Secure Contain Protect

I woke up. I looked around at the decently sized concrete room and the plexiglass window at the front. A few acronyms painted on the wall made my blood run cold. A.R.G.U.S. was on top of the teal trim, and beneath it was S.C.P. I didn't know SCP was real, I didn't know ARGUS had one, I really didn't even know ARGUS was real until Oliver had mentioned it.

Oliver. That fucker. I had completely bought into the hero shit. Protecting the innocent, saving the world, blah blah blah. I had been playing by the rules. Trying my best to rise in rank so I could have more rights and more fun. That was a threat to them, I was a threat to them. And instead of keeping me complacent with saving the city, they decided to show their hand and throw me in here. I had no idea how far I was from home.

By my count, they had killed me 4 times to get me here. I was 4 days from Star City, and that was traveling with the best military vehicles on Earth. Was I at the watchtower? In orbit above the Earth, surrounded by the Justice League? Martian Manhunter had been there in the Arrowcave. Even if I escaped my cell, I would have a bitch of a time getting back to the planet. But why concrete? Wouldn't they have some fancy material for a space station?

Maybe I was somewhere more remote. I couldn't see or hear any activity going on around me, this place was dead. I mean, I didn't need food or water or anything like that. They didn't need to provide it. What was I going to do? I had nothing in my cell. No bed, no toilet, no furniture of any kind that I could use to attack the glass. Maybe the concrete was softer? Assuming I actually couldn't die, I had all the time in the world.

I turned to the wall next to the glass and I punched it as hard as I could. Pain erupted in my fist and it immediately cracked and turned purple. I looked at the wall and I hadn't made so much as a dent. I hit the wall again with my other fist and then I kicked the same spot with both feet. All limbs destroyed, I sat on the floor and fell asleep against the wall. I woke up some time later and my hands and feet were healed. I tried again and while I still didn't leave a mark, my fists didn't bruise as easily. My feet could even get two kicks in each before I had to stop.

I repeated this process for a long time. I even had another dream about that demon girl while I was sleeping. Was that a weekly thing? I could keep track of time that way if it was. It was after the second demon girl dream that something finally happened. I swung at the concrete and a chip fell off. It was about a centimeter tall and a millimeter wide. An inconsequentially small chip, but I smiled. Also my fists and feet were much harder now. I could hit the wall about 6 times with each fist before stopping, and kick about 8 times each. I focused all my attention on the place where I chipped the concrete and I managed to get another, slightly bigger chip.

This was going to work if I kept at it. I sat and meditated every once in a while. I figure back when Oliver was trying to train me, before he knew about my real power, he was actually trying to impart wisdom. I was meditating after getting a 4th chip out of the wall when I felt something within myself. It was so faint I almost didn't notice it but it was there. A small spark within my being that I could feel, it was sitting right where my heart was and it was about an inch across. I focused on it for as long as I could but eventually it hurt my head and I stopped. Whatever that was I wanted to work on it as much as the concrete wall.

I had several dreams about the demon girl and even a different type of dream about testing sex toys out. I had one of those dreams for every 4 demon girl dreams. I took it to mean the week and month. I don't know why that was my internal calendar but I was grateful for it. By my count I had been in here 3 months and 2 weeks when it finally happened.

A crack formed in the concrete from one of my kicks. The crack was big, it stretched up through several bricks and it went up toward the window. Another pair of kicks opened the crack up more toward the bottom of the window. I grabbed the edges of the crack and started trying to pull it toward me. It wouldn't budge and it shed some skin off my finger tips. I continued this new ****, mixed with kicking for another week. After a week, the concrete shifted forward about 2 inches and I could see that I was only pulling at half of the surface bricks. Still, if I could get a big chunk to work with, I could use that to break through the window maybe.

I kicked horizontally along the new ledge and it chipped much more easily. I tried to use some of the new shards to attack the window but they crumbled faster than my extremities did. I went back to using my fists and I managed to punch out the bricks around the window and I could feel where the glass ended.

I pushed on the edge of the glass with a bunch of concrete and I managed to make a little crack which I then hit over and over until it spread out into the main window. I kept kicking the new cracks and helping them to spread out over the window until one last big punch sent the whole window shattering to the floor. I was free from my cell. I half expected an alarm to go off but it didn't.

