Hostage

“I lost the betting pool…” an obviously synthesized voice rings out, “I had my money on another three days before you found us. Ah well. Still… we are ready for you. After all…” a couple projectors light up the side of the building - basically a big warehouse, really - showing a blonde bimbo in a ‘stripper nurse’ uniform, standing on a raised dias, over a tank. She's surrounded by water full of sharks with lasers on their heads, and there's a huge spiked weight above her suspended on a rope.

Nancy rolls her eyes at the theatrics… she looks positively bored just standing there in the middle of pending doom.

“...after all, your priorities are written right into law in this scenario,” the synthesized voice continues, “Do keep in mind, if I let go of the rope, she dies… dead man switch, don't you know. I would like to speak to Miss Bimbo. Please send the good doctor in to negotiate.”

The radio crackles to life, “MY priorities are set by law… YOU are technically a civilian. I can't order you around, so it is your call on how you want to handle the lettuce-head, over.”

Benjamin considers, ‘odd thing to call a person…’ and replies through the radio, “I'll go on in; it's not like he wants to kill me, or even can. Drugging, poison, mind control… attempting to inflict me with basically anything is suicide… and we have a literal army waiting just outside. It should be fine.”

“Okay, your show, over.” the radio crackles briefly.

‘Yeah, but I'm supposed to have some super-powered backup; it's generally pointless, but I can be contained…’ the doctor thinks to himself as he walks to the building, hundreds of guns at his back. Dr. Beaux walks unopposed to a door, picking the obvious one. It's obviously a trap… hopefully the doctor is prepared. The steel door opens easily, and the doctor steps through.

The room inside is mostly barren… the various bits of infrastructure (stalls, cattle runs, feeding troughs, and such) have been pushed to the side to set the stage for this pageant. The entire wrehouse has been mostly cleared out… there's a pen with three dozen sheep, a generator the size of a shipping container humming merrily, a man in old-fashioned plate armor standing next to it with a kind of green shimmer in the air around him, holding a rope in one hand… and said rope leads to some pulleys in the ceiling, holding… yes, a giant spiked weight over Nancy, who still looks bored surrounded by water full of sharks with lasers on their heads.

“Oh, like, you're here!” Nancy exclaims, “Once this idiot is like, totally thrashed, would you like, stamp my frequent kidnappee card? I only need like two more to get a totally yummy ice cream cone!”

The armored man turns to her, revealing that the armor is, in fact, just styling over some powered armor, and the synthesized voice shouts out, “Seriously lady? You're worried about FREE ICE CREAM?! THAT is your priority right now!?”

“Hey, DaggenHas makes some good ice cream,” the doctor laughs, “and it takes twenty kidnappings to get a free cone.”

That gives the armored man pause, he looks at the doctor for a moment, then turns to Nancy, “This is the nineteenth time you've been kidnapped?”

“Duh, no,” Nancy rolls her eyes.

“Joking at a time like…” the armored man starts to look upset.

The bimbo talks over him, “No, just like the nineteenth time *this card* - I've totally gotten like two free ice creams from them so far like, this year.”

The villain's face is hidden, so the doctor doesn't see his expression….

He's silent, so Benjamin fills in the void, “I can assure you, she earned each of those stamps honestly.”

“Well, she's still alive, so I'll assume you fold like….” the synthesized voice starts from the ‘knight’ again.

“Pfft, no,” the woman on the platform interrupts the villain, “that totally hasn't happened yet. The boss is really adamant about like, NOT giving in to stupid people. Duh.”

“DID YOU JUST CALL ME STUPID?” The synthesized voice is running at high volume now… but still sounds flat.

“Duh,” Nancy shrugs, “after all, you like, totally are.”

The armored man doesn't say a further word. He just lets go of the rope.

As the spiked weight of certain doom starts to fall, the pulleys above it spinning madly as the rope is yanked through them at near-sonic speeds, twin white streams of liquid shoot from the shadows, knocking Nancy off the platform, over the shark-infested water, and onto the floor of the warehouse just as the weight smashes down, crushing the platform into the water… where the sharks fire their head lasers at the weight, causing the water to steam a bit.

“Where were you hiding?” three voices ask of the black and white costumed woman with her chest fully out, her hands still wrapped around her rather ample assets.

“Just call me saint Nick ‘O Time,” Cowgirl smiles, and let's loose with another twin blast of white liquid at the man in armor….

…who just laughs as the shimmering energy deflects it effortlessly. “Seriously, what kind of a cunt dresses up as a bimbo cow?”

The cow-themed heroine frowns and stops as the generator revs down slightly, “I suppose you're not MY villain… I'll get the stripper out of here.”

“I don't like people who fight dirty… and you dropped your Deadman switch,” the doctor smiles as his eyes turn black.

There's a roar of machinery as the black void engulfs the knight… only to reveal him still standing when it fades.

“I have studied you well, doctor…” the synthesized voice laughs, “...turns out your power can be blocked.”

Benjamin licks his lips as the generator revs back down, and tilts his head to the side, “Your shield doesn't work like you think…” he pauses, and activates his radio, “Run.”

Several things happen simultaneously: Nancy and Cowgirl run at full sprint to the exit. The chief screams, “PINEAPPLE! I REPEAT: PINEAPPLE!” over the radio, forgoing the ‘over’. The doctor's eyes go black, and stay that way. A black void engulfs the knight, staying there. The generator kicks into high gear.

“You can't get through this shield,” the synthesized voice laughs from the darkness, “I have studied you, Doctor Benjamin Maddox Beaux.”

The doctor rolls his currently black eyes, “Your shield is tied to your unguarded generator. The chlorine triflouride grenade I have in my pocket could turn that into a firestorm, burning it and the concrete floor to ash, leaving you ****.”

“Who was insane enough to….” the synthesized voice still doesn't show emotion directly.

“Hitler ordered them,” Benjamin interrupts, shouting over the whine of the generator, “he was the only one crazy enough to mass-manufacture that garbage. I took them as spoils of war. A couple well-placed AP shots from my shotgun would do the same job. But I'm not doing that. I want to prove a point.”

“And what point is that?” The synthesized voice queries flatly.

“That even if I play this as stupidly as I can…” Dr. Beaux pauses, “You. Can't. Win.”

The doctor then pushes harder, the generator starts to smoke, and the voice in the darkness shouts out, “This isn't over! You haven't heard the last of…”

Then the generator explodes, the shield fails, and the ‘knight’ drops dead.

That does, however, leave the good doctor with a problem….