Sapphyra [Adult Superhero Progression]

Barbie

Tethys hands were still wrapped around my throat.

I struggled to get this woman off of me. My fingers grasped at her skin but couldn’t break it. She probably didn’t even feel it. This look in her eyes, cold and hate-filled, it rattled me. I’d seen it before hadn’t I? But they weren’t this color. They were amber, thick like cough syrup.

Wyatt’s eyes. Wyatt’s hate.

“Why the hell are you here so soon!” she hissed. I had no fucking idea what she meant.

This room, so small and plain with sterile white walls. You could perform surgery in here or be a prisoner. Was it going to be my tomb?

“Fuck you! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I rasped out. Black spots danced across my vision and I could feel my strength giving out. 

Tethys scowled at me before letting go. I grasp my throat desperately gulping in stale air.

“So much for not being able to talk. I knew you were faking it.” She’s crazy and she hates me for something I didn’t do or something I couldn’t recall. Either way, my eyes never left her as she moved to the other side of the room, stealing glances at the closed door.

“Maybe I needed to be on the verge of death first. Good thing you were here.” I mumbled dryly, glaring at her.

“You’re pathetic. Walking around in that body. I still don’t understand how she found you. That room was hidden and wasn’t supposed to be open for years.” Tethys mumbled, running her fingers through her silver hair. She bit the knuckle of her index finger and started pacing the length of the room.

“What the hell are you talking about? You knew I was down there? Who else knew?”

Not Sapphyra from the looks of it. That fits, Wyatt never tells anyone shit, least of all his wife.

Tethys gaze landed on me, contempt written all over her face. “It doesn’t concern you. This version of you is negligible.”

“Negligible?” Heat rose up my neck, artery throbbing as absolute rage boiled within me. “You sound just like him.”

“Yeah, I bet you’d say that.” She snorts and pinches the bridge of her nose. “This is awful. All the plans we made...ruined now.”

“What plans?!” I screeched, bouncing up from my seat like a kangaroo. I tried to get to her, reaching for the stupidly long hair of hers but she grabbed my wrist and crushed it. 

I tried to scream but her other hand covered my mouth faster than I could process.

“Shh. Now, now, don’t be hasty. Your death will come soon enough. In the meantime, I can’t damage this body too much. It’s needed for a vital part of the plan.”

“What plan?!” I screamed in frustration behind her hand. I knew I was muffled but here I was hoping that Silla would hear us. She might not like me but if she knew something was wrong with Tethys—someone Sapphyra trusted—then maybe she’d do something.

“Well, I suppose I can tell you if you behave. Otherwise I’ll have no problem snapping your spine. You’ll be alive but unable to do anything. Quite frankly, I’m half inclined to do that now…”

My eyes widened and I shook my head, trying to free myself. Her iron grasp tightened even further, threatening to snap my wrist in half completely. The odd part was…it didn’t even hurt. It should absolutely hurt, right?

“Look at you, the picture of fear in those pretty eyes. Such a shame there is nothing of value behind them.” She sighs, cracking her neck. I’m not sure why, but she lets my wrist go.

“Attack me again and I won’t show mercy.” There was no cruelty in her words yet I felt her menacing aura, heavy and cold, all the same.

“Okay. I promise I’ll behave.” Swallowing my fears, I watch as a bright blue light appears on the skin of my wrist, specifically around the bruise she just gave me. It healed before my eyes. My body has never done that before.

“Surprised? You shouldn’t be. But I guess that only applies if you actually know that you’re a robot.”

A high pitched ringing noise began in my ears. Was the room getting smaller or had I suddenly developed claustrophobia? Opening and closing my hands, I checked the skin as it stretched over my bones.

My lips peeled back into a grin and I laughed like a maniac.

“Hahaha! A robot? Are you fucking insane?!” I couldn’t believe her audacity. Flesh and blood, not steel and wires—I’m human. Always been human, anything else was a lie or a convoluted villain plot.

“I thought you were supposed to be intelligent? You wouldn’t have survived in that cell for a century if you were human, dumbass.” Her words stopped me cold.

“No. There must have been something in that room. The chains maybe? They had to be enchanted or something.” I racked my brain, hunting for the logical conclusion. “Recycled air infused with nutrition particles. There’s over a dozen reasons why I survived as long as I did.”

She tilts her head, examining me like a creature under a microscope. I would know, I used to have that same look.

“But none of those reasons would explain why your body can heal itself now…unless you gained regeneration from somewhere.” She took a breath, waiting for me to process. I had no plans to interrupt her.

“Ah but you aren’t a tapper. You made sure to make yourself immune to Wyatt’s formula, didn’t you. No, you were still human when the world went to shit but you had plans in place. Plans that required years of planning and arranging things ever so slightly.”

Tethys pouts before standing and heading for the door.

I flexed my palms one more time, letting the words sink in. Even now, it still sounded like a dream to me. But, I was a scientist before this all went tits up. She was speaking logically yet it still disturbed me.

“Who wants my body?” I whispered, finally looking up at her. “Do you have a plan for it or does someone else?”

A tiny laugh escapes her. I think I see pity in her eyes. Pity? That should probably fill me with fear but it doesn’t.

“It was never my plan, dear Barbara. It was always yours, for you see…”

She pulled out a knife from her back pocket, small and obsidian black. Tethys stabbed at her wrist, a clean cut that severed veins and tendons alike.

But it wasn’t blood that spewed forth, it was blue light. The same blue light that helped regenerate my own injury. That alarmed me so much that I couldn’t help but gasp in horror.

She was a robot too?!

“What in the…” I barely managed to get out.

“Barbie,” a slow smile crept up on her face and her eyelids fluttered, like she’d just had an orgasm. 

“I’m another part of your plan too.”

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