Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"We will call her.. Carmen Sandiego. For what better way to sully her good name, as she begins a new chapter doing our bidding."

Professor Gunnar Maelstrom spoke with calm voice that sent chills down Carmen's spine, despite how much she hated to admit it. Same thing with how he stroked her hair. The great Carmen Sandiego had finally been caught by VILE, and Professor Maelstrom as well as Doctor Bellum were seemingly enjoying every second of it. Carmen could see it with her own two eyes with how they were smirking with that going in their gazes everytime she encountered them.

"Relax, my dear. This won't hurt a bit."

Those were the last words Carmen heard from Saira Bellum, the mad scientist of the VILE faculty, who placed a device on her gray eyes. Oh, what a lie this was. As the device powered up, Carmen felt a surge of panic hit her full blow when a green blinding light came from the Mind Wipe. She could hear Maelstrom and Bellum echoing laughter in the background, before everything went black.

About a day later.

Carmen woke up in a rather.. strange room. Hold on, where was she? She glanced around and.. VILE. It seemed like a hospital room, but way too VILE coded to be it. It was similar to the infirmary Coach Brunt brought her to when she often scrapped her knees back when she was a child, but it was like it had been rearranged, or maybe it just wasn't this room. Throwing the blanket off herself, she got up. Her head was spinning as she realized how much of a headache she had, like something had happened. She frowned and sighed, slowly sitting back down. Right then, Doctor Saira Bellum walked in the room with a mischievous glint in her eyes Carmen did not understand. Rolling her eyes, the scarlet superthief glanced towards the faculty member. She felt different, weird. But absolutely powerful.

"Why am I here, doc?"

She asked with a voice that seemed far too harsh to be hers. Noticing her subtle frown, Doctor Bellum tried to hide her smirk. She walked closer to Carmen, her eyes on the young woman. She and Gunnar had worked together to establish the perfect plan to remold Carmen Sandiego, VILE's worst enemy, into their perfect agent.

"You had an accident, my dear. Don't you remember?"

Carmen furrowed her eyebrows, taking her hand to her head in confusion. An accident? What could've happened? Before she could ask any further questions to herself, Bellum spoke again. The scientist knew Gunnar would have some real fun playing with Carmen's poor, confused mind.

"So you really don't remember, mhm..? Maybe it is worse than what we thought."

Bellum had to turn her back to Carmen to keep herself from snickering right in front of the young thief. It was hilarious to see how perfectly clueless she seemed. Taking a few pills out of a small, orange bottle, the woman turned back around to Carmen who was now standing right behind her. It made Bellum's eyes widen. When the hell did she get up? Carmen was looking down at the faculty member, with a glint of something Saira had never seen in Carmen Sandiego's eyes before.

"What are you laughing out, doctor? Do you wanna share your mind?"

Carmen asked with a smirked that did not shout out any amusement. More like annoyance, frustration. She grabbed the pills without even letting Bellum the time to answer, and swallowed them with a glass of water that had been left on the small table beside the bed she was sleeping in earlier.

"I don't have anything to say to you, Black Sheep. But go see Gunnar, he'll be thrilled to know you're finally up. By the way, the pills will help with you little... headache.

The old codename earned a glare from Carmen, who seemed even more annoyed now. She groaned audibly but didn't say anything. Bellum chuckled. The young thief had turned towards the door but glanced back at the doctor, her grey eyes sparkling with evil. The type of evil the Faculty wanted their dear little Black Sheep to be from the beginning.

Where's Professor Maelstrom?"

Carmen asked with a hint of confusion in her voice, which Doctor Bellum did not like. She would not tolerate any hesitation or confusion from their newly re-acquired agent once Gunnar will have done his part of the job. But something ticked her off. Black Sheep's behavior seemed mixed between her old, heroic one and the one VILE wanted her to be. She pulled one of her tablets, quickly glancing at the map of a castle. Since when did VILE had a castle? Carmen felt incredibly confused, but was a bit too unbothered about it to ask any questions to Doctor Bellum. She would find out on her own.

"In his office, of course."

"Right.. of course."

Carmen walked out of the room. The humidity of the building hit her instantly, but she didn't care. But something did bother her, tho. Where was her red coat? Drifting in though, her legs guided her before she could even realize it. They lead her to a large door made out of dark wood, with a gold handle. Of course, gold. It made Carmen roll her eyes. Why was she surprised? Professor Maelstrom loved gold, but so did she. Her hand quickly made it's way to the handle, taking it off with a flick of her wrist. The door opened a second after, making her glare at whoever opened it, handle in hand. And the Faculty member in front of her did not seem happy, his blue eyes shooting daggers at Carmen.

"Black Sheep.."

Chapter Text

"Black Sheep."

