Raiders Renewed - MO - Prisoners

[Aidan]

With both the TDFHQ and the Raiders HQ no longer available for metamobian detainment, a massive reorganization of personnel was occurring at Blackgate Penitentiary in Blackstone to accommodate the influx of Argus and Mavericks detainees that had been secured in the wake of Demandred’s defeat. As Aidan and the Raiders drove in, there were buses and lines waiting to be filled with baseline mobian criminals, who were being moved to other prisons in Metropolis. Construction crews were hard at work in the metamobian detainment wing, expanding the capabilities there, and the exercise yards were filled with heavily guarded tents where lesser meta criminals had been moved to make room for the more dangerous ones. Industrial-sized heaters had been set up to keep the area reasonably warm, but it could not have been pleasant for the inmates.

Aidan pursed his lips as he was escorted into the prison, realizing that there were deeper issues that desperately needed attention in the wake of Argus’ fall. It wasn’t always about fighting meta-criminals and adventuring across far-distant realities - there were still problems here at home that would benefit from closer scrutiny and attention.

Blackgate was an old-fashioned prison, with narrow halls and barred checkpoints winding through the facility like an industrial maze. Aidan was passingly familiar with the layout since Aidyn and Saku had served time here, but the Raiders were being taken to a deeper part of the complex, reserved for the more powerful - and thus more dangerous - metamobians being held. One elevator trip underground and two checkpoints later, they had passed a chamber where the nigh-unstoppable Rampage hung in a harness, drugged into unconsciousness, and a door leading to the stasis chamber Vulcan was being kept in for lack of a way to control his abilities, past cells holding higher-ranking Argus and Maverick inmates, to a branching hallway that gave the Raiders access to the two prisoners Aidan had come to see.

The first cell, they wouldn’t be able to approach. Instead, there was a room with a table, monitor, speakers, and microphone set up. On the far side of the room was a door made of reinforced glass, ceiling the room from the chamber beyond - a larger space humming with active dampeners, in the center of which was a glass holding cell, approximately fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with a corner curtained off for privacy. Aside from the bed, there was a table and chair - and nothing else. The occupant of the cell sat in the chair, facing the distant doorway, his image broadcast by the chamber’s video cameras to the monitor in the reception room.

Adrian Damodred. Demandred, as he preferred to be called - commander of Argus.

He had been notified of their arrival, of course, and he sat with hunched shoulders, elbows on his knees, head bowed. His right arm ended in a bandaged stump at the wrist, his severed hand lost during the final moments of the Raiders’ battle aboard his airship. He looked largely unchanged since the last time the Raiders had seen him, save for the clean gray jumpsuit he now wore and a shock of hair that was coming in white - a side effect that had been noticed among those that had exposed themselves to his Ascension Engine.

Aidan moved over to stand before the door separating him from the chamber beyond, taking a moment to take in the sight of the fallen commander. His jaw clenched, and he had to force himself to relax. This was something they did not often get to see - one of their enemies, brought to proper justice. Or as proper as could be in Metropolitan society.

[Uberwulf X]

Damien was with Aidan, thoughts of the fights that brought them to this point going through his head. It was a long and perilous journey, crossing dimensions and time, to all end here in a cell smaller than the room Damien used to sleep in, the room destroyed when Vector denied Demandred his aid.

He noticed Aidan's hesitation. "Are you alright?"

[Resonance]

Eden began by walking beside her brother, but the more prisoners they passed the further back she was. She never trailed so far as to be outside the group though, however her frown, furrowed brow, and unsettled gut grew the deeper they got into the prison. When Aidan paused and Damien queried, she turned to face him and nodded slightly, an acknowledgment of their shared tension.


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[Kyt]

Yuki had heavily debated about coming along for this trip. What would be the point, after all? They were caught, dealt with, no longer a threat. Everything was safe, and there should be no reason to ever see their faces again.

But she couldn't quite let it go. So many of her worst memories were tied up here, and she needed to see that this really was the end of it.

The sight and feel of the prison wasn't exactly positive, though. Not that she expected it to be, but seeing all those others stuck due to the damage...well, that was one more thing they could blame Demandred for.

When they reached their destination, seeing Demandred....Yuki didn't know how to feel. Some part of her was relieved; yes, he was here, there wasn't a trick or some last minute switch. But there was still a tension, a seething anger at all the pain this man had caused. It mostly expressed in narrowed eyes and a lashing tail, her gaze flicking around to the others as she noticed tension in them as well.

