A Hostage Situation (closed to Sul_Fury)

"GOD!" Screamed Andree as her eyes snapped open. The light was bearing into her eyes and was shocking to her as she awoke from her chloroform induced slumber. As she tried to move her arms, she noticed that her suit was gone, leaving her in a sweat soaked white tank top and a pair of black yoga pants. She also noticed that her wrists were bound by metal shackles. As she was about to struggle, she felt the cold needle sink into her skin. Instantly, her head lurched back and a moan escaped her lips as she sat there unconscious. However, her mind was not doing nothing.

As if it was yesterday, Andree was sitting in a high school class. Her eleven year old self raised her hand to the teachers question of "Describe what String Theory is." Looking around the class at the lack of hands besides the small eleven year olds, he pointed towards her, "How about you Miller."

"String Theory is a theory that the electrons and quarks within an atom are not 0-dimensional objects, but made up of 1-dimensional strings. These strings can oscillate, giving the observed particles their flavor, charge, mass and spin. String theories also include objects more general than strings, called branes. The word brane, derived from "membrane", refers to a variety of interrelated objects, such as D-branes, black p-branes and Neveu–Schwarz 5-branes." She replied before getting cut off by the teacher.

"That`s enough, we haven`t gotten to that material yet. Oh! Look at the time. Time to get out of here kids." The teacher said the last part with enthusiasm as he was glad to get rid of these kids and leave early.

As she went out to the lockers a fist smashed into the locker next to her head. "Think you`re smart, don`t you you little bitch?" Came the voice of one of the larger kids in the grades. His fist had left a dent in the grey, metal locker which made her take a mental note to make sure she avoided it. "Let`s see how smart you are inside of a locker!" He shouted loudly sot he hallway could hear him.

"`NO! Stop!" Whined the small eleven year old as the large boy threw here into the full locker. A small click could be heard outside, signalling that he had locked the locker door. She was trapped. Banging her fists against the door she yelled "HELLO!?! Get me out of here!!!"

The scene blurred in her mind as it morphed into a Locker Room. The grade 11 girls were coming in. A group of 17 year old girls and one small 11 year old. The young Andree went over to her gym locker and opened it up to get her uniform. But all she found inside was an elf`s costume. "Oh hilarious, pick on the little one. Where are my clothes?" She asked, irritated at whoever did this.

"I have no idea, looks like you will have to wear that ugly thing." Came the voice of a snotty girl with an upturned nose. "I`m not wearing that. Looks like your big plan didn`t work out Serena. I`ll just wear my gym clothes." She snapped back at the smug expression on the girls face."No you won`t." Came her reply as Serena grabbed a shower head and quickly sprayed Andree with water. "Oops. I`m sorry. At least you have a nice elf costume you can wear."
The scene blurred as she said these words.

If that was what the first dose did, she didn`t want to try for more. There were many worse memories than those. The cold needle was being pulled out of her arm, that is why she woke up. "Who are you?" She asked before the man in a yellow cardigan asked her a question. She knew that this must be her kidnapper. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the light on the camera in the corner recording the interview. "Go to hell." She muttered under her breath before speaking louder, "Helping people. What made you get into kidnapping and torture? Do you enjoy it? Does it thrill you? Does it make you feel powerful? Because your not, your just a psychopath. And do you know where psychopaths go?"

A simple laughter accompanied by a patronizing head shake directed to the camera came during Mockingbird's announcement. "Helping people. These crazy vigilantes." Lucy pressed a button on her phone to trigger a laugh track while Mockingbird continued. "Now, back to serious issues. People that were surveyed said that superheroes caused more damage than good. Why are you so bent on bringing pain to others?" Lucy kept her guise in control. She ran her hand through the combed over set of hair and crossed her leg over. "Follow up question, how are you at accepting failure?" Lucy kept the laugh track going throughout every answer that Mockingbird supplied her. "Now, some of my colleagues..." She placed air quotes on the word colleagues while delivering a cheesy smile. "...Say that a certain medical condition resides within those who put on masks and claim to fight crime. How do you mind live as a mentally challenged person to be? Does it make you feel small and alone in a violent world that scares you."

Lucy stopped the camera. With her line of questioning going a little more in depth she felt that Mockingbird should be in a different state of mind. Keeping this girl always could prove dangerous, so Lucy needed to get her in a different state quickly. The needle pierced through the side of Mockingbird's neck into her jugular to deliver a joly of hydromorphone. "Now, let's get back to some questions."