Professor Gunnar Maelstrom spoke, glaring down at the woman in front of him. He didn't seem happy to see her face, or even less to notice the handle of the door of his office in Carmen's hand. Especially since this handle had been made out of real gold. This girl had just woken up and was already causing trouble. He put his hand in front of Carmen, waiting for her to give it back to him.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Black Sheep? Where are your manners?"

The pale man snarled, growing impatient. After a few seconds of silence from both of them, Maelstrom reached for the object. Carmen quickly slapped his hand away and took a step back. It made Gunnar widen his eyes.

"No!"

"..no? What do you mean, no? Give it to me right now!"

Maelstrom raised his voice, which made Carmen hesitate. Her eyes darted between the gold handle in her hand and the Professor. An internal battle was going on inside of her right now. A part of her wanted to comply, to just give the handle back to the faculty member and go on with whatever he wanted from her. But.. another part of her wanted to fight for it, so she'd be able to keep the shiny object, to make a run for it. A glimpse of rebellion appeared in her eyes, but before she could actually do anything, Gunnar grabbed her wrist and snatched the handle from her hand. He shoved it in his jacket pocket. Damn it, he would have to call the Cleaners later so they'd put it back in it's place. And maybe he will have a little conversation with Bellum about the young thief as well.

"Whatever. Just--, come in, Black Sheep."

He scoffed, turning around and walked into his office. Maelstrom expected Carmen to follow him. The man sat in his green velvet covered chair behind his beautiful wooden desk, the whole office screaming VILE. The faculty member took the handle out of his pocket and dropped it into a drawer of his desk before slamming it shut when he realized Carmen was still in the doorway. This girl was already running on his nerves. He slammed his fist on the desk.

"Get in my office, Black Sheep!"

He raised his voice once again. Was it the only thing he did? Yell? Carmen scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. They were always running on each other's nerves. They both glared at each other when Carmen took a step into the office.

"The name's Carmen."

"Carmen, Black Sheep.. same thing. You're still our little Lambkins, after all."

A strong voice slightly echoed in the room. It was Coach Brunt. The green haired woman stepped forward, putting both her hands on Carmen's shoulders, smiling down at the thief.

"Ain't I right, Lambkins?"

Coach asked. Her question was obviously rhetorical, but Carmen slowly nodded. Mealstorm glared at his colleague like the young thief wasn't even there. The room was thick with tension now, but the male faculty member cleared his throat.

"Coach dearest, didn't we agree that each of us would get some personal time with.. Carmen?"

"Oh, don't give me that look, Maelstrom! I was just so eager to see little Lambkins again."

The woman turned Carmen around without any difficulty so now they were facing. She wrapped her muscular arms around the scarlet superthief, hugging her tightly.

"Give mama bear a hug, Lambkins."

Coach cooed, but Carmen was now happy about it. A flash of a blurry, distant memory went through her mind and suddenly, every part of her body told her to recoil and scream, to fight against the tight hug. She bit her tongue, resisting the urges that were crawling all over her. Putting on an embarrassed smile, she gently tried to push Coach away after a few seconds and rolled her eyes.

"Whatever."

The gears inside of Carmen's head were turning as she got lost in the bickering between the two faculty members. What did Coach Brunt mean by "so eager to see little Lambkins again"? Doctor Bellum didn't exactly explained what had happened, and it wasn't like Carmen had asked either. Did something happen to her that she did not remember? Everything was pretty blurry, if Carmen was completely honest.

Coach snapped her out of her thoughts by placing a hand on her shoulder. Carmen looked up with slightly widened eyes, confused when nothing was said to her. She felt so weird. She wanted to steal everything, keep it all to herself. She wanted to hurt people until they would give her every little thing they had, because she deserved to have always more. She needed more. But when she was with the company of a member of the faculty, she wanted to comply to whatever they were saying. Carmen wanted to be a good little sheep and follow the rest of the flock. And that was exactly what Doctor Bellum wanted.

She wanted a fresh mind to amuse herself with, and this was only the start of it. Crackle's mind had been fun to reprogram a while ago, but now, with a complex mind like Carmen's, the whole faculty would have a good laugh. They were going to mold her into the perfect agent they always wanted to be, and they were so damn eager to start.

"well, Black Sheep?"

Was the first thing Maelstrom said to her after finishing a not so useful argument between him and Coach about who would get to spend time with Carmen first. She bit her lip, that glimmer of sarcasm slowly burning up inside of her as she realized the choices that were laying right in front of her. She wanted to be with Countess Cleo, just to sass the old runaway model and see her get on her high horses, hoping Dash Haber would even be there to add some more fuel to the fire.

"Carmen. And.. I think I'll choose.."