damned_institute | Night 41: M51-60 Hallway

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Night 41: M51-60 Hallway

Recluse had used his uneventful dinner as time to hammer out and sharpen a new blade for Scourge, and do maintenance on the rest of his own weapons, then changing into his black Arachnos officer's uniform, ready for the night. Then, it had simply been a matter of waiting, impatiently as always, for the doors to unlock.

At least that pompous fool didn't lecture them all that long-windedly tonight. He slipped out into the hallway as soon as his door was unlocked, red eyes glowing dimly in the pitch black corridor.

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"You would feel eye irritation first before reaching any damaging threshold. You haven't been dosed with hydrogen sulfide," Recluse responded in an almost complete deadpan. That was only deadly past a threshold that also eliminated most sense of the actual danger, leading to a rather interesting series of events where those exposed didn't realize there was any problem beyond eye damage. Then they collapsed, leading either to pulmonary edema or fairly immediate death with loss of breathing.

But Scourge didn't need to know that.

"Oh, okay. That's good. It was just sulfur, not hydrogen sulfide, not a big deal." Scourge waited until Lord Recluse was looking away before rubbing at his eyes. Those were fine, so he had to be fine.

It didn't stop him fretting, though. He had no idea human bodies were so vulnerable to everyday substances like gasoline and nitric acid.

"The most common gaseous form of sulfur is hydrogen sulfide." Apparently, the Lord of the Rogue Isles was spending his spare time as a chemistry textbook. It was slightly irritating, but there was little reason not to tell Scourge the things that wouldn't send him into a panic attack.

"Oh. Of course." He knew that.

Scourge yawned widely, still playing with his fingertips. "So you're going to make weapons against the monsters, right? What if they don't act like humans? I stabbed the spider so many times it should have just deflated and it was still walking around."

"The chemical weapons will be used when appropriate. I have enemies beyond the monsters here. The more conventional weapons will be the ones mostly used against the monsters. And spiders are quite resilient, so that is not surprising." He just wished that Landel hadn't destroyed all of their effectiveness as predators. A spider large enough to leave gashes like that in Scourge's back should have been able to kill him quickly.

"No kidding, I think Devastator goes down easier than those things." Scourge touched his shoulder, right above one of the spider-inflicted gashes, and cringed. "Tyki said they can smell blood, too. They better not have followed me down here."

Although if they did, behind Lord Recluse is as good a place as any to hide. Especially with all the lung destroying chemicals--did spiders have lungs? Where would they put them?

"They normally wouldn't bother. Most are better off finding other prey than creatures with a calcium-based endoskeleton, like humans." Or rather mice, in most cases beyond genetic experiments. "It's not healthy for them." They would still go after mammals, anyway. "And I would have noticed if we were being followed by spiders."

Scourge interlaced his fingers. "Lord Recluse, no offense, but I didn't hear it coming myself and I was looking for it." But that did put him a bit more at ease. Maybe the spider had just been startled while trying to prey on whatever growling things law on the other side of the animal testing door.

"And I've been in control of an organization with an extreme tendency to pattern everything after spiders for the past 80 years. Giant attack spiders have been par for the course for most of that time." Mostly cyborgs, but there had been many experiments in the past.

"Oh. I guess that makes sense?" Scourge said, in the manner of someone desperately trying to pretend they knew what the other person was talking about.

Why spiders, Scourge wondered. They were tiny--usually--and even as monsters they weren't the worst things Scourge had run into. Why not dinosaurs, or cats, or giant purple griffins? Giant purple griffins had an air of dignity to them.

"So you can order them around, right?"

"It does when giant spider droids begin laying waste to cities. And I can't control the ones here. But it's easy for me to predict their movements and kill them." Because nothing that stood against him was going to survive, regardless of how much sympathy he might have for it. Even in the case of spiders, it was fairly minimal. They were used as guards by an enemy. They would die.

"Giant spider droids, huh? Galvatron would probably like that idea." Scourge gropes at the air under his far-inferior beard, pondering the image. Clawing the backs of Autobots and biting their heads off with etymologically-inaccurate pincers? Now that sounded like a good plan!

"Complete with the ability to release the psychic equivalent of a thermonuclear explosive, killing anything within the blast radius and leaving infrastructure intact." The Jade Spider had been a wonderful experiment. It was a shame that it had run up against what could only be described as deus ex machina.