Back in her chair with the camera capturing the image of the two local celebrities in the same frame, Lucy moved back to her questions. Lucy mimed holding up a document in her hands. "So, it says here that the weight of heroism consumes all that chase after it. How do you feel that this is going to end for you?" The laugh track stayed quiet for this time. Lucy wanted to keep the severity of the moment in the mind of her captive. Watching the actions of humans entertained her so much. The facial expressions that grimaced the truth always told more than any other medium that they could choose to speak with. "Well, with that telling interview we now go back to you Mockingbird." The odd ending of the interview phased out the awkward conversation. A laughter continued as Lucy kept her gaze on Mockingbird.

"I'm not mentally challenged. I'll have you know that I'm probably much smarter than you are. Can we get back to the torture method already? Never know, I might enjoy it. Certainly it would be more entertaining than this." Andree said before the camera was shut off. She hoped that if she amused her, then she may live longer, even though she didn't like it. "No, please, don't." She said weakly as the needle plunged her back into her own head. Her body violently threw her head back as the needle entered her arm.

"Come here little girl." Came the haunting, cruel voice. "I'm going to have some fun with you." The small thirteen year old girl was running down the street, away from the man who was picking up speed to catch her. "Please! Don't!" She screamed as the man grabbed her shoulder. This was before she had learnt about her speed. "Don't what? You don't want to have fun? Well you don't have a choice, do ya?" Andree's arms thrashed to escape. During her thrashing, her nails hit the man's eyes as he was undoing his pant zipper. "SON OF A-!" He screamed before being cut off by a kick to the groin.

The scene began to fade as she came back to consciousness. The man in the yellow cardigan started talking again but he was only a yellow blur to her right now as her eyes readjusted tot he light. "Not well honestly. But here's the thing. When I go down, I drag the person responsible down with me." She smirked a bit and glared into the man's eyes, unblinking.

"I don't know how to do the next scene. Live television is much harder than the scripted stuff." Dust fell off of the shelf and rested on the the frumpy cardigan. "Oh I almost forgot, I need a wardrobe change." Lucy picked up the tripod that she rested the camera on and took it down the hallway. Leaving Andree to her own devices in her drug filled world Lucy examined the room she kept for video broadcast torments. White sheets lined the room; Lucy tore up the carpet to leave the floor bare to exposed concrete. A single metal chair drew attention to the middle of the room against the bare surroundings in the dim lit room. Keeping light from acting as a tell to inform heroes to her location, Lucy blocked out the window. Light from an hanging lightbulb brought the room to a dominant contrast to the isolated chair.

Lucy grabbed a mirror and walked back to the couch. For the next part of her endeavor Lucy placed the mirror on the coffee table facing Andree. Not really feeling that she should exhibit her powers to her captive, Lucy walked over to her kitchen and pulled out a large, black scarf. Lucy walked back into the living room and tied the scarf around Andree's face. Not much of her upper face stayed visible once the scarf covered her from the bottom of her nose to the middle of her forehead. Now she could impart her own reflection on this girl from her mirror. After taking herself into the mirror Lucy gazed at the girl framed through the mirror edges. Her hand pulled her back through the mirror under the guise of the girl before her.

"Well isn't this a surprise. I wonder how this suit fits." Lucy pulled the rubbersuit up her leg. "Yoga pants and a tank top. I am a classy broad." Mimicry rang from her words. "But this suit. Now I can do something. Now I'm a hero. Wow." The back of the suit pulled up around her back while Lucy ran her arm through the sleeve. "Before I was just a loser in yoga pants, now I'm totally a hero." Zipping up the middle of the suit tightened the rubbed around her chest. "Oh, so you do the hero act for the slimming look it gives you. Well I almost feel like being a hero now." The soft rubber mask pulled softly around her cheeks and snapped behind her head. Lucy flipped the hood up and took on the guise of Andree. "And now it's time for the next stage. I need you to be more agreeable." Another round of injections flew into Andree's arm to inoculate her into a stupor.

Lucy lifted her and walked her to the soundstage.

"Hey!!! GET THIS OFF OF ME!!!" Andree howled as the scarf was placed around her face. She thrashed her head around. A mess of hair covered her face now but it didnt matter to her, she couldnt see it anyways because of the scarf. Her head hurt from the sudden tossing and she was feeling dizzy despite not standing. "Why do you do any of this anyways? Does it make you feel powerful? In control? Are you making up for some traumatic experience in your past? Maybe you should let me go now. That way I dont have to break every bone in your body after I get out. Do you know how many bones you have for me to break? Two hundred six if you didnt know." She was thrashing her shoulders around while she said this but stopped as she began panting. The drugs had made her weak.

