All An Illusion...

When one came to play the machines of the Caesars Palace casino and hotel, probably the last thing they expected was for the doors to burst open and green mists to fill the room. Emerging from the mists, with the odd "OoooOOOooOOOoOOOO!" sound you often got whenever aliens showed up in those sci-fi B-flicks, was a lone figure in a black suit and purple cloak. Its gloves and boots were gray, and it donned an elaborate shoulder armor with upraised pauldrons, but the entity's most unusual feature was its head, or was it a helmet? It was a silvery color, with several holes along the sides of the elongated head like vents, and its most glaring feature being the huge glowing green eyeball at its center where a face should be, its slit pupil quivering and glancing around the room at the stunned crowd.

"People of Earth!" the creature declared in an electronically distorted voice as it spread its arms, lightning briefly crackling from its hands. "I am Decepto, Grand Sorceror of the Qapla Dimension! Surrender at once!"

"You gotta be kidding me!" one man protested, Decepto promptly turned towards him.

"Jegh!" Decepto yelled, thrusting his hand out and the man began screaming as a swarm of spiders emerged from the floor and crawled all over him. "Anyone else wish to challenge my power?" the alien being demanded.

"Hold it right there!" security yelled as three guards came in.

Decepto suddenly vanished in a flash of light, reappearing right in front of the guards drawing out a green sword of some kind. The guards promptly opened fire on the alien, but their bullets passed right through it, its form rippling with each shot that passed through as if they were shooting through water before it vanished again, reappearing behind them and pressed its palms into their backs. The guards cried out as thousands of volts surged through their bodies and they collapsed to the floor unconscious.

"Now you fools have witnessed only a taste of my power. BEHOLD!" the villain declared, raising his arms and a massive swarm of batlike demons formed in a swirling vortex above him, spilling into the room and chasing everyone, providing the perfect distraction for Decepto to make a rush over to the desk and steal all the money.

Reaching the now abandoned desk, Decepto found the staff member hiding under it. "Open the safe..." he ordered, his eye meeting the man's own and he fell into a passive state as Decepto held him, the bat-demons flickering like interrupted TV signals several times as the costumed villain focused his powers elsewhere.

OPEN THE SAFE.

The man quietly obeyed, taking his key and unlocking it. The costumed alien being immediately took out the pillowcase from under his cloak and hurriedly filled it with the cash within. He was glad it worked, right now only simple commands could do anything and required a lot of focus but he hoped to improve on it. His case full, the costumed villain climbed over the desk and began to make his way towards the door, marveling as terrified people fled from the casino hall and out into the streets. Perhaps he could have been more subtle but like the last few times since he'd come to Vegas he just couldn't help himself, sometimes you just had to do it for the art, plus using his powers in a more outstanding way allowed him to hone them more and it did amuse him the news reports of people claiming to have been robbed by an alien. As he made it outside, the very much (Neo)human telepath's illusions and hallucinations he'd created back indoors vanished when he paused at what awaited him...

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Decepto didn't have to wait long for a squad car to wheel around and screech to a stop in front of him. The costumed Neo-human stood silently, watching as several men got out, and at their lead, a young girl of all things, maybe just a few years younger then himself. The men were not attacking him, presumably backup. The girl seemed the main threat, an odd concept but the explanation came fast as he saw metal blades emerge from her arms. It made him grimace, seeing that but he had little time to react as she was coming his way, now.
He spread his arms and two "Chaos Bombs" flew from his hands, landing on either side and engulfing the area in thick, oddly-scented smoke.


Decepto's eye glowed a bright green and reality around them transformed into outer space. The men began struggling to breathe, their perceptions fooled by the illusion and gasses into thinking they were asphyxiating, and the costumed villain paid them no mind as he regarded the girl who would suddenly feel adrift in a place devoid of gravity. He froze as he saw something intriguing in her mind...


Her blindly obeying every order. Her killing numerous people with metal powers.
.. 
Men, shocking her, torturing her.


Very interesting. Oh, right. Almost forgot. Decepto mused in his thoughts as he turned and noticed the other men, fall unconscious from believing they could not breathe and now lay in space as if on solid ground. Stuff like that always did put a slight flaw to his illusions, he'd have to remedy that. The girl, from her unusual age, her apparent status as a fellow Neo-human, and the brief glimpse in the memories he saw she now had his attention and he wanted to learn more. Perhaps she'd be the key to knowing his enemy better...


The void faded back to reality, and Decepto fanned out his cloak, a swarm of batlike demons bursting from it in a massive cloud that fluttered all over the place like he had done during his heist before he ran off, his illusion meant to give him a head start, the batlike demons fading seconds after he'd run off. He'd need to get her somewhere alone and less crowded, a tough call when you were in a place like Vegas but there were places, him having studied the layout before he made his heist and he'd rented out a warehouse not too far. He just had to keep running.

He knew he was being followed, he could "feel" her mind close by and being more fit then he was he knew she'd gain on him very quickly and take him down if he did not hurry.  Reaching his destination he confured the "outer space" illusion again to try and slow her down, and he he threw open the door to his hideout and rushed in, the door hovering in space in the illusion like in the Twilight Zone's introduction. 

"Aren't you an interesting little pet..." his voice would echo in her head once she entered. Decepto stood several feet away, pointing his sword at her, a green aura emanating from it to make the prop replica sword he carried look like its more authentic counterpart it was based on. "What have they done to you? Why would you work for those... humans?"

