Six million dollar man (Nightraven)

Even though there was very few people nearby to observe the battle going on in the alleys beneath the towering monoliths that passed for dwellings for these humans, There were plenty of electronic eyes watching. A satelite, for instance, transmitting its live feed of the battle instantly to the brain of the science-obsessed, demented wackaloonie known as Doctor 0. He had been followed the scene as soon as he had been watching the whole thing as the agressor in the strange suit was gradually whittled down by his firewielding agressor. He could not say that he approved of such a thing, but that was life for ya. He had nothing riding on this fight, in fact he would not care if the firewielder killed his opponent, even though good-aligned superhero-types usually frowned on that sort of irresponsible behaviour. Still, he could not wait for the fight to be over. . . Provided that he could deduce the source of this fellows powers and then somehow splice it into his Atomic robo-zombie-men he would have an unstoppable army! And if that failed, he believed that he could build quite an impressive zombot from the "spare parts" of the body.

But in order to fullfill either of those dreams he needed to spirit the body away somehow. Bring it too his lab so that he might properly examine it, take samples and run tests on it. Prod it and poke it. . . Make it squirm! He could feel the neurons in his brain and the ones and zeroes in his databanks buzz around excitedly with every thought of performing science upon that body. He decided that he would allow himself a villanous, dramatic laugh. Just to get into the feel of things.

However, something unexpected happened to bring an end to both the good cheerfull evil laughter and Doctor 0's enthusiastic sciencariffic mood. That fool. . .He burnt the body! Set it on fire, just like that, before leaving! There was no way he would be able to build an Atomic Robo-zombie from it now! "Oh dear! No, no NO!" He said, his normally kind and warm voice desperate and appallingly demented. He sighed heavily in frustration, but soon realized he should not have done that. Doctor 0's vocal modulators could not handle a sigh, so it sounded more like mere static than any sort of noise made by a human. The static did not carry the same melancholic hopelessness as a sigh would have in this situation, but it would have to do.

Besides, he had no time for melancholy, he had some sludge to pick up. Normally he would not have left the safety and comfort of his lair to engage in this sort of pointles expedition, but right now he really had no choise. He needed to know things that where stored in its mind. He and three of his minions quickly got into his car and drove off. It was a mere three-minute drive to the place, but the loyal Atomic robo-zombies managed it in one and a half. They parked as closely as they came, and two of the robo-zombies carried a flamethrower and the third carried a plastic bag and a bonesaw.

Doctor 0 got to work, pulling out any and all memories that were kept in the brain, whilst two of the Robo-zombies sprayed the skull of the body with flame-retardant foam. The last one then proceeded to start to cut, slicing of the top.portion of the skull before removing what remained of the brain and placed in the paper-bag. It was no hope for this brain to wake again, but the good Doctor had other plans. Far better plans. The oppurtunity had finally come for him to test out his 'rebirth'-program.

The group soon left the body, one of the robomen, even setting it on fire again, so that as little evidence as possible could be gathered from their interference here. . .

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Doctor 0's lair was hidden within the basement of a factory owned by a rather unscroupolous buisnessman that had allowed him to whatever purpose he wanted to use it for, as long as he helped the man out in his illegal drug-making operation taking place on the floor above, and Doctor 0 was surely able to do it. He felt somewhat diminished placing himself in subservience to a man such as this, but to with the sort of Science he was working on, he needed as much space as possible. It was old and had not been refurbished since somewhere in the fifties, and the walls where plain brick with crumbly masonry and the occasionall lose wire. The whole thing was lit up with cheap flourescent lights that buzzed lowly in an particurlarly annoying manner, and the floor was plain concrete with drains placed here and there.

This rather bleak surroundings contrasted quite a bit with the high-end equipment that was found here. Supercomputers, various devices to perform various tests on various things, a few servers, and some things of Doctor 0s own design that looked like something out of a science-fiction movies, the most prominent of wich was basically a slightly modified, large tesla-coil that was constantly buzzing with energy, sparks of electricity constantly emnating from the ist coils. This was placed in the very middle of the locale, making a rather interesting centerpoint in this frankenstein-esque lab. Right now, however, our aattention is discretely drawn to the western corner of the lab,wich has been temporarily turned into a makeshift experimental laoratory for "project rebirth" involving cloning and memory-transfer, employed for the purpose of transferring a mind from a sick, old or damaged body into a freshly grown clone.