I need to get out of here, but how? Is there anything that could get me out of these cuffs? Well, it doesnt matter I cant see anyway. Maybe she might take them off. Probably not, She seems sadistic. Psychopath, sadistic, narcissism what a perfect combination. Maybe I can flatter her into letting me out? Nah, she seems to have a bit of intelligence. What is she doing anyways? All these thoughts swirled around Andree`s mind as her breathing started to return to normal. Where am I exactly? She asked herself as she started trying to use her heightened senses of smell and hearing to find a clue. Cars. i can hear some horns and smell some gas emission. So Im still in a city. Who knows if its still Chicago though.

Timing took proper timing to execute. Every small detail needed to fall properly in place for the perfect moment to truly escalate this to the greatest even in live television. Several levels of plans needed to go into place concurrently to ensue that nothing fell through in the final stages of the performance of a lifetime. Tight rubber pulled Lucy's fake body into place with the constricting material. Her composure and movement felt the tug of the rubber pull at her legs with every move she made. Everything she needed now looked ready. Her feed went directly to a rerouted transistor point that would place itself over the digital feed from the station. FCC regulations over broadcast air worked to her advantage.

"Hello citizens of Chicago. Mockingbird, your friendly superhero do gooder here to talk to you about the dangers of being a superhero." Darkness covered her eyes under the cowl. Lucy walked towards the camera, keeping the view directly obstructed by her body. "For an example, we go live to the real Mockingbird." Lucy began walking back, her body blocking the shot of the real Mockingbird. Lucy stepped to the side of Mockingbird, brushing her hand to pull Mockingbird's head back. Lucy taped Mockingbird's mouth shut and wrapped her entire torso to the metal chair. Across the black tape Lucy wrote 'I'm a superhero!' across her body in silver marker. Along her mouth Lucy wrapped a line of tape around her entire head with the words 'Andree Miller' across it, but placed a piece of black tape over that reading 'Who am I?' Slipping out of the handcuffs would give her almost no new movement to her form.

Lucy sat down on Mockingbird's lap and placed her hand under Mockingbird's jaw, holding it to face the camera. The blindfold still kept her face covered from the voyeurism of the viewers. "Now before we get to know the face of our hero, I say we get to know her mind." Lucy pulled out a control from the utility belt that the bird kept on her. She jumped to her feet and pressed a button that would send the feed to the footage that Lucy shot of the interview with Mockingbird.

The interview would play out for a few minutes while Lucy prepared for her next move of fully unmasking the superhero before the audience. While the camera kept footage off of the two, Lucy pulled out another needle and injected it into the girl's neck. She squeezed the bag to send more of the drug into the girl. When she began to remember what could happen if she injected too much Lucy pulled the needle out; her smile remained intact though.

"Mmmph! Mmmmph! Mmmmmmmph!" Andree tried to shriek as her captor taped her mouth shut. She tried to shake her head out of the grasp of the woman who had caught her. It was creepy to her that this creep, this monster, this psychopath was sitting on her lap. "Mmmmmph! Mmmmmmmmph! Mmmmmmmmmph!" Was all that came out as a response to the girl on her lap when she talked about revealing her face. What she was trying to say was "LET ME GO YOU CRAZY BITCH!" She could hear the interview playing and then end. The next thing she knew, there was a cold needle in her neck. The audience would see her head lurch back and a moan attempting to release itself from the duct tape as the needle plunged into her body, injected the drug and launched her into yet another bad memory.

The cold rain was coming down in sheets on the cold marble steps of the High School. Andree, thirteen just like in the last memory, was running down the steps. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a black T Shirt and a black hoodie with the hood drawn over her head to shield herself from the rain. As she ran down the street, she couldn`t see the two men coming up behind her due to the hood over her head. "AHHH! FUCK!" She screamed as she dropped to her knees, blood drawn from her arm by the blade of a knife. The warm, red liquid dripped on the ground with the rain. The toe of a boot made contact with her noes, drawing even more blood. "You`re not going to cost me that scholarship bitch." Was all the man said as they walked off. The other man turned around though and slammed his heel into her back as she was on the ground.

The kick jolted her back awake, not certain of what had happened while she was unconscious and what was going on now.

