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There was a particularly important meeting today with a senator that needed to be private. Private meaning, not including his little vigilante playmate. She had been particularly meddlesome lately, especially with that little trick of her smashing the power dampening collar. Seems like she was not afraid to get hurt, but that wasn’t in his agenda. He just needed to keep her away for the afternoon hours but he needed absolute assurance that she was gone. Looks like today he will finally show her a bit of what he can do. Lacing his voice with command he spoke out loud to the seemingly empty room.
“Show yerself”. In the corner of the office, by the window Phase flickered into being. Her brow muddled with concern and she looked down at her hands that fully solidified. Grey stood from his leather chair pulling items from his desk drawer. “Kind’ve you to make an appearance! Center of the room, now.”
“What the hell-” Fighting each step, her boots thumped over to the middle of the office. Grey sauntered around his desk swinging a pair of fancy handcuffs around one finger. Round metal with an exterior of wires covered in glass, power dampening cuffs.
“Wrists out for me, darlin~” Her fists shook as she unsuccessfully resisted the pull of her hands up and held them out towards him. Grey snapped the cuffs on her. The connection to her power was cut bluntly and she felt empty with the loss.
“How are you-” He waved his hand about, cutting her off.
“You’re always so serious. Why don’t you relax?” It wasn’t a question. The command loosened all of her tensed muscles and she drooped a bit where she stood.
“I’m going to-”
“Shut up”. The cloth over her mouth jostled as her jaw snapped shut. “Sit down. That’s right, sit down right there on your goddamn knees. Right now, I am going to talk, and you are gonna fuckin listen.” She sank to her knees, gloved and now cuffed hands resting on the dark costume of her thighs. He started to pace in front of her, frowning.
“I dunno why you keep wasting your time, gathering irrelevant information on me. Nothin you gather can tie me to any nefarious activity that you think I’m up to. Ya know what they say, ‘Don’t mess with something that ain’t botherin you’ an ‘if you find yourself in a hole, you stop diggin’. All ya do is waste my time and sit around my office interfering with my personal business!” Turning to face her, he paused.
“Ya know, you spend so much time around me, you could be my pet. I may as well put a leash on you. …Hell-” One hand slipped from his pocket and he held a thick collar in front of her face on his two fingers. “You may as well do it yerself”. Phase eyed the collar warefully.
“Go on… take it.” She reached up with both hands and took it. Grey walked behind her pulling her hands towards her neck with one hand. His fingers slipped under the connection between the collar of her costume and the bottom of her mask, pulling it up slightly to reveal a sliver of the skin on her neck. Her breathing spiked and became short quick puffs through her nose. He Layered the power into his voice, speaking softly into her ear.
“Relaaax”. The buzz that had settled over her brain grew more and blurred her thoughts. The tension that she had gained drifted away and her breathing steadied. Reaching around her head with both hands he pulled one side of the collar around her neck and placed the end she wasn’t holding, in the opposite hand.
“Clasp it for me”. He heard the click and a smile eased onto his face. “Thaaat’s my good girl”.
He stood from his bent position and walked around to see her clearly. Her hands had dropped back to her thighs, but he could see she was fighting his charmed speech. Her face flickered back and forth contorting with anger and then relaxing as she struggled to keep glaring at him. What he could see of her cheeks was dusted in a blush.
“Oh? Seems like ya got something on your mind, go on, speak”. Her reply was immediate.
“Fuck you”. He laughed.
“Is that what’cha really want? I can make that happen, you’re in a fine position for it, after all”. He took three steps and stood directly in front of her, looking down. Phase wanted to hold up her chin in defiance but she had to tilt her head so far back just to look at him.
“Eat shit and die”. It did not come out as menacing as she wanted.
“Well that ain’t very nice now is it”? And here I was, providing some southern comfort”. Her chin dropped down to her chest, she tried breathing deeply to break herself out of his control. If only she could distract him.
“Here I thought you were just being a perv”. He stepped back, hand to his heart and spun on the heel of his fancy shoe.
“You're breaking my heart,” he drawled.
“What do you want”? She snapped. His eyebrows shot up with surprise.
“What do I want?” Grey pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Darlin, you're the one obsessed with me. What do you want? Tell me why yer here”. She answered immediately with the command, her voice almost robotic.
“I am here to gather information on your activities regarding the drug trafficking rings that you are involved with, money laundering, social and political influencing and bribery and I can’t prove it yet but I know that you are trafficking weapons across the country-”. He cut her off.
“Across the country- outta the country, you gotta build some bridges. Wha’cher point?” Her nose scrunched up making wrinkles in her mask.
“And- and you’re a dick,” she spat out. He chuckled.
“Well, you ain’t exactly little miss perfect either. Half the time yer here, yer feeding Cheeto!” He saw the confusion on her face and walked over to his desk pulling the ferret out of the fluffy little bed that sat on the corner. Grey held out the little creature and it dangled in his hand as he shook it at her.
“Look! Look wha’cha did! You made him fat!” He started pacing again, flinging the limp ferret around with his grand hand gestures. “I had him on a schedule and you just kept on feeding him treats and now he’s fat. I’ll have to put him on a diet and now he’s gonna start beggin, and you know that’s gonna be annoyin as shit”. He sighed tiredly and set Cheeto back down in his bed with a little pet. He took a deep breath and his eyes rolled with his head as he turned back to face her.
“An’ all the stalking-”
“I’m not stalking you, it’s called a stake out”.
“Sweetheart, if you were staking me out, you would have some form of paperwork or would have opened a formal investigation. Instead you act on your own accord, without any legal form of jurisdiction”. She could almost move her legs.
“I’m a vigilante, that's kinda how the whole stitch works”. Hand in his pockets, Grey bent down to her eye level in a condescending manner.
“Well how’s all that workin out for you, seein as yer sitting pretty for me with a collar on”. The spike of anger gave her enough energy to step up and lunge from her kneeling position towards him. Grey took a step back and she dropped to the ground face first, electricity shooting through her body. It was a damn electric collar.
“Ah ah~.” He waved a little remote in the air. “Sit back down. Can’t have you doing that now. You’re going to keep your hands to yourself like a good little girl and we aren’t going to have a problem like that again.” Phase pulled her face off the floor with a groan, her finger twitching, and sat back up on her knees. There had to be a way out of this. What did he say? She fought to think past the fog in her mind. ‘Keep your hands to yourself…” Phase smashed the cuffs against her forehead. Grey stared at her in shock. She cracked the splintering cuffs over her head again. Slivers of the glass suck into her skin.
“STOP, STOP!” It was too late, by the time her hands were on her knees, the cuffs were already sparking and she was flickering in and out of existence. “STOP THAT,” he commanded, stumbling forward and grabbed her arm. “W-why would’ya-”. She sucked in a breath and phased completely, sinking through his grasp and then the floor. Grey stared at the spot, motionless.
Why would she hurt herself like that? It was so extreme, he would have let her out after the meeting! He stood and went to the window. He watched as she tumbled through the wall on the first floor into the ally. Instinctively he reached into his pocket and gave the button on his remote a quick tap, just to show he was there. He watched her tense up with the quick shock and rip the collar from her neck, throwing it down on the pavement and stomping on it repeatedly. Phase’s head turned skywards and he assumed she was glaring at his window. She wouldn't be able to see him of course, with the mirrored paneling, but it was still fun to watch her reaction. She disappeared.
He walked back to his desk thoughtfully, pressing a small button on the deskphone.
“Carol send someone in to clean up some broken glass, please, before the senator gets here”. The line crackled for a moment.
“Yes Sir, right away”.