Mutants & Masterminds Mutants & Masterminds: The Magisterium - Jungle Daze

[Jordan]

He awoke in darkness. At first, he didn’t remember where he was and sat up in a panic, thinking his guards had forgotten about him. He felt and ache in his back, the kind you get from sleeping in an uncomfortable position and his hands brushed an unfamiliar substance as he sat up; stone, not the metal of his bed frame. That is when it came to him. He wasn’t in his room back at the centre.

Dog waited for the lights to come on for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes. He didn’t like being in the dark but the guards didn’t let him make any of his nightlight constructs. He wondered if the people here would mind.

A soft golden light suffused the room as a tiny sphere materialized just over Dog’s hand. It gently floated up the about the center of the ceiling a just hovered there. Dog took a good look around the room that he’d fallen asleep in. It was a bare stone cube with a shelf like bed on the wall opposite from the rough wooden door that was firmly closed. The only furnishing in the room was a utility emergency light on a tripod in one corner of the room, its cord hugging the wall and leading out through a small hole in the wall close to the door.

The young mutant sat there for a while, absorbing the room and waiting for someone to come in and yell at him for using his powers when he wasn’t supposed to. Another eternity passed and no one came. Maybe they didn’t know? Or maybe, maybe these people didn’t care? Dog took a breath and held it as he created a small construct; a humanoid figure about the size of an action figure. Again he waited and again no one came in to yell at him or hit him.

At first he was afraid, and then he was annoyed. The strangers he’d followed had forgotten to turn on the lights this morning, and then forgotten to feed him! Did they forget he was even there? Dog was sure he was missing his cartoons and wished he had the TV from his room at the centre.

Dog thought for a moment and wondered if he could just make a TV with his light. He concentrated really hard, remembering whet the TV from his room looked like and stretched out his hands. His tattoos flared to life and rapidly, a TV took shape on the floor in front of Dog. At first it was a simple box, perfect and angular, then it shifted some more. Its edges softened and became slightly curved, a screen appeared and buttons appeared on the left hand side. Below the buttons a small rectangle was outlined and then perforated with tiny holes, just like on the speaker of the original.

Dog sat back on his heels, clearly pleased with himself. He pressed the on button ready to sit back and enjoy the ‘Super Adventure Hour’ but nothing happened. Puzzled, he hit the button again but still nothing happened. A rapid punching of the button several times in a row didn’t produce the desired result either.

At first Dog was annoyed, then agitated. He was missing his favorite cartoons! He smacked the TV construct in frustration and when nothing happened he smacked it again, and then again. As he hit the construct the pent up stress of his failed mission, his inadvertent escape and the punishment he knew he’d receive for both finally sank in and with a bellow of rage a massive golden hammer construct appeared in his hands which he brought down on the not-TV as hard as he could.

The first blow shattered the boxy construct, shards of it quickly vanishing even as the fell to the floor, but the emotional floodgates had opened and Dog continued pounding the hammer on the floor and bellowing his anguish. Cracks began to form on the floor where Dog was venting his rage but slowly the energy to keep raging drained out of him and he ended up sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, sobbing.

Eventually he drifted off to sleep, exhausted from his emotional outburst. He slept for several hours, sprawled out across the floor but when he awoke, he felt better; purged somehow. He looked around. The door was still closed, there still wasn’t any food and the only light was still his tiny construct, hovering at the ceiling. Dog sighed.