Owner	Pose
Scott Free	Another alarm. Another escape attempt. For the Furies it would be a relatively pleasant break from routine, a chance to do something productive and stimulating-- except for Granny Goodness shrieking into everyone's communication net, nonstop, for an hour. Demanding quarterly updates and informing every resident of Apokalips that failure would result in a public flensing for some unfortunate individuals. This escape was also notable because it went beyond just Granny's training facilities. An entire city was on alert for not just one, but a full group of runaways. Some people just don't like the army life, it seems. In Barda's sector the parademons are doing the bulk of the work. Her task is to supervise them as they tear through the city, crashing through people's homes and sending the serfs running in panic. The parademons are almost doing more harm than good; their baying and shrieking, combined with the screams of terrified serfs, makes it hard to actually follow any useful visual or audio clues.
Big Barda	"Bernadeth, that shanty that just collapsed may have runners in the underground works. Supervise a squad of Dog Cavalry to sift through it." Granny's screeching for updates arrives on cue. "That gives us fifteen minutes. That's your time limit." Big Barda stands aloof over the scene, on her disks and watching the parademons rip through the Hunger Dogs of Armagetto, heedless of life and limb as they search out the traitors who would run from service to glorious Darkseid. ~Scott, please don't be among them.~ The thought leaps through her head. Then another thought. Scott knew how to escape. Knew that being in a group makes you more visible. Easier to find. Scott would not be where the parademons search. Pressing her lips together in a cold fury, sad at having figured this out... ~You're too kind, too sweet, to stay here...~ Again her thoughts betray her, even as duty calls and her Aero Disks thrust her in a direction away from the main body. "Lashina, you're in charge until I get back. I have a hunch." That abandoned works tower. Not yet demolished. Not in operation. It's the kind of place a smart runner would lurk in, waiting for the heat to die before picking out an escape. Barda flew around the tower, eyes seeking different, invisible from below, sites of ingress. There. ~Oh, Scott, I wish I...~ Barda sails through the concealed hole, rod at the ready. "Scott Free you must come with me..."
Scott Free	There are cries of alarm at the sight of Barda descending, battle-rod in hand. There is no more imposing face among all of the Furies, perhaps even among all of Darkseid's lieutenants. Even Kaliban, fearsome as he is, can't quite channel the haughty superiority that Barda wields so readily. "No, it's okay! Stop! Shh!" Scott's voice rolls over the whispers with as loud a challenge as he dares, and he puts himself between the others and the incoming Fury. "Barda, you-- you can't be here!" he stammers. When she lands his intent isn't /quite/ to meet her but she is walking forward, then she is, and somehow their hands meet in the middle and squeeze at each other's. Desperation in his face is overwrit momentarily by surprise and uncertainty. Barda's eyes draw him in and briefly wash away the terror panging in his belly. "We can get out of here," he tells her. "I have a route in the sewers. But if Darkseid--" "Don't say his name!" someone whimpers. "She'll sell us out!" another hisses at Scott. Scott whirls on them, eyes full of fury. "If she's here to betray us then we're dead no matter what we do," he points out. He turns back to Barda then, meeting her gaze. Dishevelled, a little dirty; wearing the same one-piece orange jumpsuit as every else, all on the lean and haggard side from Granny's torturous 'education'. "You have to go back," he tells her. "Granny will punish us if we're caught, but Darkseid will /kill/ you if he thinks you've betrayed him."
Big Barda	Resolve is a funny thing. One can have it, and then have it vanish without warning. Barda had steeled herself as she came down, knowing that Scott would be here, and that she had to take him back. To face Granny's wrath. Images of what Granny would do to Scott shook, but did not destroy that resolve. Yet as soon as her hands touched his. As soon as they squeezed and she saw his eyes, the resolve melted away. Eyes of steel turned to eyes of ice turned to glistening eyes filled with unfamiliar emotion. A hard, granite face softened, showing that little hint of gentleness Scott had introduced into her being. Gentleness that was expressed in eye and posture. In touch and caress. In that feeling in her stomach. The feeling she was getting right now as her head started thundering and she felt slightly faint. The statue of granite faltered as Scott rounded on the other Hunger Dogs. The face softened, eyes growing troubled. Duty clashed with ... what was that word? She heard it so often, but it was always so hollow. Love. Love Granny. Love Darkseid. All meaningless. Until Scott. And now love swelled within her again. Memories of times together. Memories of intimacies shared. Laughter shared. Tears shared. "Give me the route, Scott Free, and I will guide the Dog Cavalry away from it." The voice is still hard. Aloof. But the eyes. The face. They're conflicted. Soft. They would be hated in the eyes of Granny and Darkseid. She would be stripped of all status if such a face, such eyes, would ever be spotted.
