Chapter Text
Here’s the deal: Techno leads a very boring life.
As in very boring. Count cracks in the ceiling and hair follicles on your forearm, type of boring. Techno would know, he’s done both. Spoiler alert, it’s boring.
But boring isn’t necessarily all that bad. Even if Techno isn’t directly doing much, he still lives an important life just by living and staying safe.
Techno has his schoolwork and books and a nice safe dorm room. Sure, he complains a lot, probably too much considering that there's people starving on the streets and stuff, but he does know that this is for the best. Really, boring days are the best sorts of days in Techno’s very humble opinion.
Too bad the universe doesn’t see fit to let him live his sad boring life in peace.
Well, Techno really should have seen that coming considering what the universe has decided to give him up to this point: an extremely valuable superpower, the Hero Commission finding out about said power before he could even fathom what that meant, and said power being not very pleasant, to say the least. Not to others obviously, on account of that last part. It just so happens that for others to make use of his powers, he has to be the one to face the brunt of the ‘side effects,’ so to say.
It could be worse. Maybe his stupidly niche, but also useful, power could actually be applicable to him being a superhero. The Hero Commission definitely would have set that up for him if it was an option. They love home-grown heroes.
But nope, Techno’s power only benefits others and leaves him a knobbly kneed maiden in need of a Victorian fainting room.
Staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how to teach himself Pythagorean theorem with only a water stained textbook is definitely better than being put in danger of dying and having to murder villains or whatever. Probably.
No, boring is definitely better.
Techno blows an annoyed breath out of his nose while glaring down at the textbook before him. It seems like the list of formulas just refuses to stick in his head for longer than he looks at them. Which is annoying when he’s trying to test himself. Ugh, he hates physics.
Scratching a few lines down into his notebook, a pinching pain starts to pull at the center of Techno’s chest. It almost itches before the discomfort blooms into a reverse pressure. The annoyance brewing into a headache behind Techno’s skull grows at the simmering of his powers and he finally tosses his pencil down and gives up on learning anything today.
As the feeling in his chest continues to swell, Techno raises a hand and rubs circles over his breastbone. While the first licks of his powers bring a crackling sort of heat, slowly a deep cold spreads out through him. He knows it will only grow worse the more his power is siphoned, but he kind of hopes in vain that maybe whoever is drawing on his power will stop soon and he can get back to balancing equations.
Yeah, fat chance. Techno will be lucky if they stop before he’s drained enough to pass out. It’s not like he can really fault them, considering the heroes do only use his powers when they need to in order to help people or stop someone really dangerous, but still. It gets frustrating sometimes.
Something between a shiver and a shake takes over Techno’s limbs as he sighs in resignation. No point trying to ride it out at this point. He can try again tomorrow.
With that thought in mind, Techno pushes his chair back and stands. His head swims slightly with a dizziness, forcing him to grab onto the edge of the desk before him and lean his weight against it.
Multiple people must be using his powers right now. Maybe there’s some big villain fight or something. Techno wouldn’t be told.
Techno breathes purposefully evenly as he waits for his head to become steady enough for the ground to stop rocking beneath his feet. A more violent jerk makes his knees buckle and he opens his eyes in confusion. As Techno glances around, he realizes probably a bit too slowly that the actual building is shaking almost more than he is.
Huh. Weird.
Maybe that would mean something to Techno if his brain wasn’t turning to mush inside his skull. As is, he wraps his arms around himself and carefully crosses the room to his bed. No point fainting or being thrown off balance and giving himself a concussion. He needs to keep all the brain cells he’s managed to spare up to this point.
As Techno sits on the edge of his bed, a very faint banging noise that had been growing in time with the shaking seems to reach a painful level as it draws near. Even through the tiredness sapping Techno, anxiety pinches at his brow and stomach. This might be a bit more serious than he thought.
Almost in time with his thoughts, the blank doorway to Techno’s room bursts inwards. Techno flinches backwards and raises his hands over his face as dust and chunks of wall shower around the room. His skin stings slightly at the onslaught.
Blinking heavily, Techno squints through the debris. Standing in the giant crater where his dorm’s door used to be are two people dressed in dark clothes and face masks. They stand broad shouldered and tall as white dust still clouds the air. It’s kind of like a poster for all those propaganda movies that the Hero Commission pumps out.
Except for the fact that one of them is holding a very large gun. And the whole dark color scheme… Yeah, these people are definitely villains.
