Breaking free

Sitting in the lone seat of her cell with one leg crossed over the other and her hands resting on her knee, Doctor Octopus smiled as she watched three SHEILD staff clean up her severed mechanical tentacles from the ground to be disposed of. A bin nearby for them to be contained and disposed of. Because of how cumbersome and heavy they were, the crew were sluggish trying to put the four detached limbs into the bin. It took two of them just to lift one of her tentacles, which baffled them as they hoisted the metallic arm into the bin in a final fit of exhaustion.

“Damn, how did you move around with these things on your back?”

“Need a little help there boys?” She playfully asked of the SHIELD crew cleaning up her limbs. “You might want to lift with your knees.”

“Be quiet lady.” Responded one of the guards in a stern tone. “You have a lot to answer for already with what’s happening in the city.”

“It’s a good thing we caught you before you had a chance to leave too.” Answered another agent, trying to lift another metal limb off the ground, feeling like he was lifting 300-pound anaconda off the floor with both arms. “One can only wonder what damage you ladies would have done if we didn’t stop you.”

Leaning back, the Susan Storm variant’s smirk never left her lips as she watched them work. “Would it blow your mind to know that getting caught was my plan all along?”

Stopping what they were doing, the lead SHIELD staff marched his way over to the cell door to glare down at the woman, who seemed unphased by his presence standing up to her. “What are you getting at?”

“Hey boss? Take a look at this.”

Turning to go back to his crew but keeping an eye on the woman as she stared back with that very same grin, the SHIELD agent looked at one of his co-workers was showing him and pointed over to where the metallic limb had been cut.

“What is it private?”

“There’s nothing in there!”

Confused, the man brought the stump where the tentacle was cut closer to his attention to see what the other man was talking about. And he was right! The heavy, 20-foot-long metallic limb… Was completely hollow. No motors, or servos or circuitry, not even a bundle of wires were inside the hollow metallic tube. Trailing down the length of the tentacle down to its claw at the end, the man hefted the long metallic fingers and found even they weren’t real. They were held together with screws and bolts, but nothing else. It wasn’t until he heard the woman behind him call his attention did the guard look back to her.

“Feeling confused?”

Now all three guards were looking back at the woman who leaned forward and gave the trio a coy and innocent flutter of her eyes. Raising her hands, she wriggled her fingers, playfully.

“You caught me because I LET you catch me. You caught my allies because I let you catch all of my compatriots after they knocked the local police station, the prison and mental hospital off the map. So that the only place you could keep us that wasn’t full of gaping holes to make our escape in was the ONE place you were keeping the portal device.”

“You mean the one you made? Or the one from the Four Freaks?” Wondered the one agent out loud. “Because we got them both under lock and key in the same cargo wing.”

Narrowing her eyes, the woman’s smile became more devilish. “You all played right into my little trap, and now? Now I’m in the one place where I can take all that I want and leave this world of dullards behind with my crew and our booty. And no one can stop us.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Asked the SHIELD crewman, dropping the metal limb to the ground. “You and those freaks over there are depowered and behind a foot of solid titanium and bullet proof glass. How can you get out?”

“My goodness, already I feel disappointed in SHIELD’s recruitment standards. Even when all the pieces are right in front of you, you still can’t solve the puzzle. How to give the toddler in a uniform a hint…?”

Crossing her arms and tapping her lip with a finger, Doctor Octopus stood to her feet and approached the glass of her cell, giving a stance of deep thought. Then snapped her fingers as a thought came to mind.

“Does your reality have a movie called The Invisible Man?” She asked, leaning over to see over the man’s shoulder to the other two SHIELD crew behind him, her own variants snickering from their cell, knowing full well where this was all going. “It was made in the 1950s, remarkably high brow, ahead of its time. You wouldn’t like it personally, SO many words with more than two syllables in them. You see, while he’s walking around his place completely invisible, he ALWAYS wore clothes but especially, he wore gloves on his hands. Do you know WHY that was?”

Sharing confused looks, the three SHIELD agents didn’t know what she was getting at, but could already feel a sense of danger as they slowly made for the door… Only for one of the tentacles to suddenly come to life and reach out to crush the controls to the door with its claw.

“Because he can’t see what’s he holding if he can’t see his hands.”

A frenzy of motion from the floor sent the trio into a panic as the tentacles came to life like a clutch of snakes. The one who went for the door controls snapped back and grabbed one of the agents face in its claw, while a second tentacles coiled around his legs, the other two tenacles went for the other two men in the room, moving faster than either of them could react as the heavy metal arms wrapped around them with enough **** to crush bones. The four women in their cell laughed, watching the **** unfold in front of them.

The lead guard muffled out a panicked scream as the claw of the tentacle holding him clasped around his skull and began to apply pressure. All of this happening while Doctor Octopus stood with her hands folded behind her back, her smile gone as she watched the men in front of her die grizzly deaths to the sounds of bones being constricted and broken. Dropping the bodies to the floor, the four tentacles slithered over to their owner’s cell where the woman raised her hands and made a pushing gesture with her palms. The cell door burst off its moorings, sending bolts and sparks flying as she casually stepped out with the massive door levitating half a foot off the ground, then guided over to the side wall. Alarms were blaring overhead, stopped dead silent when a tentacle punched into the intercom to silent it. Now out into the open, her tentacles slithered over and reattached to her back. Making her way over to her team’s cell, Doctor Octopus raised her four mechanical claws up with her hands, wriggling her claws in tandem with her own fingers.

“I’ve always loved a good puppet show, don’t you ladies?”

With her hands still raised, the woman took three steps back, and with her, their cell door came off the wall with the same ease.

“You couldn’t do that earlier? Like when that one-eyed fucker was here?!” Snarled Electro, rubbing at the chafe of her neck where the collar was.

“Timing is everything my dear.” The woman responded, a single tentacle reached over to one of the dead guards and plucked the control pad for the collars out of his pocket. With a press of a button, the collars lost their charge and unlocked. “Do you want him dead? Or do you want him humiliated… Then dead?”

“Do not ask her such questions, da?” Kraven hissed, rubbing her neck now that the collar had fallen off. “She does not care about the details, just the results. And so do I for that matter.”

“For once we fucking agree!” Breathing in sharply, Electro levitated off the ground, giving off a static charge from her feet to the ground and between her outstretched fingers. “I want to fry something!”

Doc Ock chuckled at the woman’s response, using her limbs to lift herself off the floor and make her way over to the door of the brig.

“Well ladies, how’s your appetite for a little ****?” Raising her hand in a finger flick gesture, the door in front of her was blow out as if it were hit with a canon shell, landing several meters ahead of her and hitting everything on its way out before landing on the deck. “And some old fashion profiteering!”