Scott Free	More murmurs from behind, but Scott ignores them. He looks at Barda's face-- maybe searching for truth, or for lies. Weighing the cost of failure versus the hope of success. Maybe seeing that strange emotion in her eyes and not knowing what it is-- just that he wants to drown in it. "Three," he tells her. "Three routes." He pauses, hesitating, then reaches up to touch fingertips to Barda's forehead. << It's a shell game,>> he explains telepathically. Three routes, three viable exits-- and in Barda's mind's eye, Scott shows that none of the exits are the real deal. They're slipping through an abandoned communications node and heading the other direction entirely, towards what passes for wilderness. Scott's hand drops. "I've got everything arranged. Just lead them towards the terminals," he tells her. "If you ..." he licks his lips. "I'll wait for you. At the pickup point. Come with us," he urges her. "Off-planet. You know you don't belong here. Not with them." His eyes append a silent 'with me', instead.
Big Barda	The hard face. The iron eyes. Both return as Barda backs from Scott. She stares into Scott's eyes a moment. A long moment. As if trying to remember a face she would never see again. Wordlessly she takes to the air, exiting to take command once more. "The sewers," she announces to the assembled forces under her command. "There are three routes to boom-tube terminals. They are almost certainly going there. Bernadeth, take a company to the northern terminal near our barracks. Lashina, take a company to the terminal near the fire pits. And I will lead the rest to where I suspect the bulk of the escapees will go: Himon's abandoned workshop. There is a terminal concealed there, very likely." She pauses, looking over the forces. "GO AS I HAVE COMMANDED!" she shouts, the trademarked fury of her elite forces filling her voice. Without further ado she swoops down, using her rod to gather the forces for the search and ambush at Himon's workshop. ~Scott, I will suffer so you can be free. This, to me, is the truest love. Fly my love. Live.~
Scott Free	It's a long and fearful flight. Days on the run, lumbering along like animals through dark caves. Sleeping in the blackest parts of Apokalips with all the burrowing insects and vermin to contend with. Running through blast-hot air and crawling through near-freezing mucky water in the sewers and pipes under the city. At last Scott's people emerge from their route and he gives them their marching orders. It's a brilliant plan; the fake-out on the first step and then all the following misdirection. And then the last twist-- even Scott wouldn't know where everyone was going. Instructions and destinations given at random so even if he were captured Scott couldn't say who went where, or when, and how they'd get off planet. The third location stays right in his head, because he's not ready to leave yet. Instead he embraces his fellow refugees as they depart, then retreats into safety. It's a culvert overlooking salt flats below, brackish runoff from Apokalips' water storage flowing in a lazy trickle towards the parched dirt. He's safe for the moment. He could flee, but he does not. Instead he finds some empty turf not far from the culvert and sits, looking out over the closest thing to an ocean the planet has. Thinking about Barda. And waiting for her to arrive.
