for i am born to be what i must be and i must be.

[obediences]

WHO: Luther Hargreeves & you!
WHAT: A government enforcer, obedient to the wrong people because at least they weren’t as bad as his last authority figure.
WHEN: Catch-all for throughout the plot, will add prompts as needed
WHERE: In the streets, at government facilities, with his team of fellow enforcers, at home, wherever.

[ RATIFICATION CELEBRATION | OTA ]

After a decade in the City, Luther Hargreeves knows how this dog-and-pony show goes.

The meta known as Space is a steady and reliable appearance at public events throughout the month: he smiles politely for photos, he haunts the Archangel Gabriel’s side as a bodyguard, and he parrots the right words, the PR lines he’s been drilled into saying, the party line. Order and stability is more important than ever these days, now that the Porter’s spewing chaos back into their well-ordered life.

Or so they say. Or so they tell him.

You can find him working security, most likely, or watching the celebrations with more hawk-like attention than cheer (probably keeping an eye open for trouble). Parades, parties both public and private, his schedule’s packed with them all.

[ GOVERNMENT TEAMBUILDING | OPEN TO OTHER ENFORCER PALS ]

The truth is, though, that they’re stretched thin. Pulling long hours, doing the usual work of hunting the resistance, but also trying to track down new metas now, all the ones who slipped through their net when the Porter started working in overdrive.

His teammates can start to sense the change in the air when Luther’s stomping around the government complex, glowering at their map on the wall with pins of known resistance activity, or throwing himself into obsessive training and punching the punching bags a bit too hard until they spill stuffing all over the floor. Even the Ratification streamers hung (in an obligatory sort of fashion) around the office don’t improve his mood much.

[ WILDCARD ]

get @ me! i'm on plurk at quadrille if u wanna plot or if you want me to add a personalised starter for you :> will match prose or brackets, too.
also of note: he’s still 6’5”, but looks human in this AU and doesn’t have his half-ape physiology!

Comments

Tech Upgrade;

[redcosmedic]

Luther receives a comm ping directing him to the large engineering bay at his earliest convenience. Knock Out has been a regular fixture in that space for the last six years (except for seven months in 2015 where he was conspicuously absent), churning out anti-resistance tech for the government such as pulse blasters (inducing weaponized, crippling vertigo that had become a favourite of enforcers), electrified capture nets, power nullifiers and inhibitor cuffs.

But their government overlords are always demanding something new, something better, something more effective. Especially with the Porter dumping a new load of Metas into the City without warning.

As one of the government's foremost enforcers and with such prominent placement at Gabriel's side, Knock Out's handler had decided that Luther was to receive the first working unit of the mech's newest invention, and now it was ready for him.

[obediences]

The massive mech is a familiar sight rounding out the bay, moving back and forth between various workbenches containing half-assembled or finished inventions. Much as Luther's visits down here are a matter of pure business, a re-fitting of newer and better ways to kill and incapacitate, each time also feels a bit like Christmas: he finds his steps lengthening, speeding up a bit as he strides down the metal walkways towards the distant gleam of a red chassis. As ever, intrigued to see what Knock Out's managed to cook up this time.

As strange as it is to say about this arrangement: it's also been Luther's closest thing to interacting with Reginald Hargreeves' own kind of mad science. His father's various inventions, crackpot tech turned into weaponry and Televators and aerial flotation devices.

"What's on the menu today?" the man asks as he approaches, as if he's strolling into a particularly strange restaurant.

[redcosmedic]

"Luther," Knock Out greets hospitably, turning to greet the enforcer. As always, his tone is carefully complaisant, never holding any inflection that could be construed as rebellious or disrespectful. Especially not around someone like Luther, who the mech knew wouldn't hesitate to report any insolence (real or perceived) as fast as a quantum blink.

The engineering bay is fitted with those metal walkways at various height levels, so people can converse with him without having to look up twenty feet. Once Luther's chosen his placement, Knock Out approaches, holding a metal disk about a human handspan across delicately in his claws.

"I was assigned to create prototypes for personal shield units," he notes. "It was decided that you would get the first functional model."

[obediences]

It's inevitable: Luther feels that small kick of pride in his chest, at hearing that little bit of prestige. The fact that he's the very first one. (Number One.) He accepts the disk just as delicately, spanning across the palm of his hand, as he bends his head down and takes a closer look at it. He'd trained to be an astronaut, once upon a time, in another life; he likes gadgets.)

A shield. That's a smart move by their superiors: Luther's bones are inhumanly strong but his skin is breakable like any human's, and since he's a frontlines fighter, he can't always teleport himself out of danger. Can't always rely on that power to haul him out of the fire. With this, he can take bigger risks again.