It had been an ardous couple of days, but the great experiment was finally ready! Equipment had been hard to come by, but a few small heist against various labaratories had managed to get the more expensive nessecary components, whilst he had managed to buy some of the parts using several false identities to make people unable to follow the paper-trail. The DNA extracted from the negliable amount of tissues had been severly damage, so Doctor 0 had to extrapolate some of it, and even though he was a super-genius who currently knew all the cutting-edge stuff about cloning and DNA, there was still a rather large portion of guesswork involving the restoration of his DNA.

The many failures lined the walls, misshaped monsters of science, most of them unable to even live for more than a few minutes after their creation, and only a handfull capable of movement under their own power. These had been the failures of reconstituting the vigilante known as nightravens DNA, but this last clone had been more successfull than most. Externally it looked exactly like Victor Suarez, and if all of these readings where correct, he was still in possession of his superpowers. The memory-transfer had seemingly passed flawlessly too, but he was uncertain how the man was going to wake up, judging by the rather violent end he had met earlier, so for safetymeasures he had been strapped.

Doctor 0 anxiously hovered around the bed, along with a few of his patented Atomic zombie-men, doing various tests and measurements on the body, trying to determine wether this was actually Victor Suarez lying there, or just another failure, half-aware, genetically damaged clone. In a way this was similar to the "Shrödingers box"-dilemma, as he had was not entirely sure wether this would be a success or a failure, just as Shrödinger had no idea wether his cat was alive or dead. . . But soon Victor would wake up and metaphoringly open the box and reveal wether the cat was alive or dead.

Victor felt a bunch of throbbing going on in his head; he clenched his eyes trying to remember what he could. Images played over and over of him being burned and burned again by a guy who was suppose to be a hero. But his memories stopped when ever it got to the hero burning him to death for one last time. Victor woke up to bright lights shining in his face. He began to panic trying to break free of the restraints that held him down to this operating table. "Gah!!" Victor gathered all of the strength he could trying to break the straps so much you could began to hear the bed starting to break. "Where am I at? Somebody answer me! Where am I at?" He screamed as he looked around still blinded by the light some what. Finally after his vision settled back down he saw a floating brain above him; he began to breathe heavily to calm his breathing. "Who are you and what did you do to me?"

Doctor 0's spirits rose as Victor Suarez AKA Nightravens eyes suddenly clenched his eyes shut. The tortured look on his perfectly recreated face was probably due to the memories of his rather violent and chaotic end. He had looked through the memories himself, and even though most of it had been the inane things about lives, he felt as if the part about his failed marrige with the humongous, monstrous albino-woman named Essa. Due to this he had some sort of understanding with the man on the table who thought he was Nightraven, even though he was not. The clone on the table was just a copy of the man that had died almost two weeks ago. A copy created from brains extrapolated from a half-melted brain and the ash and sludge that was all that remained from the original.

The questions it asked when it opened it eyes was more than he had dared hope for. It seemed that it was already able to access its memory in its full. It presumably knew who it was, since it seemed to be far more concerned with the question 'Where am I at?' rather than 'Who am I?'. The other clones had merely woken up, as if in a stupor, and none of them had started asking questions so certainly, so confidently! To be fair, most of them lacked enough brainpower to talk in the first place, and just whimpered a bit before e samples had been taken and they where euthanized.

"Relax, young man. Relax. I am a Doctor, and this is a highly scientific medical facility of sorts, and even though we lack any sort of credentials or permits, I can assure and insure you that you are in the best of organic five-digit manipulators. Metaphorically speaking." He spoke calmly and slowly, his voice that of a amiable, kind elderly teacher or grandfather-like figure. He calmly floated down to a place next to the bed.

"We can discuss debate and slash or disagree later if you so desire, but first I need to see how well your memory is." The doctor continued, his voice still calm and friendly, but this time it was obvious that he would not take no for an answer. Before he did anything else he needed to see how well the memory-transfer had worked. One of the Robo-zombie-men, dressed in a gray jumpsuit, black leather boots and gloves in the same materials with its face covered by a motorcycle-helmet to prevent panic started to carefully attatch electrodes to Nightravens head.

"Please, do not worry or fret, young sir. We only need to see if your brain is functioning at satisfactory capacity, and that your memories are intact. These electrodes will read your brainwaves whilst I ask your questions to see if ther is any damage or irregularities." He continued, hovering around to the bedside.

"Are you ready to proceed, young man?"