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Decepto winced for a moment when the girl screamed for him to get out of her head. "Get out of your head? I've been in your head from the moment I saw you, young lady," he said with a sinister laugh as he played up his image, still holding his sword out at her. He maintained his distance, as it was clear she was a threat despite her petite form and youthful appearance.

The pupil of his "eye" suddenly dilated, and before Talos' eyes, the memories he'd glimpsed earlier would now be visible to her. They were brief, almost like changing a channel quickly on a television as Decepto found they were not so easy to access as he'd have expected. It took effort, as if someone had forcibly locked them away, enough to sustain them to be comprehensive. He may have pitied her if his life wasn't currently on the line.

When they vanished, Decepto laughed again. "An agent of the government... by choice?" he asked, smirking behind his mask as he was certain the memories he'd forced her to see might make that question more challenging. The costumed villain focused, a glimpse of a countryside pasture appeared before his eyes and the warehouse changed to match it for a second before changing back. "Interesting..."

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Steven smirked under his alien helmet as he stood victoriously over the defeated girl, once practically the freaking Terminator in a cute package was now curled up on the floor sobbing helplessly. It made him feel powerful, mind over matter indeed. He'd destroyed one of the government's toys judging from the memories he saw playing in the girl's mind and now...

The building creaked and groaned. Oh, this was not good. At best it didn't come down on them but they were discovered. At worst, well, rocks fell and everyone died, including himself. He noticed the way metal came out of her and formed a shell, and how the building had been affected. Did she have some kind of magnetic or metal-bending power? That explained the blades that emerged from her arms earlier. He'd have to stop this approach, now.

The horrible memories ceased, and all around them they were once again at a countryside pasture. Talos would find herself in the middle of the meadow, the sun out on a beautiful summer day. "They can't hurt you here," Decepto's voice said. The alien before her vanished, in its place was a young man in a green suit. The young man beneath the costume. It, of course, wasn't real, either. If Talos attacked him she'd go right through him as though he were merely a phantom.


"All those memories," the young man said, looking around. "Yet there's also this... what is this place? It's remarkably more... relaxing... then the other places."

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Decepto couldn't help but laugh when she asked why he was doing this to her. What was once a confident killing machine ready to strike him down was now broken and on her knees asking why he was doing this. Still, he didn't want to risk bringing down the building if he was too rough on her, so for now he'd play along.

"You're a very fascinating young lady," he said. "From the looks of things, am I really the bad guy, here? Seems a lot of bad things were done to you long before you met me. All I did was see them. I'm a telepath, it's what I do. You'd be amazed at how versatile an ability that is."

The meadow flickered, becoming a laboratory for a moment, then flickered back to the meadow. "You poor thing. Normally I don't pity my pursuers but this concerns me. Is this what your people do to someone for having super powers?" he asked, and a television screen appeared before them, showing men dragging a young girl out of her home away from her murdered parents. The screen's image changed to a laboratory, to many of the memories that already played. No longer in her mind but now like a video she could watch. "You don't remember, do you?" he asked.

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Decepto listened as the girl's thoughts played through her mind, examining those memories and thoughts as they surfaced. So this was how they operated, hm? Someone has exceptional abilities and they believe they're entitled to destroying that person's life and making them their plaything. Heck, he had to dumb down some of his grades to avoid being pressed for being "too smart" when he was in school. When they decided they wanted you, you either said yes or got a bullet in your head and it was written off as an "unfortunate accident" or you allegedly reached for their gun... like his father. No. Don't think about that, with the mental link he'd risk her seeing his own thoughts and memories. He focused. Of course as this girl, this unfortunate lab rat, was here before him, now, it was evident they'd finally come after him, not that he'd remained particularly subtle in his actions, anyway.

"If you don't remember, then perhaps it's because they wanted you to forget. All a part of making you their little puppet, to play with as they see fit..." Decepto said, he focused harder, digging at the buried memories. In his experience, memories, especially ones that stood out such as this, could not truly be forcibly destroyed, they were just locked away. True, one could forget the most mundane and routine of them, such as what one had for lunch April 20th of sixteen years ago, because the mind saw no reason to remember, it was an ordinary thing, but something like seeing your parents murdered and being abducted and experimented on by the government that was supposed to serve and protect you, then being forced to kill the others they had done the same to but deemed just loose ends... well... that was not so easily erased. Suppressed, perhaps, but never truly gone.

"You poor thing, they've fragmented your memories, removed what they didn't want you to remember... because they knew you would never serve them willingly if you knew..." he stated, holding his hand just above her head, and he continued to focus, to the point it strained him that Talos may have seen a tiny trickle of blood come from his nostril and the meadow briefly flickering back to the warehouse before his eyes snapped open and he looked down at her. "Do you want to see what else they've taken from you, as I just did?" he asked. He was certain after what she saw, her inability to look away at the last memory he pulled, her curiosity would be piqued. He would have his revenge. His image became the costumed alien entity again, its quivering eye's pupil dilating. "Remain a unknowing puppet, or see your strings..."

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As Decepto heard the sounds of cars pulling up to his hideout, he turned and face the doors and windows, scanning for the minds of everyone who was approaching. Simply put, it wasn't easy to sneak up on a telepath. As he saw the girl who previously attempted to kill him now take a defensive stance, her intentions clear that she would defend him but moreso punish these people for harming her... the image of a man flashed in the telepath's mind from hers that apparently she recognized.

"First order of business, my dear... Make them pay..." he said, getting some distance from her. He'd seen enough of her mind to know there was a command phrase to pacify her, no doubt the man in her mind would know it and attempt to use it if he suspected Talos was no longer on their leash. However, with his own telepathic powers, he'd cancel it out for her if the phrase was used.

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