Lucy smacked Mockingbird on the cheek a few times. "Thanks for the mumbling. I hate it when people sit there in quiet dignity not giving me what I really want for the camera." Lights gleamed around the cowl of Lucy Brillow's disguise. "Just a few more minutes and we'll get to the finale." A feed of the interview rolled over a monitor in front of the doorway. A few more failed questions in an awkward situation more and they would cut back to the live unmasking of a superhero. This could be a new moment in television history, the first unmasking of a superhero; Lucy made strides into a new realm of reality television.

And then the time came. "Well that was insightful for our hero wasn't it." Lucy hit the side of Mockingbird's head to wake her up a little. "Now. Who do we have under this little blindfold?" The soft material untied from behind Mockingbird's head just enough for Lucy to pull it down around her neck. Mocking the girl Lucy threw her hands up in a display of bafflement. She underlined the words on the girl's taped mouth with an audible for the reading impaired. "Who am I?" To build up the suspense Lucy walked away with her arms flailing in frustration. "We have our girl, but how do we know who she is." Laughing at the misfortune of Mockingbird, Lucy came back into frame. "Oh, because she talks in her sleep." With a flick of her wrist Lucy tore the upper layer of tape off of Mocking Bird's bottom layer of tape. The words displayed upon her tape in clear written wording. "Why it's Andree Miller. We all know her." To under cut her statement Lucy shook her head and shrugged her shoulders while speaking the name of the girl. "But, who am I then?" Lucy removed her cowl and unhooked her mask. "Well this is a twist. Any comments on it, Andree."

Unwrapping the tape from her head took a few seconds, but finally the girl could freely speak to the dismay of her unmasking.

"Should I ransom you? No, no, I'll do one better. If anyone wants this girl, just send a me a message and if you meet my standards I'll tell you where she'll be hidden. Sounds fair right?" She turned back to Andree with a sinister smile.

Beaten, Andree remained silent through the conversation. What do I do now anyways? I`m humiliated, drugged, feeling weak and my secret identity was revealed on TV. Will I even get out of here? Everyone knows my secret identity now, what do I do? I will have to abandon one of my lives. It`s all her fault, she took my life away from me. I have no one else to blame though, this is all my own fault for getting caught. She blamed herself. The emotions were beginning to catch up to her as tears began to swell up in her eyes and cloud her vision. Her eyes were glassy with tears as other tears seeped down her cheeks. Then came yet another blow from her captor. She was getting sold. Who knows who would buy her.

This day was getting worse and worse for her. No doubt whoever bought her would be equally as bad or worse than her current captor. "Go. To. Hell." Andree said as she spat at the girl in her suit`s feet. "You are sick."

Back and forth between a rag and a bottle flushed a liquid. "And you are unconscious." Lucy pushed a rag over Andree's mouth to knock the poor girl out. "Once we find you a temporary home I can start getting messages on where people can pick you up. You didn't think I would do it from a place people could track me did you." Once the girl's eyes went blank Lucy would let go of the rag over her mouth. Carelessly she tossed it to the ground and cut the girl loose from the chair. Placing the girl's legs in between her arms Lucy pulled the girl along the ground towards the garage that housed her car, grabbing the roll of duct tape as she passed by.

Smoothly the car descended from the luxury apartment to the ground level. The skies looked like they might clear up in a little while, but for now rain continued to pour. The drive through the wet streets kept the path before them illuminated with vintage headlights. Everything Lucy loved stayed seeded in the past, so much so that she really wanted to turn the present into a twisted mirror to the past that she wished for. Rain broke before the car as Lucy arrived at her destination.

Gears popped to allow rain to fall inside of the trunk on the girl's face. Once more Lucy picked her up and carried her inside of her holding place. Lucy wrapped the girl's entire torso in tape again to make sure that even the superhero vigilante would be kept from escaping the sinister deal Lucy orchestrated. To keep any outside help Lucy pulled the rag tied around Andree's neck up and tied it around her mouth before securing it in place with a piece of tape. Now no one would find this girl in the windowless room except for whomever gave Lucy the bit of information that she wanted to hear. "Don't worry about the suit. I'll be sure to win a costume contest next year or something." As a farewell gift Lucy left two bags of medical strength hydromorphone behind. Who would think that a day to merely grab some industrial drugs would take such a glorious turn.

Lucy held the phone up to take a video call of herself as Andree. "We are now open for biddings on who wants to save me. Bidding will start at $1 or whoever can come up with the best reason that they deserve to take me home." Lucy dropped the cheap phone into her pocket. When all of this ended she would dispose of the phone and set fire to her apartment. She could afford luxury; privacy demanded sacrifices.