Victor finally started coming down as the doctor started speaking to him. "Eh, I will try my best to relax. I kind of started putting that together when there was bright light and I was strapped down to this operating table." Victor felt as if he was a test subject of some sort but could not remember much of anything after his death; but how did he come back to life was the real question. "That is fine with me." Victor watched as some man dressed in a gray shoot started walking towards him. He fidgeted a bit as the man starting attaching something to his head. "Yes, lets get this little show on the road." Victor took a deep breath and closed his eyes laying his head back on the top of the operating table.

If the brain would have been able to nod, he would have, but unfortunately, a side-effect of the procedure that had put his brain into this machine, he had lost his neck, and thus the ability to nod sufficiently. Instead the brain just bobbed slightly within the glass dome that housed it. He was glad to see that The man who may or may not be Victor Suarez and simultaneously the masked vigilante who went by the somewhat overdramatic moniker of Nightraven had calmed down sufficiently to begin the testing, and perhaps, if luck was on his side, they could enter final phase of this little experiement.

He went into his memory-core and accessed and opened the files that compromized the enitre conscious memory of Nightraven, so that he have something to check his answers against.

"What is your name?" He asked, deciding to begin with the easier questions, rather than jumping straight to the difficult ones. After all, this is the one thing that should be the easiest to access of them all. After all, the name was probably the most deep-rooted memory off them all. If he failed to remember this fact, he would have to be vivisected and later euthanized, so that they may gather enough data to reach a little further toward success with the next clone.

"What is the name and designation of your parental units, aka mother and father?" he continued, wondering wether the question would connect with the trauma he had been subjected too just a few days before his untimely device. Being left at the altar as well as having his poor mother die before his eyes, due to the rash, thoughtless action of that evil woman he had thought he loved at some point. Doctor 0 could not help but to notice the rage and sorrow of the memory, but he kept his mind icy cool and refused to let emotions clog up the wheels of the fabulously logical machine that was his mind.

"And finally, what is the last thing that you can remember before waking up here" He finally asked, his voice still calm, collected and oozing of sincerity curious how much of the cruel, somewhat improvized cremation he could remember.

Victor remained still as he began to think of what his full name could be. "It is Victor...Victor Suarez. I am not really sure about my middle name." He could feel his memories starting to come back to him as he waited for the doctor to ask him the next question. "My mother....she is not alive if I remember correctly and my father he was killed...but I could be wrong things are still fuzzy there in my mind." Victor felt rage come over his body as if he had been hit with a large cement block causing him to remember more about who he was and what had happened to his parents. "The last thing I remember was being burned....burned by that guy who calls himself a hero, a protector of the people named Phoenix." Victor closed his eyes and put his head down in anger before raising it up staring at the brain with eyes full of revenge.

Good! Most good indeed! The floating brain cooed in a manner somewhat resmniscent of that of a professor complimenting the test-results of one of his best students. His voice still that of an amiable, easygoing grandfather-like figure, but there was something hungry in it now. Something slightly sinister. The brain quickly hovered around the bed. Einsteins face that had appeared on the monitor connected to Doctor 0's glass-domed life-support system was still smiling, and the smile grew with every second as the brain within the dome automatically absorbed the data from the various instruments and machines that the man was hooked up to. It seemed that this experiment would proove successfull after all

"It seems that your memory is 93-95 percent intact, although you cannot entirely access it for the moment. I believet hat it will return in time, though. Bit by bit over the following 24 hourse." He continued, his voice still very optimistic about the whole situation. The other readings showed promise too. much of the clone-creatures body had been created in perfect imitation of its predecessor, and even though the memory-transfer was not a hundred percent successfull it still fell within acceptable losses. However, one of the more exciting details of this little experiment was the fact that the brainwaves of the subject seemed to suggest somewhat increased intelligence. Probably not nearly enough to actually make a difference, or even be noticable to the patient, but it was still promising.

"My my! it seems that your IQ has actually increased, and improvised. . (Improvised? Improved, yes! Improved) slightly thanks to my programmed process. Qui-et Remarkable!" The doctor said, the pace of his speaking increased and his voice far more enthusiastic than earlier. The amiable smile on the monitor hanging beneath doctor 0s life-supporting chassis slowly grew into a demented grin

"Incredible! My custom-made DNA is a success! Mwua ha ha ha!" he laughed, his formerly reasonable, calm voice a demented, manical drone.

"I AM Science!" Doctor 0 Exclaimed, his voice modulater unable to keep his voice from cracking slightly at the exclamation

I AM GENIUS oneoneone! He shouted out, his madness and maniacal frenzy seemingly reaching its crescendo! He could feel the pleasure-centers of his brain release endorphins that made the world all happy and beautifull. The neurons in his brain zapped frenetically and joyfully, and the streams of ones and zeros flowing through his cogitator-systems grew into datastreams that grew into the beautifull analysis of a scientific venture completed!

