Diamond's Rough Day | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Diamond's Rough Day | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Westefeld
09/06/17
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Rex Brand, the teen hero powerhouse known as Diamond, awoke to find himself strapped to a table with a strange feeling of lightness. Why that had happened, he determined when he looked down at himself and saw he was in street clothes. He twisted his head to the side, scanning the area to plan his escape, and saw the morphing belt that changed his normal garb to his Diamond uniform. His expression twisted into confusion when he heard a woman’s soft voice. “Good afternoon, Mr. Brand.”

He interrupted, “Who’re ya, an’ how do ya know my name, and why am I tied up?”

The small raven haired woman who stared down at him was attractive, in a cruel way. She smiled a face full of the whitest teeth he’d ever seen, and her thin red lips smirked as she answered his question. “Knowing your name, Diamond, was the simple matter of looking at your identification in your wallet. And as to how I was able to change you out of your ‘hero’ outfit, just by using a scanner and finding the unique signature given off by your belt, a product of future technology I presume your benefactors gave you when you agreed to aid their cause.”

He declined to answer. Why give this adversary any more information than she already had.

She grinned at his stubborn silence. “No defiant ‘heroic’ outcry? I’m almost disappointed.”

He tried to focus his power to transform into living diamond to break free, but despite his mental effort, his body remained unaltered.

“Having trouble, young man?” She lifted a hand mirror off the table where his belt lay. Holding it in front of his face, he saw some kind of futuristic collar on his neck.

She answered his unasked question. “This collar is an outgrowth technology of your morphing belt. Like your belt, it responds to mental commands, except in this case, when you concentrate on your powers it sends out a counter-signal to your nervous system, preventing you from using your powers.”

He felt the straps covering his arms and chest, simple canvas it seemed. It gave a bit as he shifted, but not enough for him to get loose and wreak havoc on this woman’s hideout.

As he wriggled, she noticed and grinned at him. “Having trouble breaking free, Diamond? It must feel strange not to have your super strength.”

He had a flash of inspiration as she sneered his name. First rule for captured superheroes: when restrained, keep your opponents talking so they don’t kill you until they finish describing their evil plan. He repeated part of his first question. “What’s yer name? Ya know my name so it's only fair I get to know yers.”

With her back turned, he worked his hand into his pocket to reach for the engagement ring he had planned to give Rebecca. She turned her head to glance disinterestedly at him, and responded, “Captain Angela Jones.”

He pulled the ring out of his pocket and bent his elbow to reach towards the high-tech restraining collar. He’d taken notice of a hole, a place to lock it onto him perhaps, and he jammed the diamond he’d spent six weeks of his pay to afford into the hole and twisted it. Rex had hoped to disrupt the circuits in the restraints, but when the collar fell open he decided that would do nicely.

He concentrated and the familiar feeling of weight he’d come to know accompanied the change to living diamond. He flexed his arms, and the straps holding Rex Brand fell away, being no challenge to Diamond’s strength. He rolled off the table and snatched his belt off the other table, putting it in its accustomed place. His uniform materialized.

Captain Jones turned at the sound of his feet hitting the floor, in time to see his clothes transform. “It doesn’t matter, Diamond. I know your true name, and that gives me leverage, my Christian friend. I can threaten your family, but you are morally prevented from doing permanent harm to me.”

He responded in Diamond's mineral-like growl, “Hurt my family and I might jus' forget about being a believer in Christ, "Captain".”

As he barreled out through the wall, realizing he couldn’t turn her over to the authorities for the reason she’d mentioned, he wondered if knowing his name put his teammates in danger. If so, they’d deal with it when the time came. They were the Light Force, after all.

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