[Aidan]

It was a long moment before Aidan nodded. "...Yeah," he said, drawing the word out. "Just... feeling it, you know? Most of the people we fight, they end up dead by their own hands. Their own power, or whatever. The ones we manage to capture and put away... they always seem to be the lower-level criminals. With Demandred and Anastasia, it feels like we really got them - we got the monsters."

He hesitated and looked at Damien, over his shoulder at his companions, then back to Damien. "It feels... weird. I should be happy, I guess, or satisfied.But I just feel... sad."


In the cell, within the dampening block, beyond the door of the chamber in which the Raiders stood, Demandred rose from his chair. He looked over at one of the guards and then back toward the glass door, through which he could see the Raiders. Within the visitor room the Raiders waited, a speaker clicked on.

"I was wondering if you would come here," Demandred said, his electronic voice touched with static. "You 'heroes' always seem uncomfortable when faced with imprisonment, even when it's one of your enemies. There was a time when I felt the same way."

[Uberwulf X]

Damien nodded slowly, but he couldn't yet form a response to Aidan because he didn't yet have the words to express any opinion, not in the face of Yuki's shared worry. Were they close, Damien would have waited back with her as Eden moved up with Aidan, patting her shoulder and asking if she was holding up as well. However, he wouldn't have the time to think of a way to check on her because the person they'd come to visit had spoken. It was only after Demandred's introduction and a quick, thoughtful purse of his lips, that Damien had in his mind to respond, and it would begin with a reiterating of Aidan's response to him.

"Do we truly seem that way? It's not that we're uncomfortable with the idea of imprisonment, it's that by their own doing, our enemies tend to decide to be lowered by six rather than tried by twelve. By and large, we've done our best to keep our enemies alive. Their ambitions tend to be worldly and lofty, so we've no recourse but to meet them at the top of the mountain. I can't speak for our elders, but when it comes time to push our foes off the mountain, we offer parachutes and ropes-- that is to say, we actually talked extensively as a group about how to deal with you, and we all made it clear that we wanted everyone alive." Damien folded his arms. "The fact that most of us are barely legal enough to drink and yet have the weight of a couple hundred lives on each our shoulders notwithstanding; the fact that there there has already been mental fallout from the very idea that they could have died a dozen times over, and had the responsibility of choosing whether or not to kill you on the stage of military theater notwithstanding..."

Damien sighed softly, his shoulders slumping slightly.

"Not everyone hates you. Don't get me wrong, some absolutely do, and we clearly all hate the way you did all of this, but we just don't go killing everyone we disagree with. And if you know literally anything about the Raiders, they're all about... I guess, rehab during imprisonment, where you're not just shoved in a box and forgotten about. I'm genuinely curious though, why did you feel that way about us? Why did you ever feel that way?"

[Resonance]

Eden looked up to the screen when Demandred spoke, then to Damien as he spoke. Hmm… her brow furrowed again. Rehabilitation. They had success stories for sure, like the majority of the Dolls. But they were high level people of interest who seemed to be wavering as the final battle drew near, making them prime targets for rehabilitation. What about everyone else?

Her mind then turned to the condition the prisoners were in as they neared Demandred’s cell… what about them? This trip was already giving her far more than she expected to think about, and they hadn’t even really spoken to Demandred yet.

Though she was wrapped up in her pondering, she caught sight of Yuki’s lashing tail out of the corner of her eye. She looked over to Yuki with a small encouraging smile of support, and reached her hand out for her to take.


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[Kyt]

Yuki's ears flicked, processing things as they unfolded. Aidan's comments felt familiar, until the end. She didn't feel sad. She felt...angry. And empty. She didn't know how to feel.

Demandred acknowledging them only made her tense up more, fists balling. The motion from Eden caught her eye, the fox pausing before hesitantly taking the offered hand. With the hair dye and different styles, Yuki could easily tell them apart, but it still felt a little odd with her growing relationship with Hope. She still  managed to give a smll smile, grateful for the feline reaching out.

Support received, she was able to be a little calmer as Damien spoke. She still didn't really know what to say, if anything, and he had spoken many of her thoughts. So she just waited for Demandred's response, expecting him to just spout more of his rhetoric of meta vs mundane, strong vs weak.

[Aidan]

"Eloquent," Demandred observed. "I admire cultures with traditions of inter-disciplinary pursuits among their warriors. It seems most modern paramilitaries care only for how well their soldiers can follow orders and kill enemies. It seems the only traditions that hold value may be those that value a glorious death over an ignoble defeat. For a warrior, it's better to die pursuing your ambitions than to be laid low and live with the shame of their defeat."