"Genius!" The good doctor mused to himself, his voice less maniacal now, but not entirely back to its formerly calm and reasonable self.

Victor just laid there as the doctor went off on a tangent. "Yeah you are....now enough of this." He gathered his strength in his arms as he began to flex his muscles. He brought his arms to his chest breaking the bed underneath him. He shook the bed off of him and he went to the ground and began doing push-ups trying to test the limits of his current condition for right now he felt fine. "So Doctor, what exactly did you do to me? And whatever you did you have gained a soldier for hire whenever you need some extra muscle." Victor said in between push-ups, after finishing his push-ups he stood to his feet looking directly at the floating doctor. But he could feel something was different about his body, but he would figure that out later when he was not around the Doctor.

Doctor 0 chuckled amiably as Nightraven hesitantly replied to his claim of being a genius and the one, true avatar of science. Even though the chuckle bore no apparant Ill will, Doctor 0 had not been entirely fond of hearing such negative remarks about his brainwork. After all, had he not managed to re-create Victor Suarez AKA Nightraven from little more than a bunch of ash and a half-melted brain? Had he not given the ungratefull man on the table in front of him life, all on his own? Had he not saved him from death? Had he not turned his gaze up towards heaven, reached out and snatched the secret of life from the hands of god himself? A small, yet maniacal chuckle escaped from the good doctors lips as he turned around and gazed on his creation. Just like when you raised a child, there came a time when you had to tell them about the flowers and the bees, reproduction and childbirth and that time was now, even though he suspected that what he would tell Victor was not what most parents told their children.

The man seemed to have reached the conclusion of asking how he had ended up here and what he had done to him, he decided that he might as well tell him how he had came into existance just about now. However, he figured that he would answer the questions about muscles first

"My capacity for interest in muscles and sinews is entirely depleted, and if I need it, I can easily make my own in a very scientific manner. I rarely have need to hire it. Your offer however have been acknowledged and remembered in case the need arises." He continued, still pacing back and forwards.


"What I did? Oh, I created you, of course." The doctor started, his artificial, yet amiable, grandfatherly voice sounding as if he was explaining a difficult subject to a rather thick child. There was arrogance in the voice too, and pride and conciet as well. No matter what facade the Deluded, Disembodied Deranged Doctor projected outwards, he did nothing out of the kindness of his heart. In fact, he did not even have a heart. This little adventure had been nothing but an excersize in throwing science at the wall and see what stuck.

"I am well aware your brain thinks you are Victor Suarez, but you are not. In fact, Victor Suarez is dead, made deceased by a superhuman called phoenix in an alley about a week ago." He explained calmly as he started hovering slowly alongside the bed, as if pacing.


"My social interaction protocolls compells me to ask if you have any questions?" he continued, his voice back to its earlier somewhat confused drone, rather than the lecturing, enthusiastic teacher-like tone he of his last statements.

Victor stood to his feet looking at the Doctor float around the room. "Thanks Doctor for saving me...forgot my manners." Victor scratched the back of his head after he thanked the Doctor for bringing him back to life. Victor felt as if time had frozen around him, after hearing the Doctor say that Victor had been a clone of the real Victor, he just sighed and looked back up at the Doctor with a small smile on his face. "That could explain why this body felt a little weird to me.." Now knowing who killed him Victor had a goal in mind. "Doctor I have a question for you..I know that you said you can create muscle but I need some muscle that could match this Phoenix and help me bring him to his knees. But if you can not fulfill this request I understand wholeheartedly. Victor folded his arms and waited for the Doctor's reply to his question.

((exit))

Doctor 0's brain bobbed slightly within its tank, trying to emulated a nod, but failing. the face on the monitor hanging from his tank smiled kindly. "No need to deplete your thank you-levels on me young man. Your creation has given me qui-et a bit new, valuble data for my research, you see." the floaty brain-man said, his voice cheerfull and kindly, yet somewhat old and a slight bit confused. However, this worked far better than he had expected. He had expected a big tantrum to be thrown when he revealed that "Victor" was nothing but an imperfect copy of the original He then proceeded release the restraints, allowing the young man to get up from the table if he wished. They had very little left to speak off.

"Unfortunately, my rescource-levels are all but spent and depleted. I don't have any manpower to give to you." He said rather solemnly, mostly to be polite. Even if he had plenty more Atomic robo-zombies he had no intention of giving them to Nightraven. He had no intention of his technology falling into the wrong hands like that.

