Play the Game

1.6 - Questionable

Finally got to working on this baby! The chapter was initially gonna be way longer, but I found a good place to split it. I've gotta do a bit more work on the other chapter to make it ready to publish, but otherwise you hopefully won't be waiting too long!

~Kitty

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As Reaper opened his eyes, he found himself with an unfamiliar ceiling above his head. While it probably should've caused a bit more panic, he was surprisingly getting used to finding himself in unfamiliar locations whenever he went to bed. In fact, he almost welcomed it, seeing as his memory fragments only seemed to return at random whenever he slept. This one seemed more like the ceiling of the hospital he'd just been at, a cold and sterile feel to the space in general.

As he sat up to take stock of where he was, a bolt of pain shot up his leg and caused him to wince. Looking down, he didn't know whether to be more concerned by the fact that his one femur was tightly bandaged, or by the fact that he wasn't wearing pants. Technically, he had a pair of short shorts on, but those didn't really count. Any dignity they may have preserved was destroyed by the fact that he was wearing them in the first place.

Since he couldn't move his leg without pain, he tried to reach for his power, only to find it unresponsive. So, either this dream was set before he got his powers, or something was seriously wrong. As he tried to figure out what was going on though, the echo of footsteps drew his attention to the direction of the one wall with a door. The wall looked to be made of glass or some plastic that was less likely to shatter, allowing him to see his father approaching.

Judging from the frown on his face, this dream was likely about something going seriously wrong. Erebus was a stern man, but he would often smirk a little bit when approaching his son from what Reaper could remember. Maybe he was remembering wrong, but his dream self seemed to feel the same worry and anxiety he now currently felt.

"Reaper," his father sighed, stepping up to place his hand against the glass. "I am so very sorry for how this all happened, this was never my intention."

"Intention, what do you mean?"

The older skeleton looked away for a moment, frown deepening as he contemplated his response. "What I mean, is that I never intended for your dormant powers to awaken from such severe trauma."

"P-Powers? What do you mean?" Was this the moment that he first learned of his gift? The bombing incident was when his powers first emerged according to Sanguine, which made sense given the lack of control over his powers he had. And his old man spoke of trauma, which that bombing definitely had been. It seemed like his dream self was still just a bit too in shock to put the pieces together though.

Luckily for him, his dad was more than willing to explain things, even if he looked none too pleased about how events panned out. "I... had always hoped that one day you would develop powers of your own. I wanted to know that you could keep yourself safe, and in this world, having powers is the easiest way to protect yourself. But I never wanted you to suffer in order to have any dormant talent awaken. In fact, I'd hoped that the stress and rigor of the training I put you through would be enough of a trigger. But... it seems that I failed you, and for that, I'm sorry."

"Powers... b-but I don't feel any different," he insisted, looking to his hand and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

That sense of normalcy lasted just long enough for his father to sigh and flip a nearby switch, the sound of machine powering down before Reaper's body disintegrated into a familiar black mist. "That's because you're currently in a power nullification cell, the same ones used in prisons to contain dangerous Supers. I had it built here in secret a few years back, in case I ever needed to capture another rival villain. But placing you in there was the only way for the doctor to operate on your leg and repair the damage done. Otherwise, you continued to bleed yet we were unable to touch you." He paused, letting the information sink in as the younger skeleton waved his misty hand around in front of his face. "Your power seems to some form of intangibility... which does make sense, given the situation that you were in."