I walked down the hallway and found that there were only 3 other cells in this room. In the center of the hallway on the other side was what looked like an elevator shaft. I pulled open the doors to reveal a solid block of concrete. They had sealed me in. I sat and meditated now, trying to reach out into the environment. I had no luck so I used this break to focus on my internal energy. It had grown quite a lot since the first time I felt it, and now I could move it around my body. Out of curiosity I tried to move it outside my body. Sparks flew out of my elbow and I passed out.

I awoke some time later. I was still out of my cell, I half expected someone to come in and start me all over. I looked around and saw scorch marks from where my elbow had been when I was sitting. Hmm. I checked my internal energy and it was back where it had started, still as big as before. I then focused on the walls around me. The concrete in the elevator shaft in front of me and the cells and glass everywhere else all reverberated back to my mind. That was cool. I did it again and again and I felt vibrations coming off different surfaces. I noticed that the wall at the end of the hall that had one of the other cells felt different than the rest of the room.

I walked over and started punching the concrete bricks and these ones chipped almost instantly. I punched and kicked a few more times and whole bricks fell loose to reveal a tunnel behind it. They had put this wall up in a hurry. Beyond the wall was a broken up tunnel, filled with boulders and debris. I pieced together what had happened.

They built this facility with a crazy, subterranean, put the scariest thing ever down here, basement. They decided it was the only place that could contain me, and they used this tunnel to get me inside. They put up a quick wall to make it look like a complete room, then they escaped the tunnel and collapsed it behind them.

For A.R.G.U.S. this felt rushed. Almost like they want me to escape? Maybe the real challenge is up ahead. I carefully crawled through the boulders and shifted rock that covered a paved road. I looked up and wondered how deep I was. I got up on a boulder and threw a punch at the top of the cavern. I instantly shook a bunch of rock loose and my punch vibrated the walls around me. Rocks fell on my head and I had to catch and divert their inertia to avoid being crushed. I tried to climb up on some of the new fallen rock to punch above me again but it wasn't steady.

I closed my eyes and focused on the energy inside me. I put my hands up above my head and then channeled all that energy upwards. A huge earthquake shook the tunnel around me and big giant boulders started to fall. Everything went white.

I woke up next to a boulder the size of a small house. I stood up and brushed off my arms and legs and looked around it to see above me. I almost thought I saw light but I shook that assumption quickly. I needed to actually SEE light. I decided to clear the area around me and I started punching the boulders and most of them crumbled very easily. Compared to the concrete of my cell, the Earth was nice a squishy. The ground started to become a gravelly floor and smashing the boulders was clearing out big sections of the ceiling.

I tried to jump up and climb the walls around me but everything was slick. Then I got the idea to take that energy and push it out of my hands in the downward direction, maybe it would work like a rocket. I pushed it out and it did jettison me up but not at the speed I thought it would. By the time I got to the ceiling, I was slowing down a lot and I barely got close enough to give a nice big swing to the rocks above. My punch knocked a lot of rock loose and the cavern collapsed below me. I could no longer see the tunnel underneath me but I was held up against the new ceiling. I did this once more and the cavern opened up at the top to another hallway. I scrambled up to find the top of the elevator shaft and a small control room. This stuff was old, like covered in dust old. I walked through the different rooms and found no signs of life. None anywhere.

I used a map on the wall to locate the exit. I saw a part labeled "Deep Containment" which must have been where I was held. After walking through several corridors I found the entrance way. It was barred from the outside with wood but I was able to kick the door open easily enough. I looked around the entry room and I saw sleeping bags, ammo crates, and guns sitting around the place. It looked like someone was using this room as a base. I walked outside and took in the warm air. I got up onto a rock and looked around. The facility was built into the side of a mountain on what looked like a big island. I could see shoreline wrapping around the mountain, and while I couldn't see the other side, an island made sense.

The island was big, it had jungles stretching down from the cliffside where I was standing all the way to little coves and outlets along the shore. It was maybe 30 miles to the coast from where I was standing. There was one column of smoke about 3/4 of the way to the beach and I pondered my options when I heard a gun lock behind me.

"Don't fucking move."