"However, I do have seen and observed a life-form that is both delicious and smarty. He might be of aid to you." The doctor said as he telekinetically lowered a box of clothes and assorted Items for the man. After all, he would not last very long in the streets dressed in a strangely coloured hospital-gown.

"Have you heard of Magmasterus?"

Victor bowed his head at the Doctor, as he went on talking about how he had no more manpower to give him. He listened to each word of the Doctor's letting it sink into his brain. As he looked up he noticed a box of clothes being floated down to him. "Magmasterus...that name rings no bells sorry." Victor picked up a fitted long black sleeve shirt with some black combat pants and boots to match it all. "Doctor.. I look forward to meeting up again and thanks." Victor looked around for the exit before finding it in the near distance. Before walking away he looked at the Doctor one last time. "Where would I find this Magmasterus you speak of?" Victor fixed his clothes as he waited for Doctor to respond.

If Doctor 0 could have, he would have nodded as Victor Suarez denied having knowledge of Magmasterus. He might not have direct knowledge of the creatures name, but the good doctor did not doubt that he would recognize Magmasterus when he met him. After all, it was pretty hard to disguise a three-ton almost three story tall rock-monster that could shift into a lava-form on a whim."Indeed, this meeting has been most pleasant." The doctor answered as Nightraven mentioned that he already looked forward to their next little meeting.

Even though Nightraven was little more than a positive byproduct of his little venture into the science of medicine and by extention cloning and such, he was not entierly unhappy with the results. After all, the young man had already offered to help by working as 'muscle', and even though this was not nessecary at the moment, he might yet have use for his expertize in the future. The doctor hovered away from the bed, guiding Nightraven towards the exit of his evil mastermind-style laboratory/lair. However, he had to stop a moment to think when the man asked him where to find magmasterus.

"Oh, uhm, yes. heh! I should have figured that you would ask such a thing. Heh! I just plain forgot to find out!" The doctor said, in a confused, yet goodnatured chuckle. as he briefly hovered over to one of his more impressive comptuers. Finding magmasterus would probably not take long, judging that the good doctor knew exactly what he was looking for. "Thats old age for ya! I'd forget my own head, if I had one! hah! Don't worry, though I'll localize his current locale of whereabouts in a jiffy" he said as he accessed one of the satelites orbiting the city by remote-controll, hooked up his controll, and scanned for extreme heat-signatures in and around new york. Despite the hot weather, magmasterus should stand out like a sore thumb.

"He is hiding in an old abandoned mine, called the 'lost dutchsmans mine', apparantly named after a dutchman who had trouble triangulizing his position using the stars. Be sure to tell him I sent you there, otherwise he might be rather. . . Grumpy." he said cheerfully

"Oh, where are my manners, questionmark. I have been a terrible host, not to offer you anything to eat, haha!" The good doctor asked, as he mentally caused one of his jump-suit-clad, motorcycle-helmed Atomic Robo-zombies to walk up to them, holding a jar of cookies that looked strangely out of place here in this mad-scientist-style laboratory.
"Would you care for a cookie or three? I baked them myself. With SCIENCE!!oneone" the doctor said cheerfully. these cookies where amongst the best he had made, and like all his inventions, they where superior to all the creations of lesser minds.

"The lost dutchsmans mine...I have heard of that place vaguely but it should not be a problem finding him should it now?" Victor cracked his neck and gathered his things preparing to leave to find Magmasterus. "No, thanks I am not really up in the mood for any kind of sweets but thanks for the offer." Victor grinned softly and looked passed the Doctor towards the exit, he was not in a rush to leave but he did have other things he had to attend to before finding Phoenix. Getting the aid of Magmasterus was going to be one that had to be handle first. "Well Doctor I must be going now, I have somethings I must attend to. Hopefully we will meet up again in this life or the next." Victor bowed and walked passed holding his hand in the air waving as he started his search to find Magmasterus.

The doctor gazed over to the man as he was strutting towards the exit of his basement-turned-laboratory "Ah, we have reached the 'good bye'-stage of our little chat-then. Errr. Good bye. Yes, A most good "bye" Indeed." he said cheerfully to the retreating back of the man before hovering back into the lab to review the data he had gained from the genetic samples. All in all, he had to consider this Experiment a success, and it was now time to sort through the information learnedand put them in the proper category. Doctor 0 had always enjoyed that sort of thing. It was somehow. . . Liberating.

((sorry its a bit short, but I did't really come up withmuch else))