forum The Hero's Villain Origin Story (O/O closed)

Started January 13, 2023 by @emilyevewrites group

tune

Farah's eyes widened, and she immediately released a long exhale before breathing normally again. Or at least as normal as she could be given her current situation.

Her eyes watched Malcolm as he began to fix another bot, sparing her the shortest glance as she spoke. And his answer unsettled her yet again. "So you would experiment on me?" she asked. "Is that what you're trying to say?"

Everything he said and did seemed confusing to her. He craved both the genocide of the entire world and also scientific advancement. He was borderline cruel to her, but as he fixed his bots, Farah could see a faint trace of affection in his gaze.

Malcolm snickered cruelly at her change in breathing. He always loved fucking with people’s heads, in a variety of ways.

“Of course. But, experimentation is only part of the fucking job. Particularly with you, since dissection would be counterproductive right now,”Malcolm casually replied.

Malcolm finished with the bot a couple minutes later, setting it down. He watched it join the other bots, noting that the unharmed ones were seeking out wounded ones and body parts. Good. That would make things much simpler when he left the warehouse.

He then turned back to Farah and noticed that the medical bots were finishing up their work. A minute or two later and they completed knitting the wound closed. They headed off of Farah, the bloody bots being cleaned by the others as they returned to their vial, which hadn’t moved.

Malcolm walked over and picked up the vial when all of the bots were in it, admiring them as they curled up and shut down. He put the lid back on the vial and put it back in his toolkit before going back to Farah.

“You’ll have faint scars, but otherwise you’re healed. Now, after the conversation we just had, what are you going to do? Spit out Society’s dick or keep sucking on it like a bitch?”he asked.

Farah stiffened at the mention of him dissecting her. She had no doubt in her mind that if push came to shove, Malcolm would indeed kill her and experiment with her body until he found was he was looking for or had no more use for it. God, he really was revolting.

"Exactly what kind of experimenting are you thinking about?" she asked skeptically.

She didn't bother hiding her look of awe at the stitched-up wound. It looked almost normal and felt as if nothing had happened. But that might have been the painkillers the bots had injected into her still working. Farah pulled her shirt back down to cover it only to discover there was still a hole from the bullet. Obviously.

Still, Farah looked up to see the admiration on Malcolm's face as he looked at his bots. At least there was something in the world he cared about. It made him less sociopathic, even if it was only for a second.

His question irritated her again. Did he have to be so vulgar with his choice of words? But Farah supposed that this was what she'd gotten herself into anyway. "I'm not a bitch," she answered, arching her eyebrows to prove her point.

“Depends on my mood and the occasion. But, for now, nothing that involves cutting into you. Piss me off, and that might change,”Malcolm immediately replied, his tone so casual, like he was talking about the sky.

Malcolm snorted as he watched Farah inspect her wound. Such admiration for something so mundane. Stitching up a wound wasn’t the only thing his little medical bots could do.

“Really? How are you going to prove that? To everyone?”Malcolm asked, curious how she’d answer. He could think of several ways, but he wanted to know what she’d do first before he considered any of his own options.

Farah scoffed under her breath. “Good to know,” she muttered, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I should warn you not to piss me off either,” she added after a moment. Her eyes flashed with warning and her magic. “I don’t like to be pushed around.”

His snort cause her eyes to then narrow into a targeted glare. “I’m sorry my inferior mind can’t comprehend the job of your little nanobots,” she quipped, hauling herself to her feet and rising to her full height again. “But I’ll give you the credit you deserve. Their work is amazing.”

But his question stilled her. Farah paused and smirked casually while her eyes illuminated with magic. “I’m sure you have some lovely ideas to share.”

Malcolm laughed at her words, shaking his head.

“Oh, you’re so frightening. I’m shaking where I stand,”he replied sarcastically, mocking her.

“I think you should know by now that I don’t fucking care. Besides, you might want to get used to being pissed off. One, because of my presence. Two, because of my attitude. You should definitely be aware of those by now,”Malcolm added in a serious tone.

His eyes glared back at her, not backing down for a second. He then watched her stand before snorting again.

“Shut the fuck up. And, give them the credit. They fixed you. I just build them,”he huffed.

A snarl immediately lifted his lips and he quickly silenced his mind, then viciously slapped Farah.

“Stay the fuck out of my head, or I will blow off your fucking knees off and drag you out by your hair!”Malcolm howled.

Farah’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t answer his petty attempt to rile her up. She knew what she could truly be capable of. What she was influenced to be capable of. And if Malcolm found out the true extent of her powers… Farah didn’t want to imagine it.

“I am,” she shot back. “But don’t think for a second I’m going to subject to your every irritation just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

This time, Farah did roll her eyes. “I understand that. But their creation wouldn’t have been possible without you. So thank you. And… give my thanks to them also, I suppose.”

Though as fast as the slap came, Farah didn’t have enough time to react to it. Her head whipped back with the force, and she staggered back a step, clutching at her face. Disbelief flooded her eyes, then anger. Icy, burning anger. It shone in her brown eyes, lighting a cold silver fire that replaced her normal stare.

“If you lay a hand on me again,” Farah said slowly and in a voice that didn’t quite sound like her normal tone, “it will be the last thing you do.” Then she blinked, and whatever it was that had come over her was gone. She stiffened, shoving the power down deep, and swallowed the bile that rose from her throat.

Malcolm saw her eyes narrow and he continued to laugh at her. He didn’t care if she was as powerful as a god, she didn’t scare him.

“‘Wrong side of the bed’? Horrible fucking metaphor. I’m an angry fuck, period. Everything suffers ‘my irritation’ at least once a fucking day,”Malcolm snorted.

