very long."

Copycat isn't even sure what to say to a god-like being given physical form. He could already affect the physical world even without that form. What could he do now that he's merged with the Torus he created?

Copycat also can't help feeling crestfallen that the Torus didn't say goodbye. What it must think of her now...

She shifts a little, frost falling off of her. Beads of water form on her jacket and uniform as the iced-up portions of her clothing and hair begin to thaw from the heat. Her teeth still chatter as she asks, "W-what...what are you? If you weren't physical before..."

"Before? Before... I was the observer between worlds. I used the Torus as a makeshift avatar on Earth- to act for me, to act in my stead in some cases such as with you and the Schrodinger avatar." The Mechanic says as he grabs the lapels of his lab coat and tugs them once gently to 'try it out'.

"Now... Now I am more than either the Torus or the man I was before I am now. We are one- we are as designed." He says unhelpfully before he begins floating on his own power, towards Copycat. "Now Katrina Prince- you cannot be my companion without a way to defend yourself from the elements- I restore to you a modicum of what you had, in hopes it will see you strive for redemption, to reattain what you once had."

He points to her PowerPixie+ and then draws a circle around it. Then with the arm bearing the Torus he pushes his flattened palm towards it.

A stream of destreum makes its way for her watch. AS soon as there is contact, the watch begins to change.

The first thought that goes through Kat's head when she hears the Torus was more than an AI, but an avatar and that they're merged, is. o O (Oh god. He's probably seen me getting changed. Or in my SARDIT undies. And those little dances I do...) Her cheeks are already still red from the cold, so her blushing goes unnoticed. In her mind, a montage plays out of the times she was home alone with the Torus and bored, dancing and bogeying to her favorite parts of her favorite songs while getting ready, or getting undressed, or just tidying up, often in nothing more than a pair of undies and sometimes a tank top to savor not needing to be in a full-body skinsuit.

Those images, thankfully, disappear as the Mechanic speaks again. Companion? Or is she now in servitude to this watcher?

. o O (Redemption...? As if that were something possible. Nothing I do should make me worthy of reattaining a user level, even if I somehow redeem myself.) She feels so utterly worthless and awful with the weight of those innocent's deaths on her shoulders. As she should feel.

She blinks in surprise as the gestures of the Mechanic cause a stream of destreum to alter the PowerPixie again, adding the + to it in some ways. "What...? You're giving me back something?" She asks, even though he explained why.

The Mechanic's words continue. The information he's absorbed from the Torus far outstrips Kat in her little tiny panties- especially considering mankind's penchant for chasing tail and being so easily distracted by biological 'imperatives' were long dispelled in the people to come.

"It is a wonder the Torus preferred you to others, but it would seem I will find out why soon enough." He says to the heartbroken Kat. While he throws barbs, he strips the Schrodinger avatar of most of its utility and sets it to cat-functionality and chat capabilities only.

So the cat will appear perfectly normal to anyone who sees it, but it will be entirely artifical so Kat will have the mammalian snese of touch required by such throwbacks.

Copycat tries not to sniffle or cry at that barb. Obviously the Torus doesn't prefer her anymore. Why should Griffin or Rick trust her after what she did? Once they find out about the pilots just being coerced, of having families...they'll probably turn their backs on her, too. Just like her old team did after the incident with King Cobra, sending her off for "treatment".

She swallows thickly, realizing she has no where to go now. Who else would take her? The numbness she feels is no longer from the cold as her limbs warm up. It's inside as her heart sinks, realizing she's in servitude to the Mechanic now, even if she's labeled as a "companion". "I don't know why, either," she murmurs despondantly.

"Well no matter." The Mechanic says, waiving it all away in his mind the way one might wave off a waiter. If it does not serve his agenda to know and understand all things, there is little time allotted for it. "Yes- a modicum of the PowerPixie+'s capabilities have been restored. As I said- the hope is that you uses that as inspiration to keep moving forward. You cannot go back the way you came."

The PowerPixie+ lights up, and a new option is available to Kat in the menu, while the mental interface is compeltely gone. Nevertheless- there is an emergency safety suit option. it is configured to look like the latest ESA/StarGuard model, thouhg in Kat's color scheme.

Copycat looks down at the watch and its one feature mode. It's just a painful reminder of the friend she lost. Or maybe she was the fool to think the Torus considered her a friend. The only solace is that she doesn't have to hide the Torus from Griffin anymore.

"What do I tell Griffin? Or others? When or if they find out I'm your...Companion," she asks quietly, not looking up at the Mechanic.