Big Barda	"You failed me." It's not a question. Nor is it shouted. No, this is more fearsome. This is Darkseid simmering in anger. Calm. Rational. Ready to do anything that meets his goal. Barda, held by the neck in Darkseid's fist knows better than to talk back. Darkseid's baleful eyes stare into hers, boring a hole into her head as if to dig out the secrets contained therein. An irrational fear makes Barda think of blurting out the truth. The whole, awful truth. She had betrayed him. She had been weak in his service. She had been tainted by ... ... love. The very thing that kept her impassive. Unresponsive but for a silent acknowledgement. (Speech was impossible with her throat clenched shut like it was.) "Why?" The gargantuan power releases his fist slightly, giving air ingress to Barda's chest. She knew better than to gasp desperately for breath. This was to speak. "It made the most sense," she says, voice barely audible through its constricted pathway. "They had to leave. There were only three choices. And the Himon link was most promising." "They did not go there. Or any other terminal." "No. I don't know how. Or why." "SCOTT FREE WAS AMONG THEM!" The fist closes off the airpipe again as Darkseid rages. Yet this is comforting. He would probably not kill her. Suddenly she felt sharp agony in her neck as he casually tosses her aside like a broken servitor. Barely able to move, Barda lands at Granny Goodness' feet. "Punish this one. Retrain this one. Then reinstate her. I still have use for her." The disappointed (read: furious) face of Granny promises correction. Horrendous corrections that will leave Barda wracked with pain for years. But she will live. And deep inside that seed of love will grow ever larger. Love for the man she will never see again.
Scott Free	Scott waits. And waits. And waits. The first few hours are acceptable. The next few, even tolerable. He's forced to retreat into the culvert several times as parademons fly past and once when a drone hums through the area. Odds are good it's just scanning for field repairs but there's no sense in being reckless. For an hour he lays in the brackish trickle, barely breathing, staring up at the culvert roof and thinking of Barda. The next day is hard. The day after that is worse. On the third day Scott emerges from the darkness and checks in with Mother. "Last window," he acknowledges, and looks skyward. Perpetual satellites fly past him overhead, a watchful eye on Apokalips. Mother beeps a forlorn 'yes'. "She's not coming. Is she," he says. It's not a question, and Mother knows it-- the next beep is a low, comforting one. "Thanks Mother," he murmurs, and looks around again. Maybe she'll come over the rise at the last minute. Maybe he'll get another chance. The signal beacon in his hand vibrates a warning. The window is closing; it's now or never. Scott shakes his head at himself, berating himself for not having said what he should have. Done something. Anything. Even just to touch her one more time. "I'm sorry, Barda," he mumbles. "I'm so... so sorry." Scott lifts the beacon over his head and activates it. There is a roar of noise and a crashing of light around him. The boomtube crackles to life and wraps around him like a cold, electric blanket. Then it snaps shut and Scott's matter, mass, energy and self are bundled into nothingness and shot out into the fabric of the universe, slipping between the blind spots in Apokalips' orbital scanning platforms. And then the noise subsides, leaving only the faint radiation traces of a boomtube in his wake. And soon even that is gone.
Big Barda	Epilogue ======== Three years of Granny Goodness' tender mercies to 'correct' Barda's failure did not have the desired effect, though by all outside signs it had. She endured the punishments. The training. The contempt. But three hard years later Barda found herself again among her Female Furies, heading them up once again. Found herself in Darkseid's good graces once more. But in the dark pits. In the starving fields. In the fire pits. The seed of love that Scott had planted in her heart stayed nourished. Grew. She learned that day of love and of what Darkseid meant to it. And she'd made her choice. Outwardly, daring no slip of any kind, she was the Barda of old. Cold. Haughty. Violent. Implacable. But also observing. Listening. Gathering. The day came. Darkseid's plans were close to fruition and their implications were ruinous for creation. Barda, beyond reproach in her loyalty, was able to gather them together and commit them to memory. And one day, five years later she found herself at the culvert Scott hid in, completely by coincidence. --- "I can never come back." Her Mother Box beeped affirmatively. "I will never see him again." The beeping was hopeful. But clearly comforting in nature. "I lose my home and my love with this." The box remains silent. "It was worth it, just to make his life free." There's a hint of ... conniving? ... in the beeping response. As if the Mother Box intuited something Barda couldn't. The boom tube opened its tear through the fabric of the universe, swallowing Barda in its ungentle embrace. --- "She has escaped then." Darkseid stands, back to Granny Goodness. "Yes, Lord Darkseid." "My plans are with her." Granny says nothing. "She will learn someday that none escape the threads of my plans. She will grovel at my feet begging to return to my grace. Then you will kill her." "Yes. Lord Darkseid."