Who: Scott Free, Big Barda, open to people who received Barda's texts What: In true heroic form Scott Barda rescues Barda Scott, who didn't actually need rescuing at all. Where: Taskforce Alpha convoy, en route to mutant & metahuman holding location. When: Wednesday, May 15th Rating: um. PG-13 to be safe but TBD depending who all shows up
Scott had never been arrested before. Well, not really. Not for breaking any laws on Earth-- and Apokolips didn't have 'laws' so much as it had the Will of Darkseid which made things a whole lot trickier. Though it seemed like even laws were starting to change as quickly as Darkseid's whims...
Despite having never been arrested before, Scott had always been bad about following rules. Especially ones he didn't agree with. But this time he hadn't even done anything wrong (as far as he could figure at least)! These officers had caught up to him right before his most recent show, when Scott was just leaving the theater to grab celebratory hot dogs for he and Oberon and Barda. He'd stepped out of the staff exit in a pair of jeans and a seafoam (he liked that word, 'seafoam'. They didn't have that on Apokolips) green dress shirt with the sleeves- as always- rolled up and was confronted only half a block away by several armed officers of the law who said he was in violation of the Meta-Human and Mutant Registration Act Addendum that extended to the use and possession of magic and/or magical items.
Laughing, Scott had tried to explain that what he did on stage wasn't magic, it was all illusion and sleight of hand and tricks, not real actual magic like some other people he knew. They hadn't lowered their weapons-- and Mother Box's cautious pinging on his arm didn't help... particularly when Scott, in an attempt to calm the twitchy taskforce, told them that it was a form of communication that he shared with the sentient, organic computer system the size of a first generation iPod that he was spiritually bonded to as a teenager.
Yeah. That hadn't been a good idea, in retrospect.
Without his aero-discs or the rest of his costume, Scott lacked the tools to take on the assembly of trained, armed combatants and with their full attention on him, there was no way that Scott was going to be slipping out unnoticed.
The fight was short and ended with Scott having his face reintroduced to a brick wall (they'd met before). Perhaps he could have won the fight if he'd applied more of his strength, if he'd been more brutal and merciless. But to Scott, the blood that would be on his hands that way wasn't worth it-- not when he could more easily let himself be captured and escape in due course. That route would take more time and patience and cunning- but he was willing to make those sacrifices to spare these officers a little pain. Or at least he'd thought that was a good idea until they hit him in the back with a taser with enough voltage to drop an elephant... which really really stung and seemed a lot like overkill to Scott.
The amusing part about all of it was that they couldn't seem to be able to decide on proper restraints, and Scott's advice on the matter did nothing to improve their moods. They started with zip ties (because that's what they had handy), two pairs of standard issue handcuffs, and then someone ran to the van to get a full set of shackles that bound his wrists and ankles to a chain around his waist. Scott tried to tell them there was an iron maiden back at the theater they were welcome to borrow, but this was a tough crowd.
"Sir, we're going to need you to remove the electronic device on your arm." The one in charge (captain? corporal? corporeal? Scott was horrible at ranks on Earth) told him as politely as possible.
"Okay, that's fine and all but, uh..." He turned a quarter of a turn to show the officer his back, waving his fingers and shaking his chains to show his inability to move. "... You're going to need to give me a key, or a bobby pin or something first."
"Sir, we would appreciate your cooperation in this matter." The captain said as they put Scott in the back of their armored van, attaching his chains to a pole that ran across the bottom of the van. He looked it with interest before refocusing on the problem at hand.
"Offi--Captain... is it Captain? Captain, I would love to cooperate but I'm supposed to be incapacitated, and Mother Box gets awful touchy when other people start messing with her. " Scott warned when several nearby officers climbed into the back of the van to hold him down and cut open the right sleeve of his shirt to the sounds of angry pinging.
Just as he'd said, attached to his arm was a small red rectangle with intricate circles and zig-zag lines. The whole thing vaguely resembled a large, colorful mircochip-- but from what the officers could see, there were no speakers for the pinging to be coming from, no power source or battery pack. Whatever this thing was, it was nothing like anything that any of the officers had seen before.
When the commanding officer moved to take the box from his arm, Scott made his move. He couldn't allow them to take Mother Box from him. In the end, it took ten men to hold the escape artist down when he started popping and slipping free from his bonds as if they were nothing more than loose string. Mother Box was not without her own defenses and emitted a jolt of electricity that would certainly have warned off any curious passer-by, but it did nothing to thwart trained soldiers. Not unlike a cat that didn't want to be moved, Mother Box sank her claws into her host's arm and psyche -- and when the Captain yanked her from Scott's arm (despite her ferocious pinging), he shouted in surprise and pain. It felt as though his brain were a file cabinet that Mother Box had just raked a hand through, flicking through every memory he had acquired since they had been bonded-- and not many of them were pleasant.
The Captain shut the door to the van to take the desperately pinging Mother Box to a different secured van in their convoy, leaving Scott to be re-restrained by half a dozen officers who would escort him to their destination.
His arm was bleeding, his seafoam shirt ruined- and now... now the son of High Father was well and truly pissed off.