That’s… not good. How did villains even break into basically the center of the Hero Commission’s facility? And get past all the, you know, heroes that live here?
And why are they standing in Techno’s room all menacingly?
Somehow, Techno thinks he could guess on the last one and he does not like the answer.
Techno’s exhausted struggling mind spins through all those thoughts, running on pure adrenaline, before the villains step towards him. And then it seems that the adrenaline in his body sees fit to affect the rest of him, since his heart does one big flop before kicking into overdrive and sends the shaking in his limbs to a concerning level.
“Put your hands up if you don’t want to lose them,'' the taller of the two villains says. He also is not holding a gun, which means he definitely has some sort of offensive power. Great.
Still, Techno has enough sense to force his sluggish arms upwards with his palms facing out. Because, Techno also does not have a gun. But unlike the villain, he does not have any powers that can help him with the whole not being dismembered or killed thing. Funny that.
It feels a bit less funny when a pair of thick metal handcuffs tug his wrists together a few inches above his face. And then the villain grabs the middle of said handcuffs and yanks him forward, seemingly pretty dead set on getting out of here. With Techno.
Techno has to focus very hard on keeping his wobbly knees locked and even wobblier head from splatting right into the ground. For some reason, as he’s pulled forward and the villains reconvene and start talking quickly to each other about directions, all he can focus on is that fact that all the dust and debris is getting his socks dirty. Chucks of wall dig into his feet painfully with each step, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he was leaving a trail of blood behind him. That’s probably good, right? So someone can follow the trail and find him?
Somehow, he is not so optimistic.
Since Techno was staring intently at the floor, barely not tripping over himself with every rough jerk of the hands leading him, he smacks solidly into the villain’s shoulder when they draw to a quick stop. The change in momentum nearly sends Techno falling onto his backside, only for the villain to jerk on his arms violently enough to just about regain his balance.
And then the villain yanks him forward, wraps an arm around his chest, and jams the barrel of a gun against the side of his head.
So, turns out both villains had guns. Quite obviously, they are villains after all. Bit quick for Techno to judge him as unarmed. Whatever, once again he must point out that he is not combat trained. He deserves a bit of leniency.
Still, Techno’s body instinctively locks up, eyes blowing wide just in time to meet the face of the one person aside from the villains that Techno would not like to see right now. Well, Techno’s having a shit day, huh?
Protectus stands tall, looking even more like he’s out of a hero movie than the cheesy villains in his Hero Comission branded jumpsuit. He looks about as unenthused to see Techno as Techno is him, but that might be because his normally red and white costume is turning red and red. Still, the smallest amount of relief curls inside Techno’s chest, because there’s no way Protectus is going to let him get kidnapped. Not when he’s worth so much to the Hero Commission and the city.
“Back off Protectus, unless you want to lose your precious weapon,” The villain holding Techno says.
It takes a few seconds for Techno to realize that he’s the weapon being referred to. Techno’s almost happy for the arms holding him up considering the way that the world is shuttering around him.
“Your pitiful negotiations mean nothing scum. You will face the justice coming for you,” Protectus says.
Then the hero reels back his arm, light spinning noticeably around the fist in time with the explosion of heat and then sucking void inside Techno’s chest.
Crackling fills the air around Techno, gunshots or punches or crumbling apart ceilings. It’s hard to tell when everything lists to the side and starts to bleed black around him. The air is suddenly very hard to breathe and his skin seems to be bubbling off with the cold sweat.
Head hanging limply, Techno watches through his eyelashes as red spreads across the front of his shirt. Considering how it drips down and the moisture on his face, he can at least be pretty sure that he’s not been shot, stabbed, impaled, dismembered… you get the idea. Though Techno probably wouldn’t have much wherewithal to care even if that was the case, considering every second that passes leaves him feeling less and less like an actual person with functioning organs and more like a paper mache fake dissolving away in water.
A particularly loud crash sounds from beside Techno, and considering both how he tumbles into the hard cluttered ground and the violent pulling on his powers that leaves the underside of his ribs tingling, he would bet that it was Protectus doing some big super punching move. Must have been pretty big for the ground to shake like that and for Techno’s chest to grow so so cold.
Techno would look, but his eyelids refuse to open no matter how hard he tries. Though to be honest, Techno can’t find it in himself to try very hard anyways. The arms around him don’t loosen, even when his mind slips right out of them and far away, leaving only a ringing in his chest behind.