"Whatever you like. That is hardly my concern." The Mechanic says, "I'll happily tell them you're the Queen of Zimbabwe if you wish. That's still around rig- ah. yes. There it is. Oh a bit smaller that my records show. Let me just..." He taps at the air, seemingly doing nothing.

"There that's better. All corrected. You can even tell them I work for RISE Labs. I believe I'm capable of 'playing dumb'." He snaps his fingers and a wormhole opens in between them. He vanishes from his side and reappears on Kat's right. "Of course- you can always hang up the towel. Return to your old life and forget all about me. The choice- as ever, is always yours Katrina Prince. The wormhole will take you whereever you wish to be." He has no idea, he's totally pulling this out of his super-deified ass. Likely her hotel room because its the most logical choice. "Or we can continue- and find our champion, who will teach you the basics of proper decision making when in the line of duty and me the contemporary trade of 'heroing'. There must be a reason so many are called to it. It defies reason. It is beyond 'survival'."

Copycat somehow doubts the Mechanic's ability to play dumb. Especially with his odd comments about Zimbabwe. It only provides a brief distraction from Kat's terrible situation. "RISE Labs would be more believable," she murmurs, wondering if she'll even have a job when she gets back, if the cops don't end up arresting her.

Her head finally lifts up from staring at the Torus-less PowerPixie as the Mechanic steps through a portal and gives her a choice. She looks towards the wormhole at the promise of going to her old life.

But is there even an old life to go back to? Will Griffin even speak to her, after having to cover for her crime? He'd probably turn his back on her, too. And that thought breaks her shattered heart even further. She's too afraid to see him, to find out his reaction.

"...I can't return," she murmurs with a heavy heart, her voice sounding distant. The only path is forward and through the fire.

"I'm certain this... Caveman of yours. No. This Ranger- ah, yes Army Ranger. This Ancient Ranger of yours would not turn his back on you. Loyalty means much and more to that one." The Mechanic says as the Portal continues to shimmer invitingly. That is until he snaps his fingers again. The wormhole falls in on itself- but without the -whomp- that generally accompanies one of his gateways closures.

The Torus leaps off the Mechanic's arm and forms itself into a two-person personal high-speed flyer.

Loyalty. The word makes her burn with guilt. How could Kat have kept all this a secret from him for so long? But maybe now, she can tell him everything. Or at least...the truth of why she couldn't tell him about it all this time. But after so long, and then this? Copycat's rise in confidence was quickly and thorough crushed after this. So she still has doubts, despite the Mechanic's reassurances.

But that's because Kat is very much a foolish little girl, despite her age.

"Caveman? He's not a caveman," Copycat says, managing to drudge up an indignant response. And here she thought only the Torus referred to Griffin as a caveman. The Mechanic is probably where he learned that from.

She turns her back on the inviting portal, and the ticket back home to Griffin. Her mind drifts back to a montage of him smiling or laughing in various situations, of holding hands, the way he would look at her. They both warm her and hurt her at the moment, so she tries to clear her mind and focus on something else. That's when the wormhole falls.

When the Torus leaps off and turns into a flyer, Copycat gasps. She never got to test out those capabilities to that degree, and is surprised of the feature.

The Mechanic disappears in a flash of light, ignnoring Kat's indignation and reappearing in the VTOL craft's pilot seat.

Over the din of the craft's engines spinning to life his voice rings in her mind the way the Torus' used to. .o0(Are you coming, Katrina Prince?)

The cockpit slides open to reveal the Mechanic inside, flipping switches and starting the craft up- or at least pretending to do that. Its going to be quite difficult to tell that's for sure.

Copycat wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the Mechanic pantomiming or doing the real thing. When the cockpit open, she answers aloud, "Coming. But where are we going?" With a sudden pop, she turns into a shrinking ball of light and ceases to exist, briefly. With another pop, she reforms in the other free seat.

"Back to civilization of course. I just htought we'd take the scenic route." The Mechanic says, all his fury gone. FIlled instead with curiousity about his new form and its possibilities.

Copycat will have to get used to the rollercoaster that is dealing with the Mechanic. From furious deity to curious entity, she's not sure what will happen next. She buckles in and prepares for the trip. Her clothes are now merely damp from the ice and chill of Neptune.

"So where are we going to find a hero heroic enough to train with?" One that meets the Mechanic's high standards, she thinks.

The Torus closes the cockpit and the aircrift pitches to the left as it turns and sets for a course back to Colonial Bay, VA.

The Mechanic says, "That is the question Ms. Prince- afterall, who could meet such stringent requirements? Who could be heroic in the face of any threat- real, imaginary or otherwise?" The craft's spin stops, and then the forward thrusters kick in. The lift from the wings begins giving them altitude as they fly off into the sunrise, chasing a new day.