Page 161 of Victorious

“I’m getting closer,” she said, when the headache got so bad he couldn’t see.

“Almost there,” she promised, as Victor’s body screamed.

And then, one day, she handed him a fresh cartridge, the liquid inside no longer blue, but violet.

They’d waited, as they always did, for the other compound to wear off, which allowed for clean results, but gave them only a brief window to try, and fail, and still have time to stabilize.

Victor slotted her latest formula into the inhaler as Dani set the timer for five minutes. That was all the time he had these days, between Haverty’s serum wearing off, his powers returning in its wake, and the moment he would start to die again.

Victor lifted the inhaler to his mouth and drew in deeply.

The compound hit his lungs with an icy rush and as it did, he felt nothing.

Victor stifled a frustrated hiss, before he realized, that nothing wasn’t true.

There was no sudden change, no cataclysmic shift, but he noticed a quiet humming just beneath his skin. Not unpleasant. More like the mismatch between a power source and the device it’s charging. A slight voltage discrepancy. He held still, braced for what might happen next, based on what already had. Tremors, or neuropathy, migraine, nose bleed.

Once, his pulse had dropped so low so fast that he’d blacked out. Come to on the laboratory floor with Dani kneeling over him, the taste of copper in his throat.

So far, no such side effects.

But that was only half the battle.

He flexed, his powers still online, turned the dials down and up while he waited for the timer on the table to run out. The minutes wound to seconds, and then, the clock chimed.

Victor held his breath, waited for the warning twinge, the discomfort building like a charge inside his chest. The inevitable pain of a body in distress.

But the pain didn’t come.

Five minutes became ten, and then fifteen, and still death showed no sign of reaching out for him.

Victor’s pulse held slow and steady on the screen, and he felt the current coursing through him, the way it used to. Back when he was in control.

“It works,” he said, those two small words buzzing with power.

“Holy shit,” said Dani, eyes going wide. A smile broke across her face. “I think we have a winner.”

Victor let out a soft, but startled sound. A quiet laugh.

His pulse quickened on the screen, but it wasn’t a warning, a precursor to the pain. Only amazement. Excitement. Relief.

Dani flitted around him, drawing blood, and taking vitals, while he searched the outer limits of his senses, the edges of his nerves, traced them filament by filament, line by line, searching for any fray, or break.

But for the first time in years, Victor didn’t feel broken.

He felt like himself again.

He felt whole.

Just then, someone swiped into the lab. A young man came barging in, head bowed over his phone. Before he could look up, Victor reached out, not with his hand, but his power, took hold of the intruder’s nerves, and snapped the dial up, hard and fast enough to blow the circuitry.

The man buckled, unconscious, a puppet without strings.

Dani yelped. “Did you just kill my TA?” she snapped, rushing toward the body.

“He’ll wake up,” said Victor, studying his hands, the charge running just beneath the skin. “Eventually.” He flexed his fingers, savoring the current. “How long will it last?”

Dani checked the TA’s pulse. “My guess is anywhere from eight to twelve hours, since I modeled it on the original.” She straightened. “But I don’t exactly have a wealth of data to go on, so, I suggest you take notes.” As she spoke, Dani took back the inhaler and ejected the vial.