Doom Patrol's Dom whips his right and left hands at the same time towards Dee. Given their length, one would expect those laser whips to travel at a slower speed than the normal ones.
But they don't.
Each laser whip has the same speed, if not faster than its ordinary counterpart.
Four whips are coming Adeera's way. She jumps sideways and spreads her left foot to the side. Activating her barrier at the same time, she kicks her body to the right, dodging all the whips in the process.
She could've just fled to the back to distance herself from the lasers. But, as if drown in euphoria of having a new challenge served for her, she doesn't think twice before charging towards them.
She runs through the air, maneuvering and changing height so as not to be caught by the lasers. Using her momentum in the air, she readies a downward kick with fully enhanced reach—thanks to her Cuboid—aiming for the top of Dom's head.
Patsy—who was just standing there all the time Dom was attacking Dee—dodged her kick. He flew all the way to the back, creating an astronomical distance between them.
Recovering from her missed attempt, Adeera stands up to prepare another attack.
But as none of us would expect, two of the lasers have been lassoed around both of her wrists.
"Agh!" Dee screams in pain.
With about fifty-something meters between them, the lasers are tied tightly around Dee's hands.
"I never said the length is absolute." Dom smirks.
Dom snaps the whips back, pulling Dee closer to them. Dee can't even react to that, not with the burning pain on her wrists. Patsy doesn't wait, however. He readies his stance to fly and charges against her.
Hold on—am I mistaken, or did he just grow another pair of wings on his back?
Whoosh! He disappears from where he was standing.
In the blink of an eye, Patsy reappears in front of Dee. He delivers a jab right on her cheek. Caught by surprise, Adeera barely get her barrier to block his knuckle. But amplified with the momentum of his flight, it's not enough to block the punch.
Dee gets knocked to the back, landing with her back on the road. Blood can be seen dripping from her mouth to her chin. Streaks of burned wounds are visible on her hands.
"Dee!"
I was about to run out to her, but she sits back up and motions for me to stop.
"Finally, this is getting interesting!" She spits to the ground. Spots of blood and saliva can be seen mixed together in her spit.
She stands up. With her fists clenched, she again starts running towards the two of them. Dom lassos her again with no hesitation, aiming at the same spot—her wrists.
But this time, she manages to repel it. By activating Cuboid on her palm the whole time, she can parry the incoming attack. Running and jumping side–to–side, she confuses them while covering a lot of ground at the same time.
Doom Patrol doesn't get themselves worked up, however. Dom just keeps the attack coming. Patsy is flying around while maintaining his distance from Dee.
While spectating the fight, I realize something odd. If he could fly with that ludicrous speed, then why didn't he do it all the time? Adeera would be over by now if he had done that from the start.
Unless...
"Dee! Charge now! The fly is done, he can't speed up anymore!"
She smiles upon hearing my voice and jolts herself forward. Patsy quickly floats up to avoid her, but she launches herself up while in mid-air. Dom shoots his usual lasers down at her face, but she blocks them with her right hand.
Now face–to–face with only two cubits worth of distance, Adeera delivers two-hands overhand chops to their shoulders. However, they've learned their lessons.
Patsy dodges the punch only by folding his wings at the last second and falling down. Dom lassos both of Dee's feet as they're falling, pulls her down, and slams her to the ground.
"Ackghh!"
Dee smashes her head first. More and more wounds start to appear on her body. Blood is running down from her head. She's spitting blood everywhere. Both her wrists and ankles are almost torn open by the beam. She's holding herself back from screaming in pain.
"You've got my respect, missy." Dom speaks as both of them slowly descend. "Not a lot of people would still fight us, despite all the burning on their skin."
Adeera is struggling to even sit down, let alone bring herself up.
Dom grab Dee's arm, lifting her up in the air. Dee is trying to move her left hand to desperately try another attack, but Dom throws her across the road. She coughs up blood the moment she smashes her back against the car.
I flinched. I can't look at her. I don't want to witness my friend got beaten up.
"Oh—and you, useless brat." Dom talks to me without turning his back to face me. "Patsy didn't speed up in the end, not because he couldn't, but because he didn't have to."
At that exact moment, I could finally confirm my suspicion. I wasn't wrong when I thought that he had grown another pair of wings on his back.
Because he did just that.
Right before my eyes.
Before I even finish blinking my eye, both of them are there. In front of me. Smirking in the face of their victory.
"Follow your friends in misery."
I could feel the pain on my intestines, my abdomen, all the way to my fingertips and hairs. I can feel my consciousness fading.
Am I falling? Or am I flying?
Did I get kneed in the stomach? Or is it a punch?
I don't know.
I haven't a clue.
How can I? All I can see is the blurry view of Adeera and JN getting smaller and smaller, before everything is engulfed by darkness.
**********
Something hits my face, something cold and fresh. It feels strangely refreshing, and pleasantly freezing at the same time.
How long has it been since I had a cold shower?—feels like ages.
I feel like my skin has been covered in insurmountable layers of dirt.
I feel dirty.
So dirty.
Disgracefully dirty.
I feel dirtier than back when I deceived Dee to give up her share.
Or when I slapped JN's pairs left and right because he refused to do his job over a girl.
Or when I witnessed an old man chasing a girl around to help him make something which the world had never seen.
With this amount of dirt, I think I need a hot shower more than a cold one.
I'm drowned deep in my thoughts, when out of nowhere I got pulled back to reality by a sudden sensation on my right cheek, as if someone were slapping me.
Hold on, is it my left? Both? Or worse yet, my ass cheek?
Now that I think about it, I can feel the warm sensation all over my body, not just my cheeks.