He looked down at the stump of his right hand, studying it with the detached air of a scientist peering through a microsope at an alien world. "Not all monsters are created. Some are bred. Trained. Molded." He looked up at the Raiders. "The first time I saw our kind imprisoned and experimented on, by the same people I swore to protect... I knew what I had to become. No one deserves that kind of imprisonment."

He paused and looked around his cell. "Although perhaps I deserve this one..."


Aidan looked over his shoulder at Eden and Yuki, then looked to Demandred. "You had the skills and the training to be a real inspiration to metamobians. Instead you decided to become... this. We've seen some bad things, but to hold an entire people responsible for the actions of a few evils... that's just... stupid."


"Where do men learn how to create monsters?" Demandred mused. "Those ideas don't simply occur from nothing. The only way to root out truly corruptive systems of belief is with overwhelming opposition - and overwhelming force, if necessary."

[Uberwulf X]

"Thanks," Damien grumbled. "One of the few things I'm grateful for when it comes to TRIumph is my ability to elucidate, though it sometimes makes me sound like I'm a dusty professor giving a lecture. Sorry if I came off that way, you don't need lectures, we're not here to lecture you. I mean," Damien said while briefly glancing upward in thought, "maybe just a little? Because you're right, injustice will exist, and sometimes it takes a tactical nuke. But I'm with Aidan, you had scalpels and surgeons and--"

Damien quickly lifted his hand and shook it, understanding and quietly apologizing for his prose nearly going purple again. A breath, and he started again. "You're a hell of a commander. You clearly had people who would stand with you. I genuinely believe you could have gotten into politics, become a public figure to let the people themselves raise the kind of hell you wanted, so this would have been more, I don't know, grassroots, in touch with the people, and a hell of a lot less violent where possible."

[Resonance]

Eden added on to Damien's words, "there were so many different paths forward... ways to achieve the same or similar goals... yet you chose this one and relished in it, held your ideals over those you viewed lesser than, but your methods are no better than those who tried to subjugate you."

[Uberwulf X]

((Reaction))

Give it up to Eden for blessedly simplifying what he meant. Damien's agreement and appreciation was noted in a barely noticeable nod.

[Kyt]

For the most part, as little as he said, it was there. Needing "overwhelming force". Might makes right. Yuki clenched her jaw, letting out a quick exhale of tension. She really didn't know if she wanted to add anything. The others were already saying everything she thought. Or most of it, anyway.

So she just watched him. Watched his reactions. Was there any remorse there? Any care for all the pain he caused?

[Aidan]

Aidan nodded, agreeing with Damien and his sister. "You could have even gone the way of the Raiders, if you hated the system so much. Worked outside of it. You built a machine to empower metas, and it took you years of blood and violence to do it - instead you could have been an example to aspire to, and empowered so many more, so much sooner."

Demandred smiled. It was a mirthless smile, devoid of any warmth, as empty as his dead grey eyes. "Perhaps," he allowed. "I cannot say that the path you've chosen for yourselves is ineffective. Quite the contrary," he allowed, looking around his prison cell before turning back to the Raiders, his smile fading.

"The world is more complex than that," he continued. "They sought to control us out of fear, and in doing so, created the very monster they were afraid of. I may not have empowered as many metamobians as I had hoped, but at least my legacy is secured. Whenever one of them seeks to abuse us, they will remember me, and what I did. Rather than fear forcing their hand, it will instead restrain it. And the more you accomplish, the more heroic you and you companions grow to be... the more inferior they will realize that they are.

"This world is ours. There are more metas appearing every day. Perhaps it was wrong to force a quicker evolution... but one way or another, they will understand that they will not be able to rule forever."

And there it was, the heart of Demandred laid bare. There was no remorse. No regret. Consideration for his failures, perhaps, but no empathy for those he had harmed. Vulcan had set himself up as a Prophet of metamobian supremacy, but his message came from Demandred. In his eyes, there was no place for equality - only supremacy.

[Uberwulf X]

"Ah... and there it is, I guess." Damien's sigh this time was fairly audible, defeated. "I'm glad that you're able to admit at least that much," Damien replied. To be honest, he didn't know what to expect coming here, but he was glad he accepted the invitation. His mind briefly went to the future, the vampires he'd have to deal with, Alucard's rather horrifying vision of the future.

"I'm genuinely sorry to hear you say that, sir. I wished you said something more like 'I don't know where I went wrong, I didn't mean to hurt the people I was protecting' or something noting you somehow, some way, may have gone about this the wrong way. But if that's how you feel, then I suppose it is what it is."