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Chapter 2 -Xpectations VS Reality-

*poke poke* Hello there

Dick Grayson huffed where he rested, his arms still stuck in the pods that just went dark. He was deflated onto the ground as much as he could, he didn't get much respite here and he savored every moment that wasn't filled with drawn-out overwhelming agony. The young Romanian boy grunted and coughed, shooting ripples of needle-like pain through the rest of his limp body. His sweaty midnight hair hung over his eyes, and his dull blue eyes only half-lidded as they stared blankly at the ground, the lids growing steadily heavier. He could not feel his hands at the moment, but he knew how much pain they were in by how much his exposed arms burned at even the slightest movement.

The young experiment's entire body trembled and shook with exhaustion and cold, beads of sweat slipped off his face, down his chin and nose and onto the bland metal flooring. He couldn't suppress a shiver, although the room was broiling hot with energy, he was still not quite used to the sudden drop in temperature when the radiation turned off, his bland gray suit did little to keep him warm. He didn't know which one was worse, the destructive, agonizing, soul-sucking extraction cycle, or the frozen silence where he could only sit and wait.

The handlers would release him from their safe positions outside his pod, then he was allowed four hours to eat and drink and do his business. Whatever time left was for sleeping, as he certainly couldn't do so during the extraction process. Usually his handlers would go about this schedule like clockwork, but his internal clock that had been wired to this schedule told him it was too early to be done with this cycle.

He certainly wasn't complaining, and it was a rather curious thing, but he was much too exhausted to give it much more thought than that. He was due to be released any second now, the system was powering down and his numb mind couldn't wait to hit the floor and pass out.

Hopefully his handler would leave him alone when they came in to deliver his food and water. Most times they did because he was already asleep, but occasionally the Bossman would come in and he'd talk to Dick. Dick hated that man.

The metal appendages surrounding his hands clunked and hissed, a sudden rush of feelings from his arms making him grunt in pain. The metal jaws snapped open and Dick fell to the floor in a lump, not even attempting to catch himself. He measured his breathing as his face smushed against the cold ground, still fast and gasping, and it would remain that way for a while until he fell asleep.

His body was trying to pull itself back together, his raw hands numb and red, but they always made sure he cooled down enough so that he wasn't able to secrete any Xenothium outside the extraction chambers. He couldn't move his hands even if he wanted to, the extraction process (in its most basic form) continually abused his hands with radiation waves until the Xenothium leaked out. It wasn't his blood perse; it was just something he created in certain conditions, like radioactive decay. Thus his hands were useless and burnt bright red, they could barely grab the food that he was given when he 'healed' (he wouldn't call them 'healed' after he woke from his nap, blood was not a unique taste when he ate. Nor was he ever given utensils since an escape attempt around a year ago) and they couldn't do anything other than tremble when he tried anything else.

In those extraction chambers, Dick's hands were subjected to constant radiation. He heard from the scientists that Xenothium is highly unstable and it also just so happened to be infused into his DNA. Which he understood was their goal to a point, they wanted it to meld with his DNA and they didn't stop poking him until it happened. He had no idea why they wanted this, but the fact they were using him as a battery and nothing more was pretty telling.

But the way he understood it, his Xenothium infused DNA reacts to the continuous radiation in a way normal DNA and normal Xenothium shouldn't. Normal human DNA breaks down and may become cancerous under prolonged exposure to radiation, Xenothium just explodes (it has that reaction to a lot of things). The combination, however, apparently likes the radiation. There are a few ways to stabilize his weird Xenothium-DNA but radiation not only stabilizes it but produces a byproduct in a liquid form that possesses all the electrical properties they wanted in a (slightly) more controlled way. His hybrid DNA goes through the same process normal human DNA goes through; it breaks down rather painfully, but instead of multiplying and becoming cancerous it multiplies and becomes a liquid. Basically it concentrates his DNA into a form of liquid too dense for his cells. This causes the cells to burst and secrete through all the pores in his hands while the pods would suck it up and deposit it into the big tanks. Then it was transferred into the other room to be refined into the little test tubes that would power whatever it was then hooked up to.