I think I'm beginning to lose my mind. It's just a second ago that I wished to bathe under a hot shower, now I'm hallucinating of being under one.
Or is my wish really that powerful? Man, I really do need to keep an eye on myself before I indulge my desires.
"Wakey, wakey!"
A voice of someone I know is ringing in my ears. Based on the voice, I can deduce that this person is both bald and ugly. The way words come out of their mouth is as slippery as his head.
"Huh..." The voice paused. "...they said alternating between cold and hot water should wake someone faster."
"Guess it doesn't work."
Oh—I know the second voice too! This one feels as if the speaker is a single father, trying his best to keep his only disabled child happy. The way words come out of his mouth feels like he's tired of his child's antiques.
None of the voice feels familiar enough for me, though. I don't think any of them are friends—or at least acquaintances—of mine.
Shortly after, I hear someone's steps walking away from me. But it suddenly stops. I can make out the silhouette of something resembling a kangaroo picking up it's joey from a chair and putting it in its pocket, but everything still looks blurry to me.
They're slowly walking back to where I am.
"Hey, c'mon, wake up! Your friends are about to get chopped into nine."
'Wha—why?! Why did you do that?! Is it really that hard to round that number up to ten?'
That was what I was going to say, actually, but all that comes out of my mouth is gibberish.
"What? What are you even saying?" The voiced says confusedly.
"Ehmmgh, bleghh ghh blaghh aghhh ghkahh!"
"Patsy, water."
The doe reaches out her hands, and hands the bucket down to her joey. The joey—overjoyed with the fact that he has a bucket in his hands—suddenly grabs my face and pours the water down my head, drenching my face in water all the way down to my underwear and slapping me in the face multiple times.
The water blocking my nose and mouth made me gasped for air. Because of that, though, slowly but surely my vision becomes less and less blurry.
The contrast between the cold water trickling down my body and the burning sensation of actually getting slapped on my cheeks, kicks away my drowsiness and sobers me back up.
Everything swiftly becomes clear. The chase, the diamonds, the incident, the beatings they did to Adeera, every bit of information comes rushing into my brain. Every single one.
I panicked.
How long have I been unconscious? Two, three days? Where are my friends? What happen to them?
I rapidly scan the room searching for my friends. None of them are present. The only people in this room are Doom Patrol and I. I feel agitated. Not knowing where I am or how I got here makes me nervous and scared.
"You finally wake up."
"Really, you're quite the sleeper, kiddo."
Dom lets go of my face. They both walk back to their chair. He sits down comfortably with his semi-balding head and double chin while looking at me eerily. Besides him, Patsy—with a slicked-back hair and slender body—sits down with his posture as straight as a die.
Silence fills the room. Nobody dares to talk. Everyone feels as if talking first will put them at a disadvantage.
I look around, searching for a clue, hoping for the slightest bit of information on my friends or where I am. But I don't get anything. My hands are chained to the ceilings and I can't even stand on my legs. I can feel the pain on my chest and stomach. I probably broke my ribs after tanking his punch earlier.
The room is dark with no source of natural light. The only source of illumination is the dim hanging lamp in the middle of the room that flickers every few seconds. It was so dark, I can barely make out what expressions they're making on their face. My friends could be in the corner of the room for all I know, but I have no means to know that.
"Don't worry, your friends are okay." Dom speaks with a tone I can't quite understand before clapping his hands together.
As if waiting for it, the light in the room behind him lit up. I didn't even realize there was a room behind him. Through the window, I can see two familiar faces standing there unconsciously. Both of them got their hands chained to the ceiling. Thankfully, none of them have any injuries on their bodies—at least from what I can see.
"You've got quite the roster on your team, kiddo." Dom continues, "A girl with invisible barrier and a healer."
They knew about JN's healing abilities. They must've seen him use it to heal Adeera.
But, why?
Why did they let JN heal Dee? Isn't it more convenience for them to just let us die in the middle of the road?
Why did they go to such lengths? They even carried us all the way here.
"I gotta say you've got quite the talent at scouting people. Or is that your power? Scouting People?"
"..."
"Ah, you're wondering why didn't we just kill you before? Well, you see..." Dom turns around and shoots a laser out of his pinky. He twitches, before the laser shoots out and shatters the window, It hits JN on his face, but it quickly healed. "...there are people who are looking for you guys."
People? What people? Bad people? Heroes?
And what business do they even have with us?
"Uh—sorry, I believe we got off on the wrong foot here. Ehm-mhmm. Let me introduce ourselves." He leisurely rotates his chair back to face me. His face looks as if he's in a state of ecstasy. "As your friend has said before, we are The Doom Patrol."
I stayed silent. I don't know where he's going with this, but it definitely is not because of him being friendly.
"My friend here, Patrice—or Patrol if you prefer his hero name—is an Indi. As you can see before, he has the traits of a fly." He pointed towards his peer. Patrice is just sitting there with no response. "And I, Domitra—or Doom—am a..."
"Fio."
"Yes, exactly." He smirks.
I was sure that he is a Gante by his fight with Adeera before. But there's something that made me convinced that he is a Fio.
"Most people would think that I am a Gante, based on my powers. But you didn't." He said, waiting for my explanation.
"You can sharpen the wavelength of light sources, hence—laser."
He just smiles eerily.
This is probably the first time someone has ever guessed his Gift. I noticed he twitched for a bit before shooting the laser towards JN. I thought it was odd, but then I realized it was because the light flickered. He had to wait before he could shoot it.
But, still, I don't know why he's telling me all this. And I am afraid to find out.