Genesis End

By Spinning Demon (Topman) and Gauntlet (Shadowman)

Postlude

It was the hum that bothered him most. The bindings, he didn't mind - it showed that they feared him. The needles, he couldn't feel. And the solitude? Quite frankly, it was refreshing to not be around simperers and freaks for a while. But the hum - the hum was tedious. It plagued him. Humans say that after a while you cease to notice. But it had been 4 days, 6 hours and 12 minutes, and he'd had no such reprieve. Humans are idiots.

His first instinct was to wait it out, that the paralysis would prove to be temporary, but by now he knew this wasn't the case. He'd have to find another way to free himself than with brute force. So next, he tested each body part for movement - nothing except his face would respond, his mouth left unimpeded so he could answer their questions. Still... he could make do.

The kicker was the two-way mirror. They'd put him facing his reflection - whether to taunt him with the visual of his imprisonment, or simply to monitor his expressions as they questioned him. Either way, it was their mistake. If he'd been facing away, without being able to turn his neck, he'd never have seen the locations of the needles. But like this...

The most concentrated areas were in his torso and his skull. That made sense, his central power supply and main gravity manipulators were in his chest, and his processors were in his head - cut those off and you could render any robot practically inert. But the key word was "practically"... otherwise, why even put the other needles in his limbs in the first place?

He decided on his left leg, just below the knee, as the spot to aim for. Depending on how precisely the needle had to be placed, it might be possible to knock them out of position. If he could get enough movement back in his leg to get his knee to swing, the momentum alone might jar another needle loose, and he could work his way up from there. If his leg got free, then eventually with enough effort he would try to lift his knee to his chest, knocking out several needles at once and getting his powers back. Once he got those he could just shoot the needles out all at once.

Now all that was left was the ammo. He snaked his tongue to the back of his mouth, the molar on the far right. Just below that, to the gum that held it in place. And he began to rub.

It was a couple of hours before the rubbing began to chafe. Good, he thought. He'd missed the feeling of pain. More hours still. Slowly, patiently, he worked his tongue back and forth, peeling small areas of the gum down, exposing more of the tooth. Finally, he felt it begin to wiggle slightly at his tongue's touch, and with four forceful pushes of his tongue he wrenched the tooth free. He held it in his mouth, rolling it around to test the size of it, and then held it in his bared teeth.

Thanks to the mirror, he was able to line up the shot to his satisfaction. He pulled his mouth in tight towards his gritted teeth, like the band of a slingshot, adjusted his aim one last time, and then spat. The tooth shot down with good velocity, but was slightly off trajectory, and bounced off his knee.

It took him another four hours to ready another tooth. Even more carefully, he took aim again, pulling his lips taut with the ammunition clenched between his teeth, compensating for his miscalculations... and spat. The tooth hit the needle straight on, and it shifted under the weight of the collision. The shift was barely noticeable to the eye, but he could immediately feel the weight of his dead leg now, hanging heavily from the joint. Was it enough to swing his leg? No, not yet.

That's alright. He had 30 more teeth to go.