Her words made him pause breifly. He then huffed and rolled his eyes. Though, he didn’t comment.

Malcolm watched her with a cruel glare, studying her reaction. He didn’t budge at her warning, even if it was… odd.

“Stick your telepathic fingers in my head again, and it will be the last thing you do,”he countered.

Malcolm continued to glare at her for a minute, then he turned and headed toward one of the exits. He snapped his fingers and the small hoard of bots started moving, following him.

“If you want to find out what it’s like to not suck Society’s dick, then come the fuck on. I’m not waiting on your ass. Otherwise, I hope you give as good as you get,”Malcolm called.

Farah’s lip pulled into a snarl. She knew he wasn’t afraid of her. Honestly, she wasn’t too intimidating when people first saw her. But what they didn’t know… Farah preferred to keep several secrets under wraps.

“Whatever,” she spat. “You knew what I meant.” Tapping back into her suppressed anger didn’t seem like such a bad idea now.

However, she did notice his lack of response to her thanks. Perhaps that was it — Malcolm’s only weak spot. His creations.

Farah smirked and arched her eyebrows. “You’d really like to believe that. Do you know what I can do to you? You may be half made of metal, but I can control much more than you realize.” His threat didn’t phase her.

Her eyes tracked his movements sharply, and she growled in the back of her throat at his words. “You’d better watch your mouth before I make you forget how to talk,” she snapped, but she followed him anyway.

Her snarl only made Malcolm laugh harder at her.

“It was still a stupid fucking metaphor,”Malcolm huffed disdainfully.

“I don’t give a fuck. When will you get that, for fuck’s sake? Are you that fucking slow?”Malcolm retorted, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

Malcolm laughed at her comment as he continued to the exit.

“You’re ten years too late for that! Do recall that I only have half a fucking face. I couldn’t talk for an entire year before I made artificial tendons and muscle for my jaw. So, don’t think you’re going to stop me from talking shit,”he mocked, looking over his shoulder at her.

The horde of bots stopped near a door in the back of the warehouse. Malcolm unlocked the door with a skeleton key he had built and headed out into the alley, following a trail that he seemed to know quite well. The bots spread out like a wave around the pair as they walked.

Farah watched his reactions and slipped back into her naturally impassive demeanor. She didn't want to give him any ammo. Letting her barriers down was clearly not the right decision. She had to build them back up. The problem was that she had let him see her when they were down. So now, it would be much harder for her to reconstruct them.

He really had no idea of her powers. How deeply she could reach into her magic and manipulate the scene around them, or her appearance in his eyes, or force him to be silent, either with his mouth or with his mind.

It was quite terrifying how powerful Farah actually was, but she didn't tap into that part of herself. It was too unpredictable and alluring. If she wasn't careful, she could get lost in it.

The only reaction she allowed herself was to roll her eyes when he looked back at her. "What a lovely year that must have been," she quipped back, arching her eyebrow.

Farah made a note of everything that happened, particularly the way he went and the bots swarming near her ankles. She didn't falter in her steps, but she kept warily glancing down. "Where exactly are we going?" she asked.

Malcolm saw how she became impassive once again. He huffed at her, rolling his eyes.

“You give in too fucking easily,”he snorted.

He saw her eye roll, then scoffed at her words.

“Fuck you, you fucking cunt! Maybe I should rip your fucking jaw in half! See how you fucking feel about it!”Malcolm snapped.

Malcolm knew that he was risking much by going in the direction that he was. But, if he was going to make any progress with her, he’d have to be bold. That wasn’t a problem.

The bots paced Malcolm and Farah, moving around objects and buildings with organized ease. They didn’t crowd Malcolm or Farah either. It was like they were one being, instead of many bots, keeping watch without getting in the way.

“Shut the fuck up and you’ll find out,”Malcolm huffed when Farah spoke.

They went through several turns and alleys, but ten minutes later, they arrived at the back of an old jewelry shop. Malcolm stopped at the back door, unlocked it, and stepped inside. It was a storage area, with boxes stacked everywhere.

Malcolm immediately went over to a particular box and tapped a certain sequence of noises on it. A bot crawled out of the box, this one a bit bulkier than the crowd of ones following the pair. It had two thick arms that ended in small barrels, like miniature cannons.

“We have a guest. Treat her accordingly,”Malcolm said, a strange weight in his words.

A blue light flashed on the guard bot’s body, then it disappeared back into the box. Malcolm nodded and walked out of the storage room into the back of the shop. The crowd of bots flooded around Malcolm, heading back to their usual posts. A few stayed behind to shut and lock the door behind Farah.

The back of the store seemed quite mundane. There were tables covered with tools for checking and repairing gems. Shelves and display cases full of overstock jewels. A few chairs were scattered about, and a small fridge was against the back wall. The storage room was in one corner of the building. There was another small room in the opposite corner. Nothing indicated the presence of bots, except for the crowd steadily disappearing into cracks and crevices in the shelves and walls.

“This is my store. Don’t fuck shit up,”Malcolm said, his best version of welcoming Farah inside.

He moved over to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of whiskey. Walking over to a nearby cabinet, he retrieved two old-fashioned whiskey glasses and filled both. He then sat down at a small table next to the fridge, holding one glass and setting the other one on the opposite side of the table.

“You have two choices now that you’re here, in my house. Choice One, you decide you still give a shit about society and I empty my pistol into your fucking head. Or, Choice Two, you quit giving a fuck, you sit down, and you have a drink with me. That should make things extra simple for you,”Malcolm stated.

He then drank some of his whiskey and waited.