"We've already got one of those, it's stuck to Galvatron's arm." The tracker grinned and tapped his right forearm, indicating the position of the cannon. Infrastructure wasn't such a big deal, as long as people died.

"Those are relatively easy to make. The only problem is keeping it out of range of the Heroes until it can be deployed and fired. They tend to swarm like insects over any world-threatening weapons." But those were so hard to maintain unless you had backup plans. Recluse generally stayed clear of such things.

Scourge scoffed, baring a few teeth as he grinned. "You try getting the cannon off Galvatron's arm without knocking him out first. They'd be lucky if they found a body, if I tried it, and I know where the latches are."

They were very small and almost never used--Galvatron recharged with it on. The idea of someone actually stealing Galvatron's fusion cannon was...ridiculous, something one did on a dare with a lot of money riding on it.

"There are quite a few individuals that I can think of who might manage it." Statesman, obviously, and himself. Nemesis would manage to get it off through the use of some plot convoluted beyond all sense (Recluse always had the suspicion that Nemesis did most of this to show off), and possibly a few of Statesman's lackeys could find it within themselves to do something to save the world once again.

Scourge forgot himself, and for the first time outright laughed at Lord Recluse's proposal. "Humans, you mean?" he cackled. "Get the cannon off Galvatron? They wouldn't get within a hundred yards of him before he crushed them under his heel."

But the mental picture of them trying will keep him entertained for a good long while.

"I don't mean he's actually carrying the cannon or anything, I mean it's actually attached to his arm," the tracker clarified once his laughter had died down. Maybe that was where Lord Recluse had made the mistake. "Literally. Doesn't come off."

"Metahumans. Some of them immortal. All far beyond the capabilities of any fallible humans. And no matter how long it would take, I or my arch-enemy would likely manage it eventually. We literally cannot die." Because 'Galvatron' wasn't the Destined One, he couldn't kill either of them.

It didn't matter if the cannon couldn't be removed. The whole arm would just have to be ripped off, then.

"Pff." The tracker snorted, finding deeply-programmed patriotism overriding his previous obedience. "Starscream's managed immortal, that doesn't mean he's done anything useful with it. And if they're human-sized all that means is that we can stick them in a box somewhere and have a playtoy that never breaks, if we're not just ignoring them. Heck, an immortal human would probably be the best entertainment we've had all year."

"Don't be so sure. But this argument is pointless. I doubt our dimensions will ever intersect. If they did, I would be more than happy to provide proof for my claims." Recluse was simply getting irritated with this.

"And I'll be happy to kill you for it."

Scourge slapped a hand over his mouth a moment after the confident, defense sentence slipped out. His eyes widened and he leaned back in expectation of brutal retribution from Lord Recluse.

"M-metaphorically speaking of course," he squeaked from behind his trembling fingers. "I wouldn't actually try to kill you, I know I'd never succeed against someone as powerful as you are so I wouldn't even try to do anything to you. At all."

Stupid, stupid, he barely had "idiotically loyal" programming and why was it kicking in during a stupid discussion where he wasn't even thinking about trying to be more Cyclonsy this was so going to go badly for him. He'd leave, but with his injuries and Lord Recluse's strength he wouldn't get far.

Recluse didn't feel the need to discipline the already terrified Scourge. Maybe if he took the threat more seriously, he would do so. But he didn't. It wasn't worthy of any reaction beyond an incredibly rare maniacal laugh, deep and full of vicious amusement.

"You would have no chance. I would tear you to scrap, far more easily than any death I could bring upon you here." His normally stony expression had been replaced with a cold, wolfish smile, eyes flaring brighter as he spoke. "But turn against me here, and you will die."

An audible gasp came from the terrified tracker and he hunched down, hiding behind his own hand--and the knife that he'd been clutching thoughtlessly in his right, although it was pointed more towards the ceiling corner behind him than anything else. "Of course, o-of course. Anything you say. Would never turn against you, Lord Recluse."

Ohslagohslag Scourge really wished he had his body back, at least that could be repaired.

What a well-trained minion Scourge was. "Good. Then you will live. So long as you are loyal." Recluse could in fact be lenient. But leniency was a rare thing, even in this unusual setting.

Night 41: M51-60 Hallway

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