The Light's Shadow (Young Justice Fan Fic)

Chapter 1

A familiar feeling of pain zips through me, and I can feel my body jerking around as it spasms from the electrical pulses.

Everything fades, until it's like I'm viewing everything as if it's from a movie. Mercy whirls around, and spots what Brutus is doing. She mouths something, and Brutus says something back to her. mercy's face hardens, and she lunges at Brutus, pulling back her mecha fist. I hear a faint crack, and some yelling when the harsh sound of fists meeting flesh reaches me.  

By now, my eyes have drifted half shut as I feel myself slowly slipping on my tenuous grasp on life. To my relief, the pain in my body disappears, but I don't even have the energy to sigh.

A few seconds later, a shadow moves above me, and then I see a blurry halo of light outlining a brown haired lady, who is looking at me with a concerned and slightly panicked expression. She mouths something at me, but I cannot hear her over the static ringing in my ears. 

'Who is she?' I wonder. 'What does she want from me? And why does she seem so familiar?' 

I continue staring at her, and dimly realize that the black edges of my vision are creeping closer and closer to the lady's wavering face. I attempt to blink, to do anything really, but all I feel is my body slowly becoming impossibly heavy. 

Then the burning warmth of a hand against my face... I feel the blow, but not the pain that I expected to accompany it. By now, I can't see anything, and it's completely dark. I can feel something shaking me, but even that passes when I finally drift free of the dead weight restricting me. 

~Mercy's POV!~ 

When I walked into the lab, I couldn't believe my eyes. The once proud kid who spit on my boss was lying in a pile of filth inside her cage. She was so dirty I would have hardly recognized her if I didn't check up on her regularly, as per Lex's orders. 

"What the h*ll, Brutus!?" I exclaim. He just looks at me with a flat expression, and snarls, "What?! I'm doing my job, Mercy!"

I frown at him, and point towards subject K.A. 594301. "No, you're not. You were supposed to make her more amiable and acceptable to Lex's demands, not... this!" 

I move towards the cage, and rake my eyes over her, noting her poor condition and the dried remnants of blood (among many other questionable things) covering and welding the inhibitor collar to her neck. As I peer closer, I note with disgust that there is pus oozing out of some open sores underneath and around the collar.

It was obvious that the frequent use of the shock function of the collar caused this. I turn around and glare at Brutus.

"You used the shocking mechanism way too much on her Brutus! Look at her, she's practically dead!"

"Exactly." He replies, smirking at me. "It was the only way that I could prevent her from attacking me. I think she still holds a grudge against me."

'Somehow I doubt that, Brutus. I think that it is you that holds the grudge, not her...' 

I shake my head and let it go. "Have you at least recorded the amount of amps it takes to make her paralyzed?"

"Um... No."

I pull an exasperated hand over my face. 'I knew this was going to happen... So much for trying to keep Lex's prized pet safe and sound. He's going to kill me for this!'

"Have you at least reset the controls each and every time you do shock her, or do you amp it up a bit more?" I tightly hiss, barely resisting the urge to throttle him.