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[right][h2][color=7ea7d8]The Blue Beetle stars in...The Runaway: Issue #6[/color][/h2][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4724620]Previous Issue[/url][/right]
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Jaime could barely control himself. The sounds of terrified voices clambering for the truth rang through his skull, interlaced with mind numbing static. He wanted to scream; despite that, however, the Scarab was urging him to be utterly silent.

Heavy footfalls of a dozen agents and law enforcement officers abandoning the crime scene as they rushed to contain the catastrophic attack they'd been warned of sounded like the stampede of a panicked herd. Shouting men tried to explain the situation to their confused and fearful colleagues. Leaders and authority figures fought to maintain some semblance of calm among their troops as well as themselves.

In the mad rush of it all, Reyes was able to slither inside the museum, though he was regretting just about everything that had led him to his current hiding place. His head kept low and his body scrunched together, he remained tucked away inside an exhibit filled with stuffed recreations Bengal tigers.

Several minutes passed before the last of the men had stumbled out of the room, a palpable silence falling over those marble halls. Reyes pulled himself out from behind the large fake cat in front of him, stumbling into the center of the room as he let out his first full breath since he'd been forced to hide. It was also the first moment he'd gotten to think beyond his own mortality and to the wider consequences of his- or the Scarab's- actions.

[color=7ea7d8]"Shit...shit...Shit!"[/color] He snarled in a half-whisper, his hands gripping the back of his head. [color=7ea7d8]"What the hell is wrong with [i]you,[/i] ese?! Why would you ever think that was the right call?!"[/color]

[b][color=0072bc]'Inconsequential. This task is too important and time runs out. It was the most effective tool we had outside of a frontal assault.'[/color][/b]

[color=7ea7d8]"I wouldn't call a terrorist attack inconsequential."[/color] Reyes was in complete disbelief. Everything he learned about this thing inside of him was driving him closer to the edge. Yesterday he wouldn't have ever considered robbing someone or faking a [i]terrorist attack[/i] as necessary, but this...monster...was twisting it's claws up into his head. It was making him do things he normally never would.

Worst of all, Jaime [i]believed[/i] it. He was trying to fight it, trying to argue, but Khaji Da's every word radiated with an unshakable honesty.

Was the Scarab just that convincing?

Or was it changing how Jaime thought and reasoned? How he viewed the world? And- most disturbing of all other possibilities- how he weighed right and wrong?

[b][color=0072bc]'Advance, Jaime Reyes. The truth lies near.'[/color][/b]

And so he pressed onward, moving deeper into the museum at a swift pace. Despite his many concerns and worries, he could not turn back now- returning to SHIELD custody without evidence of what truly happened meant imprisonment. And Jaime didn't think he could live with what he'd done if he simply turned and ran.

Their destination was the Bialya wing, marked by the torn banner above the entrance and the rolls of police tape surrounding it. Ducking underneath the flimsy barrier, he was finally witness to the massacre the Scarab had wrought with Jaime's own hands. Though the bodies had been removed, blood still stained the floor and walls where his cannons had torn into human flesh. Bits of soot and ash mingled together in neat clumps around chalk drawings of where the dead had lain. Chunks of melted marble had merged with equally superheated glass into malformed sculptures standing testament to the fiery power that had disrupted this once peaceful place of learning.

[color=7ea7d8]"Alright...Y-you said you knew how to find out what made us do this, didn't you?"[/color] Jaime asked, his mouth dry and his stomach filling with bile at the none too distant memory. It was burned into his mind like a brand, never too far from the surface.

[b][color=0072bc]'That is correct. The device you acquired from 'Johnny' is still in your possession, is it not?'[/color][/b]

Jaime reached into his pants pocket, pulling the smartphone out. It was an older model, and the screen had been cracked, but it worked well enough. [color=7ea7d8]"Yeah. What should I-"[/color] His armored hand shot out without warning, plucking the device from Jaime's grasp. It began the integration process, it's living material slipping into every crack and crevice of the phone, tearing it apart from the inside as it absorbed the technological marvel.

[b][color=0072bc]'This technology will prove...useful. I will need access to your memories, Jaime Reyes. Brace yourself.'[/color][/b]

No time was given for the boy to raise his voice in argument, pain immediately resounding within his skull. It felt as if someone was digging their fingers into his brain, sliding their nails along his cerebellum and tearing out bits and pieces. Reyes let out a screech, his hands snapping up against the sides of his head. He could feel the armor expanding over his body once again, in tandem with the tendrils reaching further into his mind.

The pain stopped as quickly as it had begun. 

And then Jaime watched with confused fascination as he stepped through himself. It was like a ghost, flickering and unreal; yet it resembled Jaime perfectly. He shuffled forward, gazing across the room as more of the ghosts materialized around him. Their faces and bodies were less defined, smothered and contorting in unreality. One of them stopped right in front of Reyes for a few seconds, seeming to stare right through him before it continued on.

[color=7ea7d8]"What is this?"[/color] He breathed.

[b][color=0072bc]'A simulation of the event based upon what you remember. We should be able to pinpoint details that you would have otherwise forgotten.'[/color][/b]

Jaime could see that other-Jaime was beginning to approach a false version of the Scarab artifact. It was squirming inside of it's exhibit, tapping at the glass with ceramic, knife-like legs. When he got too close, a horrific, inhuman shriek thundered and echoed through the mindscape, disrupting the entire simulation for a half second before it all corrected itself. The scarab shattered into liquid, crawling and slithering toward the other-Jaime. Watching it crawl down his throat from an outsider's view was somehow even more horrifying than when he had actually experienced it.

Once they were bonded, and the chitin had snapped into place over Reyes, everything froze. Khaji Da had paused the simulation the moment the plasma cannon began to slip onto his hand. [b][color=0072bc]'Here. I should've gone offline by now, knocking you unconscious in the process. We should be on the floor while I am restructuring your genetic code-'[/color][/b]

[color=7ea7d8]"I'm...I'm [b]sorry,[/b] what?"[/color]

The question went ignored, however, with the scarab continuing it's point unabated. [b][color=0072bc]'But my weapon systems are active. Let us continue; perhaps the answer lies in who we targeted.'[/color][/b]

Things started up again with the echo of an infested Reyes lifting a cannon toward the crowd. Light flared around the cannon's barrel, and the simulation once again blurred and flickered. It didn't correct itself as it had the first time, however, only continuing to destabilize. The faceless crowd were blown away like digitized dust in the wind. Then the wall began to disappear, piece by piece, pixel by pixel. Everything was black in only a few seconds, leaving only Jaime and his fake behind.

[color=7ea7d8]"What the hell...? Are you doing this?"[/color]

[color=0072bc][b]'I am not. I have lost control of the simulation.'[/b][/color] An uncharacteristic pang of worry sounded in the lifeform's voice.

[b][color=pink]"'You believe you ever had control?'"[/color][/b] Another voice, unfamiliar, rasped like rusted nails against a chalk board. A throaty, broken laugh followed, echoing from every direction yet from none at all at the same time. [b][color=pink]"'That is your first lesson of many, dear boy.'"[/color][/b]

Something heavy struck Jaime in the back of the head. He felt his entire body buckle, pain spreading through his spine as the darkness melted away. He was on the floor in the museum again, something pressing against the top of his head. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was a pair of oxford shoes and the frame of a wheelchair.

The last thing he heard was that same, rasping voice. It came to his ears in the same moment he heard it whisper inside of his mind.[color=pink][b]"'I am always in control.'"[/b][/color]