"This'll be a good addition," he says, distractedly, half-thinking aloud. Then, looking up to meet the mech's impassive visored eyes: "How do I activate it?"

[redcosmedic]

"Here, for the moment," Knock Out says, showing him a small depression on the underside of the disk. Once pressed, a web of pale blue honeycomb panels springs into existence, forming a translucent barrier. Rapping one metal talon against it firmly, Knock Out confirms that it's solid and strong; there's a faint vibration that travels through the disk, but there's no physical pushback on Luther's end.

"Hard light holomatter technology," he explains, unprompted. It's the same function as his own holomatter avatar, the skill of which Knock Out had downplayed for as long as he could to his handlers. Now though, they were demanding it be adapted. Drawing on both that, and the short-lived forcefield generator from his world, this was Knock Out's result.

"But it can be coded to activate to a voice command, or even a specific gesture if you'd prefer, though that would require you to wear a haptic feedback sensor. Something like a... cuff, or bracer. The shield will repel as much as 3500 psi of direct force, or around a megajoule of kinetic energy, and anything smaller than an artillery shell."

[obediences]

It really is like goddamned Christmas. The enforcer looks up at the mech again, and a brilliant smile crosses his face. Not quite the cold, practiced thing Luther leverages for official photo ops and government-mandated public appearances. He is genuinely delighted with this prototype.

Luther raps his own knuckles against the shield, then levels his super-strength into hitting it with his fist. Feels the way it doesn't give, the way it just swallows up the force. "Great work, Knock-Out," he says, and the admiration isn't grudging. "I've been wanting something like this for a while. It's metal— is it magnetic? Either for recalling it to me, or for someone else trying to snatch it away."

Cutting right to practical considerations, even as he clenches it in his palm and tests the way the shield swings with him, its speed as he moves.

[redcosmedic]

The praise is welcome, but not for a sense of pride. More, it's a reassurance of his usefulness which translates to security in his position. The medic is something of a 'golden goose', if he understood the reference correctly: only worth as much as the tech he could produce. The moment he stopped being able to do that, Knock Out had no illusions that he wouldn't end up deactivated and dismantled to further the government's own sciences.

(The similarities to M.E.C.H. remain, as always, never far from his processor.)

"The housing is magnetic," Knock Out confirms. "But if that's something you're concerned about, it can be transferred to an austenitic stainless steel one to eliminate that problem. It might take a few days to have the needed amount brought in, that's all."

[obediences]

"Magnetic housing should be fine for now. We'll give it a few weeks, see if the resistance catches on." Because he really has no illusions about what all this tech and equipment is for: Luther exists to target the government's enemies and suppress them. Eliminate them as expediently as possible. Knock Out makes weapons, but Space himself is a weapon: simply made to be pointed in a direction, and fired.

And speaking of.

Luther glances around the mechanical bay. He shouldn't wonder too much about the government's pet mech, the logistics of it, considering he doesn't even know much about the circumstances behind it (is it captivity?), and yet—

"Do you ever get to get out of here for breaks? Stretch your, uh, legs?"

[redcosmedic]

Knock Out will probably order in the austenitic steel anyway, just so he'll have it on hand should Luther change his mind. The government has always been prompt with fulfilling his materials requests, whether for existing projects or new ones. He's given a certain amount of leeway when inventing, so long as he dutifully submits all his documentation to his handler.

Luther's question has him glancing over, expression inscrutable. "No," he says, after just a few seconds too long of a pause. "Just when I'm deployed."

Whose instances were few and far between -- three or four times in the last five years was all -- and only when the enforcers conducted raids on the resistance where they were expecting the heaviest of counteraction by the metas. Knock Out was considered one of heir backup 'heavy hitters' as far as firepower went, but his true usefulness to them was on base, so they only put him into the field when they had to.

(It is definitely captivity.)

[obediences]

Those weren't really the kind of missions that Luther had accompanied them on, either: he was powerful, sure, but he wasn't a god-killer like some metas. His powers simply weren't on the same scale for those heavy-hitting jobs.

"At least there's those deployments," Luther says, and he sounds far too chipper for the reality of Knock Out's confinement. The man doesn't realise. (Another Luther in another world would have. Would have understood what it felt like to be a tool left on the shelf, locked away and forgotten for years.)

He presses the button on the shield and it retracts back into its housing. A nice, neat bit of craftsmanship indeed. "Thanks again. I'll cc you on my next battlefield report, when I see how it performs in active use."

[redcosmedic]

"Yes. At least there's those," Knock Out answers, and each word is crisped off too-cleanly. There was nothing else to be expected from the government's most ardent of enforcers, after all.

"You're welcome," he replies, turning back to his workbench deliberately.

fin

[obediences]